The Chiostrino dei Voti is a porticoed courtyard in front of the basilica of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence. There is an important cycle of frescoes in the lunettes, painted by important masters between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: in particular, all the greatest "new masters" who would later give rise to Mannerism worked there in the tens of the century: Andrea del Sarto , Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino.
The architecture of the so-called "cloister" was begun in 1447 based
on a design by Michelozzo. The fresco decoration of the lunettes began
in 1460, thanks to the subsidy of donations from the faithful. The
decoration proceeded extremely slowly, having to wait sixteen years
between the first lunette, Baldovinetti's Adoration of the Shepherds,
and the second, Cosimo Rosselli's Calling of Saint Philip Benizi. Only
from 1509 did the works take on a decisive surge, with the activity of
Andrea del Sarto who completed the Stories of San Filippo Benizi within
two years.
Then the Stories of Mary resumed, again by Sarto, with
the Journey of the Magi (1511), which was followed by a new pause. The
desire of Leo X to grant the sanctuary of the Annunziata the prestigious
title of perpetual Jubilee meant that in 1513 the decorations were
resumed with fervor, calling in a larger group of artists. Thus
Franciabigio was added, who in 1513 executed the Marriage of the Virgin,
a work mutilated by the same artist in the face of Mary, offended by the
friars who had gone to peek at the work before it was complete. Il Sarto
completed the Birth of the Virgin in 1514 and on 8 September of that
year the solemn celebrations for the granting of the jubilee privilege
took place.
The following year Andrea del Sarto entrusted the
decoration of the two remaining lunettes to two of his promising pupils,
Pontormo, who painted the Visitation in 1516, and Rosso Fiorentino, who
repainted the Assumption of Mary following indications from the master
in 1517, after a first version of it, made in 1513-1514, had been
rejected by the patrons.
The close collaboration between the
artists involved in the decoration has led to talk of a "Scuola della
Santissima Annunziata", a forge of the Florentine manner, as opposed to
the "Scuola di San Marco" headed by Fra Bartolomeo and Mariotto
Albertinelli.
Between 1656 and 1687 the cloister, in
correspondence with an empty lunette, housed Beato Angelico's Silver
Cabinet. Later it became customary to place offerings from the faithful,
including painted and sculpted images as ex votos.
Over the
centuries the Chiostro dei Voti underwent several restorations. Leopold
II of Tuscany had the room closed with an iron and glass structure, in
order to protect the frescoes from bad weather. Restorations followed in
1857, 1885 and 1912. From 1957 and until 1964-1965 the frescoes were
detached, which limited, in a certain sense, the damage caused by the
1966 flood. An intervention by consolidation of the pictorial film of
the frescoes took place in 1980, while a complete restoration campaign
was completed in 2018.
The "small cloister" is not a cloister in the strict sense (it is not
at the center of the monastery rooms), but rather an atrium that recalls
its shapes for the four sides with porticoes with round arches supported
by columns with Corinthian capitals and vaults cross, which generate
sixteen lunettes on the walls, twelve of which are frescoed. The name of
the space derives from the ex votos that were once collected and
exhibited here. They ranged from small paintings to actual statues, in
wood, decorated plaster or wax, which filled every available space, but
were removed from their headquarters and definitively destroyed in 1785,
apparently at the suggestion of the Jansenist Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo
of Lorraine.
The marble Madonna with Child is instead attributed
to Michelozzo. The door on this side is the side entrance to the oratory
of San Sebastiano.
On the left-hand side wall, between lunettes 2
and 3, is the bust of Andrea del Sarto by Giovanni Caccini. On the right
side, in one of the two central empty lunettes, there were once the
doors of Beato Angelico's silver cabinet, moved from the Chapel of the
Madonna in 1656 and today in the San Marco Museum, which remained there
until 1687, for protect them from the weather. Here today you can see a
high relief of the Madonna della Neve, attributed to Luca della Robbia
and placed here in 1923, and the door of the oratory of San Sebastiano.
The decoration with crests, lilies and grotesques was commissioned
by Piero di Cosimo de' Medici. The six medallions of the Prophets, on a
vault, are attributed to Andrea Feltrini between 1510 and 1514.
The two bronze stoups on the columns in front of the main entrance to
the church were made by Francesco Susini in (1615). The glass and iron
cover dates back to the second half of the 19th century.
The valuable frescoes that decorate the walls are well known, which were detached, restored and finally relocated after the Flood of Florence on November 4, 1966. They narrate the stories of the Life of Mary and those of St. Philip Benizi, the first friar of the Order of Servants of Mary to be canonized (died 1285), propagator of the cult of the Virgin and of the Order in Italy and beyond of the Alps. This explains the choice of chosen subjects: the stories of San Filippo Benizzi explain why he was the most revered served together with the seven founding saints, while the stories of Mary explain why she is the titular of the church. The numbers in the list of lunettes refer to their order from left to right, for those entering from the square, considering only the frescoed ones.