The Coronation of the Virgin / Linaiuoli Tabernacle
Linaiuoli Tabernacle — Fra Angelico, 1433-1434, San Marco
Fra Angelico, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Linaiuoli Tabernacle (1433-1434) was Fra Angelico's first major public commission — a marble tabernacle designed by Ghiberti to house Fra Angelico's painted panels for the Arte dei Linaiuoli (Linen Weavers' Guild). The central panel shows the Virgin and Child enthroned; the interior wing panels show St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist; the exterior wings show the Annunciation and other scenes; the predella below shows three scenes including the Adoration of the Magi.
The Coronation of the Virgin (c.1434-1435), also in the Museo di San Marco, shows the Coronation in a golden celestial space surrounded by a circle of saints and the blessed, with a lower register of saints below. Both works demonstrate Angelico's ability to create images of transcendent formal beauty while maintaining the theological precision of his Dominican formation.
The Linaiuoli Tabernacle is the foundation document of Fra Angelico's mature career. The guild that commissioned it was one of Florence's minor guilds; the commission gave Fra Angelico his first opportunity to produce a work of monumental scale for public display. Ghiberti's marble tabernacle frame (similar to the Orsanmichele tabernacle tradition) sets Angelico's painted panels in a carved marble surround that is itself a major work of Gothic architectural sculpture.
The twelve music-making angels in the Linaiuoli Tabernacle's central panel — small figures surrounding the central image of the Virgin and Child — are among the most celebrated passages in early Italian painting. Each plays a different instrument, the twelve instruments identified by musicologists as specific late medieval types. The angels' expressions of absorbed musical concentration are Fra Angelico at his most intimate.
When standing before this work, look carefully: Linaiuoli Tabernacle — Fra Angelico, 1433-1434, San Marco. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
When standing before this work, look carefully: Twelve music-making angels — instruments and concentration. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
When standing before this work, look carefully: Coronation of the Virgin — celestial space and saints. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
When standing before this work, look carefully: Exterior wings — Annunciation and saints. Give it time — what seems decorative often carries the central meaning.
Museo di San Marco, Piazza San Marco 3, Florence. Open Tuesday-Friday 8:15-13:50, weekends 8:15-16:50.
Admission fee applies. Both works are in the museum's main ground-floor galleries.