Relief with the Annunciation

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This relief is one of seven panels from a pulpit in the church of San Piero Scheraggio in Florence, which was dismantled sometime between 1410 and 1755. In medieval Italy, pulpits were used for the reading of the Gospels and the Epistles and were located on the south side of the choir. Here, the Virgin and the archangel Gabriel stand in separate niches under a city wall. The fluid treatment of the drapery, the form of the figures, and the combination of narrative reliefs with a background of inlaid serpentine are characteristic of Florentine sculpture around 1200.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art