The work

The Madonna and child in the act of blessing is seated on a majestic, richly inlaid wooden throne, behind which seven angels appear, intent on singing and playing the lute, while two others peek out from the armrests. Arranged around the main group are four sacred figures: Saint John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas of Bari standing on the platform of the throne, while Saint Fortunatus and Saint Michael the Archangel are kneeling on the polychrome marble floor.

The author of the painting is Giovanni Angelo d'Antonio da Bolognola, documented from 1443 and died between 1478 and 1481. The artist executed the work in the first half of the 1440s with a figurative language indebted to contemporary Florentine painting, in particular to the production of Filippo Lippi: the face and the halo of Saint Michael in the foreground are similar to those of the Archangel Gabriel in the Annunciazione Martelli in San Lorenzo in Florence; the prismatic simplifications of the drapery are indebted to those visible in the aforementioned Annunciazione and in the Incoronazione della Vergine in Sant’Ambrogio.

The resemblance of Saint Nicholas of Bari to the Saint Gregory the Great in the Madonna del pergolato appears impressive; this was painted in Perugia in 1447 by another important, older master from Camerino, Giovanni Boccati, who was also looking at the contemporary works of Filippo Lippi.

Between 1443 and 1451, close contacts are attested between Giovanni Angelo and Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici. It appears that the painter, in the company of Boccati, went to Florence several times in the first half of the fifth decade, residing specifically in the old Medici houses in via Larga.