We visited San Marco in 2011 and 2013 and decided 2022 might be a good year to return. We'd just seen Fra (Beato) Angelica's tomb at the church of SM Sopra Minerva in Rome, plus many of his works at the Uffizi.
The religious complex of San Marco is known for many things...the interest and generosity of Cosimo Medici (the Patriarch) in rebuilding and upgrading it, the (arguably) first public library contained therein, the many, many frescoes and paintings by Fra Angelica, the burial site of Pico della Miradola, (arguably) the intellectual father of Humanism, another of Ghirlandaio's Last Suppers, and last, and least, the shrine of the demagogue priest Savanarola's take-over of Florence in the 1490s. The previous posts do the place some justice, but there are always a few new things, or things seen in new ways, and maybe a correction or two....
 |
| It's a huge place, earlier 15th century, funded by Cosimo and designed by his personal architect, Michelozzi |
 |
| The four interior walls of the cloister are decorated with these beautiful frescoes, by Fra Angelica, Fra Bartolomeo, and others; this one by Fra Angelica, two Dominicans welcoming Jesus as a pilgrim; it's all about Dominicans, you see... |
 |
| Fra Angelica's San Marcos altarpiece...he was adept at both the International Gothic as well as the beauteous frescoes emerging in the via moderna; as the blurb below suggests, while this is an old-style sacred conversation, it is amply informed by Brunelleschi's theories of perspective and by van Eyck's realism... |
 |
| [click to enlarge] except Fra Angelica and his peers knew little of oil painting, which van Eyck had pioneered and mastered a generation before |
 |
Anyhow, Fra Angelica was also pretty adept at the lurid Last Judgment genre too |
 |
| We of course never look at anything but the Hell side, since it is always the more interesting |
 |
| Apparently they feed you in Hell; maybe punishment for those guilty of the sin of selective eating disorder? |
 |
| Eat and be eaten |
 |
| But mostly he did the pretty stuff |
 |
| "Wheel! Of! Ezekiel!" (Ezekiel 10:9-10, for those of you keeping score at home) |
 |
| Madonna et bambina? |
 |
| True confession time: we're in the gift shop now, formerly a refectory, and I am not recognizing this Last Supper as one of Ghirlandaio's; frankly, it is so colorful...re-done, I guess...that it almost looks fresh; the only identifying signage said it was a "photographic reproduction," whatever that could mean; every site I've visited on the web identifies it as one of Ghirlandaio's three Florence Last Suppers; I should have noted that the composition is exactly like the one at the Ognissanti (except for the cat); I still prefer the one at the Ognissanti...it is set in a real refectory, it looks like it's been there for 500+ years, and there's the synopia of it on the adjacent wall |
 |
| Going upstairs where the monks' cells are...an Annunciation that is one of Fra Angelica's biggest hits |
 |
| Actual Tree of Jesse; not the figurative one that some people prefer |
 |
| The library...see the description below... |
 |
| Among several displays...books, hymnals, writing, copying, and printing apparati |
 |
| Must preserve the books, can't sell them, must permit the public to have access to them...yes, maybe the first modern public library |
 |
| Since we were here last, they've really upgraded the Savanarola shrine; here, part of his cell (he was the head monk) |
 |
| Among the relics |
 |
| Said to be his cloak...note the gold trim; apparently he still has some fans... |
 |
| Spare parts and helpful model; great place... |
