Fra Angelico

(Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, Giovanni di Pietro; c. 1400-1455)

   A Dominican friar, Fra Angelico became the leading painter of Florence in the 1430s. He was from Fiesole where he entered the Dominican monastery in c. 1418, and there he is believed to have illuminated some manuscripts, though none have been identified. Sometime in the 1430s, he moved to the San Marco Monastery in Florence where from 1438 until 1445 he painted a series of frescoes in the cells and corridors. He also created the Linaiuoli Altarpiece (1433; Florence, Museo di San Marco), his first major work. Commissioned by the Arte dei Linaiuoli, the Guild of Linen Merchants, the altarpiece shows an Enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by St. Mark, to whom the monastery is dedicated, and St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence. Masaccio's influence in this work is clear, especially in the rendition of the solid figures of the saints, their stern appearance, and the spatial depth. Fra Angelico substituted the gold background normally seen in traditional images of this type with a gold curtain. In so doing, he provided a fully developed, convincing space for his figures to occupy. His Descent from the Cross (1434; Florence, Museo di San Marco) was commissioned by Palla Strozzi for his funerary chapel in the Church of Santa Trinità, Florence, to stand alongside Gentile da Fabriano's Adoration of the Magi (1423; Florence, Uffizi). This is the first Renaissance work to successfully integrate figures into a three-dimensional landscape. Characteristic of Fra Angelico is the compassionate portrayal of a tragic moment, reflecting the serenity and discipline required for a monastic existence. In 1443, Pope Eugene IV visited San Marco and two years later called the artist to Rome to work on the frescoes of the Chapel of the Sacrament at the Vatican (destroyed). For Nicholas V he created his last major commission, the frescoes in the pope's private chapel (the Chapel of Nicholas V, Vatican; 1448), rendering scenes from the lives of Sts. Lawrence and Stephen. Fra Angelico died in Rome in 1455 and was beatified in 1983.