Artists of the Italian Renaissance

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The Magi in Mosaics, Paintings and Sculpture

Link to the famous frescos by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence

Byzantine Mosaics of the Magi in Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna

The Magi were the  three kings or wise men who were said to have brought gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus.  In fact the origin of their story, like most others that became part of official Christian folklore, stretches back into Zoroasterism and the mists of pre-Christian antiquity.  The Christian celebration of their arrival is called Epiphany or twelfth night. 

Early Christian Magi images are to be found in the mosaics of the Triumphal Arch of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome (c430) and Sant'Apollinare in Ravenna (late 400s) .  

Some of the most moving representations of the Magi and their presence at the Nativity are to be found in carved capitals, lintels and wall reliefs from the Romanesque churches of the 1100s and 1200s like Autun and Perse .

By the post 1300s Black Death days in Italy, the Romanesque simplicity of earlier times had gone, and Epiphany had become an excuse for a good party complete with dressing up and processions and lots of conspicuous consumption.  The day (and cult of the Magi) was particularly attractive for aspirant or actual rulers, who could dress up (which they all seemed to like doing) and publicly associate themselves with the Kings of old in Magi processions organized by Magi societies controlled by the aforesaid rulers.  Even our much encountered friend the Empress Theodora chose, for her mosaic appearance in San Vitale in Ravenna, a cloak trimmed with Magi images .

In addition, paintings (often large) of the adoration of the Magi provided a perfect vehicle for combining Madonna and Child with worldly power (often displaying the faces of those who had paid for the painting either as a Magi, or as a member of the crowd) and for the more ambitious artists, the opportunity to paint exotic dress, a horse or two, and even leave a self-portrait behind.  Two Medici centric examples of this are the Gozzoli fresco in the chapel of the old Medici Palace in Florence , where the Medici (who were after all only merchants and bankers = tradesmen) appear (sometimes more than once) rubbing shoulders with royalty and the Magi and only distantly with the (then Sienese) Pope, and Sandro Botticelli's "The Adoration of the Magi" (1476) which also paraded the Medici family and a self portrait of the artist.  Some of the symbolism you will see associated with the three Magi (with some Italian for fun) .......

Right and Below: 

An angel appears to the Magi in a dream after they visited the baby Jesus, and warns them not to go home via King Herod, who was seriously manic about finding and killing the baby Jesus, and would have done for them had they not divulged his location.

1100s capital from an abbey in the Ile-de-France, exhibited in the Louvre, Paris

Cath?drale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy) - Gislebertus sculpts the Magi presenting their gifts to the infant Jesus

Pilgrimage church of Perse, in Espalion on the Rivel Lot (SW France)

Fra Angelico in  Cell 39 of the Dominican Convent of San Marco, Florence

This excellent little book by Franco Cardini is available in English and  incorporates a fascinating discussion of both the art and history of Medici Florence, and lots of illustrations outside the "standard ones".

  Buy from Amazon USA

  Buy from Amazon UK

Lorenzo il Magnifico

is traditionally identified with this representation of the Magi Caspar in the Medici Capella dei Magi

Link to lots more of the famous frescos by Benozzo Gozzoli in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence

The magnificently kitted out Magi Balthasar in the Capella dei Magi (above and above) has the face of the penultimate Eastern Emperor John VIII Palaeologus (1390 - 1448).  It is thought that the face of his horse is modelled on a bronze horses head from antiquity then owned by Lorenzo and now in the Florence Archaeological Museum.

The old Magi Melchior was originally thought to be Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, who died in Florence during the Council of Florence,  but more recently he has been identified as Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg.

The Magi in Mosaics in the Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (late 400s - Ravenna)

Balthasar (Ravenna)

Caspar (Ravenna)

The Magi in Mosaics in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (c430 - Rome)

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All original material ? Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 -  may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission