San Domenico Altarpiece (1423-24)

Fra Angelico executed three altarpieces for the church and convent of San Domenico in Florence. They not only demonstrate his mastery in the 1420s but are suffused with Dominican ideals, most notably the veneration of Christ and Mary.

The San Domenico Altarpiece was the first painting that Angelico painted for the church, it was followed by the Annunciation and the Coronation of the Virgin. The Altarpiece represents the Virgin and Child surrounded by angels and flanked by four saints: Thomas Aquinas, the Order's greatest scholar; Barnabus, patron saint of Barnaba degli Agli, benefactor of the convent, to whom the church was jointly dedicated; Dominic, founder of the Order; and Peter Martyr, the Order's first martyr and most eloquent preacher. originally conceived as a triptych, it was united into a single panel and its background repainted by the artist Lorenzo di Credi in 1501, when the church was modernized.