The still garden of veneration - the Bardi Madonna, by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1485

 

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The Virgin Mary is shown enthroned preparing to breastfeed the infant Jesus. She is flanked by a pair of Saint Johns; John the Baptist on the left, and John the Evangelist on the right. The figures are presented in a densely detailed setting; plants and flowers so dominate that only small patches of sky remain visible, all of it suggesting a hortus conclusus or closed garden, a very traditional visual reference to the Virgin Mary. The composition is loaded with iconographic symbols and text, some obvious, others more obscure. But the walled garden, the white lilies in vases, the red flowers, the palms, clearly evoke the purity of Mary, the future Passion of Christ, and illustrate the Virgin's place in Christian mysticism.

The tempera on wood panel measures 185 x 180 cm (approximately 73 x 71 inches). The altarpiece was commissioned by the rich Florentine banker Agnolo Bardi, who had returned home after more than twenty years as a banker and wool merchant in London, where he was known as "John de Barde." Installed in his family chapel at the Santo Spirito Basilica in Florence, it is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The frame is by Giuliano da Sangallo who, at the time, was just becoming Lorenzo de' Medici's favorite architect. It's thought that the altarpiece may have included other panels, now missing.