Conservation generously funded by Richard K. Riess.

Titian’s Annunciation was bequeathed to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in 1555 by Melio da Cortona, a celebrated jurist, and orator who also commissioned a burial chapel in the church of San Sebastiano (restored by Save Venice in 2018-2019) in honor of his ancestor of the same name. The painting is usually dated on the stylistic ground to the late 1530s, right after Titian’s lost Annunciation for the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Murano (1537), whose appearance is recorded in an engraving by Giacomo Caraglio.

Titian’s Annunciation is considered to be among the first prestigious works of art to have been displayed in the newly-constructed Scuola, some ten years prior to the creation of Tintoretto’s elaborate decorative cycle that was initiated in 1564. New archival discoveries show that by 1567 Titian’s painting could be found “above the door to the Sala dell’Albergo,” the room where the Scuola officers used to meet to run the confraternity. Such a new discovery also clarifies the reasons for the painting’s elaborate gilded wooden frame with the donor’s family crest, whose dimensions are in fact consistent with those of the door lintel. The canvas remained above the entrance of the Albergo until 1582, when it was moved to its current location on the wall over the landing of the monumental stairs.

In Titian’s painting, the scene of the Annunciation unfolds within a grand, open atrium, similar in concept to the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple at the Accademia Galleries, restored by Save Venice in 2010-2013. Beyond the balustrade, a lush landscape extends into the background, culminating in the distant mountains that recall those of Titian’s native Cadore region in the northern Veneto. Dressed as a classical Victory, the Archangel Gabriel is suspended in mid-air as he delivers the news to the Virgin Mary that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God. The figures are separated by a brilliant ray of divine light that radiates from the wings of the dove of the Holy Spirit. Mary crosses her arms upon her chest and directs her demure gaze downward, indicating her acceptance.

At the base of the Virgin’s prie-dieu are a red-legged partridge, an apple, and a sewing basket. Scholars have long noted that this sort of still-life carries symbolic meaning. It is the case, for example, with the apple, which alludes to the role of the Virgin as the nova Eva, the New Eve. It is also the case of the partridge, a bird believed of being able to conceive by the male’s mating call (afflatu fecunda), and therefore regarded since the Middle Ages as a symbol of the Incarnation of Christ through the angelic salutation (audita voce fecunda). Finally, it is the case with the sewing basket, which refers to the practice of depicting Mary spinning yarn for the new veil of the temple of Jerusalem—part of an earlier iconographic tradition that enjoyed particular popularity in the Byzantine era. This same motif appears in the mosaics at the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello, restored by Save Venice in 2018-2022.

In 2018, the painting underwent a campaign of scientific analysis and conservative maintenance led by Giulio Bono before being featured in the exhibition Tiziano/Gerhard Richter: Il cielo sulla terra, held at the Palazzo Te in Mantua. Beginning in the summer of 2021, Bono and his team undertook a full conservation treatment, restoring greater legibility of the original colors and three-dimensionality of the perspective between the figures, architecture, and landscape in the background. The conservation has also provided new evidence for dating the canvas and its place in Titian’s oeuvre.

The painting was restored with the guidance of project director Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel (Scuola Grande di San Rocco) and the Alta Sorveglianza of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio per il Comune di Venezia e Laguna.

Titian (c. 1488/90–1576)
Annunciation
c. late 1520s and early 1540s, oil on canvas
166 x 266 cm

Scuola Grande di San Rocco

Review of the Tiziano / Gerhard Richter. Il Cielo sulla Terra exhibition at the Palazzo Te in 2018 (New York Times)

Bono, Giulio and Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel, “L’Annunciazione nella Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Storia, interventi, ricerche.” Kermes, 114-115 (2019): 85-94

Chiari Moretto Wiel, Maria Agnese. “Ser Tuçian de Cador depentor. Tiziano e la Scuola Grande di San Rocco.” Studi tizianeschi, 12 (2022): 33-49

Cicogna, Emmanuele Antonio. Delle inscrizioni veneziane, vol. IV. Venice: Giuseppe Picotti Stampatore, 1834

Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel, ed. Titian’s Annunciation: Investigations, Conservation, Discoveries. Venice: Lineadacqua, 2024

Panofsky, Erwin. Problems in Titian. Mostly Iconographic. New York: New York University Press, 1969

Posocco, Franco and Salvatore Settis, eds. La Scuola Grande di San Rocco a Venezia. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini Editore, 2008

Rosand, David. “Tiziano sacro e profano.” Studi tizianeschi, 3 (2005): 57-66

Sapienza, Valentina. “Vecchi documenti, nuove letture. Ragionando sulla cronologia delle Storie di Maria di Jacopo Tintoretto per la sala terrena della Scuola Grande di San Rocco.” Venezia Cinquecento, 16, 32 (2007): 171-194