The Annunciation

The Annunciation is one of the principal works of Alesso Baldovinetti, one of the leading artists of the early Florentine Renaissance, and is distinguished by its great formal elegance, grace, and delicacy, in keeping with the artistic research of the period. Beneath a loggia with red arches and green vaults, reminiscent of the architecture of Michelozzo, unfolds a refined Annunciation in which the Archangel Gabriel arrives running, while the Virgin Mary, drawing back in a gesture of modesty, assumes almost the pose of a classical statue. Beyond the loggia opens a garden enclosed by a coffered wall, beneath which runs a hedge filled with flowers (among them lilies, the traditional symbol of purity associated with the Virgin): this is an allusion to the epithet hortus conclusus ("enclosed garden"), which in the Song of Songs is associated with the female protagonist and which Christianity later interpreted in a Marian sense, making it a symbol of the Virgin's purity. Beyond the garden we glimpse trees rendered in the slightly geometric forms characteristic of Baldovinetti. The artist's attention to detail is evident in numerous elements: the marble floor, the capitals of the columns, the meticulous depiction of the plants growing in the meadow, and also the decorated table on which the Virgin has placed her book (particularly noteworthy is the slender and refined badalone, the bookstand mounted on the table on which books are placed so that they can be read while standing).