Focus on this artwork and explore the Patron.
Around the year 1475, the Florentine banker and financial broker, Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama (alternately spelled: Guasparre dal Lama; Lami) commissioned the painting of the Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli. Gaspare di Zanobi, the son of a barber, was from Empoli, a small town outside of Florence. The altarpiece was commissioned for the altar of Gaspare's funerary chapel located in the Dominican monastery, Santa Maria Novella.The chapel, and therefore the painting, would have been visible to the public.  The panel depicts the biblical story of The Adoration of the Magi, and includes prominent members of the Medici family, as well as the patron, Gaspare (the Italian equivalent of Caspar, one of the three magi, and thus may account in part for the choice of the subject of the painting).  Gaspare can be seen in the middle of the group of figures located to the right of the central scene. He is shown as an older man with white-grey hair who wears a blue robe and makes eye contact with the viewer. The figure who stands at the far right of the painting's foreground wears a yellow and gold-colored cloak and has been accepted by most scholars to be a self-portrait of the artist, Botticelli.   Gaspare di Zanobi's private chapel was dedicated on January 6, the feast day for the Epiphany, illustrating one of the many symbolic references found in the painting.
Caspar The Adoration of the Magi Santa Maria Novella Epiphany Botticelli gold Adoration of the Magi Empoli Sandro Botticelli