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45. The Annunciation (cell 3), c. 1440–1441. Fresco, 190 × 164 cm. Convento di San Marco, Florence.

46. The Agony in the Garden and Martha and Mary Praying (cell 34), c. 1442. Fresco, 177 × 147 cm. Convento di San Marco, Florence.

In 1436, Fra Angelico left his convent in Fiesole to go to the convent of San Marco in Florence. Here, elevated cloisters flooded with light surrounded the square courtyard. To the left of the entrance rose the church, and doors that opened across from the entryway gave access to the sacristy, the second floor, and the chapter room. A vast refectory stretched along the third side of the courtyard, and on the fourth side, were the rooms once reserved for the convent’s guests, with the entrance to the monastery in the corner.

The works that Fra Angelico left here are particularly important. They mark a high point in the history of art, and are also the essence of Angelico’s work. In the lunette above the door of the first room for those to whom the Dominicans offered their hospitality, Fra Angelico painted three life-size figures. (Christ with Two Dominicans Resembling the Disciples of Emmaus, or Christ Being Received as a Pilgrim) Christ is in the centre, his face framed by the long and curly hair that falls down his back. He has a rather large beard, a pilgrim’s staff in his hand, and is poorly dressed in a garment worn ragged by travel. Two Dominican friars welcome him. The first, a prior, takes the right hand of the Lord in his own, while gripping the left arm of Christ with his left hand. The monk that accompanies him adds his entreaties to those of his prior with an expressive gesture. They resemble the disciples of Emmaus, and encourage the Lord to accept their house’s hospitality. Their hands are eloquent and their eyes seem to convey an emotional request, at once serious and gentle, to the pilgrim.

It is interesting to note how much this painting differs from the fellow Dominican Fra Bartolomeo’s conception of the same subject painted above the door of the second guest room (Christ with Two Disciples of Emmaus resembling Father Nicholas Scomberg and Father Santi Paganini). Bartolomeo dresses the two disciples of Emmaus in their traditional garments, but paints one with the features of Father Nicholas Scomberg, the German prior of San Marco beginning in 1506, and the other with the features of his predecessor, Father Santi Paganini. Here, one grasps the difference between these two famous painters from the same religious order. Fra Angelico idealises through generalisation. He paints the disciples of Emmaus as Dominican monks, and seems to palpably express the thought, “In each of our guests we see Jesus Christ himself, and we will welcome them as the disciples of Emmaus welcomed the Lord.” In contrast, Fra Bartolomeo naturalises and individualises. He gives the disciples the features of living and well-known personalities, just as Ghirlandaio, in his painting of the birth of Mary at Santa Maria Novella, painted the women visiting Saint Anne with the faces of specific Florentine women known for their beauty (The Birth of Mary). Fra Bartolomeo borrowed from tradition, and borrowed from Fra Angelico the good idea of painting the disciples of Emmaus above the door of a guest room. Yet he lost the expressive energy found in the work of his precursor by portraying the disciples in the traditional garb of the characters in the Biblical story.[12] Today, this painting is on the second floor in the cell of Savonarola, who converted Fra Bartolomeo, causing him to leave his dissipated life and join the Dominican Order.

47. Christ with Two Dominicans Resembling the Disciples of Emmaus (lunette over the door of the east entrance to the hospice), 1440–1442. Fresco, 108 × 145 cm. Convento di San Marco, Florence.

48. Fra Bartolomeo, Christ with Two Disciples of Emmaus Resembling Father Nicholas Scomberg and Father Santi Paganini (lunette over the door of Savonarola’s cell). Fresco. Convento di San Marco, Florence.

In a series of four half figures painted by Fra Angelico in the lunettes above the other doors, the stranger, fraternally welcomed into the convent, is reminded that the colonnades of the cloister are a sacred place. He sees Saint Dominic, holding the book of rules and discipline, rules that establish the necessity of a life of penitence, followed by Saint Thomas, the light of the Order. Above the door of the sacristy, the guest saw Saint Peter Martyr, a serious character holding his finger to his lips, commanding silence in the cloister, and particularly, in the sacristy (Saint Peter Martyr Enjoining Silence).[13] Above a fifth door, the Lord rises from the tomb and shows the wounds on his hands, recalling the Stations of the Cross and the victory of the Resurrection.