The seven small cells on the right (15-21) were assigned to the
Juniors, the younger friars who had just passed through the Noviciate.
Each contains a fresco by Angelico of St. Dominic at the foot of the
Cross, now scourging himself, now absorbed in contemplation, now
covering his face with his hands, but in no two cases identical. Into
one of these cells a divine apparition was said to have come to one of
these youths, after hearing Savonarola's "most fervent and most
wondrous discourse" upon the mystery of the Incarnation. The story is
told by Simone Filipepi:--
"On the night of the most Holy Nativity, to a young friar in the
convent, who had not yet sung Mass, had appeared visibly in his cell
on the little altar, whilst he was engaged in prayer, Our Lord in the
form of a little infant even as when He was born in the stable. And
when the hour came to go into the choir for matins, the said friar
commenced to debate in his mind whether he ought to go and leave here
the Holy Child, and deprive himself of such sweetness, or not. At last
he resolved to go and to bear It with him; so, having wrapped It up in
his arms and under his cowl as best he could, all trembling with joy
and with fear, he went down into the choir without telling anyone.
But, when it came to his turn to sing a lesson, whilst he approached
the reading-desk, the Infant vanished from his arms; and when the
friar was aware of this, he remained so overwhelmed and almost beside
himself that he commenced to wander through the choir, like one who
seeks a thing lost, so that it was necessary that another should read
that lesson."
Passing back again down the corridor, we see in the cells two more
Crucifixions (22 and 23); the Baptism of Christ with Madonna as
witness (24), the Crucifixion (25); then, passing the great Madonna
fresco, the Mystery of the Passion (26), in one of those symbolical
representations which seem to have originated with the Camaldolese
painter, Don Lorenzo; Christ bound to the pillar, with St. Dominic
scourging himself and the Madonna appealing to us (27, perhaps by a
pupil); Christ bearing the Cross (28); two more Crucifixions (29 and
30), apparently not executed by Angelico himself.
At the side of Angelico's Annunciation opposite the stairs, we enter
the cell of St. Antoninus (31). Here is one of Angelico's most
beautiful and characteristic frescoes, Christ's descent into Hades:
"the intense, fixed, statue-like silence of ineffable adoration upon
the spirits in prison at the feet of Christ, side by side, the hands
lifted and the knees bowed, and the lips trembling together," as
Ruskin describes it. Here, too, is the death mask of Antoninus, his
portrait perhaps drawn from the death mask by Bartolommeo, his
manuscripts and relics; also a tree of saintly Dominicans, Savonarola
being on the main trunk, the third from the root.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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