The altarpiece at the convent of San Marco, in Florence, by Fra Angelico, 1438–42.

Higher Things

In Florence, an exhibition showcases the work of Fra Angelico, the Italian Renaissance painter and Dominican friar behind some of the era’s most inventive sacred imagery

By Louise Bokkenheuser

A spectacular exhibition of frescoes, paintings, drawings, and illuminated manuscripts has just opened in not one but two venues in Florence—Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco. Gold, lapis lazuli, and virtuosity abound. The subject? Titled “Fra Angelico,” this is the biggest show in 70 years on the early-Renaissance master whom Giorgio Vasari, the world’s first art historian, called a “rare and perfect talent.” Lit just right, the gilded panels, many of them newly restored, speak movingly of higher things.

Born Guido di Piero in the Mugello Valley north of Florence around 1395, Fra Angelico is believed to have come from a prosperous family that was able to send him to Florence to train as an illuminator of manuscripts. Guido eventually became a Dominican friar, dedicating himself to making art within the mendicant order; after his death, in 1455, he became known as Fra Angelico, or the Angelic Friar.