Annunciation (Leonardo) – Wikipedia

L’ Annunciation It is an oil painting and tempera on table (98 × 217 cm), attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, datable between 1472 and 1475 and preserved in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The painting was found in 1867 in the small church of San Bartolomeo in Monte Oliveto, in Florence.

Although there are very few certain information regarding the origins of this work, it is assumed that it is one of the very first clients, which Leonardo managed to earn while he was “a shop” from Verrocchio.

Morelli, the Cavalcaselle, Heindereich and Calvi did not attribute it to Leonardo, but proposed the garland or his son Ridolfo ^[first] , or Lorenzo Di Credi in collaboration with Leonardo ^[2] . Above all, some errors left, such as that of the legging plan aligned behind but not at the foot of the Madonna and the shortcomings not present in the other Leonardo works. Instead the compositional simplicity, the coldness of the face, the hair with the “tuft” of the angel and the presence of the port landscape were all characteristic of Leonardo’s style. Then published as a collaboration between Ghirlandaio and Leonardo, today it is mainly indicated as the result of a collaboration between the Bottega del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci.

The data proposed with more consensus oscillate between the sixties of the fifteenth century and 1475, first of all of the angel in Baptism of Christ (About 1475-1478). A design of Credi, preserved in the Albertina of Vienna and which portrays a young man’s head, was compared with the face of the Madonna.

The work was located in the church of San Bartolomeo in Monteoliveto, on the hills south of Florence, where she remained until 1867, when she was transferred to the Uffizi Gallery. It is not said that the church of San Bartolomeo was the original destination of the work, in fact Vasari did not mention it, despite having among the Olivetan monks the correspondent and friend Don Miniato Pitti, who had informed him meticulously about the artistic equipment of the monastery.

With the arrival at the Uffizi, some scholars began to indicate the painting as one of Leonardo’s youth works. The doubts today are almost entirely applated by the discovery of two preparatory designs by Leonardo, who confirmed the attributive thesis supported for the first time by Lifart in 1869: one is located at the Christ Church Library in Oxford (n. A 31) and contemplates the study of the right sleeve of the angel; The other is at Louvre (n. 2255) and concerns the cloaks of the mantle on the legs of the Virgin.

Lorenzo Di Credi is generally attributed another Annunciation , of smaller dimensions, to the Louvre, that some scholars refer to Leonardo.

The work was restored in 2000, restoring a better brightness and readability of the details, with a improved reading of the perspective thanks to the greater visibility of the architectural glimpse on the right and the fading of the landscape. According to the scholar Massimo Giontella, the Annunciation would be a work dating back to 1481 and attributable to Antonio del Pollaiolo, in which, however, Leonardo would also have participated, and the city in the background is identified in Otranto, conquered by the Turks in 1480.

Setting [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Leonardo consciously moved away from the traditional iconography of the theme of the Annunciation by setting the scene in a garden outside the Virgin House in place of the usual loggia or the bedroom of Mary. According to the medieval tradition, the setting was always placed in a closed place, at least as regards the Virgin, in order to insert iconographic elements, such as the bed, while the angel could be positioned outside, but in a enclosed garden , that is, a vegetable garden delimited by high walls that alluded to Mary’s belly.

It is traditional in other ways, in fact we find the location of the two characters (the Madonna on the right and the angel on the left) as for example in the Annunciation by Blessed Angelico. In addition, to maintain the confidentiality of the meeting Leonardo painted the Madonna in a corner of the building, but making the bed glimpse from the portal; Then, a wall delimits the garden, but with a passage. The large part of the scene dedicated to nature seems to want to underline how the miracle of divine incarnation involves, as well as a human like Mary, the whole created. In fact, great attention is paid to the botany description of the flowers and other plant species both in the lawn and in the background: it is a tribute to the variety and wealth of divine creation. The flowers of the lawn, especially, appear studied by the truth, with a lenticular precision. In the background, beyond the wall, you can see a river with loops and boats, mountains dotted with towers and trees. The light is very clear, like morning, and largely the outlines of the figures, teasing the “nuanced”.

The spatial setting, instead of being given by the fifteenth -century geometric perspective (which is also present in ordering the architectural details and proportions of the building, floor and leggio, with an escape point in the center of the table) is rather made by Saying progressive colors, especially in the background: Leonardo used the aerial perspective, a technique that provided for a more soft and shaded color for the most distant details, as if they were wrapped in a haze; In fact, he knew that many layers of atmospheric dust, which make the contours less clear, sometimes confused, overlap between the eye and a subject The neighboring objects were, however, detachedly depicted precisely because the more the objects are close, the more you see them the better.

It is understood that this is a youthful work from the fact that the aerial perspective is not made gradually, but there is like a detachment beyond the closer trees, too clear compared to the background. Of these trees, cypresses are placed as columns, they seem to mathematically divide the scene.

The angel [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

The angel is depicted in a classic position, as just flat with the wings, at the moment just before close. However, it is unlike other examples (such as the Annunciation by Simone Martini), has already completely fallen on to the ground and shows its weight on the grass, in which it also seems to be able to grasp the movement of air of the landing.

Unlike the angels normally represented, however, it does not have peacock wings (considered sacred animal and a symbol of immortality for the meat believed to be impeccable), but of authentic volatile wings, studied through the anatomy of the birds. There is, however, a strange anomaly because the original wings were shorter. Later someone painted above an addition, not understanding that here Leonardo wanted to represent the angel who landed, therefore that he is closing his wings. This “correction” compromised all Leonardo’s study work on birds and the realistic representation of the wing. The angel brings a lily, emblem of purity and chastity, to the Virgin Mary. The image of the Virgin Mary, of Christ and the Church is associated with the cypress (on the bottom), probably by virtue of its characteristic of growing high towards the sky. ^[3]

The position setting is the Leonardesque classic, considering the panneggio with large and soft folds. Giorgio Vasari says that the artist sometimes made clay models of the figures, wrapped them in soft coat wet in the plaster and therefore patiently reproduced the trend of the drapery. The position of the hands is natural: the right is blessing while the left holds the lily, a symbol of purity. The gaze is facing fixed towards Mary, in the act of the announcement.

There is a perplexity concerning the head of the angel: the complexion is pale and flat and does not present Leonardo’s classic transparencies. There is great difference with the angel of Baptism of Christ : Here the hair does not blend but appear as a compact mass of curls, which made the help of a shop companion think.

The Virgin and the Leggio [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Mary is behind a sculpted marble altar on which the lecture is supported. In the altar we note how much Leonardo was affected by the teachings of Verrocchio: he is decorated with classic reasons, which are reflected in a monument of his teacher, the tomb of Giovanni and Piero de ‘Medici in the old sacristy of San Lorenzo; The leonine branches that develop on the sides in plant elements, turns and volutes are similar. Among the upper curls, which echo the ionic order, a festoon with leaves, fruit and flowers is tense, surmounted by a shell between fluttering ribbons, symbol of the “new Venus”, that is Mary, and eternal beauty. Of great refinement is the semi -transparent veil under the book of the Holy Scriptures that the Virgin was reading, a symbol of the prophecies of the Old Testament (in particular in this case a passage from Isaiah’s book is represented), which come true with the act of acceptance of Maria.

Maria has a right hand resting on the book as if she wanted to prevent it from closing (perhaps for the wind caused by the angel), while the left is raised as a sign of acceptance of her destiny. The blue cloak that covers her legs, also falling on the seat, which gives a strong sense of plasticity and enhances the hidden shape of the legs, is very wide. Mary’s head is repainted. There is the opposite.

In some places, to a very close vision, the fingerprints of the twenty -year -old Leonardo can be found, which faded the color sometimes with the fingertips to obtain nuance and amalgam effects. This technique is found on the leaves of the festoons at the base of the lectern and on the fingers of the right hand of the Virgin ^[4] .

The error of perspective [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In the painting there are errors of perspective: the right arm of the Virgin is longer than the accident, the legs are short than the height of the bust and the cypress confuses with the fifteenth -century building making it larger. This is due, as already mentioned, to the different location of the legs and shoulders of the Virgin with respect to the lectern: looking only at the higher half Mary seems far from the viewer, in the corner, looking at the lower one instead appears in the foreground ^[5] .

It is not possible to compare this work with the other version of the Annunciation , which is located today at the Louvre, as in the latter the Virgin is represented with the arms crossed on the chest.

An alternative theory was advanced by Antonio Natali ^[6] , director of the Uffizi. According to this theory, which starts from an idea by Carlo Pedretti, one of Leonardo’s greatest experts, the mistake of perspective would actually be wanted: in fact, observing the Annunciation from a side position to the right ^[7] , the disproportion of the arm is attenuated, due to the anamorphism. This optical technique, already used by other Florentine masters such as Donatello and Filippo Lippi, is also found in studies inside Leonardo’s notebooks and it is therefore possible that the artist has chosen to adopt this perspective adaptation in anticipation of the future location of the It operates, perhaps along a wall that had to be looked mainly in the glimpse of the right.

• Aa. Etc.,, Uffizi Gallery , necklace The great museums of the world , Rome 2003.
• Milena Magnano, Leonardo , necklace The genes of art , Mondadori Arte, Milan 2007. ISBN 978-88-370-6432-7
• Glory I was, Uffizi , Giunti, Florence 2004. ISBN 88-09-03675-1
• Franca Manenti Valli, Leonardo. The harmonious compording in the table of the Annunciation , Silvana Editoriale, Milan, 2012
• Crociani Diego & Marrone Caterina, The secret of writing in Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation , Mauro Pagliai Editore, Florence 2020, ISBN 8856404591.