in his art”; in a poem by the 16th-century painter Gio-
vanni Santi, the father of Raphael, he is mentioned along-
side Fra Filippo Lippi and Domenico Veneziano as
“Giovan da Fiesole frate al ben ardente.”
Establishing a chronology for Angelico’s oeuvre poses
problems of connoisseurship and dating, particularly for
his earliest period. Notable among the early works are the
Annunciation (1428–32; Museo Diocesano, Cortona) and
the Linaiuoli tabernacle (1433–35; Museo di San Marco,
Florence), in which Angelico demonstrated an interest in
the new manner of Masaccio and Ghiberti. He employed
skillful perspective and spatial continuity and contributed
advances in the depiction of natural phenomena. The pe-
riod 1438–45 is dominated by a commission from the
church and convent of San Marco for the altarpiece of the
cappella maggiore and for the fresco decoration of the pub-
lic quarters and private cells of the convent. The design
and concept, linking the group of 54 frescoes, are An-
gelico’s, though the work is largely that of assistants. The
meditative clarity, simplicity, and order reflect MICHE-
LOZZO’s architectural schemes, emphasizing, through
economy of detail, the didactic and doctrinal gestures of
the saints and biblical figures represented. In contrast, the
San Marco altarpiece is rich in sumptuous textiles and ar-
chitectural devices used to project and delimit an original
perspective scheme. In the Deposition (Museo di San
Marco), a frieze of foreground figures gives way to a
panoramic landscape, bathed in a light which renders spa-
tial coherence to the composition.
Angelico was called to Rome in 1445. It was during
this Roman sojourn that he probably frescoed the private
chapel of Pope Nicholas V in the Vatican with scenes from
the lives of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence; in these the fig-
ures and architecture take on a new volume and gravity. In
1449 he was elected prior of his convent.
Angelico’s reputation and (certainly) his nickname
depend on the appeal of precious images of the Madonna
and Child framed in a glory of angels, delicately painted in
enamel-like colors on a gold ground. But it is the power to
translate the quality of the miniaturist’s art into the scale
and vocabulary of the modern mode which distinguishes
him. The result is an edifying and pious pictorial lan-
guage, brilliant in the balance struck between celestial vi-
sion and the laws of nature.
Further reading: Luciano Berti, Fra Angelico: The Life
and Work of the Artist (London: Thames & Hudson, 1968);
Georges Didi-Huberman, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and
Figuration, transl. Jane Marie Todd (Chicago, Ill.: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1995); William Hood, Fra Angelico
at San Marco (New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1993).
Anghiera, Pietro Martire d’ See PETER MARTYR(Pietro
Martire d’Anghiera)
Anglican Church See BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER; ELIZA-
BETHAN SETTLEMENT; THIRTY-NINE ARTICLESAnguisciola, Sophonisba (1527–c. 1623) Italian painter
A native of Cremona, Sophonisba was the daughter of a
Piedmontese nobleman and one of the first Italian women
to become an artist. She was a pupil of Bernardino CAMPI
and became a noted portrait painter in the mannerist style,
executing several self-portraits and depictions of promi-
nent figures in society. Her best works include a family
group portrait of her sisters playing chess (Museum Nar-
odowe, Pozna[, Poland). She moved to Madrid in 1559 and
also worked in Sicily, only returning to Italy late in her
life.Anjou, Francis, Duke of Alençon- See FRANCIS, DUKE
OF ALENÇONAnjou, houses of Three French dynasties whose power
was initially based on the lower Loire region of France.
The first house of Anjou lasted from the ninth century
until it lost its territories to the French crown in the early
13th century; it also ruled England from 1154 to 1157.
The second was founded in 1246 by Charles, brother of
Louis IX of France and later king of Naples and Sicily. One
line of his descendants ruled Naples, another Hungary.
When Philip of Valois succeeded to the French throne in
1328, Anjou, which he had inherited from his mother, was
reunited to the French crown. In 1351 the third house of
Anjou was founded when John II of France invested his
younger son Louis with Anjou. Joanna I of Naples
promised Naples to Louis in 1379 and in the 15th century
the later Angevins spent much of their time fruitlessly
pursuing their claim to Naples. In 1480 RENÉ I, the last
male heir, died, and Angevin claims to Naples, Sicily, Hun-
gary, and Jerusalem passed to the French crown. See fam-
ily tree overleaf.Antico (Pier Jacopo di Antonio Alari Bonacolsi)
(c. 1460–1528) Italian sculptor, bronze-founder, and
medalist
Born in Mantua and trained as a goldsmith, he had re-
ceived his nickname by 1479 (when he used it to sign two
medals) owing to his knowledge of antiquity, interest in
archaeology, and brilliance at recreating in bronze stat-
uettes some of the fragmentary masterpieces of Greco-
Roman sculpture (e.g. the Apollo Belvedere, Venus,
Meleager, and Hercules and Antaeus). He worked for vari-
ous members of the GONZAGA FAMILYin and around Man-
tua, notably for Isabella d’Este, and visited Rome twice in
the 1490s. His style is a sculptural counterpart to MAN-
TEGNA’s in painting, emphasizing the smooth, rotund
forms of the human body and contrasting their polished
surfaces with intricately chiseled details in the hair, drap-
ery, and accoutrements, which are often gilded, while theAAnnttiiccoo 1199