page_title: Adoration of the Magi (Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi)
section_title: Iconography and context
hierarchical_section_title: Adoration of the Magi (Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi) / Iconography and context
context_page_description: The Adoration of the Magi is a tondo, or circular painting, of the Adoration of the Magi assumed to be that recorded in 1492 in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence as by Fra Angelico. It dates from the mid-15th century and is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Most art historians think that Filippo Lippi painted more of the original work, and that it was added to some years after by other artists, as well as including work by assistants in the workshops of both the original masters. It has been known as the Washington Tondo and Cook Tondo after a former owner, and this latter name in particular continues to be used over 50 years after the painting left the Cook collection.
  The tondo is painted in tempera on a wood panel, and the painted surface has a diameter of 137.3 cm. The National Gallery of Art dates it to "c. 1440/1460".
  Art historians are agreed that the painting was produced over a considerable period, with significant changes in the composition, and contributions from a number of hands. While some are critical of the discordances this history has produced, for John Walker, the second director of the National Gallery of Art, the result was
context_section_description: A high quality Florentine tondo featuring the Magi would be suspected of originating with a Medici commission even without the evidence of the inventory, as the family had a very particular interest in both the subject and the form.  The Magi had been the key Medici devotion for decades, apparently beginning with the papacy of Antipope John XXIII (1410–1415) when they had become the main bankers of the Papacy, or at least those parts John controlled. The Medici belonged to the Compagnia de' Magi, a Florentine confraternity based at the San Marco complex just by the Medici Palace, both of which Cosimo de' Medici rebuilt a few years before the tondo was painted.  An annual procession on the feast of the Epiphany on January 6 was organized by the confraternity, and passed in front of the Medici Palace. It was a costumed re-enactment of their arrival at the nativity, with the main parts taken by the leading members, including the Medici and their associates.  The Magi were regarded as saints, and so in the tondo have rather unusual halos of gold dots, unlike the discs of the Holy Family.  Their combination of sainthood with the possession and giving of luxury goods may have been a factor in their attraction for the Medici.
  The tondo shape for large paintings may itself have been a Medici innovation, possibly representing the gold ring with a diamond that became used as a device by the family from the 1440s.  The shape probably represents an inflation of the far smaller painted desco da parto or "birthing-tray", a decorated wooden tray, round or twelve-sided, that was traditionally presented by a Florentine husband to his wife after childbirth, and then used for serving refreshments to her visitors as she lay in state for a period of days after.   The same 1492 inventory that probably records the tondo shows that Lorenzo de' Medici kept the desco da parto presented on his own birth in 1449 hanging on his bedroom wall until his death.  These desci were typically decorated with allegorical or mythological scenes, while the large tondo was mostly used for religious subjects. But the shape was not found in paintings for churches, and may have carried a deliberate suggestion of a commission for a palace.   
  Apart from the tondo being discussed, another with a loosely similar composition showing the Adoration of the Magi, by Domenico Veneziano (now Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) is probably a Medici commission of c. 1439–1442; it may also be another painting recorded in the 1492 inventory (though that Magi tondo is there attributed to Pesellino).  Among other similarities it also has a peacock perched on the stable roof, and falconry imagery, with hawks attacking cranes both in the air and on the ground.  The figure in black and white, behind the Magi and holding a falcon, may be a portrait of Piero de' Medici. There were several other important images of the Magi made for the Medici, apart from these and those in the palace chapel. The 1492 inventory lists four paintings, three probably from the period of Cosimo.  Later, Botticelli was to paint several Medici portraits in his 1475 painting in the Uffizi, commissioned by a close associate of the family.  A Botticelli Magi tondo in the National Gallery, London of around 1470–75 has a comparable screen of ruined antique buildings running behind the main figures (as well as a peacock).  Cosimo's personal cell in San Marco has a fresco Magi scene by Fra Angelico.
  A number of aspects of the arrangement of the figures and the general composition are probably borrowed from a Magi scene of about 1370–71 by Jacopo di Cione that was then part of his large altarpiece at the nearby church (now destroyed) of San Pier Maggiore.  The altarpiece is now dispersed, but the majority of the panels, including the Magi scene, are in the National Gallery, London.
  More general meanings that were attached to objects in the painting include the pomegranate held by the Christ child, whose many seeds were regarded as symbolizing the souls in the care of the church.  The flesh of the peacock was though to resist deca
caption: Domenico Veneziano, Adoration of the Magi, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, probably a Medici commission of c. 1439–1442
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