Il trittico con l'Annunciazione di Carlo Braccesco del Louvre: una rilettura sulla strada per Gerusalemme

The present work on Carlo Braccesco's trittico including Annunciation and Saints, kept at the Louvre, tries to throw light not only on the figurative aspect, but also on the possible origin of the painting thanks to a new and more precise analysis of its iconography. The landscape on the background of the Annunciation clearly recalls the Holy City, the Places of Christ's Passion and on the two side panels there are two main figures of the Carmelite spirituality: on the one hand the canon lawyer St. Albert of Vercelli, identified with the bishop standing next to St. Benedict, and on the other hand one of the first patres Ordinis, St. Angelus of Licata, martyr, portrayed next to St. Stephen. The interpretation of such a landscape greatly recalls the paschal dimension of Jerusalem, the spirituality of the Carmelites Order, mainly inclined to a Resurrection perspective. In the trittico, such a perspective is evoked by the combination of two aspects: the representation of the first fundamental act of the historia salutis, the Annunciation, and of the two martyrs and two canon lawyers of the consecrated life, emblematic figures of the realization of life in Christ, of the "already and not yet".