Museo della Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, Religious art museum in San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy.
The Museo della Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie occupies rooms beside the basilica in San Giovanni Valdarno, entered from the presbytery or from the left staircase of the portico. Its six rooms hold panel paintings from the late 14th to the 15th century, liturgical silver, vestments and 17th-century canvases. Room 4 is devoted to Beato Angelico's Annunciation.
A small collection of works from the basilica was set up in the sacristy rooms in 1864. In the 1950s the Florentine Superintendency moved the works to the building next to the basilica, where Luciano Berti catalogued and expanded them. The present museum opened in 1990, was enlarged and renovated between 2000 and 2005, and reopened in November 2005.
Room 5 keeps the works of Giovanni Mannozzi, called Giovanni da San Giovanni, born in the town in 1592: the signed Decollazione di san Giovanni Battista of 1620 and the Sposalizio della Vergine, a 1621 fresco detached from the basilica's outer ramp. The same room holds the 18th-century sacristy counter that stood there for that use.
The museum is entered either from inside the basilica, through a door to the right of the presbytery, or from outside via the left staircase of the portico. The yellow-painted arch with the black wrought-iron gate and red "Museo Basilica" panels marks the exterior way in. Six rooms follow one another, with the Annunciation room reached past a corridor of goldwork and liturgical objects.
The Annunciation of San Giovanni Valdarno by Beato Angelico came from the Franciscan convent of Montecarlo. Its attribution to Angelico was confirmed only after the restoration directed by Anna Maria Maetzke in the 1970s; it is dated to about 1432, and more recently to around 1440. It has a room to itself, room 4, reached past a corridor of goldwork and liturgical objects.
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