The Annunciation

Florence had been living with plague since 1478, and this fresco was Botticelli's part in the relief. He painted it in 1481 for the hospital of San Martino, over an entrance where the sick were brought in, most likely as an offering of thanks as the latest outbreak eased. The subject is the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel telling Mary she will bear Christ, and Botticelli laid it out with the new tool of his generation, one-point perspective. The floor tiles and architecture rush back to a single vanishing point that lands near the angel's head, so the whole room seems to lean toward the messenger and his news. Within the year Botticelli would leave for Rome, called by the pope to help paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel. The fresco stayed behind, was later hidden by rebuilding, and was only cut from its wall and rescued in 1920.