Although he didn’t have a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle named after him, Fra Angelico (about 1400–1455) remains one of the most significant and famed artists of the Italian Renaissance. The Dominican monk and painter earned important commissions from two popes, as well as the notorious Medici family, during his life, making his mark as a brilliant colorist and innovative storyteller. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has been the home to one of his reliquaries for more than a century, yet it is reunited with three of its newly restored companions for the first time in 200 years for the exhibit Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth beginning February 22. Also on view are other notable works loaned from Rome, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and Fra Angelico’s native Florence (above). The Gardner Museum is the only stop for this unique display, so catch it before it closes on May 20.
