The Coronation of the Virgin

Christ sets a crown on the kneeling Virgin's head at the summit of a flight of steps, surrounded by a radiant throng of saints, martyrs, and angels - the Coronation of the Virgin, a medieval devotional theme (not a Gospel scene) that imagines Mary crowned Queen of Heaven. Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar who painted as a form of prayer, fills the panel with jewel-like color and gold, yet orders the heavenly court with the new Renaissance perspective: the steps recede convincingly into depth. The result fuses the splendor of the older Gothic altarpiece with Florence's new science of space.