Fabriano, Gentile da

Fabriano, Gentile da: see Gentile da Fabriano.

orig. Gentile di Niccolò di Massio

(born circa 1370, Fabriano, Papal States—died 1427, Rome) Italian painter. He was probably trained in the Lombardy region. In 1409 he was commissioned to decorate the Doges' Palace in Venice with historical frescoes, now lost. His most important fresco cycle, also destroyed, was in the church of St. John Lateran in Rome. His major surviving painting is the celebrated Strozzi Altarpiece (1423), featuring The Adoration of the Magi. Its combination of naturalism and rich ornamentation influenced Italian artists throughout the century, notably Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli, and established Gentile as one of Italy's greatest proponents of the International Gothic style. He was the most important Italian painter of the first quarter of the 15th century.

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The Adoration of the Magi is a painting by the Italian artist Gentile da Fabriano. The work, housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, is considered his finest work, and has been described as "the culminating work of International Gothic painting",

The painting was commissioned by the Florentine literate and patron of the arts Palla Strozzi, at the arrival of the artist in the city in 1420. Finished three years later, it was placed in the new chapel of the church of Santa Trinita which Lorenzo Ghiberti was executing in these years.

The works shows both the international and Sienese schools' influences on Gentile's art, mingled with the Renaissance novelties he knew in Florence. The panel portrays the path of the three Magi, in several scenes which start from the upper left corner (the voyage and the entrance into Bethlehem) and continue clockwise, to the larger meeting with the Virgin and the newborn Jesus which occupies the lowest part of the picture. All the figures wear splendid Renaissance costumes, brocades richly decorated with real gold and precious stones inserted in the panel. Gentile's typical attention for detail is also evident in the exotic animals, such as a leopard, a dromedary, some apes and a lion, as well as the magnificent horses and a hound.

The frame is also a work of art, characterized by three cusps with tondoes portraying Christ Blessing (centre) and the Annunciation (with the Archangel Gabriel on the left and the Madonna on the right). The predella has three rectangular paintings with scenes of Jesus' childhood: the Nativity, the Flight into Egypt and the Presentation at the Temple (the latter a copy, the original being in the Louvre in Paris).

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