. (Pinacoteca, Perugia.)]

II.

FRA ANGELICO AT FIESOLE.

[1418-1436.]

[Illustration]

Whilst Fra Angelico was putting the legends of the Virgin and St.
Dominic into colour in Umbria, Giovanni Dominici together with
Leonardo Dati, master-general of the Order, was negotiating with the
Bishop of Fiesole and Pope Gregory XII. to again obtain possession of
the convent founded by Dominici. It was only in 1418 that the Fiesolan
bishop acceded to their request, on condition that the Dominicans
would make him a present of some sacred vestments to the value of a
hundred ducats. This sum, writes Marchese, was taken from the legacy
left to the convent by the father of St. Antonino, who died about
that time. A rich merchant having died in Florence in the same year,
leaving the monks of Fiesole six thousand florins, it was besides
decided to enlarge the building. The legal act of free and absolute
concession being signed, the father-general at once sent for four of
the monks from Cortona, among whom, as we have said, were neither Fra
Angelico nor Fra Benedetto. This does not imply that all the others
who had left in 1409, might not have returned later, and probably Fra
Angelico among them.[16]

It was in this convent from which on the side towards the ridge of the
Fiesole hill, he looked on the olives spreading their silvery branches
against the blue sky, that Fra Angelico, absorbed in work and prayer,
passed the greater part of his life. It is impossible to determine at
which of the many works that now adorn the Florentine and foreign
galleries, he worked during his stay in Fiesole, where he remained
till 1436; certainly he painted the panel pictures for his church, the
Tabernacle of the Linen Weavers, and frescoes in some parts of the
convent. That convent so dear to him must have awakened in his soul
many bitter and sweet memories--whether he thought of the days when he
and his brother Benedetto first took their vows, or of the
successive vicissitudes when he and the brethren were forced to
abandon it.

[Illustration: CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. (San Marco, Florence.)]

Vasari asserts that "he painted an Easter candle in several small
scenes, for Giovanni Masi, a monk of the convent of Santa Maria
Novella; and also some reliquaries which on solemn feast days were
placed on the altar," and are preserved to this day in the convent of
San Marco. They represent the "Coronation of the Virgin," the "Madonna
della Ste