Fra Angelico | Frescoes in the Convento di San Marco (1438-50) | Art in Tuscany | Podere Santa Pia, Holiday house in the south of Tuscany

Fra Angelico | Frescoes in the Convento di San Marco (1438-50)

The Museum of San Marco is located in the former monastery of the Dominicans, constructed by Michelozzo in 1436 on a commission from the Medici ruler Cosimo the Elder. Michelozzo here adheres firmly to the Renaissance forms of Brunelleschi, even though his classicism has none of the other's passion for archeological research in it. The smooth, flowing lines of the cloister's arches create effects of light and shade which alternate in the series of vaults. Naturally the religious function and the deliberately spiritual effect of the structure, suggested by the order's Vicar General and perhaps by Fra Angelico himself, qualify these chiaroscuro and plastic impressions. The history of San Marco is inseparably linked to the figures of the painters, Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, and the friar Girolamo Savonarola.

The figure of Angelico dominates in the Convent. The friar painter lived a long time here and expressed here his delicate and simple soul in the sincere, candid forms of art. But a great part, not only the artistic, but of the religious and civil history of Florence developed here.

In the cloisters, in the dormitories, in the cells we find the conventual character well-preserved in the harmonious architectural plan. We also find the memory of San Antonino, who entered here as a friar, and, it is said on the advice of Angelico, came out of it in 1445 archbishop of Florence; and the memory of Savonarola, who came here in 1489, and was later prior of the convent and who from here raised himself against the decadence of habits calling the people to liberty and democratic arrangement; and the memory, above that of Angelico's almost unknown collaborators, of a great friar painter, Fra Bartolommeo.

On the walls of the priory of San Marco in Florence are the paintings that mark the high point of Fra Angelico's career. Conceived and executed simply as aids to meditation and prayer, they have taken their place among the most exhilarating masterpieces of Western art. The San Marco frescoes were intended not as means of instruction, still less as decoration, but as aids to contemplation and meditation. The brother who inhabited each cell was to have constantly before his eyes a vivid yet chaste reminder of one of the events in the life of Christ.

The return of Cosimo de' Medici to Florence in 1434 enabled the Dominicans, of whom he had long been a patron, to secure for themselves the ruined convent of San Marco. [1] Its rebuilding began in 1437, and its decoration very soon after. Angelico entered the priory of San Marco in Florence in 1439. There he worked mostly on frescoes. San Marco had been transferred from the Sylvestrine monks to the Dominicans in 1436, and the rebuilding of the church and its spacious priory began about 1438, from designs by the Florentine architect and sculptor Michelozzo. The construction was generously subsidized by the Medici family. Angelico was commissioned about 1438 by Cosimo de’ Medici the Elder to execute the altarpiece, for which he again painted a sacra conversazione.
'While the old San Marco buildings were being repaired, the Dominicans lived in huts and damp cells. But as the ground floor was readied, Fra Angelico and his assistants went to work, painting a series of Crucifixions in the cloister, the main refectory and the chapter house. For Cosimo's cell, largest in the monastery, where the Medici prince liked to retire for contemplation, Fra Angelico repeated once again the Coming of the Magi at Cosimo's request, "to have this example of Eastern kings laying down their crowns at the manger of Bethlehem always before his eyes as a reminder for his own guidance as a ruler."
Fra Angelico concentrated on the simple devotional images required by his fellow monks for their meditations and prayers. The results, seen in the six cells definitely painted by Fra Angelico, represent Fra Angelico at his strongest and purest. To portray The Mocking of Christ, he painted a regal, blindfolded Christ figure crowned with thorns; the throng of jeering soldiery appear only as a group of disembodied hands and a loutish head, cap raised in sarcasm, spitting upon Christ. By abstracting all but the essential central image, Fra Angelico makes the eye travel through a curve of space to return endlessly to its starting point—the perfect movement theologians ascribe to the contemplative soul.
In 1443, the Pope visited San Marco to dedicate the finished convent. Two years later, the Pontiff called Fra Angelico to Rome to begin the great work of decorating the Vatican.' [1]

According to Giorgio Vasari, in the early part of his career, Benozzo Gozzoli was a pupil and assistant of Fra Angelico: some of the works in the convent of San Marco of Florence were executed by Gozzoli from Angelico's design.
The hand of Fra Angelico himself is identifiable in the first 10 cells on the eastern side. Three subjects merit particular attention: a Resurrection, a coronation of the Virgin, and, especially, a gentle Annunciation, presented on a bare white gallery, with St. Peter Martyr in prayer, timidly facing the group, his coloured habit contrasting with the delicate two tones of pink in the garments of the Virgin and the Angel.

The frescoes fall into two groups: those for communal contemplation (of which the Annunciation, at the top of the stairs leading to the upper corridor, is again set in an arcaded loggia), and those for private meditation in the individual cells (among these the Noli Me Tangere, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Transfiguration are especially beautiful).
The cells, originally hidden from public view because of monastic vows of reclusion, reveal the secret joy of the painter-friar in creating figures of purity to move his fellow friars to meditation and prayer. The images in these paintings are the lyrical expressions of a painter who was also their prior.


In the chapter hall, Fra Angelico executed a large Crucifixion that seems akin to the Moralities of the 14th century, which urged detachment from worldly vanities and salvation through Christ alone. In addition to the three crucified figures against the sky, Angelico painted groups of ritual figures, rhythmically arranged, with a chorus of martyrs, founders of religious orders, hermits, and defenders of the Dominican order (whose genealogical tree is depicted beneath this striking scene), as well as the two Medicean saints. Thus, in the comprehensiveness of this work, Fra Angelico developed a concept that was barely suggested in his earlier altarpieces. He portrayed the exaltation of the Redeemer in many other paintings in the priory's first cloister and in its cells. In one corridor he executed an Annunciation that broadened the pattern of his earlier one in Cortona. In the cells, he proclaimed devotion to Christ crucified in at least 20 examples, all related to monastic life. The pictorial work in these narrow spaces is intricate, probably the work of numerous hands directed by the master, including Benozzo Gozzoli, the greatest of Fra Angelico's disciples, and Zanobi Strozzi, another pupil better known as a miniaturist, as well as his earliest collaborator, Battista Sanguigni.
According to Giorgio Vasari, in the early part of his career, Benozzo Gozzoli was a pupil and assistant of Fra Angelico: some of the works in the convent of San Marco of Florence were executed by Gozzoli from Angelico's design. The hand of Fra Angelico himself is identifiable in the first 10 cells on the eastern side. Three subjects merit particular attention: a Resurrection, a coronation of the Virgin, and, especially, a gentle Annunciation, presented on a bare white gallery, with St. Peter Martyr in prayer, timidly facing the group, his coloured habit contrasting with the delicate two tones of pink in the garments of the Virgin and the Angel. The frescoes fall into two groups: those for communal contemplation (of which the Annunciation, at the top of the stairs leading to the upper corridor, is again set in an arcaded loggia), and those for private meditation in the individual cells (among these the Noli Me Tangere, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Transfiguration are especially beautiful). The cells, originally hidden from public view because of monastic vows of reclusion, reveal the secret joy of the painter-friar in creating figures of purity to move his fellow friars to meditation and prayer. The images in these paintings are the lyrical expressions of a painter who was also their prior.

Frescoes in the upper floor cells

Noli Me Tangere

Fra Angelico, Noli Me Tangere, 1440-41, fresco, 180 x 146 cm,Convento di San Marco, Florence
Noli me tangere, (meaning "don't touch me"), is the fresco on the wall of Cell 1 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. The brilliance of the early morning is real enough, but the irradiating light, the floating rather than walking figure of Christ, the wealth of natural detail in the garden, are for devotional reasons and intended to stimulate the meditatin of the monk who lived in the cell. "In this fresco, Christ appears to Mary Magdalene. She has been weeping after discovering that his tomb is empty. A figure appears. At first she mistakes him for a gardener as he is carrying a hoe. Suddenly realizing who it is, she goes to embrace him. But he moves away, telling her not to touch him - literally Noli Me Tangere."[2] This is the fresco on the wall of Cell 1 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. The brilliance of the early morning is real enough, but the irradiating light, the floating rather than walking figure of Christ, the wealth of natural detail in the garden, are for devotional reasons and intended to stimulate the meditatin of the monk who lived in the cell.
The Annunciation

Fra Angelico, The Annunciation (detail) , late 1430's, Convento di San Marco, Florence
The Annunciation is the fresco at the top of the Dormitory stairs. This is probably the most reproduced of all Fra Angelico's paintings. of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. In one corridor fra Angelico executed an Annunciation that broadened the pattern of his earlier one in Cortona. This fresco is situated on the wall of the southern corridor, on the upper floor in front of the staircase. The inscription on the pavement reads Salve, Mater pietatis / et totius Trinitatis / nobile triclinium / Maria. The architecture reflects Michelozzo's designs. On the left St Peter the Martyr is represented. This is a favourite theme, here simplified. A contribution of Angelico's pupils can be assumed. The composition of this fresco is severe in the extreme. The Virgin inhabits not a house but a cell as Spartan as that in which the fresco is painted, and beyond Gabriel and Mary the eye meets only a plain blank wall. The one piece of decoration, the capital of the column, is deliberately obscured by the wing of the angel. Here and throughout the series the pallet is extremely restrained, as if Angelico thought rich and varied colours were as likely as decoration to distract the friars from spiritual contemplation.		Fra Angelico, Annunciation
The Transfiguration
The Transfiguration shows the directness, simplicity and restrained palette typical of these frescoes. Located in a monk's cell at the Convent San' Marco, its apparent purpose is to encourage private devotion. The Transfiguration is the fresco on the wall of Cell 6 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. In this fresco Christ stands on a rock, prefiguring his rising from the tomb. His arms are outstretched and in this He also foreshadows his own crucifixion. He is voluminously clad in a sculptural mass of glowing white robe, and encircling Him is a radiant white mandorla. His forward gaze does not directly engage the eye of the spectator. At the base of the rock three of the Apostles crouch in awed positions, but they maintain the curious contemplative detachment from the drama of the scene which is the hallmark of this fresco cycle. At the edge of the fresco, on either side, stand the Virgin and St Dominic in positions indicative of prayer, stern and unresponsive to events around them. The heads of Moses and Elias appear beneath the arms of Christ; they are introduced as detached symbols to aid meditation. There is no attempt to create any more than the bare essentials of picture space; this particular spur to devotion required no more. For Angelico, too elaborate a spatial framework as much as excessive use of colour, decoration, or narrative, could detract from the picture's power.		Fra Angelico, Transfiguration (Cell 6)
The Mocking of Christ

Fra Angelico, The Mocking of Christ (detail), with the Virgin and Saint Dominic, 1439-1443, fresco, Cell 7, Convent of San Marco, Florence(1439-43)
The The Mocking of Christ is the fresco on the wall of Cell 7 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. Fra Angelico concentrated on the simple devotional images required by his fellow monks for their meditations and prayers. The results, seen in the six cells definitely painted by Fra Angelico, represent Fra Angelico at his strongest and purest. To portray The Mocking of Christ, he painted a regal, blindfolded Christ figure crowned with thorns; the throng of jeering soldiery appear only as a group of disembodied hands and a loutish head, cap raised in sarcasm, spitting upon Christ. By abstracting all but the essential central image, Fra Angelico makes the eye travel through a curve of space to return endlessly to its starting point—the perfect movement theologians ascribe to the contemplative soul. The contemplative restraint of the San Marco frescoes is nowhere better illustrated than in The Mocking of Christ. Rather than paint Christ's humiliations in their full violence in a complex narrative work, they are reduced to a series of iconographic symbols. In doing this Angelico was drawing on established trecento precedents. In a plain-walled room Christ sits on a dais in a luminous white robe and tunic. The great slab of white marble beneath Him adds to the air of radiant whiteness surrounding Him. He is blindfolded, with a crown of thorns about his head. Behind Him hanging from a plain frieze is a screen on which are painted the emblems of his indignities: the head of the spitting soldier, the hands of the buffeters, the hand and stick forcing the thorns down on his head. On a low step at the front of the picture sit the Virgin and St Dominic. Neither regard Christ but sit with their backs turned towards him in poses of intense meditation - the depth of meditation that the frescoes were designed to assist each friar to attain. Art in Tuscany \| Fra Angelico \| The Mocking of Christ		Fra Angelico, The Mocking of Christ (cell 7)
Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb

Fra Angelico, Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb, detail, (Cell 8), 1440-42, fresco, 181 x 151 cm, Convento di San Marco, Florence
This is the fresco on the wall of Cell 8 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. On the left, St Dominic in meditation. The three women on the right were painted by Benozzo Gozzoli who that time was an apprentice in the workshop of Fra Angelico. He collaborated in the pictorial decoration of the Dominican convent of San Marco.		Fra Angelico, Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb (Cell 8)

Coronation of the Virgin
The Coronation of the Virgin is the fresco on the wall of Cell 9 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. The glory of St Mary, a theme dear to Angelico is acclaimed by six kneeling saints. The saints represented on the lower part are (from the left) St Thomas, St Benedict, St Dominic, St Francis, St Peter the Martyr and St Mark. The fresco probably belongs to the first ones executed in the Convent by Fra Angelico. These six saints can be seen as a token representation of the elect, who surround Christ and the Virgin in heaven in the traditional rendering of this scene. But like so many other figures in the series of San Marco frescoes, they have an air of detachment from the events to which they are nominally witnesses. They hold their hands out in adoration and gaze heavenwards, but none looks directly at the scene of coronation. The Virgin, with her arms folded over her chest, leans forward to receive the crown. She is seated beside Christ, in accordance with the usual composition for this subject. In this series of frescoes at San Marco Angelico has not turned back to medieval prototypes but instead, through economy in the use of figures, restraint in the overt expression of emotion, and austere use of colour, he has created his own meditative images of remarkable force.		Fra Angelico, Coronation of the Virgin (Cell 9)

Adoration of the Magi and Man of Sorrows

Fra Angelico, Adoration of the Magi and Man of Sorrows (Cell 39), 1441-42, fresco, 1175 x 357 cm, Convento di San Marco, Florence
Adoration of the Magi and Man of Sorrows is the fresco on the wall of Cell 39 of the Convento di San Marco in Florence. One cell at the end of the corridor for lay brothers was distinguished by its occupant and size. It was intended for Cosimo de' Medici, who belonged to the community by virtue of his patronage. His room, in fact, was a double cell (Cells 38 and 39), in which the superimposed chambers were joined by a short flight of stairs. Of all the cells along this corridor, Cosimo's was the most spacious and elaborately decorated. On the entrance wall of the lower room (Cell 38) Fra Angelico painted the crucified Christ against a ground of costly lapis lazuli, rather than the bare plaster background found in the other cells. The inscribed haloes identify the saints kneeling alongside the Virgin as Cosmas, Peter martyr and John the Evangelist, protectors of Cosimo, his oldest son, and his father, Giovanni di Bicci. The Adoration of the Magi and the image of Christ as Man of Sorrows in the recessed tabernacle below met Cosimo's gaze once he ascended the stairs to Cell 39. Benozzo Gozzoli, whose style closely resembled that of Angelico, and an assistant painted these frescoes, as shown by the slightly awkward stance and proportions of some of the figures as well as by their linear, closely spaced facial features.


Frescoes in the corridors and in the Chapter Room of the Convento di San Marco
Sacra Conversazione

Fra Angelico, Sacra Conversazione, c. 1443, fresco, 195 x 273 cm, Convento di San Marco, Florence
The Sacra Conversazione fresco on the wall of the east corridor of the convent is also called Madonna of the Shadows (Madonna delle Ombre). Painted in the corridor off which the brethren's cells open (between cells 25 and 26), this fresco was one of Fra Angelico's last works in San Marco's Dominican Monastery. There is almost a metaphysical feel to the frozen gestures, the deep gazes, and the strong and boldly-applied colours. This sensation is boosted by the power of the side-lighting, which in turn is emphasized by the long shadows cast by the classical capitals. These are reminiscent of architecture by Michelozzo. This fresco is the painter's ultimate achievement of wonderful synthesis between his mystical inspiration and the effective application of recent breakthroughs in Renaissance painting. On the left, St Dominic engages the beholder's gaze, directing it to his book. The text, which has no known source in his writings, is an exhortation to the friars: "Have charity, preserve humility, possess voluntary poverty. I call forth God's curse and mine on the introduction of possessions into this Order." St Dominic stands at a distance from St Mark, as well as from Sts Cosmas and Damian to whom the convent was jointly dedicated.
Crucifixion and Saints
The giant fresco occupies the entire wall opposite to the entrance of the Chapter Room. The saints depicted are, from the left: Cosmas and Damian, Lawrence, Mark the Evangelist, John the Baptist, the Virgin and the pious women; to the right of the Cricifixion kneeling Dominic, Jerome, Francis, Bernard, John Gualberto and Peter the Martyr, standing Zanobi (or perhaps Ambrose), Augustin, Benedict, Romuald and Thomas of Aquino. Around the fresco, on the border, are the busts of the Prophets and Sybils in ten hexagons; in the centre, above the Crucifixion the pelikan, symbol of the redemption. Below, in the lower frieze there are 17 medallions with portraits of the most illustrious members of the Dominican Order.
The Annunciation

Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, c. 1443, fresco, 195 x 273 cm, Convento di San Marco, Florence
This fresco is situated on the wall of the northern corridor on the upper floor in front of the staircase in the Convento di San Marco in Florence. It was painted on Angelico's return from Rome in 1450, and is therefore several years later than the majority of the frescoes at San Marco. In style it falls between the sparseness of The Annunciation in cell 3 and the richness of the Cortona altarpiece. Unlike in the Cortona version, the garden is here viewed through a colonnade of columns which recede to a vanishing point near the centre of the painting. Under the arches between the Corinthian columns are the slender figures of the Madonna and of the angel in devout converse, regulated with the rhythm of gentle curves; in the background, on the left, the celestial fields with Tuscan cypresses; Gabriel's wings stretch out like a rainbow. It is the theme of the tabernacles which multiply themselves at the crossing of the ways; the greeting taken from the mediaeval hymnology and the invitation addressed to the passer-by and writings under the painting show Angelico's most cultivated devotion: Salve, Mater pietatis / et totius Trinitatis / nobile triclinium / Maria! The lighting of the scene is curiously illogical, the interior of the arcaded loggia is evenly illuminated, despite the fairly strong light coming from the left.
Grove Dictionary of Art Online (excerpt) \| "Italian painter, illuminator and Dominican friar. He rose from obscure beginnings as a journeyman illuminator to the renown of an artist whose last major commissions were monumental fresco cycles in St Peter’s and the Vatican Palace, Rome. He reached maturity in the early 1430s, a watershed in the history of Florentine art. None of the masters who had broken new ground with naturalistic painting in the 1420s was still in Florence by the end of that decade. The way was open for a new generation of painters, and Fra Angelico was the dominant figure among several who became prominent at that time, including Paolo Uccello, Fra Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno. By the early 1430s Fra Angelico was operating the largest and most prestigious workshop in Florence. His paintings offered alternatives to the traditional polyptych altarpiece type and projected the new naturalism of panel painting on to a monumental scale. In fresco projects of the 1440s and 1450s, both for S Marco in Florence and for S Peter’s and the Vatican Palace in Rome, Fra Angelico softened the typically astringent and declamatory style of Tuscan mural decoration with the colouristic and luminescent nuances that characterize his panel paintings. His legacy passed directly to the second half of the 15th century through the work of his close follower Benozzo Gozzoli and indirectly through the production of Domenico Veneziano and Piero della Francesca. Fra Angelico was undoubtedly the leading master in Rome at mid-century, and had the survival rate of 15th-century Roman painting been greater, his significance for such later artists as Melozzo da Forli and Antoniazzo Romano might be clearer than it is." Paolo Morachiello, Fra Angelico: The San Marco Frescoes, Museo Di San Marco, Thames & Hudson, 1996. BERNARD BARRYTE Stanford University Museum of Art \| Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration "Fra Angelico's mural paintings in the Dominican priory of San Marco in Florence are the subject of this study. Finding art history's traditional categories to be misleading, Didi-Huberman turns to semiotics as the conceptual tool that enables him "to shore up the imperiled historical imagination" and recover the "universe of thought" inhabited by the community of monks instrumental in the creation and reception of these paintings. Focusing on the Noli me tangere, the Madonna with Eight Saints, and the Annunciation, he reveals their multivalent significance, treating the paintings as virtual figurations of theological speculation and vehicles for spiritual meditation." John Spike, Fra Angelico, Abbeville Press, 1995. In Fra Angelico (Abbeville Press, 1995) John Spike presents a major discovery: the secret program of the forty frescoes in the cells of the Dominican monastery of San Marco in Florence. All previous studies of this artist had concluded that the subjects and arrangement of these frescoes, the artists masterworks, were chosen at random, or by the friars themselves. Instead, as the author now shows, Fra Angelico drew upon the mystical writings of the early church fathers to construct a spiritual exercise organized into three ascending levels of enlightenment. The San Marco frescoes can finally be seen as not only the most extensive cycle of works by any single painter of this century, but indeed the most complete pictorial expression of Renaissance theology. Giorgio Vasari \| Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Fra Angelico \| Detailed biography of the artist
[1] The Theater: The Bearers of Gifts Set down in the chronicle of the San Domenico convent at Fiesole are the simple facts about Fra Angelico: in 1407 "Fr. Joannes Petri de Mugello iuxta Vichium, optimus pictor, qui multas tabulas et parietes in diversis locis pinxit, accepit habitum clericorum in hoc conventu . . . et in sequenti anno fecit professionem."* To this, Vasari adds only that Fra Giovanni's name was Guido, that he was born in 1387, and entered the Dominican monastery "chiefly for the sake of his soul and for his peace of mind." The decision of Fra Angelico and his brother, who became Fra Benedetto, to present themselves at the doors of the small Dominican monastery, set in a vineyard at the foot of the hill of Fiesole outside Florence, came at a crucial time. A wave of reform was sweeping the Dominican monasteries of Italy; revived humanism, based on study of recently rediscovered classic manuscripts, was threatening the church with a new kind of paganism. The new convent of San Domenico, then less than two years in existence, was a spearhead of the reformed order of Dominican Observants. Its leader, the eloquent Fra Dominici, raised up against the New Learning the stern teachings of the church fathers: "Christ is our only guide to happiness . . . our father, our leader, our light, our food, our redemption, our way, our truth, our life." Fra Dominici exhorted the young monks: "As the years of tender youth flow by, the soft wax may take on any form. Stamp on it the impress not of Narcissus, Myrrha, Phaedra or Ganymede, but of the crucified Christ and of the saints." It was to this effort that Fra Angelico, for whom the goal both of life and art was "the contemplation and realization of Beauty," devoted the rest of his life. The Theater: The Bearers of Gifts \| www.time.com [2] Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson, The A-Z of Art: The World's Greatest and Most Popular Artists and Their Works, Thunder Bay Press (CA), 1996

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This page incorporates text from the article Angelico, Fra by William Michael Rossetti, in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain, and uses material from the Wikipedia articles Fra Angelico and San Marco Altarpiece published under the GNU Free Documentation License. Wikimedia Commons \| Frescos by fra Angelico in San Marco (Florence)
Frescoes in Florence There are many important, and splendid, frescoes in Florence, among them the cenacoli (Last Supper paintings), all of which are frescoes. The Brancacci Chapel: Masolinos and Masaccios famous frescoes. The Palazzo Medici-Riccardi: Benozzo Gozzolis three-panel fresco cycle, one of the most important fresco cycles of the Renaissance, of the Procession of the Magi. The Palazzo Vecchio: the Quartiere di Eleonora di Toledo, rooms decorated with frescoes representing the allegories of illustrious women, and the Cappella di Eleonora, splendidly decorated by Bronzino. Santa Maria Novella: Masaccios unforgettable fresco of the Trinity; Paolo Uccellos damaged, but still remarkable, frescoes of the Stories from Genesis in the Green Cloister, and Domenico Ghirlandaios masterpiece: the fresco cycle of the Life of Mary and St. John the Baptist in the Cappella Tornabuoni. Chiesa Santa Trinita: Domenico Ghirlandaios Life of St. Francis in the Sassetti Chapel and Lorenzo Monacos (one of my favorite painters) beautiful frescoes of the Life of the Virgin, and his altarpiece of the Annunciation. The Duomo: the two frescoes of equestrian sculptures by Paolo Uccello, and the huge, recently restored, fresco inside the octagonal dome, depicting the Last Judgment by Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari. The monastery of San Marco: Fra Angelicos exquisite Annunciation, probably his most celebrated work of art. Chiesa Santa Felicita, in the Capponi Chapel: Pontormos Deposition. Oratorio dei Buonomini di San Martino, in Piazza San Marino, close to Piazza della Signoria: a small chapel, with lovely frescoes portraying acts of charity, by the workshop of Ghirlandaio; it is not often mentioned in guidebooks, but it is interesting because of the subject matter.