Adoration of the Magi

In 1423 the richest man in Florence, a banker named Palla Strozzi, paid Gentile da Fabriano 300 florins, about six years' wages for a skilled worker, to paint this altarpiece for his family chapel. The money is visible everywhere. Gold leaf covers the sky, the crowns, the harnesses, the haloes, tooled and burnished until the whole surface glints like treasure. The three kings arrive at the front with a long train winding back through the hills behind them, and among the crowd Gentile packs the exotic animals a wealthy patron would want to see: camels, monkeys, leopards, a lion. It is the great showpiece of the International Gothic, the late-medieval style of courtly detail and pageantry, painted at the very moment younger Florentines were about to turn toward something plainer and more solid. Palla Strozzi commissioned it for the sacristy of Santa Trinita, his parish church.