The following people were called on to paint the water-colours:  a career officer and distinguished cartographer, Bacler d'Albe, who was a companion-in-arms and friend of Bonaparte's, an Italian artist, Pasquieri (whose name was gallicised as 'Pasquier') and a geographical engineer, Gautier.  All three were chosen for their fine artistic gifts.  Bagetti finished up at the topographical office of the arm�e de R�serve and was to remain there until 1815 as a captain of geographic engineering.

The first work to be accomplished for Bonaparte was the Battle of Marengo.  Bagetti then painted water-colours of Rivoli, after a mission to Italy during 1804-1805 to the battlefield.  Only a small number of water-colours was completed during this period (about ten) but Bagetti continued to make a large number of sketches of the landscapes of the battlefields.

His work was subsequently mainly used by other artists.  There are no fewer than 90 works, including water-colours, gouaches and oil paintings based on Bagetti's sketches.  Under the Empire, two other officers, Lejeune and  Cadolle took part in the topographical campaigns in order to make topographical surveys of the battlefields.

The D�p�t de la Guerre also printed a series of scenes taken from the water-colours.  The first was by Dego and was presented to Napoleon in 1807.  Napoleon was so impressed he ordered the entire collection to be printed.  Not content with this, Napoleon commissioned the general Bacler d'Albe (1761-1823), the director of his topographical office, with two paintings based on Bagetti's sketches:  Crossing the bridge at Lodi and The Po near Piacenza, which were finely executed.

The five views of the Battle of Rivoli of November 1797 were drawn and painted according to the same, unchanging scheme:  historical accounts of about 25 pages and then a programme of the views to be executed, the artist's notes and the record of the work's completion.  View 3 of the Battle of Rivoli gives a general idea of the whole site and of the battle.  That is, l'artiste doit avoir bien parcouru le terrain, avoir bien lu la bataille et avoir vu les divers objets qu'elle doit contenir.  Like the others, this water-colour meets precise requirements, i.e. 'The painting must be an exact depiction of the battlefields and be of the dimensions established by the D�p�t de la Guerre, i.e. 50 x 80 cm.  It must represent the scene as viewed by the commander in  chief and the colour of the sky must reproduce the same intensity of light as that during the battle'.

The strict instructions should not blind us to the fact that Bagetti was painting a battle eight years after it took place, so that there may be some doubts about the authenticity of the depiction of the colour of the sky.  However, the project of creating a collection depicting the Italian Campaign made it necessary to draw up a coherent set of rules based on unity of style, and therefore of method for all the artists.  These were the same as those that were applied to the topographical works.

This contributes to the quality of the Italian collection, whose homogeneity is such that at times it is difficult to attribute a given painting to a given artist.  After calculating the angles and the distances the artist drew more general views.  This preparatory work served as a cartoon for the final painting in the artist's atelier.