BORGO SAN LORENZO (pieve di San Lorenzo) – The canvas depicts Saint John the Evangelist who, sitting on the lower left side, appears in the act of writing on a book, with the back of three saints identifiable in Saint Antonino, Bishop of Florence and dominican, St. Catherine of Siena, also belonging to the order of San Domenico and Santa Margherita. On the top right, above a cloud being held up by angels, the Virgin is present, depicted in a very particular view. The scene is clearly identifiable with the episode recounted in the Apocalypse, concerning John’s vision of the Immaculate Conception with the moonshine at his feet. The painting is traditionally attributed to Jacopo Vignali and dated around the mid-seventeenth century. The painter, originally from Pratovecchio, was one of the most prolific interpreters of the second phase of the Florentine Seventeenth Century, to which he has made an important contribution thanks to his narrative, chromatic and glittering painting. The altarpiece is crowned by a lunette, of the very same Vignali, depicting the image of the Annunciation, which completes the “Holy Mary” theme of the whole painting, resembling rather faithfully the fresco of the fourteenth century revered in the Florentine sanctuary of the SS. Annunziata.
© Il Filo – Idee e Notizie dal Mugello
