ABSTRACT
W hilst compiling ‘A Calendar of Royal Taste’ for the National Gallery's exhibition of The Queen's Pictures, I decided to investigate a reference in Lewis Einstein's pioneering work, The Italian Renaissance in England, 1 which had long intrigued me. On page 206, having referred to the Duke of Urbino's gift of Raphael's St George to Henry VII (which provenance is now doubted), Einstein writes that ‘Presents of a similar nature were made from time to time. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, for instance, sent Queen Mary a miniature of the Three Magi.’ The relevant footnote refers the reader to ‘Guardaroba Medicea, Florence, filza 34’. Not being able to get to the Archivio di Stato in the short term, I wrote asking my old friend and one-time protectress at the University of Pisa, Professoressa Anna Maria Crinò, to look up the complete reference for me. As the world authority on the Anglo-Italian contents of the Archivio, she was able to send back the following transcription by return: ‘Quadro di minio di Don Giulio de tre Magi con ornamento d'ebano a uso di sp[h]era mandato al Re d'inghilterra con ordine della Sig.ra Duchessa portò Don Hernando de Sylva.’
