La coronación de la Virgen

Lorenzo Monaco signed this towering altarpiece with a date that reads February 1413, though by our calendar it means 1414, because Florence then began its year on the 25th of March, the feast of the Annunciation. His name means Lorenzo the Monk, and that is what he was, a friar in the Camaldolese abbey of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, painting for the high altar of his own community's church. He was one of the last great masters of the Late Gothic style in the city, all slender bodies, flowing gold-edged cloth, and thin bright color. Rows of saints lean inward to watch Christ set a crown on his mother's head, their long tapering hands and thoughtful faces tuned to the quiet, inward mood the Camaldolese monks prized.