Fra Angelico’s ‘Crucifixion’

Fra Angelico’s ‘Crucifixion’ recently restored in the Chapter Hall of the convent of San Marco Everyone on Golgotha Saints and founders of principal religious orders at the foot of the Cross

by CRISTINA ACIDINI

Source: L'Osservatore Romano, 18 July 2014, number 29

In the Chapter Hall of the old Dominican convent, now the Museum of San Marco in Florence, there is a new opportunity to revisit a foremost masterpiece of Fra Angelico, the Crucifixion with Saints. Its restoration was recently completed after a series of diagnostic examinations were performed by top scientific experts. The mural showed signs not only of serious past damage but also traces of materials from the restoration performed 40 years ago by restoration expert, Dino Dini. His own grandson, Giacomo Dini, under the direction of Magnolia Scudieri, performed the delicate and reverent operation, thanks to which the artistic content can once again be admired, having been made safe from the standpoint of conservation, and its undamaged parts rendered fully legible. 

Large but not overwhelmingly, the Chapter Hall looks out onto the cloister and receives moderate indirect light. It is literally dominated by the fresco which occupies the entire posterior wall of the room, attracting all eyes and inspiring deep reflection upon Christ’s sacrifice and upon the value of redemption. The scene draws further significance from the images that frame it. In the top part of the frame, hexagonal tiles depict biblical and symbolic images: the mystical pelican in the centre, Old Testament prophets lean outward to allow the verses on their fluttering banners to be read, as well as a sybil and a pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite [1st Bishop of Athens, who was converted to Christianity by St Paul], representing the premonitions of the pagan world with regard to the advent of Christ. And below the horizontal “tree ” of the Dominican order, the founder occupies the centre medallion, while those on the side depict the effigies of saints, blesseds, cardinals and bishops of the Order. The scene’s vertical axis visually weighs upon St Dominic, aligning him with the pelican, Christ on the Cross, and the skull of Adam on Golgotha. Thus in 1441-42 Brother John of Fiesole, better known as Fra Angelico, presented to his brothers, reunited in the Chapter Hall, a pictorial page of important doctrinal content, with the Crucifixion hinging between the Old Testament and the history of the Order of Preachers which began in the 13th century. 

During those years the convent, which had been passed down to the Dominican Observants by the Sylvestrines in 1435, was a fervent centre of architecture and painting financed by preeminent Florentine banker, Cosimo de’ Medici, who had commissioned Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for the work. Shortly afterward, on the night of the Epiphany in 1443, the church was consecrated by Cardinal Niccolò d’Acciapaccio, Archbishop of Capua, in the presence of Pope Eugene IV (who, while staying in Florence during his voluntary exile from Rome, had attended the completion of Brunelleschi’s masterpiece, the extraordinary Chapel of Santa Maria del Fiore the year before). It was Antonio Pierozzi — who would become the Bishop of Florence and later a saint (known as St Antoninus) — who, as Prior in 1439, made San Marco a point of reference for that year’s preliminary meetings of the Council between Eastern and Western Churches, in which he also participated as a theologian. 

Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion illustrates this exceptional time of discussion and the promise of a union between the religious faiths and spiritual orientations. At the torture of Christ and the two thieves (the good one composed and confident, the bad one crying and suffering) are two Gospel figures: Our Lady, supported by the two Marys, and by a blond Mary Magdalene kneeling in front of her in a daughterly embrace, and St John the Evangelist. The crowd on Golgotha is rendered all the more complex by the painter’s depiction on the right and left, of an unprecedented array of Saints from various places and times. On the left representing Florence is its Patron Saint John the Baptist, the convent’s namesake, Mark the Evangelist, Deacon Lawrence and the Syrian healers Cosmas and Damian. The latter three — among whom, in the disturbing intensity of his incredibly human sorrow, the young saint turns away from the tragic scene, hiding his face with his hand — witness the participation of the Medici family. Cosmas and Damian, in their being “medici” [healers], were in fact hired protectors of the family. St Cosmas was the personal protector of Cosimo, and St Lawrence (namesake of the family church, near the Medici homes in Via Larga, today called Via Cavour) was the the protector of Lorenzo, brother of the most famous and long-lived Cosimo. 

On the right is St Dominic, kneeling and almost touching the Crucifix, and beyond him is Bishop Zanobi who symbolizes the Florentine Church, with his features strong and precise as if in a portrait. At that time the Bishop of Florence was Bartholomew Zabarella, who, it is worth noting, never actually reached the city, since he died while on his way there in 1445. It is therefore possible that the original image was replaced to depict instead the face of his successor, Antonino Pierozzi . 

Holy doctors, martyrs and founders of the principal religious orders of the time are seen kneeling and standing, and allude to the militant Church: St Jerome with a cardinal’s biretta, St Francis, St Bernard of Clairvaux, St John Gualbert, Dominican St Peter the Martyr, St Augustine, St Benedict, St Romuald and the Dominican theologian St Thomas Aquinas. 

The extraordinary and unique iconography reflects an ideal of unity and concordance in Christianity, which was surely in tune with the climate of ecumenical hope of the temporary reunification of Eastern and Western Churches, ratified by the Council with the Decree of 6 July 1439, Laetentur Caeli.