Panel of the Tabernacle of the Linen Guild
The Panel of the Tabernacle of the Linen Guild, depicting the Sermon of Saint Peter, comes from the Museum of San Marco; it was commissioned to Fra Angelico by the Members of the Guild of the Antique Dealers, Linen Weavers and Drapers and Tailors, who intended to use it to adorn their city seat. Documents from the period confirm 11 July 1433 as the date of the contract between the Guild’s members and the painter, and that is the reason why this work can be set in the same decade as the Valdarno Annunciation.
The panel is part of a gigantic tabernacle, an analysis of which is absolutely necessary for a clear interpretation of the work. As Magnolia Scudieri makes very clear in the monograph dedicated to this work in the catalog of the Renaissance in Valdarno exhibition: “it is one of the panels of the predella of the monumental Tabernacle of the Linen Guild, whose patron was St. Mark and whose full-length figure is prominent both on the external and internal doors. Besides the figure of St. Mark, St. Peter is depicted on the external doors and St. John the Baptist on the internal ones, enclosing the well-known image of the Madonna enthroned with Child framed by angel musicians. The monumental tabernacle, more than double the usual-sized proportions, is completed with the predella that, besides this panel on the left, has the Adoration of the Magi in the center, and on the right the Martyrdom of St. Mark”.
The two works, even though coeval, depict completely
different settings. As pointed out by Caterina Caneva,
the exhibition’s curator, the different destinations of
the two paintings, in this case, are undoubtedly
important to explain this difference: the first work
was intended for a small country convent and the second
to adorn the “mercantile” rooms of a powerful city
guild. And it is here that the robes skillfully
depicted in the Panel from San Marco precisely recall
the Guild of Linen Weavers and Drapers and Antique
Dealers and their intense commercial exchanges. Like
the figures of the saints that, even if absorbed by the
intensity of the sermons, are placed in a lively city
context. Two splendid works that fit perfectly into the
early Renaissance, leaving a unique testimony to the
masterly skill and great pictorial culture of Fra
Angelico.
Fra Angelico, Panel of the Tabernacle of the Linen Guild, depicting the “Sermon of Saint Peter” tempera on a wooden panel, 36 x 53 x 3.5 cm. (without frame); Florence, Museum of San Marco