This delightful work, which roused the admiration of Vasari, contains not less than 266 figures and may justly be considered as one of the gems of the collection. Executed with all the delicacy of an illumination, it sparkles with bright but harmonious colours, while the spirit of devotion which penetrates the whole is entirely characteristic of the painter.[22] Angelico reached greater perfection in the picture of the "Annunciation" of which Vasari says: "In a chapel of the same church is a picture from the same hand, representing Our Lady receiving the Annunciation from the angel Gabriel, with a countenance which is seen in profile, so devout, so delicate, and so perfectly executed, that the beholder can scarcely believe it to be by the hand of man, but would rather suppose it to have been delineated in Paradise. In the landscape forming the background are seen Adam and Eve, whose fall made it needful that the Virgin should give birth to the Redeemer."[23] This picture (purchased in 1611 by Duke Mario Farnese) is now in the Museum at Madrid. The Virgin is seated on the right under a graceful portico sustained by small columns. Her head inclines a little towards the Angel, in the same attitude as in the Cortona altar-piece and the fresco at San Marco. She holds the book on her knees, and crosses her hands on her breast; while the golden winged Angel, in its rose coloured robe, with an arm curved in similar attitude of reverence, sheds light around, as in the painting at Cortona. High up in the left corner the hand of the Eternal Father sends down a ray of light, in the midst of which the Holy Spirit is symbolized. In the background, as in the Cortona picture, Adam and Eve are being expelled from Paradise. In the predella are some beautiful "stories" representing the "Marriage of the Virgin," the "Salutation," the "Adoration of the Magi," the "Circumcision of Christ" and the "Death of the Virgin."[24]