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Fra Angelico- Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian. James Patrick Reid. Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro from the Mugello valley north of Florence, joined the Dominican Priory at Fiesole, just a …More
Fra Angelico- Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian.

James Patrick Reid. Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro from the Mugello valley north of Florence, joined the Dominican Priory at Fiesole, just a few miles north of the city of Florence, as Fra Giovanni. His aptitude for painting was
encouraged by his superiors, and later one finds him moved to the Dominican Church of San Marco in
Florence, where the priory today is a public museum virtually entirely dedicated to his work, especially
the superb frescos in a whole series of monks' cells. On the high altar of the Church of San Marco was
an altarpiece which Cosimo de Medici ordered to be removed to the Dominican establishment in Cortona,
where it was placed in position in 1440. This display of power by the temporal ruler left the Dominicans
with a significant gap. However, they had the resources in the person of their own gentle Fra Giovanni.
For the high altar he painted a large panel, a little over two metres in height and width, and virtually
square. On this lie depicted the Virgin and Child enthroned, with angels, and Saints Laurence, John the
Evangelist, Mark, Cosmas and Damian, Dominic, Francis, and Peter the Martyr. Beneath the main
altarpiece itself was the predella, comprised of nine small panels each of which depicted a scene related
to the figures in theprincipal panel. Dublin's Fra Angelico is one 01 the panels from the predella, which
only would have been visible to people standing very close to the altar or on the steps of the altar itself.
The painting depicts the attempted martyrdom of the Saints and their brothers by the Roman prefect
Lysias, who found his task more difficult than usual. First, the Saints chained and weighted, were thrown
into the sea, but surfaced and came ashore chainless; Lysias ordered them to be stoned to death, but the
stones turned back and merely injured those who threw them; archers were called to the scene, but with
similar results; put into a great fire (the subject of the painting), Cosmas and Damian and their three
brothers stood unscathed, while the flames reversed and injured the torturers; other methods were tried,
but to no avail. Finally, in desperation Lysias had them beheaded by sword, successfully.
In 1955, on the occasion of the fifth centenary of the death of Fra Angelico, a major exhibition of his work
was organized, being shown first in the Vatican, and then at San Marco in Florence. There the National
Gallery of Ireland's little panel showing Cosmas and Damian, and their brothers, in the middle of a huge
fire with the Ilames blowing backwards into the faces of their persecutors, was reunited with the other
eight panels that constituted the original predella, and placed under the main altarpiece panel itself.
(For further details of this painting see: "Two Patron Saints of Medicine: Cosmas and Damian" by Michael
Wynne on p. 14 of this issue of the Irish Medical Journal.)
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