Fra Angelico’s earliest surviving altarpiece, created for the convent he had joined as a young man, has been returned to its original setting after a painstaking restoration project. The work on the Fiesole Altarpiece, completed in time for a recent major exhibition in Florence, has brought back into full view the Italian Old Master’s intricate handling of colour, figure and texture; revealed hidden details under the painting’s surface; and highlighted the subtle interplay between the original composition and the additions of Lorenzo di Credi, who “modernised” the work in the 16th century. Innovative reconfiguring of the altarpiece’s wooden support, meanwhile, has preserved the piece for posterity.
Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro, made the Fiesole Altarpiece between 1420 and 1423 for the church at San Domenico in Fiesole, which he had joined around this period. It depicts a Madonna cloaked in blue and gold, holding a Christ Child who reaches out cautiously for flowers in her hand. Around them gather a group of eight angels as well as four saints, St Barnabas, St Thomas Aquinas, St Dominic and St Peter Martyr.
The work had been designed as a late Gothic triptych on gold ground, with side pilasters and a predella; in 1501, however, more than 45 years after Fra Angelico’s death, the painter Lorenzo di Credi was commissioned to reimagine the work for the new Renaissance taste. He left the figures untouched but converted the triptych into a single image, in which the golden background was painted over with the image of a delicate embroidered canopy in the centre, and beside it two arches opening out onto a sun-soaked, tree-filled landscape. The original predella and side pilasters were later sold—the former to the National Gallery in London.
A detail showing three of Fra Angelico’s angels after restoration
Before the restoration, the varnish on Fra Angelico’s painting “was very old, very yellow”, says Simonetta Brandolini, the president of Friends of Florence, which funded the project. The conservator Daniele Rossi removed not just the varnishes but previous overpainting and restorations to reveal once more the “delicate colours, gold and extremely refined finishes of Fra Angelico”, he says. Particular attention was also paid to Di Credi’s depiction of the sky: Rossi and his colleagues used beeswax bleached with a milk solvent to remove stains from this part of the image, slowly revealing a luminous blue as they did so.
Such efforts have brought into clearer light a young Fra Angelico who, still only in his 20s, is “really just starting to get his message across” as an artist, Brandolini says. They have also differentiated, Brandolini continues, “more clearly Fra Angelico’s and Lorenzo di Credi’s hands. Di Credi really respected Fra Angelico, and you can really see that.”
Securing the work for the future
The main objective of the restoration, Rossi says, was “to preserve the work and extend its longevity”. And crucial to this has been work on the altarpiece’s wooden support. The original poplar panels and structures put in place during previous restorations had become unstable, leading to vertical cracks in the paint surface; in one case damaging the face of a depicted angel. The conservation team, led by Rossi’s colleague Roberto Buda, replaced the wooden inserts at the back of the work (known as butterflies) and created a modern chestnut support system complete with springs, designed to adapt as temperature and humidity changes. The cracks in the painting’s surface were then filled with fresh stucco and damaged areas restored with watercolour and the trateggio (or hatching) technique, as well as with varnish.
Right to left: Details of the damaged face of an angel during cleaning, after low-level filling and after restoration
A hidden throne
Rossi and his team conducted diagnostic tests on the work, which revealed surprising details. With the help of infrared reflectography, conservators uncovered Fra Angelico’s original design for a throne, which had been hidden behind Di Credi’s application of azure lapis lazuli. The original throne “painted in egg tempera, was depicted as if it were made of stone, and coloured marble, like Masaccio’s throne on the San Giovenale triptych,” Rossi explains. It was surrounded by Gothic arches, corbels and two “pot-bellied vases” holding roses.
“We must be content with the discovery and the black-and-white [infrared reflectography] photo,” Rossi says, “and imagine for a moment, with our eyes closed, what it might have looked like in colour. Perhaps we might even smell the scent of the roses?”
Another discovery made by the team, Rossi says, was that the lily held by St Dominic was painted by Fra Angelico, but two pistils were added to the stem by Di Credi. Other observations include the very few retouches Fra Angelico made on the work—”he was always perfect,” Rossi says.
The Fiesole Altarpiece was a highlight of Fra Angelico, the major exhibition recently held across the Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco in Florence from September 2025 to January this year. A suggestion to conserve the Fiesole work came from Palazzo Strozzi, and money was raised from several donors, most of them board members of the Friends of Florence but others simply “huge fans of Fra Angelico”.
For Brandolini, the restoration is another important contribution to our understanding of Fra Angelico, who, she notes, is today appreciated alongside figures such as Masaccio and Filippo Lippi “as one of the main cornerstones of the Renaissance”.