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CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE IN VISUAL SOURCES

Andrea Mantegna, Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1495–1505

Applying his study of ancient Roman relief sculpture to compress figures into a shallow space, Mantegna
painted this scene of the three wise men coming to visit the infant Christ. The three wise men represent
the entire world — that is, the three continents known to medieval and Renaissance Europeans: Europe,
Asia, and Africa. They also symbolize the three stages of life: old age, middle age, and youth. As in most
depictions, Melchior, the oldest, his large cranium symbolizing wisdom, represents Europe. He offers
gold in a Chinese porcelain cup. Balthazar, with a dark beard and Turkish turbaned hat, represents Asia
and middle age, and holds a bronze vessel with frankincense. Caspar, representing Africa and youth,
gives myrrh in a covered cup made of agate. The three wise men were a common subject in Renaissance
art, as they allowed artists to show figures from a variety of cultures wearing sumptuous clothing.

Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.

For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

(Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE
1. How does Mantegna use shadowing, foreshortening, and other artistic techniques to show a
three- dimensional scene on a two-dimensional surface?
2. How does Mantegna use clothing, headgear, and jewelry to depict Caspar (right) as distinctively
African and — to European eyes — unfamiliar and mysterious? How does this portrayal of him
relate to Europeans’ changing attitudes about race during this era?

problems. Like many Renaissance artists, Dürer was In the early sixteenth century, the center of the new
open to new ideas, no matter what their source. Late in art shifted from Florence to Rome, where wealthy
his life he saw the first pieces of Aztec art shipped back cardinals and popes wanted visual expression of the
to Europe from the New World and commented in his church’s and their own families’ power and piety.
diary about how amazing they were. Renaissance popes expended enormous enthusiasm

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