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Santa Verdiana Museum
Castelfiorentino
The wooden groups by Mariano d’Agnolo Romanelli and Francesco di Valdambrino
 At the end of the 1980’s, Bagnoli attributed this sculptural group to Mariano d’Agnolo Romanelli, a stone and wood master sculptor and goldsmith, and dated it to 1380’s. Mariano d’Agnolo Romanelli was a key figure in the Sienese artistic milieu at the end of the 14th century and reached the apex of his career with this work. It represents the Announcing Angel and the Virgin Mary, almost life-sized. The group comes from the antique Church of Santa Maria della Marca of Castelfiorentino. In front of these two figures, engaged in an exceptional dialogue, we are still charmed by the child-faced, smiling angel and by the Virgin with her timid, lowered look and little mouth, dressed in a simple gown, from which only two little pointed black shoes peek out.
 This fascinating carved wooden group, evidently depicting the Virgin Mary and the Announcing Angel, is presently housed at the National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa, but it comes from the Pisan Church of San Francesco.
On the basis of evident iconographic analogies, the two statues have been compared by critics, since the end of the 19th century, to the marble groups by Nino Pisano, and therefore attributed to one of his best collaborators. Carlo Del Bravo already in 1970, presented the theory that the group could be related to the sculptor Francesco di Valdambrino. It was after its restoration, carried out at the beginning of the 1980’s, that it was possible to reconstruct more precisely Francesco’s early activity, especially in and around Lucca and Pisa. Therefore, it was possible to attribute this Annunciation to him and date it at the end of the 14th century.
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