It was in 1435, and Fra Angelico was approaching his fiftieth year, when the brotherhood of San Dominico quitted their convent in Fiesole and went to find a new home in Florence. With the turn of the year they left a temporary resting-place in San Giorgio Oltr' Arno and went into the ruined monastery of San Marco. This house appears to have belonged to the brotherhood of San Silvestro whose behaviour had been quite fitted to the fifteenth century in Florence, but was not altogether creditable to a religious house. Pope Eugenius IV., anxious to purify all the religious houses, gave San Marco to the Dominicans with the consent of Cosimo di Medici, and a very poor gift it was at the time, for the dormitory had been destroyed by fire, and hastily-made wooden cabins could not keep out the rain and cold wind. There was a great mortality among the brethren. Once again the Pope Eugenius interceded with the powerful ruler of Florence, and Cosimo sent for his well-beloved architect Michelozzo and commissioned him to rebuild the monastery. Naturally enough Fra Angelico, whose feeling for architecture was finely developed, came under the influence of the architect, and when the building was complete he was commissioned to adorn the walls with frescoes that should keep before the brethren the actualities of the religious life, and enable them to feel that the Spiritual Presence was in their midst.

Cosimo's munificence had not stopped with the presentation of the building to the brotherhood. He equipped the monastery with a famous library, provided all the service books that were necessary, and gave the brethren for librarian a man who was destined to ascend the Fisherman's Throne and keep the keys of Heaven. The books were illuminated by Fra Angelico's brother Benedetto, who had taken the vows with him, indeed some critics are of opinion that Fra Angelico himself assisted in the work, but for this belief there appears to be but a very small foundation.

The Pope Eugenius, compelled by the quarrels of the great houses in Rome to leave the Eternal City, came to Florence and saw Fra Angelico's work there, and this visit paved the way for the painter's sojourn in Rome in the last years of his life. Like so many of his contemporaries, Eugenius could find time amid the distractions of a stormy and difficult existence to keep a well-trained eye upon the artistic developments going on around him, and he did but wait for peace and opportunity to show himself as keen a patron of art as that "terrible pontiff," Julius della Rovere, for whom Michelangelo was to work in the Sistine Chapel.

To realise the life that the painter saw around him in the days when the Dominican brotherhood first went to San Marco, it is necessary to turn to some historian of Florence in an endeavour to recall the splendour and stateliness of the city's life. The limits of space forbid any attempt, however modest, to picture Florence in detail as it was in those days, though the subject could scarcely be more tempting to the pen. The pomp and circumstance of life were not passed over by the painter, whose extraordinary receptivity found so much more in Florence than in Fiesole for its exercise. Some echo, however, subdued to convent walls, lingers in the city to-day where San Marco preserves its great painter's reputation, and tells us that he was not indifferent to the sights and sounds beyond its gates.

A few of the frescoes have lost a little of their pristine beauty and yet, for all the ravages of time, the most faded among them can suggest much of the charm they possessed when they were painted. It is in the open cloisters, of course, that the greatest damage has been done, and the great "Crucifixion" in the chapter-house has not escaped lightly; but in the cells where the work is more protected, time has dealt lightly with the frescoes and the two or three little panels that help to make the friar's lasting monument. Good judges have pointed out that the great "Crucifixion" in the chapter-house, the largest work of the painter, was never completed, and that the red background was intended to serve as a bed for the blue that was never put on. Nobody can say why this fine work was abandoned, and reproduction in colour is impossible. Even a detail would be unsatisfactory, but one of the lunettes from the cloister is given here. It represents Christ as a pilgrim meeting two Dominican brothers, and gives an excellent suggestion of Fra Angelico at his best, revealing the deep feeling of the religious man, and the skill of the artist blended together in happiest and most inspired union. To have seen the picture in his mind, the artist must have been a deeply religious man; to have expressed the vision as he has expressed it in terms of line and colour, the devotee must have been a great artist.

From one of the cells in San Marco the chief part of another picture has been reproduced in these pages. It represents the "Coronation of the Virgin." Christ seated upon a white cloud is placing a crown upon the Virgin's head; there is a rainbow border with six saints. In order that the beauty of the central figures may be seen, no more than a part of the picture is given here. It is the more important part, for the saints are conventional figures, each with the hands uplifted in adoration, each with a halo round his head. The beauty of the stories that Fra Angelico sets before us was as true to him as the beauty of the flowers he painted, and the landscape that met his eyes whenever he walked abroad. The modern world, whether it doubt or believe, cannot but recognise that the artist of San Marco has succeeded as much by his faith as by his art. The other frescoes of the Dominican House must be left for the fortunate minority who can visit them, but these two will be found to represent well and truthfully both the religious idea and the artistic achievement. To realise their merits to the full one must not fail to bear in mind the development of painting at the time when they were painted. For the men who came after Angelico the task was easier; he had paved the way for them. In the days when San Marco was decorated, the painter had very little to add to his technical knowledge, and nothing at all to his feeling for the beauty of the Gospel stories, and few artists of the fifteenth century have been so fortunate as to collect their best work in one place where it could remain undisturbed throughout the ages.

Naturally enough it must pass—cloisters and chapter-house show signs of the times all too clearly. "The Crucifixion" is faded not so badly as Leonardo's "Last Supper" in the Santa Maria della Grazie of Milan, but still seriously, nor can all the lire of faithful but hurried tourists restore its charm. It is in the cells that the work of Fra Angelico will linger longest, and it is pleasant to speculate upon the debt that devout monks must have owed to their artist brother, who could give them such exquisite embodiments of the truth as he saw it to brighten their hard lives and assure them, even in hours of doubt and mental trouble, of the joys that would be associated with the latter end.

San Marco, then, may be regarded as an exquisite and enduring memorial of the middle period of Fra Angelico's life. The saint that was in him dreamed dreams and saw visions, the artist that was in him expressed them in fashion that calls for admiration even in these days when the work done is nearly four hundred years old, and the thought that gave it birth is no longer held in such universal esteem. The devotion that inspired the themes, the simplicity of his handling, the beauty of his colour, the love of Nature that was expressed as often as the picture would permit, the reverential feeling in treatment that was bound to communicate itself to the spectator, all these qualities make the work remarkable, and help us to see how strong was the faith that inspired and kept the artist happy in the cloisters when, had he wished to turn his talent to other purposes, he might have had riches and honour. Leading rulers of men were building palaces in every great city, conquerors and statesmen were seeking to excel one another in tasteful and costly display. Of those who could have commanded wealth, honour, and comfort, the Dominican friar was among the first. But it sufficed Fra Angelico to serve neither kings nor princes, but to choose for his worship the King of kings "Who made the heavens and the earth and all that is therein."