It is a panel inspired by a religious theme and which originally had a clear political value, the one that will be exhibited at the Carlo Maria Martini Diocesan Museum on the occasion of the sixteenth edition of Masterpiece for Milan 2024, an initiative that brings a work of art from an Italian city to the Lombard capital for Christmas. This year everything revolves around the Magi. In fact, The Adoration of the Magi will arrive in Milan, one of the most fascinating and famous works by Sandro Botticelli, commissioned by the rich and ambitious businessman Gasparre del Lama and which was initially intended to decorate the chapel dedicated to the Magi in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Then, due to a series of vicissitudes, the painting ended up in the Medici collection. Therefore, Gasparre, as the youngest of the Magi, on the one hand and the Medici, fervent supporters of the Company of the Magi on the other. In the center of the painting is the hut and all around various figures where the protagonists of Florentine society can be distinguished at the time of the political rise of the Medici. The most expert will be able to recognize Botticelli's self-portrait in the blond boy on the right, positioned in three-quarters with the golden yellow cloak, who seeks the gaze of the viewer. The gray-haired man with the blue cloak on the right instead, turned towards the viewer, is the commissioner of the work: his presence underlines his political loyalty to the powerful Florentine family of the Medici.
