01 Religious Icon, Simone Martini’s Annunciation with St. Margaret and St. Ansanus, with footnotes #40
Annunciation with St. Margaret (Maxima) and St. Ansanus, c. 1333
Tempera and gold on panel
305 cm × 265 cm (120 in × 104 in)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The work is composed of a large central panel depicting the Annunciation, and two side panels with St. Ansanus (left), and female saint, generally identified with St. Maxima or St. Margaret, in the right, and four tondos in the cusps: Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Isiah and Daniel.
The Annunciation shows the archangel Gabriel entering the house of the Virgin Mary to tell her that she will soon bear the child Jesus, whose name means “savior”. Gabriel holds an olive branch in his hand, a traditional symbol of peace, while pointing at the Holy Ghost’s dove with the other. The dove is descending from heaven, from the center of the mandorla of eight angels above, about to enter the Virgin’s right ear. In fact, along the path of the dove, viewers see Gabriel’s utterance: ave gratia plena dominvs tecvm (“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”).
Mary, sitting on a throne, is portrayed at the moment that she is startled out of her reading, reacting with a graceful and composed reluctance, looking with surprise at the celestial messenger. Her dress has an arabesque-like pattern. More on this work
St. Maxima was a house servant and nanny to a family of imperial nobility in ancient Rome. She was given responsibility for caring for the family’s son, Ansanus, and she secretly baptized him as a child and raised him as a Christian.
When he was 19, Ansanus’ own father denounced him as a Christian during a persecution. Ansanus boldly admitted his faith, and both he and Maxima were beaten and scourged; Maxima died from these wounds. Ansanus survived, and escaped Rome and fled north.
As he traveled, he told those he met the good news of Jesus Christ, and baptized so many people in the region near Siena that he became known as Ansanus the Baptizer. He was finally captured and beheaded by order of the emperor. More on St. Maxima and St. Ansanus
Simone Martini (c. 1284–1344) was an Italian painter born in Siena. He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style.
It is thought that Martini was a pupil of Duccio di Buoninsegna, the leading Sienese painter of his time. According to late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, Simone was instead a pupil of Giotto di Bondone, with whom he went to Rome to paint at the Old St. Peter’s Basilica, Giotto also executing a mosaic there. Martini’s brother-in-law was the artist Lippo Memmi. Very little documentation of Simone’s life survives, and many attributions are debated by art historians. According to E. H. Gombrich, he was a friend of Petrarch and had painted a portrait of Laura. More on Simone Martini
Lippo Memmi (c. 1291–1356) was an Italian painter from Siena. He was the foremost follower of Simone Martini, who was his brother-in-law.
Together with Martini, in 1333 he painted what is regarded as one of the masterworks of the International Gothic, the Annunciation with St. Margaret and St. Ansanus (above), probably mainly working on the two saints. He was one of the artists who worked at Orvieto Cathedral, for which he finished the Virgin of Mercy (“Madonna dei Raccomandati”). Later he followed Martini to the Papal court in Avignon, where he worked until the mid-14th century. After his return to Siena, Memmi continued to work until his death in 1356.
Memmi’s famed artwork, La Madonna della Febbre was the first venerated image of the Blessed Virgin Mary granted with a Canonical coronation by a Pope on 27 May 1631. The image has long been since held miraculous and is enshrined at the Sacristy chapel of the Blessed Sacrament inside Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. More on Lippo Memmi
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