Annunciation with St Emidius

religious

In 1482, Pope Sixtus IV granted the small city of Ascoli Piceno in the Marche 'libertas ecclesiastica', the right to self-government free from direct papal rule. According to contemporary accounts, the news of this important grant reached Ascoli on 25 March, the feast day of the Annunciation, a date and sacred event that thereafter assumed a central importance in the civic culture of the city. Four years later, the Venetian painter Carlo Crivelli was commissioned by the Observant Franciscan convent of the Annunziata in Ascoli to paint an altarpiece of the Annunciation celebrating the occasion.

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About the Artist

Carlo Crivelli

1430 – 1495

Italian painter. He was born in Venice and always signed himself as a Venetian, but he spent most of his career working in the Marches, particularly at Ascoli Piceno, and he also lived for some time at Zara in Dalmatia (now Croatia). His paintings are all of religious subjects, done in a n elaborate, old-fashioned style that owes much to the wiry Paduan tradition of Squarcione and Mantegna and yet is highly distinctive. Their dense ornamentation is often increased by the use of gesso decoration combined with the paint. The finest collection of his works is in the National Gallery in London and includes the delightful and much reproduced Annunciation (1486). Vittore Crivelli (died 1501-02), Carlo's brother, was a faithful but pedestrian follower.

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