LOTTO, Lorenzo
(b. ca. 1480, Venezia, d. 1556, Loreto)

Scenes from the Life of the Virgin

1524
Fresco
San Michele al Pozzo Bianco, Bergamo

Lotto was commissioned in 1524 by Girolamo Passi, one of the governors of the Consorzio della Misericordia to paint a fresco cycle at San Michele al Pozzo Bianco in Bergamo. He painted scenes from the life of the Virgin in a chapel situated to the left of the chancel. The scenes of the cycle consist of the Birth of the Virgin in the lunette opposite the entrance, above the altar; the Presentation and the Marriage of the Virgin, combined in the right lunette; the Angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin Annunciate in the left lunette, and the Visitation, above the entrance to the chapel. Represented in the cupola is God the Father in a glory of angels, a traditional complement to the Annunciation group.

The Birth of the Virgin is set in a sixteenth-century domestic interior, with a beamed ceiling, a bottle-glass window, a Savonarola chair, and maidservants in contemporary dress. The scene retains the genre-like naturalism of the St Barbara frescoes at Trescore.




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