Ludovico Urbani and Lorenzo D’Alessandro were without doubt the most important representatives of the Renaissance in the Marches region. We have few reliably- identified works by Urbani, among which are the signed triptych depicting the Madonna enthroned with Child and angels with Saints Benedict and Sebastian conserved at the Museo Diocesano di Recanati (previously in that city’s Cathedral) and Madonna enthroned with Child and Saints Anthony the Abbot and Nicholas of Bari, on the market for some time but originally from the church of Santa Maria in Castelnuovo di Recanati. The former is datable via documents to around 1477, and the second around 1480.

A stylistic comparison with these two works allows us to confirm our painting’s attribution, observing the characteristics of the faces, the clothing and the setting of the scene.

The work was surely part of the predella of an altarpiece, i.e. one of the small, horizontal paintings below the altarpiece itself that “explained” to the faithful the story of a saint through hagiographic elements, for example, or enriched the image in the altarpiece with descriptions of events that occurred prior to or following the one depicted above. In this specific case, Urbani divides the scene into two parts, taking full advantage of knowledge that became innovative and refined during the course of the Renaissance: the construction of a perspective box within which figures can live and move about as if the viewer were observing the image through a window or an architectural aperture. The prelate on the right in adoration of the sacred host is in fact inside this “architectural construction” that divides the space of the story into two separate parts. On the left, the event of the Annunciation is illustrated inside a structure consisting of large arcades that allow us to see the setting in which the figures, much larger than the perspective scale would make them, experience the sacred moment.

The two subjects are united for a specific purpose - to educate people about the mystery of the Eucharist: the Annunciation is the incarnation of the body of Christ who becomes man through the Virgin Mary. This iconographic element, depicted on the left, leads to the successive development on the right, where the prelate is in adoration of the Body of Christ symbolized by a large host hovering above the chalice from which blood of the Redeemer is drunk. We can thus hypothesize, observing the iconographic connection between the two parts, that the commissioner must have requested a Eucharist-themed subject, so the altarpiece above it may have depicted a Lamentation or a Crucifixion, thus celebrating the body of Christ and the parable of humanity’s redemption.