The Annunciation / Virgin and Child c. 1510
[THE NARRATOR, spoken]
On the first day of July 1489, in the still heat of a Florentine palazzo, an unnamed woman knelt on the sweltering stones of the terracotta courtyard, and gave birth to a baby boy. The birth was unattended by midwife or meddler, and the mother is said to have cut the umbilical cord herself, with a pair of golden embroidery scissors concealed in her apron pocket. Hours later, the head of the house, Lorenzo the First de’ Medici, had her executed for spilling women’s blood on tile normally reserved for duels, and therefore strictly for the blood of men. Many of the details surrounding the birth of Epifanio Medici take the form of apocrypha, rather than solidified historical fact. We can be sure of the date of his birth, as official astrological reports were drawn up not long after the fact. Everything else, however, remains in question, and the story that is usually told seems unlikely to be true.

The identity of Epifanio Medici’s mother was never confirmed, but it is even less clear which Medici fathered him, if any at all. We do know that he grew up within the bounds of the Medici household, and that when Piero the Unfortunate was overthrown in 1494, a five-year old Epifanio Medici narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a soldier of Charles the Eighth.

There is a great deal of contention as to from whom Epifanio learned his craft. His work bears distinct resemblances to some of his contemporaries—most notably Michelangelo—but other influences, such as Van Eyck’s portraiture, Aztec stone tablets, and even Goya’s Black Pantings are so distinct, as to be almost plagiaristic at times. These last two sources, however, must have been fallaciously identified. There is no way that Epifanio could have had access to either of them, due to the lack of information on South American culture in Europe at the time, and the fact that Francisco Goya would not be born until 1746.

Epifanio Medici married a 16 year old girl named Anzola Abbandonato in 1509, and she is the subject of his first two paintings, which you now see before you. On the left is Medici’s “Annunciation”, and on the right his “Madonna and Child”, both painted in 1510. It was not entirely unknown for artists of the time to use their mistresses, daughters, or wives as models for the Virgin Mary, but Epifanio may have also used these paintings to dispel rumors that Anzola was a prostitute, taken under the already low-born Abbandonato family’s wing. These whisperings, on top of Epifanio’s status as a bastard, would have made their marriage a scandal.

Note how the light filters through the angel’s wings in the first painting, gently coming to rest in an almost filigree-like effect on Mary’s brow. Both portraits convey the special tenderness that Anzola echoed in the letter where she referenced: “Your ever-blossoming, tender, burgeoning love for me, Epifanio, that takes wing in the cave of Heaven’s hand, and sings high enough to touch the moon.”

This filigree effect is echoed gently in the background of the second painting, where the trees fringing the horizon seem almost to dissolve into midair, contrary to the solidity of Mary’s hands, and the steady, almost ferocious passion of her gaze.

It is rumoured that Epifanio painted Anzola as Mary precisely because he wanted their child to be a son, but this was not to be. In late 1511, Anzola gave birth to Antonia, their first child, and their only progeny to survive to adulthood. The family’s life would not be an easy one.

The next work of art, Epifanio’s famous “Triptych”, seems to be an allegory for the tumultuous few years that would end with their relocation to the Spanish countryside.