Parts of a triptych: Annunciation and saints Jerome and Lawrence

Paolo Schiavo's Parts of a Triptych: Annunciation and Saints Jerome and Lawrence, dated 1427 and now in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, is a work by a Florentine painter who worked in the late Gothic tradition while absorbing the new spatial and figural innovations being developed in Florence by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and their circle. Schiavo worked in Florence and Volterra and produced altarpieces that show the transitional character of Florentine painting in the 1420s — the moment when the Gothic and Renaissance traditions coexisted and interpenetrated. The Berlin triptych demonstrates how a trained Florentine painter of the period synthesized these competing approaches.

Schiavo employs the gold ground of the Gothic tradition while introducing spatial organization in the figures that reflects the new Florentine awareness of Masaccio. The Annunciation panel shows the angel and Virgin in a spatial relationship more coherent than purely Gothic precedents. Saints Jerome and Lawrence are characterized with clear iconographic specificity.