Flood-Damaged Master of the Straus Madonna Triptych Returns to View at Florence’s Accademia

A late-Gothic triptych damaged by the 1966 Florence flood returns to view. From 3 November 2026 until 31 January 2027 the Galleria dell’Accademia shows the Master of the Straus Madonna’s Madonna and Child with Saints Matthew and Michael the Archangel (c. 1380–85), restored at the Fortezza da Basso after the flood, then kept in the museum’s stores for years, and now presented with historical photographs of the damage and recovery, sixty years after the Arno burst its banks.

Vintage art poster by Sapiens Verbum after Gentile da Fabriano, The Adoration of the Magi, 1423 (Uffizi, Florence). Not the Straus Madonna triptych: shown here as an example of the International Gothic Florence that the Master of the Straus Madonna helped shape. Available from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.

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Quick facts
What: Master of the Straus Madonna triptych on temporary exhibition after restoration
Where: Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence (first-floor late-Gothic rooms)
When: 3 November 2026 – 31 January 2027
Who: Anonymous Florentine painter, trained in the workshop of Agnolo Gaddi; work damaged in the 1966 Arno flood
Section: Discoveries & Restorations

What happened

The triptych, depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints Matthew and the Archangel Michael, comes from the church of San Michele Arcangelo at Nebbiano, near Certaldo, and was bought by the Florentine Royal Galleries in 1889. From 1912 it hung in the Oratory of Santa Maria Vergine della Croce al Tempio in Florence, and it was still there on 4 November 1966, when the waters of the Arno flooded the building and badly damaged the painted surface and the gold ground. It was restored in the emergency workshops set up at the Fortezza da Basso and shown in 1972 in the exhibition Firenze restaura, in a section devoted to works damaged by the flood. Transferred to the Galleria dell’Accademia in 2000, it stayed in storage until now.

According to Finestre sull’Arte and Zarabazà, the display is part of the study day “Oltre l’emergenza” (“Beyond the Emergency”), held to mark sixty years since the flood. The panel hangs in the first-floor rooms dedicated to late-Gothic painting, with a selection of historical photographs that let visitors follow the damage of 4 November 1966 and each stage of the recovery.

Why it matters

The Master of the Straus Madonna (named after a panel now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) trained in the workshop of Agnolo Gaddi and was influenced by Lorenzo Monaco, and he worked in Florence from the late fourteenth century into the first quarter of the fifteenth. His slender, pale figures and refined gold grounds belong to the same late-Gothic moment that produced Gentile da Fabriano’s great Adoration of the Magi only a generation later. Seeing the triptych again, together with the documentary photographs of its near-loss, makes the 1966 flood visible as both a catastrophe and a turning-point in Italian conservation practice.

The painting behind the story

Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi (1423), commissioned by Palla Strozzi for Santa Trinita and now in the Uffizi, is the culminating masterpiece of International Gothic painting in Florence. Its gold, brocades, exotic animals and continuous narrative of the Magi’s journey set the standard of courtly splendour that painters such as the Master of the Straus Madonna already anticipated. The Sapiens Verbum poster reinterprets that altarpiece with an ornate Gothic-inspired frame and deep blue ground.

🖼️ Own This Poster
Hang Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi as a vintage International Gothic art poster from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
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The original: Gentile da Fabriano, The Adoration of the Magi, 1423. Tempera on wood, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. Fine-art print available from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.

🖼️ Own This Painting
Prefer the original? Hang Gentile da Fabriano’s Adoration of the Magi — gold, procession and International Gothic splendour — as a print, canvas or framed print from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
Choose your size and frame →See the Masterworks collection →
Printed and shipped by Fine Art America · 30-day money-back guarantee

💬 Over to you: Will you catch the restored Straus Madonna triptych at the Accademia this winter, or is Gentile’s Adoration already on your Florence list? And where in the world are you reading from? Tell us in the comments.

Sources

• Finestre sull’Arte: The 1966 flood had damaged it: a restored triptych returns to exhibition in Florence (2 November 2026)
• Zarabazà: Il trittico del Maestro della Madonna Straus
• Ministero della Cultura: Oltre l’emergenza. L’alluvione di Firenze 60 anni dopo
• Wikipedia: Master of the Straus Madonna
• Wikipedia: Adoration of the Magi (Gentile da Fabriano)
• Uffizi: Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano