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Chapel of the Annunciation in Cori: 15th-century Frescoes Telling Biblical Stories
The Cappella of the Annunziata stands at the entrance to Cori, between the Lepini Mountains and the Alban Hills, in the province of Latina. Measuring just 8 × 4m, every centimetre of its walls and vault are covered with late-Gothic frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Today it is a monument under the Regional Directorate of Museums of Lazio.
A Spanish cardinal on the road to Rome
The chapel was commissioned by Castilian cardinal Pedro Fernández de Frías, archpriest of St Peter's Basilica, who between 1410 and 1413 sponsored its construction, together with the Municipality of Cori. It stood along the medieval road linking Cori to Velletri and then to Rome — since the Appian Way, which crossed the marshes, was often impassable. This was where magistrates coming from the capital would stop to swear allegiance to local bylaws before entering the town.
Three commissions, three different hands
The fresco cycle was carried out in several phases. De Frías had the altar wall, the vault and the upper registers of the side walls decorated with scenes from Genesis and the Annunciation, inspired by the cycles of the old Vatican basilica. After his death — in 1426 — two other Spanish cardinals, Alfonso Carrillo de Albornoz and Juan Cervantes de Llora, had the lower registers completed. At the same time, the Municipality commissioned Pietro Coleberti da Priverno to paint the Last Judgement.
