Beato Angelico in and around Florence

Giovanni da Fiesole, better known as Fra' Beato Angelico, was among the most important Italian painters of the first half of the 15th century. Among the many cities in which he worked - including Rome, where he is buried - it is in Florence that we can admire most of his works, many of which are preserved in the Museo di San Marco, the convent where the famous friar-painter lived for many years. His paintings, with exclusively religious subjects, are imbued with delicacy, harmony, brilliant colours and above all light: luminosity and beauty as reflections of God, according to the aesthetics of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Born in 1395 in Vicchio di Mugello, in the same area where Giotto came from - where there is the "Museum of Sacred Art" named after him (which, however, lacks any of his autograph works) - he had an early artistic education in Florence in the workshop of another brother-painter, Lorenzo Monaco, devoting himself above all to illumination and the decoration of manuscripts. Around 1420, he became a Dominican friar, entering the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole; here he produced a series of early works, including the so-called Fiesole Altarpiece (finished by Lorenzo di Credi) still visible inside the same church, as well as the Annunciation in San Giovanni Valdarno (Museum of the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie).

His artistic evolution is marked from the initial prevalence of late Gothic stylistic features (the elegance of the figures, the ornamentation, the precious details) to the progressive acquisition of the new Renaissance language, first and foremost that of Masaccio (new humanity of the figures, with solid volumes, set in strictly perspective settings).

As anticipated, the highest concentration of Angelico's works is at the Museo di San Marco, inside the large Dominican complex rebuilt during the Renaissance by Michelozzo, at the behest of Cosimo il Vecchio (Cosimo the elder) de' Medici. It is here that the Friar resided and worked from around 1440.
On the ground floor of this complex, in the former guest quarters, is the Sala del Beato Angelico: an extraordinary collection of works on wood by the great painter, where the great Deposition from the Cross, the Madonna dei Linaioli, the Last Judgement, the San Marco Altarpiece and the Annalena Altarpiece stand out; also noteworthy is the great Crucifixion fresco in the chapter house. On the upper floor, however, upon reaching the top of the grand staircase, we are greeted by a splendid frescoed Annunciation (one of his favourite themes); along the corridors are the numerous cells of the Friars - the true heart of the museum - decorated with small frescoes: intimate, essential cues for contemplation and theological reflection, painted by Beato Angelico and his collaborators, including Benozzo Gozzoli. Also along the corridor is the Madonna of the Shadows, painted on Angelico's return from his first stay in Rome (frescoes in the Nicolina Chapel in the Vatican) and from his stay in Orvieto (Duomo, Chapel of San Brizio).

Another extraordinary painting on wood by Angelico, a work of his maturity destined for the Church of Sant'Egidio (Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova), can be found in the Uffizi Gallery: it is the Coronation of the Virgin (1431), a painting on a gold background, animated by a jubilation of saints, angels and musical instruments, where the light spreads through a delicately incised ray.

Around 1450, Angelico left again for Rome, called by Pope Nicholas V, where he died in 1455; his tomb is inside the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Mother House of the Dominican Order. Although the appellation ‘Beato Angelico’ was consolidated by Giorgio Vasari (16th century), his beatification only took place in 1984, when he was proclaimed Patron Saint of artists, especially painters.