The Annunciation, also known as the Cestello Annunciation, is a tempera painting by the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 master Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...

, circa 1489-1490. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery

Uffizi

The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...

 of Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

.

The picture was commissioned in 1489 by the church of the Florentine convent of Cestello which is now known as Santa Maria Maddalena de'Pazzi

Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi

Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi may refer to:*Santa María Magdalena de Pazzi *Church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi in Florence*Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in San Juan, Puerto Rico...

.

Underneath the painting on its original frame are words in Latin from St. Luke's Gospel 1:35 "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."