Fra Angelico, The Crucifixion

1441-43
Fresco, 216.6 x 374 in. (550 x 950 cm.)
Convent of San Marco, Florence

Jesus is pictured as in most 15th-century Crucifixion images, his eyes closed in death and the weight of his body making his arms sag. As in Bridget of Sweden's vision, his two feet are held by a single nail, he wears a tied-up cloth, and his mother is about to faint. An even more ancient tradition is the skull on a hillock at the base of the cross, a visual pun on Calvary, "the place of the skull." In this enormous fresco the artist was able to include on the plaque the full text ordered by Pilate.

But the fresco's most remarkable feature is the arching border. A repeated theme in the gospels is that Christ's death and resurrection were foretold by the prophets. Accordingly, the artist sets into the border portraits of eight Old Testament prophets and patriarchs, two Gentiles said to have sensed that something was to happen, and the pelican that had become conventional atop the crucifix. Each of these holds a banderole with a quotation addressing Christ's death and resurrection that would be familiar to the friars from the breviary and the missal. Each of the following links will take you to an explanation of the person pictured, the phrase on the banderole, its provenance, a translation, and how it applies to the Crucifixion. Left to right on the border, the insets are:

• Dionysus the Areopagite
• Daniel
• Zacharias
• Jacob
• David
• the pelican
• Isaiah
• Jeremiah
• Ezekiel
• Job
• The Erythrean Sibyl

Along the bottom border are St. Dominic (directly below the cross) and sixteen Dominican saints and blesseds. The main scene features a group of saints important to the Medici family on the left and on the right a group with three of the "Doctors of the Church" and men representing the major religious orders of the day. The figures are (left to right, with links to our essays on their iconography):

• Saints Cosmas and Damian, surprisingly garbed as if clerics. Cosmas is the namesake of Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464), who governed Florence at the time of this fresco.
• St. Lawrence, with his attribute, the gridiron. He is the namesake of Cosimo's late brother Lorenzo (1395-1440).
• St. Mark the patron saint of the San Marco church and convent, pointing to his gospel.
• St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence, with his camel-skin tunic.
• Mary the wife of Cleophas, a kinswoman of the Virgin Mary.
• The Virgin Mary (red tunic and blue mantle).
• Mary Magdalene kneeling before Mary (long, blonde hair).
• St. John the Evangelist.
• St. Dominic in the habit of his order, distinguished from the other Dominicans in the group by the a star above his forehead.
• St. Augustine, one of the four "Doctors of the Church." The four clerics who authored the most widely influential theological works of the early church: Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Gregory the Great
• St. Jerome, with his cardinal's hat on the ground before him, also one of the Doctors of the Cnurch.
• St. Ambrose with a pen and book referring to his writings, the third Doctor of the Church. It is not clear why the artist did not include the fourth, Pope Gregory the Great. At the time Florence and the Medici were on good terms with the Papacy.
• St. Francis of Assisi, in his Franciscan habit but without any indication of the stigmata.
• St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictines, standing with a handful of sticks, an attribute referencing his advice on monks finding strength in unity.
• St. Bernard of Clairvaux, representing the Cistercian order.
• St. Romuald, founder of the Camaldolese order.
• St. John Gualbert, of the Valombrosan order, kneeling in front of St. Romuald.
• St. Peter Martyr, standing beside St. John Gualbert (Dominican habit, gash in his head).
• St. Thomas Aquinas (Dominican habit, a shining sun on his breast).

The two thieves are starkly distinguished. The one on Jesus' right is young, handsome, and blond. He gazes calmly on his savior. The other thief, with messy black hair, squints into the distance and howls in agony.

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Read more about the Crucifixion.

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• Iconography of the Crucifixion
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Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
The convent's label for this fresco was an invaluable help in identifying saints and others who did not have attributes.