Die Verkündigung

By the 1490s Filippino Lippi was the busiest painter in Florence, fresh from years in Rome decorating a chapel for a cardinal, and he brought that Roman polish to small private panels like this one. The subject was among the most familiar in Christian art: the angel Gabriel kneeling with a lily, telling Mary she will bear a son. Lippi keeps it intimate, barely wider than a book, tempera on a rectangular board meant for a bedroom or a private chapel rather than a church wall. Look for the lily, the flower that stood for Mary's purity and doubled as the emblem of Florence itself. He painted it while the preacher Savonarola was starting to turn the city against exactly this kind of worldly refinement.