Beato Angelico’s Childhood of Christ (1)

Every year around Christmas, Milan’s Museo Diocesano temporarily hosts a masterpiece: last year, it was the predella from the Oddi Altarpiece, an Annunciation scene by Raphael, while in 2021 we had another Annunciation scene by Titian. This year, the initiative surpasses itself with one of the most complex and articulated works of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, better known as Beato Angelico.

The set of miniatures comes from a piece called Armadio degli Argenti, an ex-voto door commissioned by Piero de’ Medici who wanted to build a family chapel in the Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Since he finished paying for it in 1453, we can only assume it was painted between that date and 1451, when the chapel didn’t have any roof yet. Beato Angelico would die in 1455, aged sixty, and yet the scenes attributed to him present an innovative quality in both composition and arrangement.
Nowadays we have 35 tablets left arranged on four boards, though originally there were probably 41. Three scenes on the vertical panel are attributed to Alesso Baldovinetti, who was working with him back at the time, and twenty-three more were probably outlined by an assistant who was working with Beato Angelico. The whole cycle represents all the stages in the life of Christ: his childhood, public life, passion, death and resurrection. The museum in Milan only hosts the works from the first portion, the childhood.

Beato Angelico’s Childhood of Christ

The scenes ascribed to the childhood of Christ, a period the canonical texts tell us very little about, are eight:

• Ezekiel’s Vision;
• Annunciation;
• Nativity Scene;
• Circumcision;
• Adoration of the Three Wise Men;
• Presentation at the Temple;
• Flight to Egypt;
• Massacre of the Innocents.

The last scene, Jesus at the Sanhedrin, usually marks the transition between his childhood and public life.

Flight to Egypt.

The exposition of the panel is set up on the first floor of the museum (it’s one of the most underrated museums in Milan, and if you’ve never been there, I highly recommend a visit), and it consists of three rooms: an introductory one, a video installation with enlargements of the scenes, and another room with the main thing.

The enlargements are absolutely necessary, and I suggest you double back to see it after you’ve admired the original because some of the details are too tiny to see.

That’s all I can give you today: tomorrow I’ll publish a piece-by-piece runthrough.