1513<\/p>\n
Fresco, SS. Annunziata, Florence.<\/p>\n
DOCUMENTS: A.S.F., Conv. Sopp. 119 (SS. Annunziata), no. 705<\/p>\n
(Libro del Camarlingo, Entrata e Uscita, October 1512 to 1516),<\/p>\n
c.109 r., 190 v., 112 v.:<\/p>\n
17 October 1513: \u201cA muraglia a d\u00ec decto sette suon per parte di dipintura del arme di messere Lorenzo Puci, port\u00f2 Giohanne batista decto el rosso – L.7 \u2013 \u201d<\/p>\n
20 October 1513: \u201cA spesse di muraglia a d\u00ec decto F. dua d\u2019oro porto Giohanni batista detto el rosso per parte di dipintura de larme de messere lorenzo pucci – L.14\u201d<\/p>\n
10 November 1513: \u201cA muraglia ad\u00ec decto F. dua doro inoro suon per resto di dipintura de larme sopra a Sancto Sebastiano porto Giohanne batista di jacopo dipintore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santuario della Santissima Annunziata<\/i>, 1876, 11-12, mentions the documentation of 1513, and the payment of 5 scudi, and places the arms over the door of the Pucci Chapel in the atrium.<\/p>\n
Milanesi, in Vasari-Milanesi, V, 156, n. 1, says that Rosso was paid 5 scudi according to Padre Filippo Maria Tozzi\u2019s Memorie del Convento de\u2019 Servi<\/i>, a manuscript at the church.\u00a0 Colnaghi, 1928, 236, as in Milanesi, but relates the last document to Rosso\u2019s Assumption<\/i>.\u00a0 Shearman, 1960, 153, published the documents related to this work.\u00a0 Carroll, 1987, 14, 33, n. 14, mentioned as above the door of the Pucci family chapel.\u00a0 Ciardi, 1994, 57-58, 95, n. 126.\u00a0 Costamagna, 1994, 22, 132, as done above the door in the atrium leading to the Pucci chapel.\u00a0 Franklin, 1994, 14, 296, Appendix A, DOCUMENTS 5a-c, while noting that it has been suggested that the arms were over the door in the atrium leading to the oratory of St. Sebastian, it is equally likely that they were located above the door at the right of the fa\u00e7ade of the church facing the street.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Vasari, 1550, 796, in the \u201cLife\u201d of Rosso: \u201cLavor\u00f2 sopra la porta di San Sebastiano de\u2019 Servi, l\u2019arme de\u2019 Pucci con due figure,…\u201d\u00a0 Vasari, 1568, II, 205 (Vasari-Milanesi, V, 156): \u201cLavor\u00f2 sopra la porta di san Sebastiano de\u2019 Servi, essendo ancor sbarbato, quando Lorenzo Pucci fu da papa Leone fatto Cardinale, l\u2019arme de Pucci, con due figure,…\u201d\u00a0 Kusenberg, 1931, 8, 9, mentioned.\u00a0 Venturi, IX, 5, 193-194, as done after September 23 when Pucci was made a Cardinal, wrongly relating the last document to Rosso\u2019s Assumption<\/i>, following Colnaghi.\u00a0 Paatz, I, 1940, 122, as painted over the door of the chapel of the Pucci but without specifying which door.<\/p>\n As had already been thought, Shearman, 1960, 153, and 1965, I, 166, placed these lost arms over the door to the Pucci Chapel, dedicated to St. Sebastian, that occupies the wall space in the atrium of the Annunziata immediately to the right of where Sarto was at this very same time executing his Birth of the Virgin<\/i>.\u00a0 Ciardi and Mugnaini, 1991, also placed them there and wondered if traces might still be found in situ<\/i>.\u00a0 In documents for other work when it is known that work in the atrium is meant this door is clearly indicated as \u201cla porta di Sancto Bastiano\u201d and \u201cla porta … della chapella di San Bastiano\u201d but it is also called \u201cla porta del fianco della chapella di San Bastiano\u201d (see under P.3<\/a>).\u00a0 Hence Shearman could be right.\u00a0 But this is not absolutely certain.\u00a0 It is just possible that the door was the one on the exterior of the chapel facing the piazza in front of the Annunziata, as Franklin also suggested, and that this is the location that Vasari meant by not referring to the atrium (cortile), which he does mention when writing of Rosso\u2019s Assumption<\/i>.\u00a0 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio\u2019s Annunciation<\/i>, evaluated in September 1514 (Vasari-Milanesi, IV, 575, and VI, 539), in the Cappella dei Priori of the Palazzo Vecchio, shows the fa\u00e7ade of the church, which does not, it is true, have anything painted over this door (Thiem, 1961, 2, Fig. 1).\u00a0 But it also does not show the sculpted Medici arms and Pontormo\u2019s Faith<\/i> and Charity<\/i> above the porch although the latter were completed by June 1514 (Clapp, 1916, 166).\u00a0 In other words, Ghirlandaio\u2019s depiction may well not show the actual appearance of the fa\u00e7ade at the time he executed his fresco.\u00a0 To celebrate Pucci\u2019s elevation to the cardinalate his arms showing his ecclesiastical rank would have perhaps made a greater impression above the outside door than above the entrance to the chapel from the atrium.\u00a0 If they were outside they would, two years hence, have formed a counterpart to the arms of Leo X with two figures by Rosso executed in 1515 over the outside door at the far left of the church leading to the Chiostro de\u2019 Morti (L.9<\/a>).\u00a0 It should be noted that in his 1568 reference to the Pucci arms Vasari mentions that he was made a cardinal by Leo X.\u00a0 Furthermore, in presenting the arms of Leo X, Vasari says that they were over another<\/i> door at the church, apparently referring back to his only shortly preceding mention of the Pucci arms.\u00a0 In this outside location, which Berti, 1983, 55, also indicates, Rosso would not have been working right next to Sarto while he was painting his Birth of the Virgin<\/i>, and working outside might have been a more possible situation.\u00a0 If painted on the exterior fa\u00e7ade of the chapel, the arms would have been destroyed with the remodeling of the fa\u00e7ade in 1601-1604 (Santuario della Santissima Annunziata<\/i>, 1876, 4-7, and Paatz, I, 1940, 68, 78, 142, n. 72).\u00a0 Why and when the arms would have been removed from the atrium, had they been painted there, are not known.<\/p>\n The fresco may have shown the two figures mentioned by Vasari flanking the coat-of-arms somewhat like the arrangement in Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini\u2019s drawing in the Louvre (Thiem, 1961, 3, Fig. 3 and 5) of the arms of Leo X designed in 1513.\u00a0 But instead they may have been shown holding up the coat-of-arms above them as may have been the case with Rosso\u2019s later arms of Leo X on the fa\u00e7ade of the Annunziata.\u00a0 With two figures the Pucci arms might have been a more extensive work than the coats-of-arms that he painted shortly before in the \u201ccamera del generale\u201d of this church (L.7<\/a>).<\/p>\n