The Nativity

This work was painted about 1482—when a team of Florentine and Umbrian painters were decorating the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Antoniazzo, a native of Rome, responded especially to the presence of Perugino and Ghirlandaio. He sets his depiction of the nativity—one of three scenes from the base (predella) of an altarpiece—in a landscape suggestive of Lazio, the region around Rome.