Angel of the Annunciation, Christ the Redeemer, Virgin Annunciate

In 1910 the three panels were purchased for the famous collection of Sir Frederick Cook in Richmond (London) from an antiques dealer in Cheltenham (Gloucestershire).¹ Put up for sale at a London auction in 1984 (Christie’s, 6 July, lot 115), they have probably been in their current location since 1986.

The three panels originally formed the upper tier of the polyptych painted by Agnolo Gaddi, assisted by Lorenzo Monaco, for the chapel founded by Piera degli Albizzi and Bernardo di Cino Bartolini dei Nobili in the infirmary of the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. The work, probably produced before 29 March 1388 when the new chapel was consecrated, was taken apart and dispersed during the Napoleonic suppression. The various sections that comprised it were identified in several stages, starting with an article by Hans Gronau and followed by contributions from Federico Zeri, Miklós Boskovits, Bruce Cole and, lastly, Erling Skaug, who is responsible for identifying the three pinnacles discussed here.² The recomposition of the polyptych can be considered almost complete today. The principal tier comprised sections with the Madonna and Child Enthroned with St John the Evangelist, St John the Baptist, St James and St Bartholomew now in Berlin (Gemäldegalerie), painted by Gaddi like the three panels discussed here; the predella, executed by Lorenzo Monaco, is divided between a number of public collections (Baptism of Christ, London, The National Gallery, inv. no. 4208; Feast of Herod with the Beheading of St John the Baptist, Crucifixion, St James and the Magician Hermogenes and the Martyrdom of St James, Paris, Musée du Louvre) and private collections (Hermogenes Throwing the Books of Magic into the River, Piera degli Albizzi and Her Daughters, Newark, Del., Alana Collection).³ The section with the figures of the donors also appeared on the antiquarian market in recent years, while the figures that perhaps decorated the pillars are still missing. Thanks to Giuseppe Richa, we know that the chapel was furnished with twelve choir stalls and that it was decorated with “the most magnificent altar” seen by the scholar, embellished with “rich pinnacles and figurines”.⁴

Agnolo Gaddi, born into an illustrious line of painters, modernised the Florentine art scene during the last two decades of the 14th century with his personal interpretation of the latest trends in contemporary European figurative arts, in which the monumentality so dear to the Giottesque tradition was embellished with bright, acid colours, sinuous outlines and sparkling gold. Active between the early 1370s and 1396, he accompanied his panel paintings with grandiose fresco cycles in the main chapel of Santa Croce in Florence featuring the Legend of the True Cross, in the Castellani chapel in the same church and in the chapel of the Holy Girdle in Prato cathedral. The polyptych for the Nobili chapel was painted in between these two latter works. The painting of the predella was entrusted to the young Lorenzo Monaco, acknowledging the talent of his young pupil who probably worked alongside him on the two challenging jobs in the Franciscan church in Florence.⁵

The three panels formed part of one of the most imposing and sumptuous polyptychs painted in Florence during the last fifteen years of the 14th century, following a difficult and bloody period that began with the war against the Pope and continued with the revolt of the Ciompi in 1378, the oligarchy of Maso degli Albizzi, the restoration of the Guelph party and the establishment of a new ruling class firmly allied with the Church from 1383 onwards. Agnolo Gaddi’s fortunes were tied to the lot of these families during this period, to their desire to gain respect, to flaunt a lifestyle able to compete with that of the powerful figures in the Po Valley, in pomp at least if not in substance. Compared to the frescoes in the Castellani chapel in Santa Croce, which I believe post-date the Legend of the True Cross in the main chapel of the same church, and the Stories of the Virgin in the chapel in Prato cathedral, the polyptych for the chapel in the Camaldolese infirmary can be considered the real emblem of this period, the masterful outcome of the artist’s quest for a difficult equilibrium between the riot of gold and the iridescent, acid hues of late-Gothic taste, and the pursuit of sculptural volumes and spatial clarity in compositions typical of the Giottesque tradition.

The Archangel Gabriel, painted mainly in gold, is imposing and elegant as he touches down on Earth, with his fluttering wings glistening with precious lacquer. He is offset by the Virgin enveloped in an equally fine lapis lazuli cloak, with deep folds that reveal Agnolo’s familiarity with the Florentine monumental tradition. On the other hand, demonstrating that genius can be glimpsed in seemingly insignificant details, Christ the Redeemer – designed to be placed in between the Angel and the Virgin, which is somewhat incongruous in terms of the tale itself – stands on top of a mound of clouds that are clearly decentralised with respect to the panel, so that the figure seems to erupt onto the scene from the right, a miracle within a miracle, a divine epiphany that also bursts into the temporal dimension of the viewer.

[Sonia Chiodo]

¹ Borenius 1913, p. 18.

² Gronau 1950, pp. 183-188, 217-222; Zeri 1964, pp. 554-558; Boskovits 1975, pp. 295-296; Cole 1977, pp. 84-87; Skaug 2004, pp. 245-257; E. Skaug, in Florence 2006, pp. 106-111.

³ For a summary of the history and critical history of the polyptych see the recent entry by E. Skaug, in Florence 2006, pp. 106-111, and also Bent 2006, pp. 137-144.

⁴ Richa 1759, pp. 148-149, 166.

⁵ On Agnolo Gaddi see Cole 1977 and more recently S. Chiodo, “Filologia e storia per la Leggenda della Vera Croce”, in Frosinini 2014 pp. 73-88, and Chiodo 2015, pp. 24-44.