Fra Angelico

This is an exceptional meeting: the tomb of the famous Dominican painter fra Giovanni da Fiesole, or Fra Angelico (1395 - 1455). His paintings are very famous and most of them are conserved at the Saint Marc convent in Florence, but also in the Vatican. He actually worked for several popes.

The representation in marble of the Dominican brother is probably of Isaiah of Pisa.

Fra Angelico lived and worked for several years in the Dominican convent of Fiesole, near Florence. His artistic work appears both new and old. In effect, this Dominican painter tried to reconcile the principles of the art of the nascent Renaissance and medieval art. The intuition was to treat medieval art as a relic to insert in a new project. The experiments of light effects and perspective gave life to masterpieces that influenced artists such as Filippo Lippi of whom some paintings are conserved in the Carafa chapel of the Basilica.

The works of Fra Angelico were also used by Girolamo Savonarole and his followers as instruments for preaching the Gospel, and they continue to be admired by many visitors who they enchant.

Fra Angelico was declared Blessed the 3rd of October 1982, with liturgical worship, by saint John Paul II who defines him as an extraordinary religious-artist who "with all his life sang the glory of God, that he carried as a treasure deep in his heart and expressed in his works of art […] for him art became prayer". It is always saint John Paul II, the 18th of February 1984 who proclaimed him Universal Patron of Artists.