Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Scheduled with free admission from 29 November 2019 to 12 January 2020 

Milan, November 2 2019 - The Christmas appointment with art is renewed again this year: the doors of Palazzo Marino they open from 29 November 2019 to 12 January 2020 to allow the Milanese and increasingly numerous tourists to admire a great masterpiece by Filippino Lippi, an Annunciation that the Tuscan master painted in two large tondos: one depicting "The Announcing Angel", the other “The Annunziata”.

"This year the theme of Christmas is celebrated with an extraordinary work, coming from the civic collections of San Gimignano, which we thank for wanting to share with our city a masterpiece that has belonged to it for over five centuries - declares the Councilor for Culture Filippo Del Corno - Once again, the Municipalities participate in the Christmas celebrations by proposing an art initiative that follows the same model of Palazzo Marino, that is, with the exhibition, again free of charge, of two other important works from the Milanese civic collections and, in particular, from the Sforzesco Castle".

Owner of the work exhibited at Palazzo Marino it has always been the Municipality of San Gimignano, which commissioned it in 1482 precisely to decorate the Town Hall. A secular commission, from the Priors and Captains of the Guelph Party, of which the Municipal Historical Archive preserves complete documentation.

Even though the power that the city had expressed in the fourteenth century was now long gone, San Gimignano remained an important centre, frequented by Benozzo Gozzoli and Pinturicchio, Benedetto da Maiano and Antonio del Pollaiolo, Ghirlandaio and Pier Francesco Fiorentino. A panel by the latter artist will be restored on this occasion, thanks to the collaboration between the two administrations. 

Conserved in the Civic Art Gallery of San Gimignano, the two large tondos were created between 1483 and 1484, when Filippino, a pupil of Sandro Botticelli, was 26 years old and already engaged in important commissions including the Brancacci Chapel in Florence.

The subject of the Annunciation was very important for the city of San Gimignano, where, as in Florence, the celebration of the Santissima Annunziata, on March 25, represented the first day of the year according to the Florentine calendar. 
The exhibition is curated by Alessandro Cecchi, one of the major scholars of Tuscan art between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and will be presented in the Sala Alessi of Palazzo Marino with a dedicated setup, a large didactic apparatus and the projection of a video.

The tondo with the Annunziata Angel presents the Angel kneeling on a floor in central perspective, while the tondo with the Annunciation appears more airy and bright thanks to the diagonally reflected light. The carved, painted, gilded and silvered wooden frames were probably made six years later by Antonio da Colle, active in San Gimignano in the second half of the fifteenth century. 

“It is an honor to be able to send as ambassadors of our city the tondi by Filippino Lippi commissioned by the city of San Gimignano in 1482 and preserved in our art gallery. We are bound by a relationship of esteem with the city of Milan and the desire to intensify dialogue and collaboration between entities in our country of Italy. If we look at our history we still find precious connections with the city of Milan: the architect Piero Bottoni who in the 50s drew up our master plan for San Gimignano, protecting and enhancing our historic center with its towers. Last but not least, saffron, the spice that we have grown since the Middle Ages, still today a precious PDO of San Gimignano, and a renowned ingredient of Milanese cuisine", states Carolina Taddei, Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of San Gimignano.