It is a known fact, that a few months after Fra Angelico left, it was
necessary to repair the roof of the chapel in which he had worked, on
account of the rain that percolated there, to the great detriment of
the paintings.
However this may be, it is certain that the heads of the prophets have
sweetness of expression and nobility of character, and all the figures
are remarkable for their fine form, dignified attitudes, free and
simple draperies, combined with bright and vivid colouring. These
qualities are not so visible in the compartment of our Lord and the
adoring angels, which may with more certainty be attributed to
Benozzo.
Fra Angelico returned to Rome on the 28th of September in that year
(1447) and never went back to Orvieto, but his reasons for breaking
his contract and leaving a work incomplete are not explained.
Perhaps he perceived the difficulties of the composition and was
arrested by the terrifying dread--which his character and feeling
would have magnified--of painting a Last Judgment in such grand
proportions. Or he may have had an intuition, that his work would
never be worthy of that famous building, especially as he was called
on to depict the punishments of hell and the various feelings of
sorrow, passion and despair in the damned souls, sentiments so
foreign to his own nature. Or possibly the desire to finish the
paintings entrusted to him in Rome by the new Pontiff Nicholas V.,
induced him to break his contract. In the absence of more precise
records it is difficult to establish the truth.
Certain it is that Fra Angelico left Orvieto for Rome and that he
painted there a "Studio" or Chapel for Nicholas V., for which the
payment is entered in a register dated 1449, but "after this year,"
writes Muentz, "we find no more traces of the illustrious Dominican, in
the books of the secret treasury."[62]
On January 10th 1452 Fra Angelico is again at Fiesole as prior of his
convent, and in the same year the rulers of the Commune of Prato
employed the good offices of Archbishop Antonino to induce Fra
Angelico to paint the principal chapel of their church; but he
refused, and the commission was given to Filippo Lippi.
The fact that the name of the Dominican artist has not been found in
the registers of the Vatican Treasury after 1449, need not necessarily
be taken as a proof that he was not working in the Chapel of Nicholas
V. at a later date. Indeed, as he went no more to Orvieto, and would
not undertake to paint the Choir of the Prato Cathedral, it seems
probable that he should have gone back to Rome to finish his work
there.
The chapel which preserves these precious frescoes by Angelico may be
considered one of the most famous monuments of Italian art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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