Full title | The Dominican Blessed: Outer Right Pilaster Panel |
---|---|
Artist | Probably by Fra Angelico |
Artist dates | active 1417; died 1455 |
Series | Fiesole San Domenico Altarpiece |
Date made | about 1423-4 |
Medium and support | Egg tempera on wood |
Dimensions | 31.6 x 21.9 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1860 |
Inventory number | NG663.5 |
Location | Room 60 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
This panel shows the Dominican Blessed, both tertiaries (those who lived in general society rather than a convent, but were allied to the Dominican Order) and friars. They're dressed in their distinctive black and white habits, neatly lined up in rows.
The Blessed were holy figures belonging to the Order (called the Dominicans because they were founded by Saint Dominic) who were venerated locally after their death. Some, like Catherine of Siena, shown here kneeling at the head of the front row, were eventually recognised as saints.
This panel framed the predella (the lowest part) of the altarpiece, made for San Domenico in Fiesole, a town outside of Florence. The predella showed Christ surrounded by angels and saints; its panels, and the pair to this panel, are also in the National Gallery.
This panel, along with its pair, framed the predella of an altarpiece made for the church of San Domenico, Fiesole, near Florence. Visually they were a continuation of the predella but they were actually painted on the bases of the pilaster panels. The grain of the wood they are painted on tells us this: it is vertical, like that of the pilasters.
This panel follows the pattern of the predella panels by arranging the figures in three rows, with the women kneeling on the bottom row. The figures were important members of the Dominican community, known as the ‘Beati’ (‘Blessed’). These were the Dominican friars and nuns who were venerated for having lived particularly holy lives, and some would eventually become saints. For now, though, they do not have haloes like saints; golden rays shine around their heads instead.
This panel appears at the right of the predella, which has Christ at its centre – so, to Christ’s left, a less honourable position than his right. This is because the panel included not only nuns and monks who had taken vows and lived within the Dominican community, away from the non-religious world, but also tertiaries (on the front row). Tertiaries made a promise to the Dominican Order but had fewer responsibilities and could live outside the convent. Their habits (or uniform) are slightly different.
The men in this panel are mostly elderly with white hair. They all have tonsures – partially shaved heads, a sign of devotion – and wear the black and white habit of the Dominicans. Neat inscriptions on their tunics – a ‘b’ for Beatus followed by their name – identify them, but they also carry objects that tell us who they are. One, in the centre of the middle row, carries a miniature church on the palm of his hand. He has been identified as John of Salerno (d.1242) who founded the Dominican Order in Florence and was an important figure for the church in Fiesole, a town not far from Florence.
In the opposite panel, one man is shown inscribing Jesus’s name on his chest; mirroring him here is a man labelled as Jacob who holds his heart in his hand – he points to the opening in his tunic where the wound is still fresh. The heart is inscribed with Jesus’s name in gold lettering. The Blessed Peter on the second right in the top row has the same letters inscribed in gold in his mouth.
Unlike the panel opposite there is a sense of movement in this picture, partly due the gestures the tertiaries on the bottom row make. Catherine of Siena, who was canonised (made a saint) in 1461, is at the front, her name inscribed along her raised arm. The two tertiaries behind, like her, raise their hands towards the central scene of Christ resurrected. Behind them are the only two figures in the panel without rays around their heads, dressed in the habit of male Dominican tertiaries. They might be Jacopo and Domenico degli Agli, the sons of Barnaba degli Agli, who paid for the altarpiece.
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Fiesole San Domenico Altarpiece
These panels come from the predella (lowest part) of the altarpiece made for the high altar of San Domenico, Fiesole. Fra Angelico was a Dominican friar (a member of the religious order founded by Saint Dominic) as well as a painter. The church was attached to his own convent – so although he made two other altarpieces for it, he was not paid for his work.
Predellas usually showed narrative scenes of the lives of the saints who were depicted in the main part of the altarpiece. This one is unusual: it shows Christ in glory in heaven, surrounded in the central scene by angels. This is framed by two panels showing rows of saints and Old Testament figures. These in turn are enclosed on either side by Dominican ‘Blessed’ figures who were holy and revered but not saints.
The mass of saints includes Dominicans and reflects their interest in the saints of their order and the place of the Dominicans in the broader church.
These panels once formed part of an altarpiece made for the church of Fra Angelico’s own convent (San Domenico) in Fiesole, a town near Florence. Fra Angelico painted two other altarpieces for San Domenico: the Annunciation (Prado, Madrid) and the Coronation of the Virgin (Louvre, Paris). As a member of the Dominican order, Fra Angelico would not have been paid for his work. He had a workshop of assistants helping him, including his pupil, Zanobi Strozzi. Fra Angelico seems to contributed more to certain panels than others; he appears to have painted the central panel with very little assistance, for example.
The main part of the altarpiece remains in San Domenico in Fiesole. It shows the Virgin and Child seated on a throne surrounded on either side by adoring angels and Saints Thomas Aquinas, Barnabas, Dominic and Peter Martyr. Apart from Barnabas, the apostle, the other three were Dominican saints.
The three horizontal rectangular panels in the National Gallery’s collection formed the predella, the lowest structural element of the altarpiece. They show Christ, resurrected, surrounded by angels in the central panel, the Virgin Mary and saints to the left and Old Testament figures and martyr saints to the right. Two panels (left and right) show members of the Dominican Beati (‘Blessed’), those who were venerated but had not yet been made saints. These last two panels most probably formed the lowest part of the two pilasters that supported the altarpiece on either side of the predella. They would have been on the same level as the predella, framing it on both sides.
Although there are a few examples of paintings and frescoes showing Dominican saints and ‘Blessed’ in the court of heaven, the imagery is unique for a predella – but it clearly relates to the order and its mission. Although there is no known or surviving visual parallel for the images, we know from written sources that the Dominicans were deeply interested in the saints of their order and many lists of Dominican saints – ordered according to their importance – were compiled. Fra Angelico himself made a series of frescoes including portraits of Dominican friars for the chapter house of San Marco, Florence. Another idea is that the predella reflects scenes of the Last Judgement where the saints are arranged in neat rows surrounding Christ.
Surviving documents tell us that Barnaba degli Agli (d.1418) left money in his will for the completion and furnishings of the convent church which was founded in 1406. Some of this money might have been used to pay for this altarpiece and the predella in its original frame.
The altarpiece was originally a polyptych (made up of lots of separate panels) joined together by an elaborate frame. In 1502 the Florentine painter Lorenzo di Credi removed the framing elements and repainted the main tier of pictures so that all the holy figures were shown together in a single image. At this stage the predella and the panels that topped the main tier were removed. Two of these upper pinnacle panels have been identified in other collections including the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate (both in the Von Tucher collection, Vienna). Between them was the Blessing Redeemer (Royal Collection, London). The pilasters probably also included roundels with bishop saints; one of these, Saint Romulus, is now in the National Gallery’s collection. In front of the predella was a tabernacle (Prado, Madrid) which held the Host – the bread of the Eucharist.






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