The Vision of Saint Bernard

Filippino Lippi finished this around 1486 for a Florentine merchant, Piero del Pugliese, who had himself painted kneeling in the lower right corner so his prayers would be seen for generations. It has stayed close to where it was made, just inside the door of the Badia, one of the oldest churches in Florence. The scene shows Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th-century monk famous for his devotion to the Virgin, interrupted at his writing desk as Mary appears with a crowd of angels. Filippino gives it the crisp, crowded detail Florentines then admired in Flemish painting: the grain of the wooden lectern, the folds of the monks behind. Bernard's hand still rests on the open page, as if she has arrived mid-sentence.