Annunciation (Fra Angelico, Florence)

The angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the son of God (Luke 1:26-38), the two figures bowing toward each other under a plain Renaissance portico whose Corinthian columns echo the real cloister of San Marco. Fra Angelico frescoed this at the top of the friars' dormitory stairs, so that monks met it as they climbed to their cells; its hush and bareness - a stool, a barred window, a strip of garden - are designed for contemplation, not display. Compared with his jewel-like Prado Annunciation, this version strips the scene to essentials, and is the most loved of all his works.