1. Real Monasterio de la Encarnación

Art direction: Paco Azorín

Design and production: Pedro Chamizo

The Annunciation, by Fra Angelico

Prado National Museum

Painting in gold and egg tempera for the convent of St Dominic in Fiesole. Probably commissioned by Angelo di Zanobi di Taddeo Gaddi, grandson of the painter Taddeo Gaddi. Undervalued for decades by critics, who considered it a late version of The Annunciation of Cortona with extensive workshop participation, the  Prado’s Annunciation is now considered one of the painter’s first masterpieces. It was made at a decisive moment for Florentine art, when followers of the international Gothic style, such as Lorenzo Monaco and Gerardo Starnina worked in the City, painters aware of Nordic innovations, such as  Gentile da Fabriano and revolutionary artists such as Masaccio and Brunelleschi.

The Visitation: Scenes from the Life of the Virgin, Fra Angelico

Prado National Museum 

The Visitation appears in the predella or lower bench with five scenes, which is part of the main altarpiece. These five paintings constitute a great masterpiece due not only to Fra Angelico’s prodigious technique and his great artistic and aesthetic refinement but also to the extraordinary emotion with which he narrates the events in each scene, which deeply moves the viewer. The predella consists of five panels representing episodes in the life of the Virgin in chronological order: Birth and Betrothal, Visitation, Adoration of the Magi, Presentation in the Temple and Transitus.

The Royal Monastery of the Incarnation is a convent of Augustinian Recollect nuns. It was founded by Queen Margaret of Austria in the early 17th century. Its art collections make it (together with the Descalzas Reales monastery) one of the most outstanding churches in Madrid. It was designed by Friar Alberto de la Madre de Dios, one of the great architects of the Spanish Baroque, and built between 1611 and 1616. The façade follows a model inspired by Herrero’s very austere style, which led to a school that other Spanish churches imitated.

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