Giovanni di Paolo_ The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 46 ..

exiled from Athens, is crushed beneath the weight not of a
chariot but of a farm cart, and when Beatrice tells Dante
that if she smiled he would be consumed like Semele, there
in the illustration we see Semele exploding into flame (figs.
i, 2). In Giovanni di Paolo's predella panels the same sometimes
elevated, sometimes earthy imagination is at work. A
panel in The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan
Museum shows the Adoration of the Magi, but
an adoration of great simplicity, with one unprecedented
feature. The timid Saint Joseph is reassured by the youngest
king, who puts one arm around his shoulder and with the
other holds his hand (fig. 3).
3. Cilovannl di Paolo. Detail ot 1 he Adoration of the Magz, hgure 38
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