Chapel 2 - The Annunciation

It depicts the annunciation made by Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she will become the mother of the son of God. It is part of the Nazareth complex, one of the oldest of the Sacred Mount.  It was built shortly after the year 1514 to represent the holy house of Loreto where the statues of the Virgin Mary and Child by Gaudenzio Ferrari were located.
Between 1572 and 1578, after the redesign of the Sacred Mount by Galeazzo Alessi, it was adapted to host the mystery of the Annunciation. The Virgin Mary and Child were transferred to the chapel of Joseph's Second Dream (chapel 9) and here the statues of the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary attributed to Gaudenzio Ferrari and created as wooden mannequins dating back to the early sixteenth century, finished and painted in the visible portions and dressed with fabric clothes, were transported from the original chapel of the Annunciation.
 The Virgin Mary's expression and her posture express the shock for the announcement of the archangel and demonstrate the artist's connection with Leonardo da Vinci's reflections on the representation of the soul's moods, a theme of great relevance in the Lombardy-region artistic movement since the end of the fifteenth century. The walls were decorated between 1572 and 1578 with the figures of characters from the Old Testament who prophesied the Annunciation. They were created by an artist who combined the culture of Gaudenzio Ferrari with the new Mannerist style.