Image: Sandro Botticelli, Annunciation, 1489–90, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence
The Uffizi has drawn attention to Sandro Botticelli’s Annunciation in a social media post linking to the painting’s entry on its collection site, pointing to one of the Florentine master’s devotional paintings and situating it within the museum’s painting collection. The institution’s post focuses on the work’s quiet but carefully constructed composition, in which an austere room and a window opening onto a harmonious landscape frame the moment of the Annunciation as the figures seem almost to move toward one another.
According to the Uffizi’s object page, 'Annunciazione' dates to 1489–90 and is a tempera on panel measuring 150 by 156 centimeters. The painting is associated with Botticelli, identified on the page as Sandro Botticelli of Florence, 1445–1510. The work is listed in the museum’s painting collection, with inventory number 1890 n. 1608, and hangs in room A12, Botticelli – Venus.
The museum notes that the panel was commissioned in 1489 by the Florentine money changer Benedetto di ser Francesco Guardi for the family chapel in the church of Santa Maria Maddalena in borgo Pinti, Florence. The entry also preserves the work’s original frame, which was painted at the bottom with the patron’s coat of arms and a figure of Christ in pietà. Two Latin inscriptions from the Gospel of Luke appear on the painting and refer to the Incarnation: 'Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi' and 'Ecce ancilla Domini fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.'
In its descriptive text, the Uffizi underlines the painting’s essential setting, where almost all furnishings are absent, and the restrained clothing of the archangel Gabriel and the Virgin, marked by reduced color and decoration. The museum connects the heightened and slightly theatrical gestures of the figures to a search for simplicity and religious fervor associated with the years of Girolamo Savonarola’s preaching in Florence. The page also identifies traditional Marian symbols, including the opening in the wall that suggests Mary as the gate of heaven and the enclosed garden in the background, a sign of the Virgin’s purity.
The work appears within the Uffizi’s broader interpretive framework, which includes 'Fabbriche di Storie', a cultural mediation project referenced on the page, and the museum’s Ipervisioni material. The entry also credits the text to Daniela Parenti. The object page is presented through the museum’s collection site, rather than as an exhibition announcement, and it gives viewers direct access to the painting’s data, history and iconography.
There is no dated exhibition attached: the panel is part of the permanent display. The record provides the key facts: Botticelli’s 'Annunciazione', painted in 1489–90, in tempera on panel, 150 by 156 centimeters, commissioned for a family chapel in Florence and now held by the Uffizi in the painting collection.
