Fra Angelico ever refused to make money or accept promotion, but became despite himself a celebrity. In 1445 he was ordered to Rome by Pope Eugenius IV. The frescoes which Fra Angelico then made in the Vatican are lost. There was an escape to Orvieto, where Fra Angelico painted half the vault of the Chapel of S. Brixio, which Signorelli was later to complete. Fra Angelico was peremptorily recalled to Rome in 1447 by the new Pope, Nicholas V, who was planning a new chapel in the Vatican. We see it today still radiant with the legends of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence that Fra Angelico thoughtfully composed more than four hundred years ago. Modern critics have generally agreed in finding Fra Angelico’s masterpieces in this chapel. If they mean his fullest display of knowledge, the opinion is incontestible. Nowhere else has Fra Angelico invented such complications of architecture, interiors, street perspectives; nowhere has he drawn better figures in greater variety. Such frescoes as the lunette with St. Stephen defending himself before the Jewish doctors and preaching to the people, Figure 80, or that depicting St. Lawrence giving alms to cripples and poor folk before a basilica, are learned and rich. But does not their very richness obscure both the decorative and emotional appeal? Personally I tend to lose the figures in the complexity of the setting. Any of Fra Angelico’s little predellas tells its story more feelingly and clearly, and no less ably. Under the pressure of competition at Rome, Fra Angelico for the first time is ostentatious. To please the Pope he revives in more specious form the trivialities of the old panoramic style. Had he grasped Masaccio’s invention of aerial perspective and construction in light and dark, Fra Angelico might have carried off his elaborate settings successfully. As it is, they confuse the eye by too many linear elements, and only mildly delight the mind. Even the sensitive mood of legend, which is noteworthy in these frescoes, is better represented in the smaller panels. In fairness of Gothic fresco coloring, however, they are unsurpassed. [Illustration: FIG. 80. Fra Angelico. St. Stephen Preaching, the Saint before the Council. Fresco.—_Chapel of Nicholas V., Vatican._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 81. Masolino. Annunciation.—_Henry Goldman, Esq. New York._ ] From the point of view of tendency, these frescoes are profoundly instructive. They show the irresistible drift towards the formation of a new panoramic style, a drift that even Fra Angelico, cloistered saint and exquisite self-critic, was unable to escape. In spite of his record and better knowledge, he becomes an inaugurator of that picturesque, undisciplined, and decentralized manner of narrative which was to be represented by Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, and their contemporaries.