The Test of Fire of Moses

This small panel illustrates a story you will not find in the Bible itself. As a child Moses is said to have reached for Pharaoh's crown, and to test whether the gesture was ambition or accident he was offered a choice between the crown and a dish of burning coals. An angel pushed his hand toward the coals, and the ember he put in his mouth left him slow of speech ever after. The tale comes from Jewish legend, from the Talmud, and whoever ordered the picture around 1505 was probably reading well outside official Catholic lines. It hangs beside its companion, a Judgement of Solomon, and much of the panel is given over not to the figures but to a wide, calm landscape.