Communion of the Apostles

At the Last Supper, Christ blessed bread and wine as his own body and blood, instituting the Eucharist (Matthew 26:26-28). Rather than the familiar seated supper, Fra Angelico shows Christ standing to place the host on each apostle's tongue, exactly as a priest administers Communion at Mass - folding the Gospel scene into the sacrament the friars of San Marco received daily. The setting is bare and pale, a cell-like room with stools and a plain table, made for prayer rather than spectacle, and the Virgin kneels apart at the left. It is one of the meditative frescoes Fra Angelico painted throughout the convent.