[Illustration: _Alinari photo. Uffizi Gallery, Florence_
THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON]
These are the two small works in the Uffizi, representing the "Judgment
of Solomon" and the "Trial of Moses," the "Knight of Malta," also in the
Uffizi, and the "Christ bearing the Cross," till lately in the Casa
Loschi at Vicenza, and now belonging to Mrs. Gardner of Boston, U.S.A.
The two small companion pictures in the Uffizi, The "Judgment of
Solomon" and the "Trial of Moses," or "Ordeal by Fire," as it is also
called, connect in style closely with the "Adrastus and Hypsipyle." They
are conceived in the same romantic strain, and carried out with scarcely
less brilliance and charm. The story, as in the previous pictures, is
not insisted upon; the biblical episode and the rabbinical legend are
treated in the same fantastic way as the classic myth. Giovanni Bellini
had first introduced this lyric conception in his treatment of the
mediaeval allegory, as we see it in his picture, also in the Uffizi,
hanging near the Giorgiones; all three works were originally together in
the Medici residence of Poggio Imperiale, and there can be little doubt
are intimately related in origin to one another. Bellini's latest
biographer, Mr. Roger Fry, places this Allegory about the years 1486-8,
a date which points to a very early origin for the other two.[18] For
it is extremely likely that the young Giorgione was inspired by his
master's example, and that he may have produced his companion pieces as
early as 1493.
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