Fra Angelico

Fra Angelico — born Guido di Pietro and known in religious life as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole — was a Dominican friar and painter who occupies a unique position in the history of Early Renaissance art, combining the spiritual intensity of medieval piety with the new naturalism and perspective of the Florentine Renaissance. He was born around 1395, probably near Vicchio in the Mugello valley north of Florence, and entered the Dominican order around 1420, spending much of his life at the convent of San Marco in Florence.\n\nHis most celebrated works are the frescoes he painted in the cells and corridors of the Convent of San Marco in Florence, executed between about 1438 and 1445. Each of the friars' cells received its own fresco — an Annunciation, a Nativity, a Crucifixion — intended as aids to contemplation rather than public display. The famous Annunciation at the top of the dormitory staircase is among the most serene and spiritually luminous images in the history of painting, combining the mathematical logic of Brunelleschi's architecture with a transcendent delicacy of color and emotion. Fra Angelico also worked in illuminated manuscripts and painted altarpieces for major Florentine churches.\n\nIn 1445 he was called to Rome by Pope Eugene IV and spent several years decorating the private chapel of Pope Nicholas V in the Vatican with frescoes depicting the lives of Saints Stephen and Lawrence. His reputation for personal holiness was as great as his artistic fame; he was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982, and is recognized as the patron saint of Catholic artists. He died in Rome in 1455.