The exhibition Beato Angelico, in Florence until 25 January 2026, showcases 140 of the artist’s works.  Unusually, it is in two centres, Museo San Marco and Palazzo Strozzi.  San Marco is the Dominican monastery where Fra Angelico painted over 40 frescoes in some of the monks’ communal spaces and on the walls of individual dormitory cells.  For this exhibition it also contains panel paintings from his early career and illuminated manuscripts which he worked on.  

Palazzo Strozzi contains the main part of the exhibition, with magnificent altar pieces and other works loaned by institutions in Italy, Europe and the United States.  Many of these are composite works which were dispersed over centuries and have been restored and brought together here to show them in their original splendour.

Judging by the works on show, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole thoroughly deserved to be called Fra Angelico and, since 1982, Beato Angelico.  His paintings are so beautiful, so luminous that there is barely any darkness and evil in them.  His life, from 1395-1455, must have been spent almost wholly painting and praying, with short interludes for sleeping and eating, and his paintings express that life of faith and devotion.

Despite the sheer size of the exhibition, the impact is not overwhelming because many of Angelico’s paintings are so calm and gentle.  The colours can be soft and muted or bright and sparkling, but they are always harmonious.  The compositions are balanced and often static; there is very little violent movement.  The faces, especially of the Madonnas, are pure and lovely, and the poses are restrained.  There are very few depictions of anything ugly in the whole exhibition.

Seeing so many works together illuminates the development of Angelico’s style across his working life.  His early Gothic tendencies are illustrated by pointed arches, graceful and elegant figures, delicate naturalistic detail, gold or highly stylised backgrounds, and gold decoration. As Angelico absorbs the new learning of fellow artists, architects and sculptors such as Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, these conventions give way to classical architecture, solidly-rendered figures, three-dimensional space and realistic scenery. 

The reconstruction of the San Marco altarpiece (above) is a spectacular illustration of what this exhibition has achieved.  It was dismantled in the seventeenth century, and many of its panels are usually in Washington, Munich, Paris and Dublin.  The large main section, plus two predella panels and two side panels, belong to San Marco.  These disparate elements have been reunited at Palazzo Strozzi, and confirm the work’s richness and significance.  

It was commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici who rebuilt the San Marco monastery along classical lines, and preferred the new Renaissance style of painting to the old-fashioned Gothic. In promoting his patron’s preferences, Fra Angelico uses a rectangular shape for the main panel, with no decorative arches. The architecture within the painting is classical.  The carpet in the foreground shows his understanding of perspective, and the trees in the background are naturalistic. The human figures have weight and substance, and the baby is a naked human baby rather than a miniature adult.  There are still Gothic elements such as the gold decoration, but the altarpiece shows how Angelico has moved into the ‘modern’ style of the mid-fifteenth century Renaissance.

Certain subjects recur again and again in Angelico’s work, especially the Annunciation, the Madonna and Child, and the Crucifixion.  Two of his paintings on these themes were painted in Cortona.  The Cortona Triptych, showing the Madonna and Child in the centre panel flanked by four saints, is in the exhibition.  However, the wonderful Cortona Annunciation has not travelled to Florence, and you can still see it in the Diocesan Museum for the duration of the show.

Beato Angelico is a delight:  do see it if you can!  It is the first exhibition devoted wholly to Angelico in seventy years, and reveals him to be a sublime artist.

Sue Hine

November 2025