\paperw4260 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Italian painter\par
Active as a painter in 1417, he entered the monastery of San Domenico in Fiesole shortly afterward. The works ass
igned to the early part of his artistic career, such as the \i San Domenico Triptych\i0 (Florence, Museo di San Marco), still show the strong influence of late Gothic painting, and in particular the work of Lorenzo Monaco and Gentile da Fabriano. In 143
3, with the \i Linaioli Madonna\i0 , Fra Angelico demonstrated that he was aware of the innovations brought in by Masaccio, but it was only in a more advanced phase that his pictures displayed a full maturity in the definition of space. The figures in th
e \i Coronation of the Virgin\i0 painted around 1435 (Paris, Louvre) are in fact strongly structured and the work shows a complete mastery of perspective. In these years Fra Angelico was considered the greatest Florentine painter, capable of laying the
foundations for a modern form of sacred art, Renaissance in style but genuinely religious in tone. This is how the critics have always viewed the numerous images that he frescoed inside the monastery of San Marco in Florence, where he was in charge of th
e decoration from 1438 to 1446 (the \i Annunciation\i0 and \i Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saints\i0 ). Here we see a growing simplification of form that, in intimate harmony with the well-defined architecture of Michelozzo, achieves a serene monasti
c austerity. In 1446 Fra Angelico went to Rome to fresco \i Scenes from the Life of Saint Stephen, Saint Lawrence, and Saint Louis\i0 in the chapel of Nicholas V in the Vatican. It was his last masterpiece, in which the story unfolds with great serenity
amidst an architectural setting that recalls the classical models he had encountered firstly in the papal city. Fra AngelicoÆs painting, which is based on a conception of space defined by light, set an important example for many painters of the followin
g generation, including Piero della Francesca.\par
