Fra Angelico’s Paintings as Prayer

February 18th [was] the Feast of Blessed Fra Angelico, who was a Dominican friar and painter of the early Italian Renaissance. When Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1982, he was asked about Fra Angelico's miracles and simply pointed to his paintings and said, "These are his miracles."

Born in Tuscany around 1395, Fra Angelico's initial training as an artist was in the creation of illuminated manuscripts, and he went on to paint frescoes and other works for churches and religious houses throughout Italy. Scripture was his inspiration, and he always prayed for God's blessings on his work and viewed the act of painting as a prayer in and of itself.

Two years after beatifying Fra Angelico, John Paul II declared him patron of Catholic artists. In one of the beautiful and laudatory statements he made about Fra Angelico, John Paul II said, "Angelico was reported to say, 'He who does Christ's work must stay with Christ always.' This motto earned him the epithet 'Blessed Angelico,' because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

In the spring of 2024, the Uffizi Gallery, a prominent museum in the heart of Florence, presented a reunification of Fra Angelico's Glorification of Mary with the original predella he painted to accompany it. Created sometime between 1431 and 1435 for the hospital church of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, the Glorification of Mary depicts our Blessed Mother assumed into heaven and enthroned beside Christ the Redeemer. The Predella, which is a separate panel beneath the main painting, consists of two compartments depicting the Marriage and Funeral of the Virgin.

The Glorification was separated from its predella in the 17th century and eventually reunited at the Uffizi only to be separated again during World War II and moved around to secret locations to protect it from bombings and raids by the Nazis. After the war, the main panel returned to the Uffizi, while its predella wound up in a different museum in Florence. It wasn't until last year, when the predella finally returned to the Uffizi, that the work could be displayed again as Fra Angelico originally intended.

In his authoritative book on Italian art entitled Lives of the Artists, 16th century historian Giorgio Vasari called Fra Angelico, "a rare and perfect talent," adding, "It is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety."

This statement about the character of Fra Angelico has certainly heightened interest in the intent underpinning his Glorification and the predella he created to accompany it, and the Uffizi has rightly celebrated this reunification. Those who visit the work now receive a fuller glimpse of his vision in this beautiful tribute to the life of our Blessed Mother and the exalted status she occupies in our faith.

In his life and work, Fra Angelico demonstrates how the arts can work in service to the faith to illuminate the figures, stories, and principles at the heart of Scripture. May Fra Angelico intercede for all artists to draw closer to Christ so their work can reveal truth to all people and inspire us to see the beauty of creation and the faith given to us to discover God's love.

This essay is a recent "Light One Candle" column by Father Ed Dougherty, M.M., The Christophers' Board of Directors ; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.

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