Adoration of the Magi

Mansueti folds two Gospel visits into one canvas. The shepherds have reached the shed on the right, still carrying their bags and a basket, while the kings ride in from the left in tall white turbans and bright Eastern dress. Up on the roof two angels unroll the song of that night, Gloria in excelsis Deo, and far off on a hillside another angel brings the news to a shepherd with his flock.

Then look along the ground. Around the Child's wicker cradle crowds a whole bestiary, a goat, a white hound, a small red creature like a fox, a hare, a sheep, a falcon and a speckled guinea fowl, besides the ox and the ass. The museum calls it almost a condensed earthly paradise, built on models that were still essentially Gothic. The painter signed the canvas on a little sheet at the lower left. It came to the museum from the collection of Giulio Pompei, and the museum dates it to the end of the 15th century.