Annunciation

Located on a hill in the Tuscan Apennines above the Casentino valley, the Sanctuary of La Verna is said to have been built at the place where Saint Francis received the stigmata. Saint Francis himself arranged for the first little church — the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli — to be built on the hill in 1218. The Chiesa Maggiore (Upper Church) was constructed between 1348 and 1459. Andrea della Robbia and his workshop worked for the Franciscans of La Verna from the 1470s. Their first works for the sanctuary were the glazed terracotta reliefs depicting the Annunciation (ca. 1475) and the Adoration of the Child (1479). The reliefs were placed on two side altars — one in the Niccolini Chapel and one in the Brizi Chapel — of the Chiesa Maggiore. By 1490, Andrea had made five further glazed terracotta reliefs for the Sanctuary of La Verna. In 1908, the Museum of Fine Arts ordered plaster casts of just two of the reliefs, both of which are exhibited here.