n Gallery.

Padre Marchese writes: "I believe it was in Fiesole that he painted
many of those little panels, which may now be seen in the Gallery of
the Florentine Academy of Design, and perhaps also the doors of the
presses for the silver vessels in the chapel of the SS. Annunziata at
Florence. In his first edition Vasari had enumerated them among his
early works, which may have seemed probable, as Fra Angelico's first
steps in art were in illuminating and painting small stories."[50]

But as it was only in 1448 that Piero de' Medici, to show his devotion
to the Virgin of the Annunciation, obtained from the monks the
patronage of that altar with the intention of adorning it with a
splendour worthy of the dignity of Her to whom it was dedicated,[51]
we cannot suppose that Fra Angelico painted the door of its treasure
presses before that time.

Rio also dates at the epoch of the monk's sojourn in Tuscany towards
1450, the great unfinished painting now in the Academy of the Belle
Arti, which has been regarded as one of Fra Angelico's first works. We
know as a fact that in 1450 he was prior of the convent at Fiesole,
and may believe that he stayed some time in Tuscany, before returning
to Rome to finish the chapel of Pope Nicholas V.[52] But Rio adds that
"besides the date of the building of the chapel, the fact that the
portrait of Michelozzo represents him as older in this work than in
the Deposition," suggests for this cyclic composition an approximative
date, very far from that assigned to it previously.[53]

We must not forget, however, that several doubts arise as to the
identity of the person representing Michelozzo.

Vasari recognises him in that old Nicodemus with a hood, who lowers
the Christ from the cross in the Deposition, while Milanesi, asserting
that Nicodemus has a saint's aureole not a cowl, holds that the
portrait of Michelozzo is to be seen in the figure with a black hood
who speaks with the disciple beneath him as he gives the body of the
Lord into his hands. Certainly Milanesi has good reason to doubt
Vasari's assertion, as Nicodemus has no hood: moreover Vasari himself
in his second edition of the Lives (1568) assigns as the architect's
likeness that very figure with a cowl who is speaking to the disciple.
Therefore we must admit that the Aretian Historian was mistaken either
in his indication of the figure, or in the reproduction of it as a
headpiece to his Life of Michelozzo.

In any case, a