MASP

The scene has its sole canonical source in Matthew 2, 1-12. Although it alludes to the prophecies (Isaiah 60, 6; Psalms, 72, 10), the evangelical account does not include the greater part of the elements mentioned in the legends, and by the iconography, especially as to the controversial identity of the Magi Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior. According to Herodotus, the Magi belonged to a priestly caste of the Medes, or on a narrower reading, were priests of the Mazdeist pre-Zoroastrian cult, scattered via Chaldea throughout Anatolia, aer the religious repression led by Xerxes in the 6th century. More precisely, the Magi belonged to one of the six tribes of the Medes, settled north of what is today Iran. It was Plutarch particularly, who in De Isis et Osiris, brought to light the daimon-worship practiced by the Mede Magi. The author of the gospel of Matthew evidently symbolized in the Magi the acknowledgment on the part of the higher Chaldean-Mazdeist wisdom of the meaning of the coming of the Messiah, the King of the Jews, despite, as observed by Cardini (1993, p. 14), the dark reputation of the magusaioi... especially among the Christians, aer the meeting between Peter and Simon. This may explain why the episode narrated by the rst evangelist is not retold by the others. Thus, it was the extra-canonical literature, especially the Proto-Evangel attributed to James the Younger (Christ’s “brother”) and its o­shoot, the Pseudo-Matthew, which inspired this iconography, which in any case became widespread aer the frescoes painted on the catacombs of Priscilla, in the 3rd century (Cardini 1993, pp. 16-19). Its dimensions and iconography suggest that the scene was first probably part of a predella from a retable. It was perhaps on the strength of certain traits of Hispanic culture, seen in the physiognomic types of the main gures, that Bardi in 1947 attrib- uted this graceful tempera to the Florentine-Valencian-Toledan painter of the late 14th century and early 15th century, baptized in 1904, by Sirén, with the suggestive name of Maestro di Bambino Vispo. In 1966 Bellosi identied him as Gherardo Starnina (Flor ence, 1354-1413). e attribution of our predella fragment to this artist was adamantly rejected both by Bellosi (verbal communication, 1996) and Boskovits (verbal communication, 1996) and should not be maintained. The fact that Maestro di Bambino Vispo is considered to be Starnina by almost all critics today explains the Florentine characteristics of this artist, noted by several scholars, and recently by Waadenoijen (1983, p. 61). ese Florentine characteristics are not to be seen on our predella fragment. Moreover, the two representations by Starnina on the theme of the Adoration of the Magi, today in the Kansas City and Douai Museums, provide unmistakable signs of a 15th-century approach to the theme, while the Masp work still belongs to the third quarter of the 14th century, as seen in the style and attire of the attendant on the le of the composition, which went out of fashion aer that time (Bellosi). In 1975, Boskovits attributed this Adoration of the Magi to Serani, but in the above-mentioned verbal communication, 1996, he preferred to leave room for doubt concerning this attribution.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

---