Style notes: Duccio's worked on wood panel, painted in egg tempera and embellished with gold leaf. Duccio’s style was Byzantine art some ways, with its gold backgrounds and familiar religious scenes but also different and more experimental. Duccio’s paintings are warm with color, and inviting. Noted for: a high delicate details and complex organization of space. Duccio began to break down the sharp lines of Byzantine art, and soften the figures. He used modeling (playing with light and dark colors) to reveal the figures underneath the heavy drapery; hands, faces, and feet became more rounded and three-dimensional.

Style notes: The work is composed of a large central panel depicting the Annunciation, and two side panels with St. Ansanus (left), and female saint, generarally identified with St. Maxima[2] or St. Margaret, in the right, and four tondoes in the cusps: Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Isiah and Daniel.

The Annunciation shows the archangel Gabriel entering the house of the Virgin Mary to communicate her that she will soon bear the child Jesus, whose name means the "Savior." Gabriel holds an olive branch in his hand, a traditional symbol of peace, while pointing at the Holy Ghost's dove with the other. The dove is descending from heaven, from the center of the mandorla of eight angels above, about to enter the Virgin's right ear. In fact, along the path of the dove, viewers see Gabriel's utterance, "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." The angel's mantle shows a detailed "tartar cloth" pattern and fine gilt feathers.

The Virgin, sitting on a throne, is portrayed at the moment that she is startled out of her reading, reacting with a graceful and composed reluctance, looking with surprise at the celestial messenger. Also, her dress has an arabesque-like pattern.

At the sides, the two patrons saints of the cathedral are separated by the central scene by two decorate twisting columns. The background, completely gilt, has a vase of lilies, an allegory of purity often associated to the Virgin Mary.

The use of a Gothic line, plus such realistic elements as the book, the vase, the throne, the pavement in perspective, the realistic action of the two figures and their subtle nuances of character are a substantial detachment from the bi-dimensionality typical of Byzantine art.