Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven

This is the middle of five small panels that once ran along the foot of the high altarpiece in San Domenico at Fiesole, just above Florence, painted around 1423 to 1424. The saints in the panels on either side turn toward this one. Christ hovers above a wisp of cloud with the banner of the Resurrection, a red cross on white, and shows the wound in his hand. Around him the angels of heaven make music on lutes, drums, a small organ and long trumpets. The trumpets look black today. They were laid in silver, and silver darkens with time. Behind him, rays scored into the gold spread outward. The predella left Fiesole in the 1820s, sold to dealers in Florence, and in 1860 the National Gallery bought the whole predella. They hang together in Room 57.