Fra Angelico’s earliest surviving altarpiece, created for the convent he had joined as a younger man, has been returned to its unique setting after a painstaking restoration mission. The work on the Fiesole Altarpiece, accomplished in time for a latest main exhibition in Florence, has introduced again into full view the Italian Previous Grasp’s intricate dealing with of color, determine and texture; revealed hidden particulars underneath the portray’s floor; and highlighted the refined interaction between the unique composition and the additions of Lorenzo di Credi, who “modernised” the work within the sixteenth century. Revolutionary reconfiguring of the altarpiece’s wood assist, in the meantime, has preserved the piece for posterity.
Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro, made the Fiesole Altarpiece between 1420 and 1423 for the church at San Domenico in Fiesole, which he had joined round this era. It depicts a Madonna cloaked in blue and gold, holding a Christ Youngster who reaches out cautiously for flowers in her hand. Round them collect a bunch of eight angels in addition to 4 saints, St Barnabas, St Thomas Aquinas, St Dominic and St Peter Martyr.
The work had been designed as a late Gothic triptych on gold floor, with facet pilasters and a predella; in 1501, nevertheless, greater than 45 years after Fra Angelico’s demise, the painter Lorenzo di Credi was commissioned to reimagine the work for the brand new Renaissance style. He left the figures untouched however transformed the triptych right into a single picture, wherein the golden background was painted over with the picture of a fragile embroidered cover within the centre, and beside it two arches opening out onto a sun-soaked, tree-filled panorama. The unique predella and facet pilasters had been later bought—the previous to the Nationwide Gallery in London.
A element exhibiting three of Fra Angelico’s angels after restoration
Earlier than the restoration, the varnish on Fra Angelico’s portray “was very outdated, very yellow”, says Simonetta Brandolini, the president of Associates of Florence, which funded the mission. The conservator Daniele Rossi eliminated not simply the varnishes however earlier overpainting and restorations to disclose as soon as extra the “delicate colors, gold and very refined finishes of Fra Angelico”, he says. Explicit consideration was additionally paid to Di Credi’s depiction of the sky: Rossi and his colleagues used beeswax bleached with a milk solvent to take away stains from this a part of the picture, slowly revealing a luminous blue as they did so.
Such efforts have introduced into clearer mild a younger Fra Angelico who, nonetheless solely in his 20s, is “actually simply beginning to get his message throughout” as an artist, Brandolini says. They’ve additionally differentiated, Brandolini continues, “extra clearly Fra Angelico’s and Lorenzo di Credi’s palms. Di Credi actually revered Fra Angelico, and you may actually see that.”
Securing the work for the longer term
The principle goal of the restoration, Rossi says, was “to protect the work and prolong its longevity”. And essential to this has been work on the altarpiece’s wood assist. The unique poplar panels and buildings put in place throughout earlier restorations had change into unstable, resulting in vertical cracks within the paint floor; in a single case damaging the face of a depicted angel. The conservation group, led by Rossi’s colleague Roberto Buda, changed the wood inserts in the back of the work (referred to as butterflies) and created a contemporary chestnut assist system full with springs, designed to adapt as temperature and humidity adjustments. The cracks within the portray’s floor had been then full of recent stucco and broken areas restored with watercolour and the trateggio (or hatching) approach, in addition to with varnish.
Proper to left: Particulars of the broken face of an angel throughout cleansing, after low-level filling and after restoration
A hidden throne
Rossi and his group carried out diagnostic exams on the work, which revealed shocking particulars. With the assistance of infrared reflectography, conservators uncovered Fra Angelico’s unique design for a throne, which had been hidden behind Di Credi’s software of azure lapis lazuli. The unique throne “painted in egg tempera, was depicted as if it had been product of stone, and colored marble, like Masaccio’s throne on the San Giovenale triptych,” Rossi explains. It was surrounded by Gothic arches, corbels and two “pot-bellied vases” holding roses.
“We have to be content material with the invention and the black-and-white [infrared reflectography] photograph,” Rossi says, “and picture for a second, with our eyes closed, what it might need appeared like in color. Maybe we’d even scent the scent of the roses?”
One other discovery made by the group, Rossi says, was that the lily held by St Dominic was painted by Fra Angelico, however two pistils had been added to the stem by Di Credi. Different observations embrace the only a few retouches Fra Angelico made on the work—”he was all the time good,” Rossi says.
The Fiesole Altarpiece was a spotlight of Fra Angelico, the key exhibition just lately held throughout the Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco in Florence from September 2025 to January this yr. A suggestion to preserve the Fiesole work got here from Palazzo Strozzi, and cash was raised from a number of donors, most of them board members of the Associates of Florence however others merely “large followers of Fra Angelico”.
For Brandolini, the restoration is one other essential contribution to our understanding of Fra Angelico, who, she notes, is at the moment appreciated alongside figures akin to Masaccio and Filippo Lippi “as one of many fundamental cornerstones of the Renaissance”.
