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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture John Dillon and Jim Buslag's point about haloes having been repainted after canonization triggers another thought. From the televison pictures of these saints, which scanned them for a couple of seconds in close-up, the faces struck me as quite heavily repainted. Near-contemporary re-tooling of haloes upon canonization seems unlikely in the case of what were evidently quite small subsidiary panels, but I wouldn't put it past a nineteenth-century restorer to re-gild the backgrounds with haloes. The distinction between Beati and Saints looks to be rigidly upheld by Fra Angelico himself in the National Gallery panel, and also in his two Depositions. If memory serves me, one of Gerge Kaftal's several volume set on images of the saints includes another Dominican panel of beati, and goes into the halo issue a bit more. It's attributed to someone like 'the Master of the Dominican Beati'. One would certainly expect the Dominicans to be strict about these things. So- two beati, canonised by a restorer, is something to bear in mind. Laura ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Dillon" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: 20 November 2006 21:27 Subject: Re: Fra Angelico's mystery saints medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture As has already been noted in this thread, some orders extended the convention of full haloes for saints to beati whose saintliness they were actively affirming. Examples already mentioned include the Augustinian Agostino Novello, shown here in the famous altarpiece by Simone Martini (ca. 1333-36) : http://gallery.euroweb.hu/art/s/simone/4altars/5agostin/1agostin.jpg and the Carmelite Albert of Trapani, shown here in a painting of ca. 1430 by Filippo Lippi: http://www.wga.hu/html/l/lippi/filippo/1430/1madonna.html http://www.palazzo-medici.it/mediateca/immagine.php?id=38 Is there any reason to believe that Dominicans could not be equally latitudinarian in this regard? If they were, then one might reduce "loads of Dominican beati" to just those Dominican beati whose causes the order was actively pursuing and/or who may have enjoyed a contemporary cult within its Roman province. Best again, John Dillon PS: The Dominican worthies portrayed in roundels beneath Fra Angelico's fresco of the Crucifixion in the chapter room of San Marco in Florence include several whose haloes are full rather than radiate (among the latter, BTW, are the portraits of Jordan of Saxony and of Nicola Paglia I noted earlier). These were once attributed to assistants, but William Hood, _Fra Angelico at San Marco_ (Yale U.P., 1993), 187-88, has no difficulty in assigning them to A. himself. Apart from Dominic, two (Ramond of Peņafort, Vincent Ferrer) have what appear to be full haloes: http://tinyurl.com/yg3wlv But these may be due to repainting after their canonizations. For the full list, see Hood, op. cit., p. 317, n. 66. ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html