Adoration of the Shepherds,

ca. 1530–35

A collaborator of Raphael’s at the Vatican, the Florentine master Perino del Vaga fled when Rome was sacked in 1527 and worked for Admiral Andrea Doria in Genoa. This painting, assigned to the Genoese period of his career, manifests the early Mannerist style that Perino helped forge. The Virgin Mary leans against an overturned column base from a temple, possibly representing the pagan world, while the Christ Child receives from an angel the cross foretelling the world under Christian Grace. The shepherd on the right directs our attention to an enigmatic vignette in the background: an ox and calf follow their master willingly, whereas a recalcitrant ass is beaten by its master. Dense symbolic meanings—like tightly packed space and contrived, balletic postures—are typical of Mannerism, the dominant style of European art for nearly a century.