Meeting of St Francis and St Dominic

Fra Angelico's Meeting of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic at the Gemaldegalerie Berlin, painted around 1429, depicts the legendary encounter between the founders of the Franciscan and Dominican orders. This subject was particularly valued by both orders as a symbol of their shared commitment to poverty and preaching. Fra Angelico — born Guido di Pietro, known in religion as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole — was a Dominican friar whose painting practice was inseparable from his spiritual vocation. Working primarily for his own order and for Florentine civic and private patrons, he created some of the most luminous and spiritually powerful images in the history of European art.

The two founders embrace in a composition of simple symmetry, rendered in Fra Angelico's luminous palette with the gentle naturalism and spiritual serenity that characterize his treatment of hagiographic subjects.