Leonardo da Vinci at the Uffizi gallery in Florence
New hypotheses for the reading of this painting have arisen after its admirable restoration by Alfio Del Serra, which has rivived not only its luminosity and clarity of detail but also a stronger sense of perspective in the foreshortened architecture on the right, where the splendid red drapery in the room is now visible through the open door.
The sacred event of the Annunciation seems to take place at dawn, within a refined, aristocratic setting which symbolically emphasizes Mary's regal nature. Restoration has also revaluated the innumerable varieties of flowers studied from life in the meadow in the foreground, and the surprising luminosity of the landscape. From the cypresses and other trees beyond the balcony an incomparable imaginary veduta fades into the distance where the minute details of a lake-side city blend into the bluish tones of the bare mountains in the background with clouds hovering above them.
Still uncertain the patron of the work, transferred to the Uffizi in 1867 from the Church of San Bartolomeo a Oliveto. This may not have been its original location, since Giorgio Vasari, a friend of the Olivetan Friar Don Miniato Pitti, who had given him much information for the first edition of the Lives, fails to mention it among the works there in his time or before.
The dating is still controversial, ranging from the early 1470s when the artist was only a little over twenty, an increasingly convincing supposition, almost up to the beginning of the next decade. In some details the influence of Verrocchio, or perhaps Leonardo's homage to his master, can be recongnized, especially in the memorable base supporting the lectern (resting on a circular disc inscribed in a square) reminiscent of the famous porphyry sarcophagus with lion's paws and floral elements in bronze commissioned of Verrocchio in 1469 for the Sepulcher of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici in San Lorenzo.
