ANGELICO, FRA , Italian painter. I1 Beato Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole is the name given to a painter friar of the Florentine state in the 15th century. His baptismal name was Guido, Giovanni being only his name in religion. He was born at Vicchio, Tuscany, of unknown but seemingly well to-do parentage, in 1387 (not 1390, as sometimes stated) ; in 1407 he became a novice in the convent of S. Domenico at Fiesole, and in 1408 he took the vows and entered the Dominican order. Whether he had previously been a painter by profession is not certain, but probable. The painter named Lorenzo Monaco may have contributed to his art training, and the influence of the Sienese school is plainly discernible in his work. According to Vasari, the first paintings of this artist were in the Certosa of Florence ; none exists there now.
His earliest extant performances, in considerable number, are at Cortona, where he was sent during his novitiate, and here appar ently he spent the early years of his monastic life. His first works executed in fresco were probably those, now destroyed, which he painted in the convent of S. Domenico in this city; as a fresco painter, he may have worked under or as a follower of Gherardo Starnina. From 1418 to 1436, he was back at Fiesole; in 1436 he was transferred to the Dominican convent of S. Marco in Florence, and in 1438 undertook to paint the altar-piece for the choir, fol lowed by many other works; he may have studied about this time the renowned frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in the Florentine church of the Carmine and also the paintings of Orcagna. In or about 1446 he was invited by the Pope, Eugenius IV., to Rome. If the story (first told by Vasari) is true—that the archbishopric of Florence had been offered to himself, and by him declined on the ground of his inaptitude—Eugenius, and not (as stated by Vasari) his successor Nicholas V., must have been the Pope who made the offer to Fra Giovanni, for Nicholas only succeeded in Certain it is that Angelico was staying in Rome in the first half of 1447; and he painted in the Vatican the Cappella del Sacra mento, which was afterwards demolished by Paul III. In June 1447 he proceeded to Orvieto, to paint in the Cappella Nuova of the cathedral, with the co-operation of his pupil Benozzo Gozzoli. He afterwards returned to Rome to paint the chapel of Nicholas V. In this capital he died in 1455, and he lies buried in the church of the Minerva. The tradition of his beatification is unfounded.
Fra Giovanni led a holy and self-denying life, shunning all advancement, and was a brother to the poor ; no man ever saw him angered. He painted with unceasing diligence, treating none but sacred subjects; he never retouched or altered his work. He was wont to say that he who illustrates the acts of Christ should be with Christ. It is said that he never handled a brush without fer vent prayer and he wept when he painted a Crucifixion. The Last Judgment and the Annunciation were two of the subjects he most frequently treated.
Bearing in mind the details already given as to the dates of Fra Giovanni's sojournings in various localities, the reader will be able to trace approximately the sequence of his works. In Florence, in the convent of S. Marco (now converted into a national museum) is a series of frescoes beginning towards 1443, all of which are later than the altar-piece which Angelico painted (as before mentioned) for the choir connected with this convent, and which is now in the academy of Florence. It represents the Virgin with SS. Cosmas and Damian (the patrons of the Medici family), Dominic, Peter, Francis, Mark, John the Evangelist and Stephen; the pediment illustrated the lives of Cosmas and Damian, but it has long been severed from the main subject. In the Uffizi gallery is an altar-piece, the Virgin (life-sized), enthroned with the Infant and 12 angels. In S. Domenico, Fiesole, there are a few frescoes, less fine than those in S. Marco ; also an altar-piece in tempera of the `Virgin and Child, now much destroyed. The subject which originally formed the predella of this picture has, since 186o, been in the National Gallery, London. The subject is a Glory, Christ with the banner of the Resurrection, and a multitude of saints, including, at the extremities, the saints or beati of the Dominican order ; here are no fewer than 266 figures or portions of figures, many of them having names inscribed. This predella was highly lauded by Vasari; still more highly another picture which used to form an altar-piece in Fiesole, and is now in the Louvre— the "Coronation of the Virgin," with eight predella subjects of the miracles of St. Dominic. For the church of Santa Trinita, Flor ence, Angelico executed a "Deposition from the Cross" and for the church of the Angeli, a "Last Judgment," both now in the Florentine academy; for S. Maria Novella, a "Coronation of the Virgin," with a predella in three sections, now in the Uffizi—this again is one of his masterpieces. In Orvieto cathedral he painted three triangular divisions of the ceiling, all now much repainted and damaged. In Rome, in the Chapel of Nicholas V., he painted the acts of SS. Stephen and Lawrence, also various figures of saints, and on the ceiling the four evangelists. These works of the painter's advanced age, which have suffered somewhat from restorations, show vigour superior to that of his youth, along with a more adequate treatment of the architectural perspectives. It has often been said that he frequently practised as an illuminator; illuminations executed by Giovanni's brother, Benedetto, also a Dominican, who died in 1448, have probably been ascribed to the more famous artist. Benedetto may perhaps have assisted Gio vanni in the frescoes at S. Marco, but nothing of the kind is dis tinctly traceable. A folio series of engravings from these paintings, was published in Florence in 1852. Along with Gozzoli already mentioned, Zanobi Strozzi and Gentile da Fabriano are named as pupils of the Beato.
For an appreciation of Fra Angelico's art we may quote Sir Charles Holmes (The National Gallery, Italian Schools) : "One very great colourist, Fra Angelico, arrives before Masaccio, and outlives him. The legend of his saintly life, the happy serenity and simplicity of his temper, tend to distract our attention from his greatness as an artist. Not only does he possess a mastery of design which enables him to treat a large variety of subjects with almost invariable success, but when his theme gives him the neces sary scope he attains, as in his "Transfiguration" at Florence, to a power and sublimity which have never been surpassed. He has much of Giotto's power of making his figures seem living and sub stantial. But above all, he is one of the world's great colourists, and the single painting by his hand which we possess in London will enable us to understand this side of his art in some measure. His other claims to greatness can be estimated only in Florence." BIBLIOGRAPHY.--S. Beissel, Fra Giovanni Angelico: Sein Leben and Bibliography.--S. Beissel, Fra Giovanni Angelico: Sein Leben and Seine Werke (Freiburg, 1895) ; D. Tumiati, Fra Angelico (Florence, 1897) ; R. L. Douglas, Fra Angelico (London, 19o1) ; G. Williamson, Fra Angelico (London, 1901).