Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth

Accompanying the exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, this catalog explores one of the most important artists of the Renaissance. Fra Angelico (c. 1395–1455) transformed painting in Florence with pioneering images, rethinking popular compositions and investing traditional Christian subjects with new meaning. His altarpieces and frescoes set new standards for quality and ingenuity, contributing to Angelico’s unparalleled fame on the Italian peninsula. With the intellect of a Dominican theologian, the technical facility of Florence’s finest craftsmen and the business acumen of its shrewdest merchants, he shaped the future of painting in Italy and beyond. The exhibition reunites for the first time Fra Angelico’s four reliquaries for Santa Maria Novella (1424-34; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Museo di San Marco, Florence). Together they cover key episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary and capture in miniature some of his most important compositional innovations. Assembled at the Gardner with exceptional examples of Angelico’s narrative paintings from collections in Europe and the United States, this exhibition explores his celebrated talents as a storyteller and the artistic contributions that shaped a new ideal of painting in Florence.