Vallombrosa Altarpiece

What hangs in the Uffizi today is only part of what Andrea built. Around 1528 the head of the Vallombrosan monks, Giovanni Maria Canigiani, asked him to make a grand setting for a much older and much venerated painting of the Virgin and Child, a panel from the 13th or 14th century that the abbey of Vallombrosa treasured. Andrea painted four tall saints to flank it, among them Giovanni Gualberto and Bernardo degli Uberti, the monks who had founded the order, together with the archangel Michael and John the Baptist. The whole assembly stood together until 1810, when the monastery was suppressed and its contents scattered. The carved frame, the ancient Madonna it protected, and the small Annunciation from its base were all lost. Only these four saints came through, still turning toward a centre that is no longer there.