Adoration of the Magi

Filippino Lippi's Adoration of the Magi (1496), hanging in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, was commissioned to replace an unfinished Adoration that Leonardo da Vinci had abandoned in 1481 when he left for Milan. The comparison with Leonardo's ghost composition — still visible in the Uffizi — is implicit and has fascinated scholars ever since. Lippi's finished version is dense with figures, fantastical classical ruins, and processional energy that reflects his own mature style rather than any attempt to complete Leonardo's very different conception. The result is one of his largest and most complex works, demonstrating his command of multi-figure composition at the height of his powers.

The composition is extraordinarily populous, with crowd figures receding into complex ruins and landscape backgrounds. Lippi's characteristic architectural fantasy is fully deployed: broken columns, carved reliefs, and crumbling arches serve simultaneously as historical setting and as symbolic commentary on the old world giving way to the new covenant.