ANGELICO, Fra
(b. ca. 1400, Vicchio nell Mugello, d. 1455, Roma)

View of the chapel

1447-49
Fresco
Cappella Niccolina, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican

This view shows the window (west) and entry (north) walls of the chapel decorated by Fra Angelico. The fresco cycle consists of scenes from the lives of the archdeacons Stephen (lunette) and Lawrence (bottom register).

On either side of the scenes on the west (and similarly on the east) wall there is a narrow panel containing only a single figure. These panels are actually on the inner face of the arches at the end of these walls. There eight full-length figures of saints painted on the arches. (In this view St Ambrose and, below him, St Thomas Aquinas is shown.) The chapel's wainscoting section, roughly 2,5 meters high, is painted with a wall drapery in a pomegranate design against a red background. In two spots the coat-of-arms of Pope Nicholas V appears inside a laurel wreath. The deep embrasures of the two windows present six- and seven-lobed rosettes containing alternating floral designs and portrait busts prophets and saints.