PIETRO LORENZETTI (documented in Siena from 1305 to 1345) THE VIRGIN OF THE ANNUNCIATION Round panel (medallion from an altarpiece) Old restorations and cracks The Virgin of the Annunciation, round panel (medallion from an altarpiece), slot and restorations. Diam. of the panel alone : 11 CM - 4,3 IN. Diam. with frame: 19 CM - 7,4 IN. Panel thickness: 1 CM - 0,3 IN. PIETRO LORENZETTI Standing out against the golden background, the little Virgin is seen in profile, facing left. Dressed in a pink robe, her right hand is holding a black cloak that covers her completely, while her left is holding an open book. Her deeply inward gaze, her humble gesture of holding back her cloak and dropping the book, convey the shock she felt at the sudden arrival of the Archangel Gabriel, the companion of this medallion who is currently absent and yet to be found. This depiction is an exact copy of the Virgin's attitude in the Annunciation, a scene that Pietro illustrated at the top of the altarpiece painted for the high altar of the Pieve - still in place - in the parish church of Arezzo, a work signed and commissioned on 17 April 1320 by Guido Tarlati, Bishop of Arezzo (fig. 1). From this date onwards, Pietro, who was more aware of Giotto's art, strongly asserted his personality, moving away from the influence of Duccio that he had experienced in his youth around 1310-1315 in the Madonnas of Cortona and Monticchiello. In this small medallion, like the Annunciation scene in Arezzo and the two little saints framing the Calvary (fig. 2) in the former Carlo de Carlo collection, the master pays close attention to the spatial positioning of the elements. He slightly moved back the Virgin, whose plastic importance occupies almost all the space, and created a void by wrapping the drape of the cloak around her arm, where the book held in her hand is housed. The figure's expression is further accentuated by the foreshortened perspective of the book, which the Virgin has turned upside down in her confusion. Undoubtedly inspired by the sculptures of Giovanni Pisano, the pathetic intensity of the scene, seen in the Virgin's worried gaze against a subtly modelled face enhanced by delicate transitions between light and shadow, clearly expresses Pietro's dramatic and technical mastery. To which ensemble did this medallion belong? In Tuscan painting at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries, the principle of a medallion with sacred figures framing altarpieces of the Maestà, or Madonna in Majesty, type was already well established. This can be seen in paintings by Cimabue around 1280 (Louvre) and Duccio in 1282 (Florence, Uffizi). The same layout is also used in frescoes such as Simone Martini's Maestà, painted in 1315 for the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. In the multi-panel Sienese altarpieces of the early 14th century, medallions featuring saints or prophets appear in the upper sections of the altarpiece, as in the Arezzo altarpiece, mentioned above, or Simone Martini's Annunciation of 1333, painted for the Duomo in Siena. They can also be found in the predella at the bottom of the altarpiece. This part, closest to the altar - the latter considered to be Christ's tomb - generally features representations of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist mourning the dead Christ, surrounded by saints, a model of which Giotto provided in the altarpiece in Bologna (Pinacoteca Nazionale). The layout of the representations in the different registers of the altarpiece reflects the scriptural texts to which they refer. For example, the prophets who precede and announce the coming of Christ appear in the upper registers of the altarpiece. Similarly, the Annunciation, a fundamental scene in Christian theology, the premise of the Incarnation and the foundation of the Christian faith, also occupies this area, above the central image of the Virgin and Child, as Pietro Lorenzetti did in Arezzo. But when architectural constraints demand it, the Annunciation scene can be divided into two elements, the Angel Gabriel on the left and the Virgin on the right, on either side of a structural element separating them. In 1305, Giotto separated the two protagonists at the top of the triumphal arch in the Arena chapel in Padua. This practice became systematic in easel painting, particularly in small-scale devotional pictures. In the diptychs, the angel occupies the left panel, the Virgin the right; in the triptychs, each of these figures is relegated to the top of each panel. Given its iconography and dimensions, which are identical to those of the medallions depicting the prophets in Pietro Lorenzetti's Arezzo altarpiece, there is every reason to believe that our medallion crowned the central panel of an altarpiece, in the right-hand spandrel formed by the semicircular or terracotta arch above the representation of the Virgin and Child. The Archangel Gabriel, still missing and facing her, appeared in the left-hand spandrel. The horizontal thread of the support for our medallion might have suggested an element of the predella, a part usually made up of a wide board placed horizontally at the bottom of the altarpiece, but the subject depicted rules out this hypothesis. Contrary to the customary construction of altarpieces, where medallions were painted on the same panel as the one on which they were placed, we should consider that our medallion may have been cut from a board with a horizontal grain 1 cm thick, different from the main panel that it was intended to complete, and then fixed to the latter by the old nail still visible on the reverse, which is probably responsible for the current crack. Once attached to its support, a thin moulding - which has now disappeared, but traces of which can still be seen around the edge of the medallion - would have framed it. Unfortunately, given our current state of knowledge, this Madonna cannot be linked to any known work by Pietro, but its execution, so close to its counterpart in the Arezzo altarpiece, must have taken place around the same time, shortly before 1320. This date is corroborated by the style and the use in the halo of an engraved volute motif punctuated by simple small punched circles, which can be found in the halos of the saints Flora and Lucilla and of Christ Blessing in the centre of the triptych mentioned above, which is dated to the same period, although its execution seems weaker. Most of Pietro Lorenzetti's works produced before 1320 feature engraved ornamentation of the aureoles with a wide variety of high-quality motifs, particularly those in the Arezzo altarpiece. Given the modest quality of the ornamentation on this medallion, should we conclude that Pietro, who cannot be denied the authorship of our Virgin, left the execution of the nimbus to one of his very young assistants? 1. Cf. C. Volpe, Pietro Lorenzetti, ed. M. Lucco, 1989, cat. 97, p. 121-125 and D. Cooper, A. De Marchi in Siena, The rise of painting 1300-1350 ed. J. Cannon, London, National Gallery, 2024, p. 95-99. 2. Cf. Volpe, op. cit. respectively, cat. 83,84, p. 108-113. 3. This panel (Milan, private collection) is the centrepiece of a triptych, the panels of which are lost. In the main register, it depicts two saints, perhaps Flora and Lucilla, venerated in Arezzo, and is surmounted by a lunette showing Christ blessing between two angels. First published by M. Boskovits, Considerations on Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Paragone, 439, 1986, p. 3-16 and M. Laclotte, in Duccio: Alle origini della pittura senese, Milan 2003, p. 401 repr. These two historians agree that it is a work by Pietro Lorenzetti close to the Arezzo altarpiece. 4. It should be remembered that the American historian Millard Meiss has highlighted the use of halo engraving in works dating from before 1320, and that after this date, following in the footsteps of Simone Martini, Sienese artists abandoned this technique in favour of punched motifs of great ornamental richness.