Annunciation of Cortona

[1] This is one of three Annunciations by Fra Angelico on panel (the other two are in the Prado Museum, and the Museo della Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, in San Giovanni Valdarno.

There are also scenes of the theme combined with Adoration of the Magi at the Museum San Marco, and a diptych in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria.

The scene is typical of Christian iconography, "The Annunciation to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel", is described in the Gospels and in great detail in The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, the reference book of painters of the Renaissance, which can be represented in all its symbolic (walled garden column, the presence of the Holy Spirit, an evocation of Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise).

On the left, the scene of invoking the original sin, is consistent with the principles of the Christian iconography of the painting: the pair of Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise is situated outside the walled garden of Mary, set off on a hill beyond a fence.

[3] As a consequence, one needs to turn a photo of the painting upside-down to comfortably read her words, "Ecce Ancilla Domini" (Behold the Handmaid of the Lord).