The Meeting of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis of Assisi

Fra Angelico's Meeting of Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, painted around 1420, depicts the legendary encounter between the founders of the two great mendicant orders. Though historically uncertain, this meeting symbolized the fraternal cooperation between Dominicans and Franciscans in their shared mission of preaching and poverty. 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 simple, symmetrical composition that emphasizes their spiritual kinship, rendered in Fra Angelico's luminous palette with the restrained dignity appropriate to the subject.