Apparition of Saint Francis in Arles

The scene is a Franciscan miracle. In the town of Arles in southern France a crowd of friars is being preached to by one of their own, Anthony of Padua, when Saint Francis appears at the side with his arms outstretched, although Francis was already dead. Fra Angelico painted it around 1429 as one of the small scenes along the base of an altarpiece, made for a lay brotherhood that met at Santa Croce in Florence. What surprises for that early date is the room itself. Florentine painters were just then working out how to build convincing depth on a flat panel, and here the friars sit in a long vaulted hall that recedes cleanly toward the back, the light falling evenly along its arches. Two more panels from the same base hang beside it in Berlin.