A Festive Treat

The man standing to the right of the youngest Magi, holding a falcon and looking at the Holy Family, is Palla Strozzi (1372-1462).  He has this prominent position because he commissioned the work and in many respects, this painting is all about him. Strozzi was a banker, a nobleman and at the time the richest man in Florence.  He was a humanist, knew Greek and Latin, had an interest in rare books and was knowledgeable about art.  He founded the first public library in Florence.  This work reflects his status, as well as his taste and ideas. It is no surprise that the artist he commissioned to paint the altarpiece for his private family chapel, was Gentile da Fabriano (c.1370-1427), at the time, the most celebrated and sought-after painter in Italy, official painter to Pope Martin V and newly arrived in Florence.  Expectations would be high.

Adoration of the Magi reflects the International Gothic style of the late 14th and early 15th century. The style is characterised by rich surface decoration, intricate detail, extensive use of gold, alongside naturalistic fauna and elegant, courtly representations of figures.  Gentile excelled in this, but the work is also interesting for the aspects of innovation visible in the format and technique, that anticipated artistic preoccupations which came to be associated with the Renaissance.  It could be argued that the work is at the crossroads of two epochs.

Storytelling

The subject matter is from the Book of Matthew and follows the convention of presenting the Magi as crowned rulers from the East, who bow to the “King of Kings”.  Gentile uses a less conventional format for telling the story.  He eschews the multi-panel polyptych characteristic of earlier Gothic altarpieces, instead preferring to present a continuous narrative of scenes set against a panoramic landscape, all appearing within a single field.  However, he retains Gothic elements in the form of the arched framing, which helps to separate the smaller scenes across the top, whilst dividing vertically the groups of figures in the main part of the work and thus enabling the viewer to follow the narrative.  The work ‘provided a striking precedent for an altarpiece comprising a single panel surmounted by three richly decorated arches’^[1]Norman, 2007, p.186. It also anticipates the formal change to a single rectangular panel called a pala that was to characterise Renaissance altarpieces.

The large single panel offers a greater opportunity for storytelling and for making the composition more interesting.  The narrative begins in the small scene at the top left with the Magi climbing the mountain to search for the star which they believe tells the prophecy of a great King. (Detail 1)  In the next scene, accompanied by their retinue they follow the star to Jerusalem and in the third on to Bethlehem.  We then follow the narrative as it swoops down and across the panel to show their arrival at the cave, where the eldest of the Magi has removed his crown, offered his gift of gold and kneels to kiss the foot of the baby Christ.  Apart from the main narrative, there are additional incidents to interest the viewer.  The horse on the right-hand side is about to step on the dog who looks up in alarm. (Detail 2)  To the left of this an attendant is on his knees carefully removing the spurs from the feet of the youngest Magi.  Two women on the far left are inspecting the Magi’s gift.  There are also stories within stories.  In the first scene there are two thieves accosting a traveller, whilst in the second, a leopard is poised to jump from his seat on the back of a horse, having spotted a deer. (Detail 1)  This is a work that requires time to appreciate the rich narrative detail, the more one looks, the more one is drawn in.

A display of power and prestige

The subject matter was uncommon for a main altarpiece, but it is one that Palla Strozzi would have stipulated.  One can see how the subject offers Strozzi an opportunity to display his wealth and status.  The effect of the crowded scene is of a rather exotic courtly pageant, with richly attired figures in luxurious costume, accompanied by their servants, along with gold bedecked horses, an elegant dog and a menagerie of birds and animals.  Strozzi is positioned at the head of the retinue, second only to the Magi in proximity to the Holy Family. (Detail 2)  The choice of a single panel allows him to appear within the same field as the most important figures, a strategy designed to convey his powerful position.  There are personal symbols that identify Strozzi with the work, for example the falcon he holds symbolizes the family name – strozzieri is the Tuscan word for falconer.  There is a crescent moon hanging from the bridle on the horse on the far right, which forms part of the Strozzi coat of arms. (Detail 2)  A more obvious indication of wealth and status comes from the amount of gold used (which would have been agreed in the contract) and the skill in which it has been worked.  If one imagines a candlelit setting, the glittering gold would be truly magnificent.

A feast of virtuosity

Strozzi was paying for skill and Gentile’s proficiency in manipulating gold leaf was second to none.  The Adoration of the Magi shows that in addition to the conventional technique of punching the gold to create decoration, he used gold in different ways.  In many places, including the crowns and halos, he used the technique of pastiglia, which means building the surface with moulded plaster and then applying gold leaf to create the illusion of a three-dimensional object.  It has been suggested that the ‘applied gold leaf did not so much depict the material of the king’s crowns and offerings as present it literally’^[2]Campbell & Cole, 2013, p.92.  Some of the costumes show how he employed a process known as sgraffito, whereby overlaid paint is scratched away revealing the gold beneath, helping to suggest the appearance of textured weaves and embroidered fabrics. (Detail 2)  He has also used gold as a highlight, this is particularly evident in the predella panels where it helps to give a warm glow.

Gentile shows an interest in portraying his figures with a greater degree of realism than earlier Gothic depictions, reflecting his close observation of real people and their movements.  He depicts figures in different attitudes, turning their heads or gazing upwards.  Of note is the foreshortened position of the aforementioned kneeling attendant at the centre bottom and also the twisted head of the brown horse on the right. (Detail 2) However, whilst he has attempted to give a sense of realism, there are many faces that appear similar.  For example, the face of the young Magi is identical to that of the figure wearing the blue and gold hat on the far right, (Detail 2) whilst the face of the Virgin Mary closely resembles that of the female attendant who stands behind.  This suggests that apart from the figure of Palla Strozzi, who we assume has a recognisable likeness, Gentile sourced his figures from a reference library of sketches and studies.

In trying to depict both figures and the natural world more realistically, Gentile was showing a move away from Gothic stylisation, something that anticipates the preoccupations of artists who followed, such as the painter Masaccio and sculptors Ghiberti and Donatello.  This more innovative approach to painting may have been perceived by Strozzi as a positive reflection of his own taste and judgement, showing him as a forward-thinking connoisseur of art.

A sense of perspective

However, Gentile’s attitude to perspective is far more traditional.  In the small scenes, a sense of recession is created through proportional scale, whereby figures and objects closest to us are larger than those in the distance. (Detail 1) He appears to make use of orthogonal angles of the buildings to create a sense of perspective, perhaps following the observational system advocated by the painter and theorist Cennino Cennini (1370 – 1440) in The Craftsman’s Handbook (c. 1390), who noted how lines of buildings as they recede from the viewer appear to slant upwards or downwards.  It isn’t mathematically correct, but our eye registers the intended illusion.  It was around this time that the mathematical system of single viewpoint and linear perspective was being developed by Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446), but it was a few years before it was utilised by the artist Masaccio in his Trinity (1426) and it was not universally adopted by artists until the late 1430s.

In the main panel, Gentile abandons any illusion of a realistic space.  He piles up his figures, head upon head on a ground that appears to tilt forward.  The heads of the figures closest to us are the same size as those furthest away.  Animals and people are squashed together in a densely packed scene. (Detail 2) Despite this, the scene is coherent, this is due to the overall composition and the three-dimensional modelling of the figures. What is most significant about the main panel, is how Gentile has prioritized the treatment of the surface over the realistic depiction of depth, deliberately filling it with details and decoration to achieve the desired effect.

Tales of revenge

The altarpiece was commissioned by Palla Strozzi for the family chapel in the Church of Santa Trinita in Florence.  At 3 metres by 2.83 metres, it is very large and it’s worth considering the impact it may have had.  When lit by flickering candles or oil lamps It must have appeared glorious, majestic and magical.  It was an altarpiece fit for a King! Unfortunately, Strozzi was unable to appreciate it for long.  There was a great rivalry between the Strozzi family and the Medici and it’s likely that Palla Strozzi had a hand in the exile of Cosimo in 1433.  After Cosimo’s return the following year, Strozzi was expelled, never to return.  It was not the end of the Strozzi family in Florence, nor of the feud between the families.  Interestingly, descendants of the Strozzi family are still living in Florence and have entertaining thoughts on the rivalry between the great families.  In a 2007 magazine interview, Natalia Guicciardini Strozzi describes how they have portraits of the Medici on display in their dining room, something which might surprise people, because why hang portraits of your enemies?  She says that firstly her family respect them and their history, but also it is a small act of revenge, as she explains:

‘They’re all dead you know.  The real Medici line has died out, it no longer exists.  Our extinct enemies are nothing more than paintings on a wall, and they’re forced to watch over the Strozzi’s, alive and well in the 21^st Century, enjoying their dinner!’^[3]Guicciardini Strozzi in The Florentine Issue 56/2007

I’m sure Palla Strozzi would have been amused by this and also delighted that his gorgeous altarpiece survived the feud and is still being admired almost 600 years later.

Happy Christmas

Bibliography

Campbell, S. J., & Cole, M. W., 2013, A New History of Italian Renaissance Art, London, Thames & Hudson.

Norman, D., 2007, ‘Making Renaissance altarpieces’, in Woods, K. W., 2007, Making Renaissance Art, London/Milton Keynes, Yale University Press/The Open University.

Online Sources

The Florentine, available at www.theflorentine.net accessed 7^th December, 2021.