Adoration of the Child

This is the middle of three small scenes Albertinelli painted in 1503 for the base of a Florentine altarpiece, and it shows the night Christ was born. Rather than a crib, the child lies on the bare ground while Mary kneels to adore him, a way of picturing the Nativity that Florentine painters favored for its plainness and humility. The scene sits between an Annunciation and a temple scene, so a viewer reading the strip in order reaches the birth itself at its middle. Albertinelli worked this small panel with the same calm order as the large Visitation above it. It hangs today in the Uffizi.