Adoration of the Christ ChildBramantino

In this tempera panel (c. 1485), the Milanese innovator arranges the Nativity as a cool study of space. The Child rests on a stone slab, flanked by Mary and St Bernardino, St Francis, and St Benedict, while angel musicians provide a celestial motet. Rigid perspective, sculptural figures, and an architectonic backdrop reveal Bramantino’s quest for mathematical order within devotional feeling.