Very common, however, in Italian art, is a less fantastic, but still wholly poetical version of the Annunciation, representing, in fact, not the Annunciation, but the Incarnation.  Thus, in a picture by Giovanni Sanzio (the father of Raphael) (Brera, Milan), Mary stands under a splendid portico; she appears as if just risen from her seat her hands are meekly folded over her bosom; her head declined.  The angel kneels outside the portico, holding forth his lily; while above, in the heavens, the Padre Eterno sends forth the Redeemer, who, in form of the infant Christ bearing his cross, floats downwards towards the earth, preceded by the mystic Dove.  This manner of representing the Incarnation is strongly disapproved of by the Abbe Mery (v.  Theologie des Peintres), as not only an error, but a heresy:  yet it was frequently repeated in the sixteenth century.

The Annunciation is also a mystery when certain emblems are introduced conveying a certain signification; as when Mary is seated on a throne, wearing a radiant crown of mingled gems and flowers, and receives the message of the angel with all the majesty that could be expressed by the painter; or is seated, in a garden enclosed by a hedge of roses (the Hortus clausus or conclusus of the Canticles); or where the angel holds in his hands the sealed book, as in the famous altar-piece at Cologne.

In a picture by Simone Memmi, the Virgin seated on a Gothic throne receives, as the higher and superior being, yet with a shrinking timidity, the salutation of the angel, who comes as the messenger of peace, olive-crowned, and bearing a branch of olive in his hand.  (Florence Gal.) This poetical version is very characteristic of the early Siena school, in which we often find a certain fanciful and original way of treating well known subjects.  Taddeo Bartoli, another Sienese, and Martin Schoen, the most poetical of the early Germans, also adopted the olive-symbol; and we find it also in the tabernacle of King Rene, already described.

The treatment is clearly devotional and ideal where attendant saints and votaries stand or kneel around, contemplating with devout gratitude or ecstatic wonder the divine mystery.  Thus, in a remarkable and most beautiful picture by Fra Bartolomeo, the Virgin is seated on her throne; the angel descends from on high bearing his lily:  around the throne attend St. John the Baptist and St. Francis, St. Jerome, St. Paul, and St. Margaret. (Bologna Gal.) Again, in a very beautiful picture by Francia, Mary stands in the midst of an open landscape; her hands, folded over each other, press to her bosom a book closed and clasped:  St. Jerome stands on the right, John the Baptist on the left; both look up with a devout expression to the angel descending from above.  In both these examples Mary is very nobly and expressively represented as the chosen and predestined vehicle of human redemption.  It is not here the Annunciation, but the “Sacratissima Annunziata”