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Angel story

Posted: 13 Feb 2014, 03:17
by Huck
Recently, during my collection to the sons of Antonio Canacci ...

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... I stumbled about this interpretation of Ficino. I felt remembered on our discussion ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=983
... about "Collection: "3 Magi" and "3 theological virtues""

There I talked about my opinion/suspicion, that Sun-Moon-Star somehow presented the 3 holy kings.

Today I stumbled about the fitting Angel. I never heard about this story before, but when I read it, I got the idea, , that it's meaning - regarding "our" Tarot- or Minchiate-story - is rather clear.


http://www.anatomyofnorbiton.org/other% ... ssance.php

That's not the Angel, but a following one. Actually I started to search for Benedetto Salutati, cause I've seen the name in a Canacci context. I found this ...

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from: http://books.google.de/books?id=v9NNIYC ... ti&f=false

.. and I were attracted by the question. So I read a little bit around especially before this passage to get the meaning of this short passage. What I read at first view looked a little "not believable to me" (I recommend to read a little bit yourself ...), that I first checked what's behind the story and I wanted to know, how much the author exaggerated this stuff. Wiki knew something about the SS Anunciata, about which the author spoke:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santissima ... ,_Florence
History

The church was founded in 1250 by the seven original members of the Servite order. In 1252, a painting of the Annunciation, which had been begun by one of the monks but abandoned in despair because he did not feel he could create a beautiful enough image, was supposedly completed by an angel while he slept. This painting was placed in the church and became so venerated that in 1444 the Gonzaga family from Mantua financed a special tribune. Michelozzo, who was the brother of the Servite prior, was commissioned to build it, but since Ludovico III Gonzaga had a special admiration for Leon Battista Alberti, Alberti in 1469 was given the commission. His vision was limited, however, by the pre-existing foundations. Construction was completed in 1481, after Alberti’s death. Though the space was given a Baroque dressing in the seventeenth century, the basic scheme of a domed circular space flanked by altar niches is still visible.[1]

The facade of the church was added in 1601 by the architect Giovanni Battista Caccini, in imitation of Brunelleschi's facade of the Foundling Hospital, which defines the eastern side of the piazza. The building across from the Foundling Hospital, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, was also given a Brunelleschian facade in the 1520s.
Veneration

Pilgrims who came to the church to venerate the miraculous painting often left wax votive offerings, many of them life-size models of the donor (sometimes complete with horses). In 1516, a special atrium was built to house these figures, the Chiostrino dei Voti. By the late 18th century there were some six hundred of these images and they had become one of the city's great tourist attractions. In 1786, however, they were all melted down to make candles.

The Florentine brides traditionally visit the shrine to leave their bouquets.
This was remarkable and it captured my focus. The article is, as I got it later, relative harmless. There's actually even more behind it.
The author of the book article gives the connected picture a similar rank as the "3 Magi theme". As I've read elsewhere, there were other venerated pictures around Florence connected to similar stories ...
http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/ ... e-workers/
.... but as I've also read, already before the year 1400 people started to run for this picture.
Florentine Franco Sacchetti (1332–1400) noted with some amusement a certain competition among the city’s miracle-working images: “There was a time when each person ran to Santa Maria da Cigoli; then to Santa Maria della Selva; then the fame increased of Santa Maria in Impruneta, then to Fiesole, to Santa Maria Primerana; and then to Our Lady of Orsanmichele; then they abandoned all of these and every person has converged on the Annunziata of the Servites where, in one manner or another, there have been placed and hung so many [votive] images that if the wall hadn’t been reinforced with chains a little while ago, they would have been in danger of coming down together with the roof.”

Here I get also this information ...
The rich tabernacle framing the Annunziata was commissioned in 1448 by the Medici family. Small copies could be seen set into walls along the streets of Florence, and the composition became one of the two models most often used in the city for depicting the Annunciation (the other was a mosaic in the baptistery from the late thirteenth century). When important foreign guests visited the city, they were taken first to see the Annunziata, even before meeting with officials. Rich and poor alike made votive dedications to the image. Some of these were in the form of simple stamped reliefs; others were paintings or wax effigies. Although the ex-votos had been culled periodically, some 3,600 were extant before they were removed from Santissima Annunziata in the 1630s over strong popular protest
I didn't get it at first view, but later I realized it ...
If the Medici sponsored a frame for this famous picture, it very likely had been set in action with festivities at annunciation day (25th of March, which was begin of the year in Florence) in 1448. Calculating from this date to "the common 9 months later" we've then "birth of Lorenzo de Medici", 1st of January 1449. What shall one say ... the magic of annunciation day had worked. The Medici needed urgently (after birth of girls) a male heir and they got it. Lorenzo got a birth tray and it showed Fame as an Angel. Painter: La Scheggia.
... here's the picture ...

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