Crib

Federico Borromeo considered this beautiful painting as “one of the dearest things I possess”. It has been suggested that he kept it in his study in the archbishop’s palace, and indeed it entered the Ambrosiana collection only after his death. There have been long discussions about the authorship of the work, but it has recently been affirmed that “the definition of autograph replica for the Milan specimen is the most appropriate”. An identical painting, probably the original version seen by Federico Borromeo, is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid and it was donated in 1605 to Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain, by Francesco Maria Della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. It is interesting to note how there is a total lack of any natural or artificial source of light, since the entire scene is flooded with divine light that radiates from the face of the Infant Jesus, just as we are told in one of the apocryphal gospels.