Resumen de The High Altar-Piece of SS. Annunziata in Florence: History, Form, and Function
When Lodovico Gonzaga learned in 1471 that Leon Battista Alberti's designs for the choir at SS. Annunziata in Florence would cause serious complications for the Servites, he responded by asserting his right to spend his money as he liked 'without having to justify ourselves to others'.' The patron had his way, but the decision of the friars in 1500 to commission the largest Florentine altar-piece of the renaissance shows their need, in the wake ofthe choir's completion, to organise better the liturgical spaces within their church. The history and reconstruction of the altar-piece informs us about the functions which this double-sided structure served within the Annunziata itself, as well as illuminating the development of high altar-piece in the Cinquecento. An analysis of new documents and published sources also clarifies how the Servites aimed to glorify the Virgin and their own order through commissions to four of the most prominent artists active in Florence: Baccio d'Agnolo, Leonardo da Vinci, Filippino Lippi, and Pietro Perugino.
