Angelico

(a ˙ n-jel´i-kō), Fra , the common appellation of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole , one of the most celebrated of the early Italian painters. Born 1387, he entered the Dominican order in 1407, and was employed by Cosmo de' Medici in painting the monastery of St. Mark and the church of St. Annunziata with frescoes. These pictures gained him so much celebrity that Pope Nicholas V invited him to Rome to ornament his private chapel in the Vatican, and offered him the archbishopric of Florence, which Angelico declined. He died at, Rome 1455. He has been called the 'painter of seraphic dreams'. His works were considered unrivalled in finish and in sweetne and harmony of colour, and were made the models for religious painters of his own and succeeding generations.