The kingly character of the adorers, which became in the thirteenth century a point of faith, is expressed by giving them all the paraphernalia and pomp of royalty according to the customs of the time in which the artist lived.  They are followed by a vast train of attendants, guards, pages, grooms, falconers with hawks; and, in a picture by Gaudenzio Ferrari, we have the court-dwarf, and, in a picture by Titian, the court-fool, both indispensable appendages of royal state in those times.  The Kings themselves wear embroidered robes, crowns, and glittering weapons, and are booted and spurred as if just alighted from a long journey; even on one of the sarcophagi they are seen in spurs.

The early Florentine and Venetian painters profited by the commercial relations of their countries with the Levant, and introduced all kinds of outlandish and oriental accessories to express the far country from which the strangers had arrived; thus we have among the presents, apes, peacocks, pheasants, and parrots.  The traditions of the crusades also came in aid, and hence we have, the plumed and jewelled turbans, the armlets and the scymitars, and, in the later pictures, even umbrellas and elephants.  I remember, in an old Italian print of this subject, a pair of hunting leopards or chetas.

It is a question whether Joseph was present—­whether he ought to have been present:  in one of the early legends, it is asserted that he hid himself and would not appear, out of his great humility, and because it should not be supposed that he arrogated any relationship to the divine Child.  But this version of the scene is quite inconsistent with the extreme veneration afterwards paid to Joseph; and in later times, that is, from the fifteenth century, he is seldom omitted.  Sometimes he is seen behind the chair of the Virgin, leaning on his stick, and contemplating the scene with a quiet admiration.  Sometimes he receives the gifts offered to the Child, acting the part of a treasurer or chamberlain.  In a picture by Angelico one of the Magi grasps his hand as if in congratulation.  In a composition by Parmigiano one of the Magi embraces him.

It was not uncommon for pious votaries to have themselves painted in likeness of one of the adoring Kings.  In a picture by Sandro Botticelli, Cosmo de’ Medici is thus introduced; and in a large and beautifully arranged composition by Leonardo da Vinci, which unhappily remains as a sketch only, the three Medici of that time, Cosmo, Lorenzo, and Giuliano, are figured as the three Kings. (Both these pictures are in the Florence Gal.)