Fra Angelico

Timeline

1. c. 1407–1436Fiesole · near FlorenceGuido di Pietro took vows in the Dominican convent at Fiesole around 1407, taking the name 'Giovanni'; later generations called him 'Angelico' (meaning angelic). Early on he studied under painters such as Lorenzo Monaco, widely studying Byzantine icons and Gothic traditions while absorbing the perspective and figure techniques of Renaissance predecessors like Masaccio, gradually forming a personal style combining spirituality and realism.
2. 1436–1445Convent of San Marco, Florence · FlorenceIn 1436 Cosimo de' Medici funded the restoration of the Convent of San Marco in Florence and handed it to the Dominicans. Over about nine years Fra Angelico painted more than fifty frescoes in the monks' cells and communal spaces, each conveying themes of spiritual meditation through simple compositions and clear colors, the most famous being the Annunciation at the end of the corridor. The series is regarded as a model of perfectly combining Renaissance perspective with religious devotion.
3. 1451–1455Vatican Palace (Nicholas Chapel) · VaticanSummoned to Rome by Pope Eugenius IV in 1445, he thereafter traveled between Rome and Florence for several years. Between 1451 and 1453, commissioned by Pope Nicholas V, he painted a series of frescoes on the lives of Saints Stephen and Lawrence in the Nicholas Chapel of the Vatican Palace, with grand compositions and precise architectural perspective, his most important late work. He died on 18 February 1455 in the Dominican convent near Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome and, per his wishes, was buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva.