The Allegory of the Tree of Life, by Bellini (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) is analysed as an unconscious effort to solve the emotional problems arising from the artist's illegitimate birth. The female figures represent both the rejection and the final acceptance and exaltation of the mother, an untouched virgin into whose body he symbolically re-enters to be born again, without destroying his true self. Other portions of the painting show anal and phallic phantasies.