Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/143

1455] evidently fitted on to the frame at some later period.

All of these works must have been finished by the end of 1446, when Pope Eugenius IV.—who had visited Florence, and stayed at San Marco for the dedication of the convent, four years before—summoned Fra Angelico to Rome, to paint a chapel in St. Peter's. Shortly before he left Florence, the painter probably began the interesting series of small panels for the presses of the altar-plate in a chapel, endowed by Cosimo's son, Piero de' Medici, in the Annunziata, in the year 1448. These charming little pictures of the life of Christ, so original in their conception, so full of quaint and picturesque touches, were only partly executed by Angelico, and the hand of many different scholars and assistants may be traced in the later subjects, while three panels were certainly the work of Alesso Baldovinetti.

Soon after Fra Angelico's arrival in Rome, the Pope died, but his successor, Nicholas V., who had held the office of librarian to Cosimo de' Medici, induced the painter to continue his work, and the Vatican records contain an entry of payments made, in May 1447, to Fra Giovanni of Florence, at the rate of 200 gold ducats a year, for work in a chapel of St. Peter's, executed by him and his assistant, Benozzo, together with four other artists, since the 13th of March. By June the decoration of the chapel was completed, and Fra Angelico accepted an invitation from the Directors of the Cathedral works at Orvieto, to spend the summer months in that city, and paint the newly-erected Chapel of S. Brizio. For this he