FIE'SOLE, FRA GIOVA'NNI DA, frequently called, from his character, Beata Angelico, is one of the most celebrated of the early Iradian painters. His real name was, according to Vasari, Giovanni Guido, and he was a distinguished member of the brotherhood of Predicant monks at Fiesole. Hie name is however variously given, as, for instance, Santi Tosini, and Giovanni di Pietro di Mugello. lie was apparently born in Mogello in 13S7, and he entered the order of the Predicants at Fiesole in 1409. Little or nothing further is known either of his origin or his education. lie early distinguished himself for his miniature illuminations of religious books, of which there are still some in the convent of San Marco at Florence, where he painted several works for Cosmo de' Medici, of which the history of tho Passion of Christ in the refectory is still in comparative preservation. Giovanni learnt the art of illuminating or miniature painting from an elder brother, I'm Benedetto di Pietro di Mugello, or, Latinised, 13ene dictus Petri de Mugello.
Ile painted also many admirable works in the Carthusian church, in Santa Maria Novella, and in the Nunziata and other churches in Florence ; in San Domenico at Piesole; in the cathedral of Orvieto ; at Cortona ; and in the chapel of San Lorenzo in the Vatican, and in I the Minerva at Rome. He was invited to Rome by Pope Niccol V., who offered him the high dignity of the nrchbishoprio of Florence, which however Giovanni was too modest to accept : he pleaded that to govern or to lead was alike incompatible with his nature. The appointment was given to another monk of the same order as Giovanni, Fra Antonio, who was canonised by Adrian VI.
The frescoes in the chapel of Niceolo V. are in great part still in a good state of preservation, though they have been restored. The chapel was long neglected, and public attention was first called to these frescoes by Hofrath Hirt. of Berlin. The principal subjects represent the leading events of the lives of Sainte Stefano and Lorenzo, and their tnartyrdotns; on the ceiling are the four evangelists; around the chapel also are the doctors and fathers of the church—Saints Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Athanasine, and John Chrysostom, Augustin, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory—and a Descent from the Cross' was painted above the altar, but it has been whitewashed over. This
chapel is described in Mather and Bunsen's ' Description of Rome,' and there are small outlines of the frescoes iu D'Agineonrt'a Histoire do l'Art par les Monutnens,' and larger in a special work by Giangin comi, ' Le Pittura della Capella di Niccolo V., opera del B. Giov. Aug. da Ficsole,' Rome, 1810 ; also two of the principal subjects—' Tito Preaching of St. Stephen,' and ' St. Lawrence giving Alms '—are etched in Ottley's series of plates after Florentine paintings. These works of Fra Giovanni, as well as those in the convent of Saint Mark at Florence, and others elsosvhere, though as mere abstract designs or works of art they are comparatively crude and feeble, and inferior to tho works of Masaccio, are with reference to their subjects perfect in their sentiment, and in expression admirable, and have not been sur passed by the works of any of the great painters who followed him. His works are exclusively religious or ecclesiastical ; and they breathe the purest piety and humility, which are the vivid impressions of his own mind and character. The genuineness of his sentiment and exproseion was eo self-evident that his works became in a great degree, mediately when not immediately, the typo of character for religious art to his own and to subsequent generations.
Though his works have not as regards style that plastic development which we fiod in Masaccio, the inferiority is not great, but ho survived lldnseccio some years. Giovanni'e execution is sometimes extremely elaborate and even beautiful, especially in his small easel pauels painted in distemper. There is a small gallery of there works in the Academy et Florence, of which tho most remarkable piece is a ' Last Judgment,' containing a great variety of figures.
Fin Giovanni was remarkably methodic in his habits. It was his maxim that whoever would represent the works of Christ must be always with Christ; he accordingly never commenced any work with out praying, and he always carried out the first impression, believing it to be nu inspiration : ho never retouched or altered anything once left as fluished, Ile died in 1455, twenty-eight years before the birth of Randle.
(Vastud, File de' Pittori, Lenzi, and the notes in Schorn'e German translation; Speth, Kunst in hullos; Rurnehr, hal icniehe Forschungen.)