For the Christmas exhibition at the Diocesan Museum in Milan, there is a masterpiece from the Uffizi: Botticelli's Adoration

A masterpiece on loan from the Uffizi will be the star of the customary Christmas exhibition at the Museo Diocesano “Carlo Maria Martini” in Milan: in fact, Sandro Botticelli’sAdoration of the Magi is coming from Florence and will be the focus of the sixteenth edition of Masterpiece for Milan 2024. The work will be on display at the Carlo Maria Martini Diocesan Museum from October 29, 2024 to February 2, 2025, thanks to a collaboration with the Uffizi Galleries in Florence. The exhibition will be curated by Daniela Parenti and Nadia Righi.

The work, created around 1475 for the Chapel of the Magi in the church of Santa Maria Novella, was commissioned by Florentine businessman Gasparre del Lama, who had the chapel built beginning in 1469. After the commissioner’s fall from grace, the Adoration of the Magi entered the Medici collection (it is mentioned in Medici inventories at the end of the 16th century) and has been in the Uffizi since 1796.

The scene, a tribute to the Medici family (who were supporters of the Compagnia dei Magi, which was based in San Marco in Florence) and of course to the commissioner (who was named after the youngest of the Magi, Gasparre), is structured with a central composition dominated by the Madonna and Child with Joseph. Around it, a motley crowd of figures from Florentine society, including Botticelli himself (the young blond man looking toward the viewer), arrange themselves with different expressions and attitudes. The patron is portrayed as an elderly man in a blue cloak, also facing the viewer.

In past editions the Museo Diocesano Carlo Maria Martini has hosted works such as Caravaggio’s Deposition (Pinacoteca Vaticana) and The Capture of Christ (Dublin, National Gallery), theAnnunciation (Palermo, Regional Gallery) and theEcce Homo (Piacenza, Alberoni College) by Antonello da Messina, Lorenzo Lotto’s Nativity (Brescia, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo), Filippo Lippi’s Nativity (Prato, Musei Civici), Botticelli’s Judith (Florence, Uffizi), Mantegna’s Holy Family (Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum), theAdoration of the Magi by Albrecht Dürer (Florence, Uffizi), Perugino’sAdoration of the Shepherds (Perugia, National Gallery), Veronese’sAdoration of the Magi (Vicenza, church of Santa Corona), Artemisia Gentileschi’sAdoration of the Magi (Pozzuoli Cathedral), theAnnunciation by Titian (Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples), Raphael’s Predella della Pala Oddi (Vatican Museums), a compartment of Beato Angelico’s Armadio degli Argenti (Museo di San Marco, Florence).

For the Christmas exhibition at the Diocesan Museum in Milan, there is a masterpiece from the Uffizi: Botticelli's Adoration

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