The special bond between the Order of the Servants of Mary and the Blessed Virgin is evident in the presence in the church of numerous paintings depicting episodes in the life of the Mother of God. We can follow the chronology of her life in the paintings, starting from the canvas showing The Birth of the Virgin, placed in the second chapel on the right and painted by the Sienese artist Rutilio Manetti on a commission from Calidonia Bindi. In the foreground are the nurses holding a basin in which they will bathe the newborn Mary, shown in her mother Anna’s arms. In the middle ground and the background, the light brings out the different expressions of the characters as they react to the event: two women dressed in black inform the pensive Joachim of his daughter’s birth, while a servant girl runs into the kitchen to tell the other servants what has happened.

Mary lived a simple childhood, without sensational episodes, until her early youth was marked by an event that would change her life and the course of history forever: the announcement of the coming birth of Christ, portrayed in the late sixteenth century by Francesco Vanni in a painting commissioned by the Cancelli family, placed in the first chapel on the left. The young girl, intent on her reading, receives the visit of the Archangel Gabriel who tells her that soon she will conceive and bear a son, and that his . . .