The Basilica of St Francis

Nativity of the Virgin

The painting, placed on the right wall where the Baroque altar of the Segardi family was located, was made in the mid-seventeenth century by Sienese artist Giovanni Battista Ramacciotti, a follower of the more popular Raffaello Vanni. The artist set the birth of the Virgin Mary in a domestic environment, populated by many characters: the colossal figure of a servant taking some swaddling bands for the infant from a basket stands out in the foreground. In the background two nurses, taken from behind, bring everything necessary to wash the child who is pictured top left, while she is being placed by the midwife in the arms of an older woman. On the right, a girl bids the observer to look through a door where St. Anne, who had given birth to her daughter, was lying on the bed, in the company of two young women and her husband Joachim. Above, an angel descends from heaven to give young Mary a crown of stars. The seemingly everyday setting helps the viewer understand that God's plan is fulfilled in the daily lives of men.