MOCHI, Francesco
(b. 1580, Montevarchi, d. 1654, Roma)

Angel of Annunciation

1603-09
Marble, over life-size
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Orvieto

The Late Renaissance Classicism passed into the early Baroque in the early works of of Mochi, the Annunciation figures from Orvieto Cathedral. The most striking quality of Mochi's figures is their clarity and simple directness; they have none of the empty rhetorical gestures of much Mannerist art, and so illustrate admirably the Counter-Reformation demands for intelligibility and realism.

See also the Virgin Annunciate.