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At the beginning of 2020, author John Willsteed had plans to revisit Barcelona's towering Gaudí cathedral. He's still planning and dreaming of its scale and detail.
Bosco ai Frati Altarpiece by Fra Angelico
at the Museo di San Marco is being conducted off-site by Lucia Biondi. The friar artist painted the altarpiece around 1450 after he returned from Rome. Cosimo de’ Medici had commissioned it for the high altar of the Franciscan convent of San Bonaventura at Bosco ai Frati. The composition is dominated by the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child flanked by two angels and encircled by various saints, notably the Medici saints Cosmas and Damian. The elegant architectural background references the classical style the artist admired during his stay in Rome and recalls the architectural elements in the frescoes in the Vatican’s Niccoline Chapel that Fra Angelico painted for Pope Nicholas V in 1447–48.
The Renaissance San Marco convent, now a museum, is where Fra Angelico lived and painted under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici. It was also where Savonarola proclaimed the Bonfire of the Vanities.
The celebrated Florentine museum was
founded in 1869 and has always prominently featured the art of Fra Angelico. It remains inextricably linked with the founding father of the Early Renaissance in Florence. The spacious hall was originally laid out between 1918 and 1921 and was first known as the Pilgrim Hospice and subsequently simply as the Hospice
.
New structural elements, a subtle colour scheme and state-of-the-art lighting breathe fresh life into the
16 masterpieces by the Dominican friar and artist Fra Angelico that have now been displayed chronologically and with consideration given to their size in relation to the vastness of the hall. Works include the