Annunciation

ANNUNCIATION. - It is the angelic message of the incarnation of the Word of God to the Virgin Mary.

1. IN HOLY SCRIPTURE

The episode (Lk. 1:26-38) takes place at Nazareth, far from Jerusalem and its Temple, where, six months earlier, the other announcement of the birth of the Precursor had occurred (Lk. 1:5-25). To "a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, - and the name of the virgin was Mary - "sent by God," the archangel Gabriel comes to her. After the greeting (v. AVE MARIA), whose grandeur astonishes the humble Virgin, the angel reveals God's design for her, chosen as mother of the Messiah: "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus." Formulated with phrases and concepts from ancient prophecies (cf., e.g., II Sam. 7, 16; Ps. 88, 30-37; Is. 9, 7 [Hebr. 6]; Mic. 4, 7; Dan. 7, 14-27), the angelic announcement outlines the figure and the task of the promised Redeemer (cf. Mt. 1, 21).

Mary, reassured by the Angel ("the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you"; cf. Gen. 1, 2), gives her assent, declaring herself "the handmaid (ἀνδός) of the Lord." And in that instant, according to the unanimous sentiment of theologians, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn. 1, 14), thus fulfilling the oracle of Is. 7, 14 concerning the virginal conception and birth of the Emmanuel (v.).

Literarily, the Gospel episode, which in its dialogue portion displays characteristics of Hebrew style, is among the most gentle and dramatic. The angel gives the announcement, and our cause is pleaded; Mary seems to hesitate, and our fate hangs in the balance; she consents, and our salvation is assured.

The theological importance of the account is supreme, the foundation of all Mariology. An antithetical parallel to the human fall and the fulfillment of the divine promise in Eden (Gen. 3), the mystery of the A. marks the "fullness of time" (Gal. 4, 4; Eph. 1, 10) and the beginning of the "New Testament" (Jer. 31, 31). "The fixed term of eternal counsel" (Dante, Par., 33, 3), a cooperator in the divine plan of the Redemption, the "new Eve," Mary rises above the world like the aurora consurgens, herald of the "Sun of justice" (Mal. 4, 2). Dante depicts the A. as a sublime example of humility (Purg. 10, 28-45).

Rationalistic criticism rejects the Gospel of the Infancy (v. INFANCY OF THE SAVIOR, GOSPEL OF THE) wholesale, but its special target is verses 34-35 concerning the virginal conception: A. Loisy, H. Usener, A. Harnack regard them as interpolations by Luke into the primitive document or by a later reviser. The arguments, which they draw from style and content, are inconsistent (cf. E. Ruffini, Introductio in S. Scriptorum, N. T., Rome 1925, pp. 118-24).

Igino Cecchetti

2. IN THE LITURGY

In the Roman liturgy "Annuntiatio B. Mariae Virginis," in the Byzantine one ὁ Εὐαγγελισμὸς τῆς ὑπεραγίας. Μαχίας, it was formerly also called Annuntiatio Domini, Annuntiatio Christi, Conceptio Christi. The date of March 25, in correlation with that of Christmas, depends on the ancient opinion according to which the Lord was incarnate and died on March 25: Octavo enim Kalendas aprilis conceptus creditur, quo et passus (St. Augustine, De Trinit., 4,5; PL. 42, 894).

It is one of the earliest Marian feasts but does not seem to be earlier than the Justinian era. The Chronicon Paschale, from the first half of the 7th century, speaks of the A. as a feast that had already long since entered the ecclesiastical calendar (Olimp., 194; cf. 351; PG 92, 488, 1001); and the Trullan Council of 692 prescribes that the day of the A., even though falling in Lent, should never be aliturgical (can. 52; Mansi, XI, 968). The Liber Pontificalis (cap. 86, § 14; ed. Duchesne, I, 376) assures us that the feast was celebrated at this time also in Rome, since Sergius I (687-701) decreed that it be solemnized with a great stational procession from the deaconry of St. Adrian to St. Mary Major.

It would seem that the Visigothic Church of Spain welcomed the feast already in the first half of the 7th century, with much variety as to the day of celebration. The Tenth Council of Toledo (656) excluded the date of March 25 because of Lent and the concurrence with Easter, and decided, following the example of other "distant" Churches, for Dec. 18, eight days before Christmas (can. 1: Mansi, XI, 33). But this interpretation of the Toledan canon is disputed: according to M. Jugie the feast of the A. would have been introduced into Spain following the example of Rome.

The Ambrosian Church admitted a twofold celebration of the mystery: on March 25 and on the sixth Sunday of Advent, which immediately precedes the vigil of Christmas. St. Charles, obedient to the canon of not celebrating feasts of Saints during the Lenten season, abolished the solemnity of March 25, and left, as the sole and official solemnity of the A., that de Incarnatione, on the sixth Sunday of Advent. But in 1897 (cf. decr. of the S.C. of Rites, in Acta S. Sedis, 29 [1937], p. 566 ff.) the feast was re-established in Lent (March 25), without however its object having been well defined, since the liturgy of the day has the twofold title In festo Annunciationis B. Mariae Virginis: Solennitas Domini.

For the Roman Church, as already for that of the East, over all considerations of a liturgical character in relation to Lent, the traditional March 25 prevailed, as the beginning of the new Christian era; hence in the Middle Ages this day was also chosen as the beginning of the civil year (ab Incarnatione Domini).

Igino Cecchetti

3. IN ARCHAEOLOGY

In Christian catacomb art the only image of the A. is painted on the vault of a cubiculum of the cemetery of Priscilla on the via Salaria; a painting already published by Bosio (v.), but which was recognized as a scene of the A. only by Bottari (v.). Before the seated Virgin stands a young man in tunic and pallium with his right arm outstretched; the painting is today much deteriorated, and is datable between the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century. Also in Rome, in the mosaics of the triumphal arch of St. Mary Major (432-40) the scene of the A. is inspired by the Protoevangelium of James: from on high the dove hovers, while the archangel Gabriel flies toward the Madonna seated and intent on spinning the purple wool for the temple of Jerusalem; around are three winged angels. The scenes expressed on the side of a sarcophagus of Ravenna and in the mosaic of the cathedral of Parenzo (6th century) are inspired by the same Protoevangelium. The A. is also found several times in miniatures, as in the evangelaries of Etschmiadzin and of Rabula; in ivories, as in the cathedra of Maximian at Ravenna, in the Murano diptych, in the binding of the treasury of the cathedral and in the Trivulzio collection at Milan; in the civic museum of Bologna; in fabrics, mostly of Alexandrian or Syrian origin, donated by the popes between 750 and 860 to churches of Rome and mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis no fewer than six times, besides the one found in the treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum, now in the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library.

Enrico Josi

4. IN ART

Mentre le prime figurazioni dell'A. si limitano a rappresentare l'Angelo e la Vergine con atteggiamento e attributi tratti fedelmente dal racconto di S. Luca, del V sec. in poi, la rappresentazione si arricchisce di altri elementi, derivati o dalla fantasia stessa dell'artista od anche dai vangeli apocrifi di Giacomo e dello pseudo-Matteo e dal «Libro della Natività di Mary». These sources provide the following iconographic themes: a first Annunciation at the fountain where Mary used to draw water; a second in Mary's house, where the Angel, in the likeness of a young man of incomparable beauty, appears to the Virgin intent on spinning the purple wool for the Temple of Jerusalem; the Virgin, as already in St. Luke, is at first troubled, and then, reassured by the Angel's words, humbly accepts the announcement. The «Book of the Nativity» shows us the Virgin in her little chamber, who «in no way terrified by the sight of the Angel, as one accustomed to seeing them often», opens her arms and raises her eyes to heaven, pronouncing the «Ecce Ancilla Domini».

From these derive two orders of figurative motifs, which appear isolated or fused or variously combined and ever more, in the course of time, enriched: the more properly narrative or episodic one (the scene of the fountain, the descent and entry of the Angel, to which is added the Angel's departure from the Empyrean - missus est Angelus, Lk. 1:26 - the instruments for working wool, etc.); and the psychological one (the attitude of the Angel and above all the reaction of the Virgin, surprised, dismayed or accepting, seated, standing or kneeling).

The episode of the fountain is encountered fairly frequently at the beginning and then becomes ever rarer (5th-century ivory in the treasury of Milan Cathedral, 12th-century mosaic in S. Marco in Venice); sometimes it is combined with the scene inside the house (homiliary of James the monk in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris). More common is the scene of Mary intent on spinning or having laid the distaff in the basket beside her (mosaic of the triumphal arch of S. Maria Maggiore from the 5th century, fresco in S. Maria Antiqua from the 6th century, etc.).

The Virgin is normally placed on the right; the position on the left is always rather rare, even in the most ancient figurations, although it persists for a long time in the schools of Cappadocia and in Syrian circles. Probably the position of the Virgin on the right was strengthened, until it became almost constant, by the tradition according to which the precise position of the angel and of the Virgin was to be recognized in the sanctuary of Nazareth, a position still marked today by two columns, of which that of the Virgin (currently suspended from the vault of the chapel) is situated on the right (cf. Daniel Abbas, 1106-1107, in B. de Khitrovo, Itinéraire russes en Orient, Geneva 1889, p. 69; and in general the writers after the Crusades).

The iconographic current of anecdotal taste spread both in the East and in the West and was destined for the greatest development, especially as a "story" linked to others of the life of Mary; it in fact almost as a rule precedes the Visitation or the Nativity (e.g. in the fresco of the church of Appiano, 12th century, or in the pulpit of the cathedral of Cagliari by Guglielmo) and is also found connected with the Tree of Jesse as in a page of the Bible of the British Museum.

But alongside this current, from the earliest centuries, another one asserts itself, of courtly taste, though still linked to the narration of the life of Mary; this taste is characteristic of the Byzantine artists who represent the Virgin as sovereign, hieratic and solemn; a conception that persists until the 13th century, so much so that we still find it in a panel by P. Cavallini in S. Maria in Trastevere (before 1291) where the Madonna is on a seat of sumptuous architecture, and in the mosaic of Iacopo Torriti in S. Maria Maggiore (1295), with the Madonna standing framed by a rich throne.

From the year 1000 onward the A. sometimes detaches itself from the other episodes of the life of Mary, so much so that it is represented not only in isolation or as the first episode of the life of the Savior, or at the sides of the Redeemer enthroned (Basilian fresco of 959 at Grotta di Carpignano), or with the Ascension, almost to summarize the whole life of Jesus (miniature of 1300 in the library of the cathedral of Siena); but it is also considered as the generic presupposition of the Redemption and therefore as a premise to stories of an entirely different subject (for example the panel with stories of St. Peter of the Sienese school of the 13th century in the Pinacoteca of Siena), or in any case associated with heterogeneous figurations, as in the silver binding of an evangeliary of the Christian Museum of the Vatican (11th century) where, above the A. endowed with traditional attributes, two busts of saints stand out and the cross with the Alpha and the Omega. Very rarely, however, is it depicted with the cross-fission, unless this scene is considered the culminating episode of the life of Mary (ducal triptych of the Blumenthal collection in New York).

Given then the immediate comprehension of the subject, favored by the very abundant repetitions and by the simplicity of the essential figurative elements that are easily characterized, the representation of the A. could be reduced to extreme simplifications (sometimes, even while forming part of a narration of the life of Mary, any definition or environmental allusion is totally lacking, as for example in the architrave of S. Giustina in Padua [12th century], where the figures, according to French models, are in full relief on a smooth background); and it thus lent itself to being composed according to intentions more decorative than strictly illustrative. Often in fact the angel and the Madonna are represented separately on the corbels of triumphal or apsidal arches (mosaic of the 12th century in the cathedral of Torcello); and even if at the apex of the arch other attributes of the A. intervene that constitute an ideal link between the two figures (mosaics of the 12th century of the Martorana and of the Palatine Chapel of Palermo), it is clear that the composition is in these cases subordinated to a decorative intent of abstract symmetry. Singular is the A. of S. Vincenzo al Volturno (826-53), where the Angel and the Virgin are separated by a window and are conceived, pictorially, in an antithetical manner: the Angel flies tempestuously, while the Madonna on the contrary is enthroned and surrounded by a triple nimbus.

On the basis of this iconographic scheme, which is only allusive to the Gospel narrative and is instead resolved decoratively, one arrives at representing the two essential personages entirely separated (in the 13th-century relief of the cathedral of Spalato, for example, between the two arcades that contain the Angel and the Virgin, a third occupied by an altar is interposed); and subsequently the personages will be included in independent framings, and even half-length, in accessory panels of polyptychs, on the doors of tabernacles, in the cusps of altarpieces; and this especially among the Sienese painters of the Trecento and the early Quattrocento, sensitive above all to decorative taste (polyptych in the Pieve di Arezzo by P. Lorenzetti, panels and polyptychs by A. Vanni, by Paolo di Giovanni Fei, by Taddeo di Bartolo, by Sano di Pietro, by Sassetta, etc.). The two figures independent of each other are found, moreover, also in the 12th and 13th centuries, like those set among the meanders of a Romanesque capital in S. Andrea in Pistoia; and often on the facades of Gothic churches (cathedral of Reims) in the form of isolated statues aligned with others of an entirely extraneous subject.

The narrative taste, however, never fails and indeed, from antiquity onward, enriches the representation with ever new elements: for example the handmaid seated apart who spins or who lifts the curtain or who eavesdrops from an adjoining room, which is already found in Carolingian ivories and then in Rome in S. Urbano alla Caffarella (11th century), in Pistoia on the pulpit of Guido da Como (where the Madonna is on the left), in Benevento on the bronze door of the Cathedral (13th century), in the pulpit of the cathedral of Barga (13th century) and still in the A. of Barna da Siena at S. Gimignano (1381). The introduction of this personage is perhaps due to the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which recounts that five maidens lived with Mary and justified her before Joseph; but it appears above all suggested by the human complacency for the anecdote, which increasingly brings out the character of intimate recollection of the scene.

To this same requirement is traced the transformation of the architectural setting; in fact, in the series of scenes of the A. represented in the open air, the most ancient have as their background a basilica, in which a documentary or topographic intent is to be recognized, since this basilica is meant to be that of Nazareth (erected over the grotto of the A.) which was identified, through a literal interpretation of the periegetic texts, with the house of Mary ("Domus sanctae Mariae basilica est". Anon. Placentinus, in P. Geyer, Itinera Hierosolymitana saeculi III-VIII, Vienna 1898, p. 161). Very soon the basilica was reduced to a portico along a nave (cathedral of Parenzo, 6th century), then to an isolated portico and finally to a baldachin (which

It persists for a long time, as is proved for example by the panel of the door of the cathedral of Pisa by Bonanno, 12th century, singular also for the position on the left of the standing Madonna, for a hint of landscape naturalism beside the baldachin and for the words of the salutation that occupy a large part of the smooth background; between the 9th and 11th centuries it is transformed into a house, to reappear in the 12th (mosaic of the works of the cathedral in Florence); but perhaps it is still foreshadowed, in the 13th century, in the grandiose building that occupies the background of some Annunciations, such as that of the Master of the Magdalene (13th century, Paris, Museum of Decorative Arts) and the aforementioned one by the author of the stories of St. Peter.

But the preference for narration, constantly marked by motifs of intimacy and sweetness, has meant that more often artists preferred to combine the interior of the house with an exterior, in which to let the Angel stand out; hence the house contracts into a loggia or becomes a shrine, a pergola, a portico, or is reduced to an atrium through which, sometimes, other rooms are glimpsed, rich in furnishings and domestic fittings, while the exterior is adorned with greenery and later takes concrete form in a landscape and even in a view (Bonifacio Veronese at the beginning of the 16th century places, between the two heavenly figures, the piazza of S. Marco, which he reserves for the appearance of the Eternal: fragmentary canvas in the galleries of the Accademia in Venice).

During the evolution of the setting, which moreover does not depart appreciably from the iconographic tradition until the 15th century, the attitudes of the figures vary with ever greater freedom and their attributes change. The Angel gradually loses the primitive character of his clothing (which was in the Greek style, with pallium and buskins, and was completed with a stephane on his head), following the evolution of costume; at first he holds the rod or the herald's scepter; then the rod becomes flowering, to be transformed finally into a lily. Noteworthy for testifying to this transition are the 14th-century Annunciation of the Master of the codex of S. Giorgio (Stoclet coll., Brussels) and the slightly later one of Orcagna in Orsanmichele, in which the lily has corollas respectively slender and still closed and thus closely resembles a scepter. The olive branch also becomes common (Lippo Memmi at the Uffizi, Taddeo di Bartolo at the Accademia of Siena), as does the palm (A. Lorenzetti at the Accademia of Siena) according to the tradition accepted by Dante («Perch'egli è quegli che portò la palma - Giù a Maria»: Par., XXXII, 112). The very frequent motif of the lily, moreover, which recalls the «inviolabile castitatis lilium» of St. Bernard, is often replaced or repeated by a vase of flowers, placed on the ground between the Angel and the Virgin; it is adopted above all by the Sienese painters (the greatest example being the Annunciation of Simone Martini at the Uffizi), well answering their ornamental taste. Lippo Vanni (14th century) represents the Angel offering the Virgin a flowering basket.

The vase of flowers also serves to establish a separation between the two figures, accentuating the intangibility of the Virgin, a separation which, actually realized in scenes with only the Angel in the open air, is often deliberately brought about also by other expedients (e.g. a column, a piece of furniture, etc.: Annunciation of A. and P. Lorenzetti at the Pinacoteca of Siena; by Lorenzo Monaco at S. Trinita in Florence).

In the 11th century a new element enters the iconographic tradition: the book, open or closed, in the hands or on the knees of the Madonna, on a lectern or on another piece of furniture, in place of the distaff and spindle; this motif is still derived from the apocryphal gospels, where it is narrated that Mary spent part of her day in reading. The book is more often open and bears written the words of Isaiah: «Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium». This well answers the purpose of religious painting, especially medieval, which is to illustrate and make evident the meaning of the representation; for the same reason, from the 14th century onward, it becomes very widespread to write the words of the salutation either on a scroll held by the Angel, or in a breath emanating from his mouth toward the Madonna (Annunciation of Simone Martini) and likewise in a breath the response of the latter (Annunciation of Ambrogio Lorenzetti). Later the words are transferred onto the halos or onto the frames.

In general, with the passage of time, new elements, mystical and allegorical, enter in ever greater numbers, deriving also from the syncretism of the «legendae» (e.g. the Legenda aurea) and from other literature.

In fact, if from the most ancient representations onward, besides the Angel and the Madonna, the dove intervenes, symbol of the Holy Spirit, in the 12th century the hand of the Eternal is added at the top of the scene, emerging from a semicircle with three concentric rings, symbol of the Trinity (mosaic of the Palatine chapel in Palermo); then, more often, included in the semicircle is found the figure of the Father, from whom rays depart toward the Virgin, including or bearing the dove (Annunciation of J. Torriti and of P. Cavallini). The Eternal (often only his arm) appears later almost always either in a glory of cherubim or through a rent in the clouds; sometimes the Redeemer is represented while ordering Gabriel to deliver the divine message (Annunciation of Spinello Aretino in S. Francesco at Arezzo, where nevertheless there persists, in the baldachin covering the Virgin, the bust of the Eternal dominating the event). Subsequently even the detail of the dove tends toward greater verism and therefore it is represented while flying through an open window or alighting on the shoulder of Mary. Sometimes the ray that, departing from the Father, reaches the Virgin, arrives as far as her ear; this mystical motif signifies the spirituality of Christ who, as «Verbum», is precisely received. Exceptional is the representation of a winged point that darts from on high guiding the dove (Spinello Aretino, church of the S.ma Annunziata in Arezzo); and it seems to prelude to the late motif of the infant Jesus who walks along the usual ray, carrying the cross on his shoulders (Annunciation of Giovanni dal Ponte in the Vatican Pinacoteca, of Giovanni Santi at Brera, of Domenico Panetti at the Pinacoteca of Ferrara, of Hans Baldung at the museum of Kolmar); this strange iconographic novelty was reproved by St. Antoninus of Florence («quasi non esset ex substantia Virginis corpus eius assumptum», Summ. hist., III, tit. 8, 4, 11) and pope Benedict XIV prohibited it as a cretic expression.

From the 14th century onward the scene is complicated with other representations; for example that of Adam and Eve driven out of the earthly Paradise, to accentuate the meaning of the Redemption from original sin, conceived therefore as a "felix culpa," according to the liturgical exclamation (the Annunciation by B. Angelico at Cortona and its immediate derivations, by the Master of S. Miniato at Settignano, by Neri di Bicci in S. Trinita in Florence); B. Bonfigli (15th century) places between the Angel and the Madonna St. Luke crouching, who, as a direct witness, writes the Gospel account (Annunciation in the Pinacoteca of Perugia); other painters add a group of patrons (the Annunciation by Filippo Lippi at Palazzo Venezia, by Filippino Lippi in S. Maria sopra Minerva, by Nicolò da Foligno in the Pinacoteca of Perugia); Antonazzo Romano (church of the Minerva in Rome) inserts into it an episode so heterogeneous as to render the attitude of the Virgin wholly extraneous to the representation of the Annunciation.

In the Germanic countries one often finds, together with that of the Annunciation, also the representation of the unicorn (v. ANIMALE), which at times replaces the Angel (antiphonary of the convent of Einsiedeln); or the two representations merge and Gabriel takes the appearance of a hunter, accompanied by four dogs symbolizing the four virtues: justice, mercy, truth and peace ("retablo" of the cathedral of Lübeck, altarpiece in the Museum of Weimar, ca. 1410) under the influence of popular sacred plays.

It is obvious that a figurative theme so dear to artists and so frequently repeated not only has a complex iconographic tradition, but also offers ample possibilities for free interpretations: thus the attitudes of the figures and the expression of their feelings vary in such a way as to elude any true iconological classification. When, moreover, the subject is treated by artists of exceptional creative power, the figurative schemes appear overwhelmed by their personalities and in any case undergo profound and sometimes radical departures, destined either to change the tradition, nourishing it, or to remain isolated cases. To this process of evasion or deviation from iconographic currents there contributed the gradual loss, on the part of art, of the intent to illustrate the Holy Scriptures and to instruct that was proper to it in the Middle Ages and that disappears entirely after the Renaissance (reference is therefore made to the entries on individual artists or on artistic periods).

Thus, choosing among innumerable examples, Giovanni Pisano in the pulpit of S. Andrea in Pistoia (1290-1301), although referring in the general arrangement to Nicola (pulpit of the baptistery of Pisa, 1260) — that is, placing the Angel, the dove and the Virgin with an architectural background (the basilica?) among the crowd of figures of the other stories of the Madonna — confers a dramatic character on the scene, exalting his own unmistakable style. And almost contemporaneously Giotto (first five years of the 14th century), who places the Virgin and the Angel on the corbels of the great arch of the Scrovegni chapel in Padua, accentuates the abstract requirement of symmetry by giving the two figures an identical architectural background and balancing their masses, but certainly cannot be included in the so-called aulic current or linked to Byzantine modes; because every element is resolved in the concrete massiveness typically Giottoesque, which confers, especially on the albeit human femininity of the Virgin, kneeling and with head held high, an incomparable monumentality. Inimitable, even if slavishly copied by imitators (Taddeo Gaddi in S. Croce in Florence), these figurative types elude any classification, while the Annunciation by Simone Martini in the Uffizi, which is perhaps the most celebrated, although constituting the quintessence of the Master's style, establishes, especially through the Sienese painters, an abundant iconographic series.

Fra Angelico too, whose Annunciations are among the best known, stamps the traditional data with surprising and inimitable novelty, especially when, after the panel of Cortona (with the first parents in the background) and that of the corridor of the museum of S. Marco in Florence (in which the typological elements of the Angel amid the flowering verdure of a garden and the Madonna intent on reading under a Brunelleschian portico are formally substantiated by typically humanistic spatial and perspectival investigations), he causes the sacred scene to take place between the bare walls of a monastic cell (this Annunciation is in fact frescoed in a cell of the convent of S. Marco), without any ornament, entrusting all the lyricism of the subject to the most measured attitude of the figures and to the sense of proportion that makes the atmosphere vast and rarefied, almost in a moment of complacent ecstasy, evident also through the contrast offered by a figure of a Dominican who appears on the threshold.

In the same way Botticelli (Annunciation in the Uffizi) draws from the descent of the Angel and the disturbance of the Virgin the motive for expressing the tormented movement of linearism that defines his style, complicating the garments and breaking the forms, and at the same time displaying the new conquests of aerial perspective in the landscape that extends beyond the open window in the background.

In the same century A. Della Robbia (Sanctuary of La Verna), in conformity with the popular tone of his art and the technique of his school, adheres to the customary conventions — though placing the Madonna on the left — depicting the kneeling Angel, the lily vase placed between them, the dove among light clouds and the Eternal Father among the angels.

Leonardo (panels of the Uffizi and the Louvre) takes occasion from the scene to achieve effects of sfumato and contre-jour, placing both figures in the open air, in a setting and beside furnishings of studied and precious refinement. Raphael documents with his youthful Annunciation (predella of the Coronation, Vatican Pinacoteca) the superimposition of sixteenth-century taste and of his human figurative order upon the definitive results of the abstract investigations of Piero della Francesca (S. Francesco of Arezzo, Pinacoteca of Perugia), through the teaching of Perugino. The 16th century definitively breaks every iconographic tradition: already the Ferrarese, the Venetians, the Marchigiani, etc. had superimposed upon the theme the most evident characteristics of their schools (one recalls the Annunciations of Cosme Tura, of Carpaccio, of Crivelli, the latter laden with encarpi, isolated fruits, precious objects and garments); so much so that the iconographic freedom of Titian, of Tintoretto, and of Paolo Veronese does not surprise, the latter (Galleria dell'Accademia of Venice) framing the figures within a sumptuous architecture, of arches and balustrades and spiral columns, in a prodigious "worm's-eye" vision: the Angel descends hovering on the cornices and the Madonna, in bold foreshortening, seems to rise upward by virtue of the broad gesture similar to that of Titian's Assumption.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries representations of the A. become increasingly rare, because of the taste that tended toward pictorial occasions suited to depicting complex and fanciful scenographies. And such taste, in fact, dominates the A. of Mochi, which is usually taken as the debut of the Baroque (museum of the Opera of Orvieto: the Angel is carved on a heap of clouds, with a surprising effect of freedom from matter), as well as that of Guido Reni and of Gentileschi; and likewise those, far less interesting, of the eighteenth century.

Thus we come to the scanty nineteenth-century examples among which, apart from the useless academic exercises, the A. of D. G. Rossetti is celebrated, which is entirely marked by human characters and sentiments, eluding any sacred intent; whence the title A. is above all a proof of that profane aestheticism, steeped in exterior mysticism, that characterizes the manner of the Pre-Raphaelites (v. PRERAFFAELLISMO). Contemporary art, though without renouncing the peculiarities of present-day figurative taste, through the very few examples worthy of mention, seems to hark back in some way to traditional iconography (see for example the A. of Ceracchini, cartoon for the church of Segozia).

Adriano Prandi

5. IN POPULAR POETRY AND IN THE ANCIENT THEATRE

The A. inspired in the popular muse some brief lyrical-narrative songs, full of feeling and delicacy; interesting versions of them are known from Sicily, Calabria, Abruzzo and Romagna. In the medieval sacred theatre the episode of the angel's announcement to Mary was frequently evoked. Martino da Canale, in his chronicle, describes for us how the representation was performed in Venice around the middle of the thirteenth century: the scene took place before the Doge and concluded with a grand procession. Similar representations, in the forms of the liturgical drama, took place in Padua, Parma, Treviso. Even in the sacred drama in the vernacular, beginning with the earliest Umbrian lauds, the episode was evoked with movements and accents of genuine poetry. In Florence there remain memories and texts, which prove how, over the course of various centuries, the A. was represented on the occasion of the feast of the Annunziata (25 March) in the church of the same name; a beautiful and precise description of it has been left to us by Bishop Abraham of Suzdal, who attended it in 1439. For one of these representations Brunelleschi constructed one of his theatrical devices or apparatuses, described by Vasari. Among the sacred representations in ottava rima inspired by this episode, the best known is that of Feo Belcari. An A. was also performed in Rome, in 1561. - See Plates CXVI-CXVIII.

Paolo Toschi