Fra Angelico Ruminans Visualising Religious Experience in a
Medieval Convent
Hans Geybels
Guidolino di Pietro was born near Castello di Vicchio in Tuscany ca. 1400. He
died in Rome, 1455, where he was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra
Minerva. Today his full title is that of Blessed Fra Angelico Giovanni da Fiesole.
The name Angelic Painter was given to him by the Dominican Provincial
Domenico da Carella only ten years after he died.1 Fra Angelico had entered the
Dominican convent at Fiesole in 1407 where he started a career as an illuminator
and miniaturist. In 1440 he was invited to Florence to decorate the new Convent
of San Marco, which had just been appointed to his order and of which Cosimo
de’ Medici was a munificent patron. Then, in 1445, Pope Eugenius IV invited Fra
Angelico to Rome and set him to work in the Vatican, where he painted the
frescoes of two chapels for the pope and his successor, Nicholas V Pope
Eugenius is said to have offered Fra Angelico the place of Archbishop of
Florence, an offer which he declined through modesty and devotion to his art.
Cell 1 of the dormitory in the convent of San Marco contains the famous
fresco based on John 20:17: “Noli me tangere.” Mary Magdalene’s drapery is
painted in light red ochre. Her mantle enfolds her kneeling figure. Her yellow
ochre hair is gently spread over her mantle. Her face expresses no emotion, but
she speaks with her outstretched arms and her hands. On the grass, painted in
several tones of terre-verte, a divine Christ is depicted, gently curving his body
and requesting her not to touch Him.2 The divine is omnipresent, but if one is
eager to touch it, it withdraws. It seems to demand respect for its
transcendence.
The late professor Jos Decorte of the Higher Institute of Philosophy in Leuven
observed that many interpretations of the medieval world have
1
Gabriele Bartz, Guido di Pietro, Known as Fra Angelico (ca. 1400-145$), Masters of Italian Art
(Cologne: Könemann, 1998) 8.
2
Description: Paolo Morachiello, Fra Angelico: The San Marco Frescoes (New York: Thames
& Hudson, 1996) 44.
450
HANS GEYBELS
become clouded in modern times. Concerning this mural painting, Decorte
read an interpretation of an American feminist art historian - whose name is
not mentioned in the article - who considered this fresco to be the ultimate
proof of Jesus’ hate for women and of the anti-feminism of the medieval church,
to which Fra Angelico belonged. After all, Jesus granted Thomas permission to
put his hand into His side (John 20:24-29) but He does not allow Mary
Magdalene to act in the same way. What is allowed for men is prohibited for
women.3
Jos Decorte has much respect for feminist concerns in general but, he states,
there is no need for such ‘foolish’ historical interpretations. For Decorte, this
way of reading medieval data provokes three reactions. In the first place, people
of the 21st century no longer understand the medieval world. Secondly, in our
evaluation of the Middle Ages we stick to contemporary patterns of thought,
which are influenced by our prejudices and thus are bound to lead to
misunderstandings. Thirdly, those prejudices severely hinder research into the
true nature of how our medieval ancestors dealt with religion and
transcendence.4
In this contribution, we will try to do justice to the paintings of Fra Angelico
by viewing his frescoes in their spiritual context, because we believe that his
paintings in the convent of San Marco in Florence were meant to generate
religious experience. To prove this, we will first examine the concept of
religious experience in the Middle Ages, then we will study how religious
experience was brought about through the method of rumination (ruminatio)
on Christian literature, and finally we will demonstrate how this method of
ruminatio is visualised in the paintings of the friar’s cells in the convent of San
Marco.
How did people think about religious experience in the Middle Ages?
Cloisters have always been regarded as schools, where religious life is the
central theme. At the beginning of the 5th century, John Cassian (c. 360- c. 435),
one of the founding fathers of Western monasticism who was acquainted with
the Egyptian desert fathers and familiar with Eastern monasticism, founded
some cloisters in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. In these cloisters he
introduced the teachings contained in two important books of his written
towards the end of his lifetime, namely the Institutes (Institutiones) and the 24
Jos Decorte, Raak me niet aan: Over
middeleeuws en postmiddeleeuws
transcendentie- denken (Kapellen/Kampen: Pelckmans/Klement,
3
2001) 8.
4
Ibid.
451
HANS GEYBELS
Conferences [Collationes). Both works are based on the rich monastic experience
of the author. Cassian himself explained the difference between those books.
He stated that the Institutes
FRA ANGELICO RUMINANS
45I
are mainly concerned with what belongs to the outer man and the customs
of the cloisters, whereas the Conferences deal with the training of the inner man
and the perfection of the heart. The Institutes deal with the rules governing
monastic life and are illustrated by examples from the authors personal
observations in Egypt and Palestine. The eight remaining books are devoted to
the eight principal obstacles to perfection encountered by monks: gluttony,
impurity, covetousness, anger, dejection, accidia (ennui), vanity, and pride. The
Conferences contain a record of the conversations of Cassian and his
companion, Germanus, with the Egyptian solitaries, the subject being the inner
life. These two works were thought of high value by his contemporaries and by
several later founders of religious orders. For example, Benedict made use of
Cassian in writing his Rule, and ordered selections from the Conferences, which
he called a mirror of monasticism {speculum monasticum), to be read daily in the
Benedictine monasteries.5
Cassian often speaks of cloisters as schools. To illustrate this, Cassian gives
the example of the life of the holy man Paphnutius:
From the days of his youth he was committed to the cenobitic schools
that after a short time among them he was enriched as much by his
own spirit of submissiveness as by the knowledge he had acquired of
all the virtues. Disciplined by humility and obedience, he kept a mortifying grip on the stirrings of his will and in this way every vice was
extinguished and perfection was achieved in all those virtues which
monastic practice and the most ancient teaching of the fathers had
established. But he had a feverish urge to move ever higher and hurried forward to enter into the secrets of the desert {Conferences, III, i).6
The cloister is compared to a school, but not a school as the one that
emerges in the 12th century, where theology is increasingly thought through a
“rationalist” manner (“sola ratione”). What Pahnutius learns in the school of the
cloister is knowledge concerning Christian virtues and the science of humility
and obedience. This is the main difference with the other scholarly institutions
of Antiquity. Primary school, then, consisted of scribere, legere and cogitare de
litteris (e.g., learning Virgil’s works by heart). In a secondary school one took up
the study of rhetoric {Confessions 2,3,5 and 3,I,I).7 In general the students had to
read Cicero’s works
5
Wim Verbaal, Fen middeleeuws drama: Het conflict tussen scholing en vorming bij Abaelardus
en Bernardus, Mens en Tijd (Kapellen: Pelckmans, 2002) 197-198.
6
John Cassian, Conferences, ed. Colm Luibheid, The Classics of Western Spirituality
(New York: Paulist, 1985) 82.
7
Augustine, Confessiones, ed. L. Verheijen, CCCM, 27 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981) 1920 and 27. Konrad Vössing, Schule und Bildung in Nordafrika der Römischen Kaiserzeit, Collection
Latomus, 238 (Brussels: Latomus, 1997) 297.
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HANS GEYBELS
De inventione, Orator and De oratore. At the end of the course, prose works of
high rhetorical interest (e.g. Sallustius) and the works of certain philosophers
(e.g. Seneca) were studied. A training in liberal arts and in philosophy was the
most prestigious training.8 Rhetorical studies ended with the study of Ciceros
philosophical dialogues (Hortensius).9
The teachings in the cloisters were not based on the intellectual competence of the teachers. The main goal was to follow the teachers, who were
masters in spiritual life. The monk did not have to understand what the master
said, but had to follow what the master did. Learning something had less to do
with comprehension than with experience. Cassian is very clear about this:
You will be teaching something acquired not so much by reading as by
the sweat of experience {Conferences, XIV, 17).10
The school of the cloister was a school of experience. Even reading the Bible
remained senseless if the monk could not convert what was written into his
own existential experience. Experience not only brought the monk to know the
things told in the Scriptures, but anticipated what they were meant to convey":
We find all these sentiments expressed in the psalms. We see very
clearly, as in a mirror, what is being said to us and we have a deeper
understanding of it. Instructed by our own experiences we are not
really learning through hearsay but have a feeling for these sentiments
as things that we have already seen. They are not like things confided
to our capacity for remembrance but, rather, we bring them to birth in
the depths of our hearts as if they were feeling naturally there and part
of our being. We enter into their meaning not because of what we read
but because of what we have experienced earlier (Confessions, X, 11).11
The cloister as a school is also one of the main ideas of the anonymous
Master of the Rule and of Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-543). Later on the idea was
spread by an admirer of Benedict, Pope Gregory the Great (540- 604). In his
Dialogues, Gregory states that learning happens through following living
examples and not through rational cognitive processes.
Gregory’s Dialogues are filled with examples which deserve admiration and,
above all, imitation.12 Therefore, one of the Dialogues is completely devoted to
the life and times of Benedict.
Religious experience in the Middle Ages has to be understood as the
8
Vössing, Schule und Bildung, 398. Vössing's opinion has to be placed in perspective
because rhetoric was a more practical discipline and was often more successful than
philosophy (see R. Scholl, “Das Bildungsproblem in der alten Kirche,” Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Pädagogik 10 [1964] 24-43).
9
Vössing, Schule und Bildung, 378-379.
10
John Cassian, Conferences, 172.
11
John Cassian, Conferences, 138.
12
Verbaal, Een middeleeuws drama, 200-101.
FRA ANGELICO RUMINANS
453
Scriptures and authorities becoming existential experience and daily life
receiving sense through these same Scriptures and authorities. This theology
reached its apogee in the works of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153). Bernard
opened the third homily in his book On the Canticle of Canticles as follows: “Hodie
legimus in libro experientiae.” (Today we read in the book of experience.) What
he means is the book of the existential experience of each listener. He proceeds
by telling his audience that not everyone will understand what he is going to
explain because they are not experienced. His exegesis of the Canticle becomes a
metaphor of religious life as a meeting place of one’s own experience and the
experience of the Christian community. Bernard invites his brothers to ruminate
on what they heard in sermons because in this kind of meditation the life of our
spirit is situated. On various occasions he incites his monks to ruminate on
psalms intimately and jubilantly. His friend, William of Saint Thierry (c. 1085-c.
1148), stimulates rumination because it helps to penetrate into the deeper
meanings of Scripture.13 This is precisely what religious experience is in the
context of medieval monasticism.
But how is this kind of religious experience brought about? The key term for
understanding the method has already been mentioned: the Latin verb ruminare.
In classical Latin, the verb literally means to ruminate, to chew the cud, but
some authors (Cicero, Varro, Tertullian, Sym- machus) already used the concept
in a metaphorical way. In those days, the concept meant to think over, to revolve
in the mind.'14 The meaning of this concept in monastic circles becomes
immediately clear if one realises that the methods of meditation were
concentrated on the words of classical authors, of authorities, and of Scripture
(the Word!).15
In the Middle Ages, there were two ways in which the Scriptures could be
read: the lectio divina of the monasteries and the sacra pagina of the schools.
Originally, these terms were synonyms but since the rise of the schools in the
12th century, each concept took 0n 1 a different meaning. The schools preferred
the terminology of pagina because they wanted to look at the text in an
objective way, the text as material for study. In a cloister, the reader had to
learn to be existentially involved in reading the Scripture. Both in schools and
cloisters, the activity of reading was holy {sacra, divina), but they had a different
goal. Scholastic lectio points to quaestio and disputatio, leading to scientia,
13
F. Ruppert, “Meditatio-ruminatio,” Collectanea Cisterciensia 39 (1977) 81-93, pp. 8788.
14
Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Oxord University
Press, 1955) 1604 and Charles du Fresne Sieur Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infi- mae latinitatis
(Niort: Fiavre, 1886) 7: 236.
15
Jean Leclercq, Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du Moyen Age: L’amour des lettres et le désir
de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, *1957) 70-71.
454
HANS GEYBELS
whereas monastic lectio tends towards meditatio and oratio, leading to sapiential
Monastic meditation consisted of the continuous repetition of a bible phrase.
The method is often compared to the absorption of spiritual food {sapientia sapere), and the vocabulary to explain this is borrowed from nutrition and
digestion, particularly the digestion which is called rumination. In his book De
miraculis ( ,20), Peter the Venerable (c. 1092-1156) praises a monk whose mouth
continuously ruminated sacred words (“Os sine requie sacra verba ruminans”).
In the vita of John of Gorze (t976), it is told that the continuous rumination of
the psalms sounded like the buzzing of bees (“Et in morem apis Psalmos tacito
murmure continuo revolvens”). One has to ruminate on the read passage, by
constantly returning to the text, also during the hours of manual labour and of
silence. The ultimate goal of rumination is to taste the words, to assimilate
one’s life to their content. The activity is like prayed reading or meditative
prayer whereby the ruminated words activate the spiritual incorporation of the
text. For this purpose the seventh century monk, Defensor, from the monastery
of Ligugé, wrote the Liber scintillarum (the book of sparks), a moral florilegium of
81 chapters combining very short aphorisms from the Bible and the Church
Fathers.'9
Of course, this method had consequences for the religious psychology of the
devout. Cassian and Gregory did not have in mind the intellectual perfection of
the monks but the lived experience comprised in the texts. Rumination
occupied and involved the whole person and related the person to the history of
salvation. It was as if the words came out of the monk’s own heart. Once more,
John Cassian is our guide16:
Then indeed, the Scriptures lie ever more clearly open to us. They are
revealed, heart and sinew. Our experience not only brings us to know
them but actually anticipates what they convey. The meaning of the
words comes through to us not just by way of commentaries but by
what we ourselves have gone through. Seized of the identical feelings
in which the psalm was composed or sung we become, as it were, its
author. We anticipate its idea instead of following it. [...]
We see very clearly, as in a mirror, what is being said to us and we
have a deeper understanding of it (Confessions, X, II).2‘
1
Beautiful examples of rumination are two books by John Ruusbroec (12931381), both completely based on one evangelical sentence: “See, the bridegroom
cometh; go out to meet Him” (Matt 25:6) in The Spiritual Espousals and “The Lord
led the just back along the right ways and showed him the realm of God”
(Wisdom 10:10) in The Realm of Lovers.22
Before we shed some light on Fra Angelico, let us go over what has been
stated thus far. Religious experience is a key concept to understand religious,
16
Verbaal, Een middeleeuws drama, 203.
FRA ANGELICO RUMINANS
455
and particularly monastic, life in the Middle Ages. The concept means that a
Christian should live according to the Scriptures and authorities as if having
written these sacred texts themselves. Since these sacred texts are nothing other
than reports of people with experiences, religious people now have to turn the
reported experiences into their own existential experiences. The appropriate
method to achieve this goal is the rumination upon the sacred texts. The
continuous repetition of a sacred verse effects the experience of what is told in it.
With this in mind we are now able to see how Fra Angelico is able to deal with
these theological presuppositions. In the history of art Fra Angelico is correctly
considered to be one of the greatest artists of the Italian Quattrocento, but in
order to understand his art appropriately a proper comprehension of the
theological context is indispensable.
First we will discuss the place where the frescoes were painted and then
consider the iconographic patterns. The frescoes in question are situated in the
north corridor of the dormitory and in some of the friars cells in San Marco. The
place is of considerable importance because a complete theology was developed
with respect to the monk’s cell. William of Saint Thierry’s (c. 1085-c. 1148) socalled Golden Letter Epis- tola ad fratres de Monte Dei) to a group of Carthusians
was an extremely popular document because it had always been ascribed to his
friend,
(
456
HANS GF.YBELS
Bernard of Clairvaux.17 In §151, William insists on the poor design of the cell
because our earthly existence is nothing more than a temporary pilgrimage.
Therefore, the monk should build a provisional tent instead of a permanent
house (“non domos ad habitandum, sed tabernacula ad deserendum”). A
luxurious exterior fits ill with a soul that tends towards an interior life (§154:
“Sed et intentum interioribus animum magis decent inculta omnia et neglecta
exteriora”).
In a few beautiful sentences in §29, William unfolds the central idea of what
a friars cell must be like in order not to become a prison or a tomb to a living
man18:
For as the same Apostle said, “There are some that have the outward shape of
piety, but deny the power thereof.” (2 Tim 3,5) Whosoever of you had not this in
his conscience, showed it not in his life, practised it not in his cell, he should be
called not solitary but desolate; nor is his cell a cell to him, but a prison and a
dungeon. For he is desolate and alone indeed, with whom God is not, who is not
free in God. For solitude, and prison, are names of wretchedness; whereas a cell
must not in any respect be the enclosure of necessity, but the dwelling-place of
peace, a door that is closed; not a hiding place, but a secret place.1’
By means of a clever etymology, William declares that friars actually live in
heaven (caelum) rather than in a cell (cella): “habitantes in caelis potius quam in
cellis” (§31). Dwelling in heaven or in a cell are related. According to him both
cella and caelum are derived from celare, to hide, to keep silent (§32):
For when in the cell heavenly things are continually done, heaven is made very
nigh to the cell by likeness of mystery, by affection of piety, and by
accomplishing of a like work; and when the spirit prayed, or it may be forsaked
the body, it is then no longer or hard way from cella to caelum, from cell to
heaven.19
If one looks again carefully at the wall-painting in cell 1 (the Noli me tangere
scene), the setting is a heavenly garden! Fra Angelico and his co-workers are
referring to the garden of Eden, the heavenly garden and the famous mystical
theme of the enclosed garden. The friars cell must be an enclosed garden so
that it can be a foretaste of heaven.
Saint Dominic (c. 1170-1221) granted each Friar Preacher an individual cell in
order to stimulate the friar’s commitment to his monastic duties and spiritual
perfection. Each cell contained only a bed, a bench and a reading table to study
and read. According to the innovative idea of Dominic, a cell was more than just
a place to sleep (as friars viewed it); it was also the place for the friar’s new task:
study. The cell was not only meant to be a bedroom but also a place for study,
17
Edition: Guillaume de Saint Thierry, Lettre aux frères du Mont-Dieu (Lettre dor),
ed. Jean Déchanet, SC, 223 (Paris: Cerf, 1975).
18
“Quasi carcer, aut sicut viventi sepultura” (§37).
2 6. The Golden Epistle of Abbot William of St. Thierry, 22.
FRA ANGELICO RUMINANS
457
solitary prayer, and meditation. In his cell, a friar could study and meditate
upon the teachings received in the convent school and he could prepare his own
method of spreading the Word.20 Dominic allowed one image (a crucifixion or a
Madonna) in each cell. The Vitae Fratrum (§189) states that in the cells the friars
should keep their eyes on an image of the Virgin or her crucified Son, to be
looked at with merciful eyes and watched while they read, pray and sleep. 21 The
prior and chapter of the convent of San Marco steadfastly believed that wallpaintings encouraged and supported the friar’s study and meditation and, in
1440, they commissioned Fra Angelico and a few assistants to decorate all the
cells of the dormitory.22 Each friar received an image - or better: an icon - upon
which he could ruminate, such as what is shown in cell 7, where St Dominic sets
the example.
The best illustration of how Fra Angelico succeeded in visualising religious
experience is the astonishing Annunciation on the south wall of the north
corridor where it was visible to all the friars. The angel Gabriel is surely one of
the most wonderful angels in the history of painting. He has magnificent
variegated wings in several colours. His heavenly face, like his crossed hands, is
lit by a diffused radiance. The divine messenger is waiting for a reply. Mary,
sitting in a loggia looking out on to a hortus conclusus is silently aware of the
mystery as she gazes intensely and with acceptance at the archangel.23
Fra Angelico made the annunciation occur in the here and now. Through his
fresco, as an open window, the friars had to experience the mystery of the
Incarnation as real and immediately present. To achieve this goal, Fra Angelico
made the annunciation appear as near-at-hand in his own convent. The loggia
in which the mystery takes place is a part of the convent’s ambulatory. The Ionic
capitals on the columns at the right side of the fresco are exactly the same as the
ones of the ambulatory and the ones of the library. The light flooding the loggia
in the painting echoes the real light source, originally provided by a window in
the end wall of the north corridor.24 The Incarnation has to happen in the heart
of every friar every day. This fresco is a visual invocation of an invisible
perpetual theological truth.25
20
Guy Bedouelle, Domenico: La grazia dellaparola (Rome:
Borla, 1983) 118 and 164-165.
21
Pietro Lippini, La vita quotidiana di un convento medievale: Gli ambienti, le regole, l'orario e le
mansioni dei Frati Domenicani del tredicesimo secolo, Attendite ad petram, 5 (Bologna: Edizioni
studio domenicano, 1990) 93-94.
22
See chapter 3 of R. Morcay, Saint-Antonin archeveque de Florence (1389-1459), D. Litt.
Thesis (Paris, 1914).
23
Morachiello, Fra Angelico, 269.
24
Morachiello, Fra Angelico, 269.
25
A study on Fra Angelicos theology exists but it does not deal with our vision:
458
HANS GEYBELS
Besides this obvious reference to the convent, Fra Angelico introduced
another element which is hard to recognise now, but which would have been
easily identifiable to the ruminating friars. Why did he paint such a huge
Corinthian column in the middle of the scene dividing Gabriel and Mary?
Hrabanus Maurus (c. 776-856), the Benedictine monk who later became abbot
of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz, was the most celebrated theological and
pedagogical writer of the ninth century. The clue for understanding the column
can be found in his popular Allegoriae in Sacram Scripturae. There, he offers many
aphorisms to ruminate upon:
The column is the divinity of Christ, like in Exodus, a column of fire
went in front of the people in the middle of the night [...]. The column
is the humanity of Christ, like in Exodus, a column of clouds guided
the people during the day [...]. The column is the humble predication
of Christ, as has been written in the Psalms: “In the column of clouds,
he spoke with them [...]. (Own translation of PL 112, col. 899-900)
The message is clear but there is more. Fra Angelico was a friend and admirer
of Saint Antonin of Florence (1389-1459), a Dominican, archbishop of Florence
and founder of the convent of San Marco. He was a zealous promoter of reforms
in the order. Antoninus reformed several convents in Italy, reintroducing a
stronger observance of the monastic rules. Members supporting this strong
observance took possession of San Marco in February 1436.26 In his Sumrna
theologiae la,3,10 (De con- scientia), he considers the column to be a figura of
human conscience. Fra Angelicos fresco, then, becomes a strong reminder for
the friars to take the severe life of a Dominican friar seriously.27
If one compares Fra Angelicos iconography of the annunciation with one from
his contemporaries, the difference is astonishing. The Annunciation
Ven- turino Alce, Angelicus Pictor: Vita, opere e teologia del Beato Angelico, Collana “Divinitus , 1
(Bologna: Domenicano Bologna, 1993).
26
Albin Michel Masseron, Saint Antonin (1389-1459), Les Saints (Paris, Lecoffre, 1926)
96-97.
27
Georges Didi-Hubermann, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance et figuration (Paris: Flammarion, 1995) 257-259.
of Robert Campin (‘Master of Flemalle’, 1375/80-1444) of 1435 shows a beautiful
room. Emphasis lies on the texture of the materials, the wealth of the interior,
and the depiction of the persons. This painting can hardly be called an icon.
But, if one compares the frescoes in the cells of Fra Angelico with some of his
other paintings, one also notices obvious differences. Take, for instance, his Last
Judgement, now in the Museo di San Marco. He works in the tradition of
Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370-1427), and Masolino da
Panicale (1383-1440). He does not differ much from another early-Renaissance
painter like Filippo Lippi (1406-1469), but still Fra Angelico is more lyrical. This
period was the transition from the High Gothic/Medieval time to the
Renaissance. Fra Angelico’s spirituality was very much still a medieval one, but
in his art and technical ability he managed to render the three dimensional perspective in the two-dimensional picture space, which was very much in keeping
with the times, i.e. the preoccupation in art with humanism, naturalism,
idealism, the perfect rendering of architectural spaces, the three dimensions.
This is also a reason why he chose architectural settings (Annunciation) as well as
nature (trees, garden etc. in Noli me Tangere) in his works. In this way he was a
Renaissance man similarly engaged in what concerned the artists of his time;
but, in comparison to these other works, the cell-paintings are extremely
‘simple’.
The frescoes in the cells are not illustrations of the Scriptures. Their purpose is
to stimulate the Dominican way of prayer, explained in De modo orandi.
Dominic’s prayer arose out of reading and meditating on some texts.
Consequently, the painting does not stimulate prayer and meditation, but
prayer and meditation arise when looking at the painting. The painting prays in
the friar. Like authentic icons in the Eastern tradition, they show no exact
details but rather archetypal’ narrative episodes, like the mocking of Christ in
cell 7. It was anomalous to paint Christ’s robe in white, whereas the Gospel text
states that is was red or purple (and hence it was always painted so). However,
Fra Angelico used an extract from the extremely popular Legenda Aurea of the
Dominican friar Jacopo da Voragine (c. 1230-c. 1298) meant for meditation. In
the Legenda, we read how Jesus was blindfolded, greeted, beaten, and spat in the
face, all in the house of the high priest, and that He was dressed in a white
garment in the house of king Herod. This also explains why there is not one
single trace of drama in this fresco. Its main purpose is not to present a
historical narrative but instead the evocation of a spiritual experience.28 In most
of the frescoes the painting of the environment is kept to a minimum. The
history of salvation begins in the cell of each friar. Therefore, in most of the
28
1993)
William Hood, Fra Angelico at San Marco (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
460
HANS GEYBELS
cells, Dominican saints participate in the biblical scene, as in cell 10, the
Presentation in the Temple, with Saint Peter Martyr, or as in cell 6, the
remarkable Transfiguration, with Saint Dominic.
It now becomes clear why in 1481 the humanist Cristoforo Landino wrote of
Fra Angelico that he was angelic, charming, devout, and elegant.29 In Lives of the
Artists (1550) Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) says that he prefaced his paintings by
prayer and that he was divinely inspired. For him, it was essential for Fra
Angelico to be humble and modest in order for his saints to look like real
saints.30 Both these authors give a good description of how Fra Angelico
succeeded in visualising religious experience: he painted according to the way
he meditated and he meditated according to the way he lived. All these features
come together in a paragraph written by the most famous narrator of 20th
century Flemish literature, Felix Timmermans, who made a trip to Italy in 19251926. We grant him the last words of this article:
So there are three corridors of cells, and each cell contains a page from
the life of Jesus and the whole cloister is a holy, illuminated book. And
here one can imagine Angelico in his own days, between the hours of
the vespers and the divine services, painting softly, slowly, without
longing for glory, just happy to be able to express his love for Jesus in
form and colour. Then, the grace of the monks contemplating the
Gospel in their quiet cells! They only had to raise their eyes, to the
walls, to notice in colours all the love and the sweetness they read. In
this way the frescoes were for them constant wellsprings of mysticism.31
29
Citation from his book Commento sopra la Commedia
di Dante Alighieri poeta fiorentino (1481), quoted in G.
Comini, Fra Angelico, Art Dossier, version
française (Florence: Giunti, 2001) 6.
30
Quoted by Bam, Guido di Piero, Known as Fra Angelico, 8. Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the
Artists, ed. George Bull, The Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin books’ ’1977) 204:
“The rare and perfect talent which Fra Angelico enjoyed neither can nor should be granted to
anyone who does not lead a thoroughly holy life. Artists who devote themselves to works of
religious or holy kind ought themselves to be genuinely holy and religious, seeing that
pictures done by those who have little regard for their religion and Iittle faith often fill the
mind with unworthy desires and impure longings, with the result that the work is censured
for its impurity but praised for its craftsmanship and skill.” Original tide of Vasaris study: Le
vite di piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori.
31
Own translation of Felix Timmermans, Naar waar de appelsienen groeien (3rd ed.,
Amsterdam: Van Kampen, n.d.) 47.