The Annunciation

This Annunciation stood on the altar in the chapel of Florence's leper hospital, San Jacopo a Sant'Eusebio, on the meadow by the church of Ognissanti. Founded in 1186, the hospital went on housing people with leprosy until Duke Alessandro de' Medici closed it in 1534. The panel dates from around 1395 to 1400 and keeps its original frame and projecting canopy. Along the base are three coats of arms. The outer two belong to the families of the donors, Margherita di Cione Ridolfi and Baldinaccio del Verre, and the one in the middle has never been identified. Gabriel kneels with a stem of lilies, and Mary turns from her open book. The painter repeated the inlaid pattern of the loggia walls on the canopy of the frame, so the painted room seems to reach out into ours.