BERNARDINO MONALDI (Florence, 1567 - after 1621) Birth of the Virgin Signed and dated lower right: Berna. vs. Mona vs. Flo vs. 1595 Oil on canvas, 238.5X149.8 cm Provenance: Italy, private collection A pupil of Santi di Tito (Florence, 1536 - 1603) according to the indications of Baldinucci and Girolamo Macchietti (Florence, 1535 - 1592) in terms of proximity of style (as attested by the frescoes in the cloister of the Confraternita della Ss. Annunziata in Florence painted between 1587 and 1590), Monaldi is a typical representative of late 16th-century Florentine painting between the manner and the Counter-Reformation. His early works such as the Madonna Enthroned with Child, Saints, Devotees and the Mysteries of the Rosary, painted in 1589 for the church of Sant'Angelo a Lecore and the Madonna Enthroned with Child, Saints and Donor for the church of San Lorenzo a Signa, denote not only his decentralised activity, but also a provincial, eclectic and attentive tenor to the needs of devotion, in spite of a perceived restlessness in composition. In the very early 1590s, however, we know that he was enrolled in the Accademia del Disegno, but shortly afterwards he was no longer a member, indicating that he had moved to Abruzzo, a fact also confirmed by documents. In 1593, in fact, the artist undertook to paint three paintings for the church of San Francesco in Carapelle Calvisio in the province of L'Aquila, works that constituted a polyptych with an archaic flavour and of which the central part dated 1594 remains. Having said this, it is very clear that Monaldi's style entailed a contribution of modernity to the local artistic culture and 19th century sources, Angelo Leosini in particular, list a sequence of important commissions. The historian, in fact, in 1848 mentions the Birth of Christ for the church of San Massimo in L'Aquila and the lost Birth of the Virgin in the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Poggio Picenze, the date of which is given as 1595 and the signature: BERNARD./us MONAL. /us FLO may suggest that it can be recognised in the canvas presented here (De Mieri, 2010, p. 114, footnote 13/Santangelo 2020). If this were the case, the work would be a very important rediscovery to fill out the artist's catalogue and better understand his activity in Abruzzo, judged to be among the best of those known to us by comparison. Reference bibliography: A. Leosini, Monumenti storici artistici della città di Aquila e i suoi contorni colle notizie de' pittori, scultori, architetti ed altri artefici che vi fiorirono, L'Aquila 1848, p. 143 A. Angrisani, Giulio Cesare Bedeschini 1570-1627. L'opera pittorica, degree thesis discussed at the University of Chieti in the autumn session of the 2006-7 academic year, supervisor Daniele Benati, p. 50 S. De Mieri, I soggiorni abruzzesi di Bernardino Monaldi, in Il barocco negato, edited by R. Torlontano, Rome 2010, pp. 112-119 E. Santangelo, Ancora sull'attività abruzzese di Bernardino Monaldi: la Madonna del Rosario e santi di Caporciano: https://www.academia.edu/42617908/ AncorasullatattivitàabruzzesesiediBernardinoMonaldiLateladiCaporciano, 2020, footnote 17