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. With this deduction Morelli is in accord: "In character
they belong to the fifteenth century, and may have been painted by
Giorgione in his sixteenth or eighteenth year."[19]

Here, then, is a clue to the young artist's earliest predilections. He
fastens eagerly upon that phase of Bellini's art to which his own poetic
temperament most readily responds. But he goes a step further than his
master. He takes his subjects not from mediaeval romances, but from the
Bible or rabbinical writings, and actually interprets them also in this
new and unorthodox way. So bold a departure from traditional usage
proves the independence and originality of the young painter. These two
little pictures thus become historically the first-fruits of the
neo-pagan spirit which was gradually supplanting the older
ecclesiastical thought, and Giorgione, once having cast conventionalism