Adoration of the Magi

Wise men from the East followed a star to honor the newborn Christ with gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:1-12). Gentile da Fabriano turns the moment into a glittering courtly cavalcade: the three kings and their vast retinue wind down from the hills through gold arches to kneel before the Virgin, amid horses, hounds, even a leopard, every surface tooled and gilded. Painted in 1423 for the Strozzi, one of Florence's richest families, it is the dazzling summit of International Gothic - the ornate, aristocratic style sweeping Europe's courts just as Masaccio, across the same city, was inventing a starker Renaissance realism.