受胎告知の三翼祭壇画

Lorenzo Monaco means simply Lorenzo the Monk. He took vows around 1390 at the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, a house famous for its illuminated choir books, and he ran a busy painting workshop from inside the cloister. He made this triptych in the years around 1410 for the small Florentine church of San Procolo. It belongs to the last brilliant phase of Gothic painting in the city, all burnished gold ground and sharp sweet colour, painted just as much younger men were starting to push toward plain daylight and weight. When Giorgio Vasari saw it in the 16th century he admired it and put it down to Giotto. Lorenzo's name was only restored to the panel in 1864.