Stories of the Virgin from Sant'Egidio

In January 1451 Andrea del Castagno took over a job that had been standing unfinished for years. The choir of Sant'Egidio, the church of Florence's main hospital, was being covered with the life of the Virgin. Domenico Veneziano had begun it in 1439 with a young assistant from Borgo San Sepolcro, and the earliest surviving document that names Piero della Francesca is his pay for this wall in September 1439. Castagno was given the right-hand wall and three scenes, and worked on it until September 1453. Others were still being paid for the cycle in 1470.

None of it is where it was painted. The walls were whitewashed in the 17th century, and the frescoes were found again only in 1938, under the limewash. A restorer lifted a sinopia and five fragments off the wall in 1954. Since 1990 the sinopia and four fragments have been shown in the old refectory of Sant'Apollonia, across the city. Most of what survives is the painted socle that ran along the bottom of the wall. The one fragment given to Castagno shows a strip of ground with grass and stones, and it is still in a storeroom.