On the left of the stairway a double series of cells on either side of
the corridor leads us to Savonarola's room. At the head of the
corridor is one of those representations that Angelico repeated so
often, usually with modifications, of St. Dominic at the foot of the
Cross. Each of the cells has a painted lyric of the life of Christ and
His mother, from Angelico's hand; almost each scene with Dominican
witnesses and auditors introduced,--Dominic, Aquinas, Peter Martyr, as
the case may be. In these frescoes Angelico was undoubtedly assisted
by pupils, from whom a few of the less excellent scenes may come;
there is an interesting, but altogether untrustworthy tradition that
some were executed by his brother, Fra Benedetto da Mugello, who took
the Dominican habit simultaneously with him and was Prior of the
convent at Fiesole. Taking the cells on the left first, we see the
_Noli me tangere_ (1), the Entombment (2), the Annunciation (3), the
Crucifixion (4), the Nativity (5), the Transfiguration (6), a most
wonderful picture. Opposite the Transfiguration, on the right wall of
the corridor, is a Madonna and Saints, painted by the Friar somewhat
later than the frescoes in the cells (which, it should be observed,
appear to have been painted on the walls before the cells were
actually partitioned off)--St. John Evangelist and St. Mark, the three
great Dominicans and the patrons of the Medici. Then, on the left, the
following cells contain the Mocking of Christ (7), the Resurrection
with the Maries at the tomb (8), the Coronation of the Madonna (9),
one of the grandest of the whole series, with St. Dominic and St.
Francis kneeling below, and behind them St. Benedict and St. Thomas
Aquinas, St. Peter Martyr and St. Paul the Hermit. The Presentation in
the Temple (10), and the Madonna and Child with Aquinas and Augustine
(11), are inferior to the rest.
The shorter passage now turns to the cells occupied by Fra Girolamo
Savonarola; one large cell leading into two smaller ones (12-14). In
the larger are placed three frescoes by Fra Bartolommeo; Christ and
the two disciples at Emmaus, formerly over the doorway of the
refectory, and two Madonnas--one from the Dominican convent in the
Mugnone being especially beautiful. Here are also modern busts of
Savonarola by Dupré and Benivieni by Bastianini. In the first inner
cell are Savonarola's portrait, apparently copied from a medal and
wrongly ascribed to Bartolommeo, his Crucifix and his relics, his
manuscripts and books of devotion, and, in another case, his hair
shirt and rosary, his beloved Dominican garb which he gave up on the
day of his martyrdom. In the inmost cell are the Cross which he is
said to have carried, and a copy of the old (but not contemporary)
picture of his death, of which the original is in the Corsini Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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