Incoronazione della Vergine

The Dominican house at Fiesole, in the hills above Florence, stood empty for nine years. Its friars would not accept the pope a church council installed in 1409, so they left, moving between Foligno and Cortona until the split in the papacy was settled and they came home in 1418. Guido di Pietro took his vows there soon afterwards and became Fra Giovanni, the painter later called Fra Angelico. This panel is from the 1420s, his first decade in the order. It is small, about 27 by 37 centimetres, painted in tempera with a great deal of gold, and it shows Christ setting a crown on his kneeling mother while an angel holds her train. Cleveland received it in 1944 as workshop work and now gives it to Fra Angelico himself.