Adoration of the Magi

The Adoration of the Magi was left unfinished, however it is a work of great conceptual and formal complexity. Probably inspired by the prophecy of Isaiah, this work was commissioned in 1481 by the brothers of Saint Augustine of San Donato a Scopeto, but Leonardo interrupted work on it to leave for Milan in 1482. The brothers then turned to Filippino Lippi who painted a panel of the same subject in 1496 which is also exhibited in this museum. Vasari documents the painting in the home of Amerigo Benci, father of Ginevra whose portrait Leonardo had painted some years earlier. It came to the Uffizi in 1670; it then went to the Villa di Castello and returned to the Gallery in 1794.