The large canvas depicts a view of Strada Ferdinandea (so named on the occasion of the visit to Monza of Ferdinand I of Habsburg, later renamed Via Vittorio Emanuele in honor of the first king of Italy), created between 1838 and 1847 by gutting and rectifying a medieval urban fabric in the historic center of the city. The road, part of the Austrian military route towards the Spluga pass, appears flanked by a curtain of sober nineteenth-century buildings, some of which are still under construction; the view is taken from under the arcades of the Arengario, the medieval town hall of Monza, where the painter immortalizes in minute detail a series of pictures of everyday life, described with that elegant and measured tone that made the Deception one of the most appreciated authors of urban views in Lombardy in the mid-19th century.