page_title: Museo Nazionale di San Marco
section_title: First Floor Dormitories
hierarchical_section_title: Museo Nazionale di San Marco / First Floor Dormitories
context_page_description: Museo Nazionale di San Marco is an art museum housed in the monumental section of the medieval Dominican friary dedicated to St Mark, situated on the present-day Piazza San Marco, in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.
  The museum, a masterpiece in its own right by the fifteenth-century architect Michelozzo, is a building of very first historical importance for the city and contains the most extensive collection in the world of the works of Fra Angelico, who spent several years of his life there as a member of the Dominican community. The works are both paintings on wood and frescoes. The museum also contains other works by artists such as Fra Bartolomeo, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Alesso Baldovinetti, Jacopo Vignali, Bernardino Poccetti and Giovanni Antonio Sogliani.
  San Marco is known as the seat of Girolamo Savonarola's discourses during his short spiritual rule in Florence in the late 15th century.
context_section_description: On the upper floor are the friars'Dormitories. They consist of three corridors surrounding the cloister on three sides which is overlooked by 44 cells frescoed by Fra Angelico between 1439 and 1443. The Annunciation is one of the three frescoes painted outside the cells by Fra Angelico (along with St. Dominic worships the Crucifix and the Sacra Conversazione known as Virgin of the Shadows) before which the friars recited a common prayer at the times and in the ways prescribed by the Dominican Rule. In each cell is a fresco concerning the ‘’Life and Passion of Christ’’, for the exclusive contemplation of the friar occupying the cell.
  Savonarola’s cells were not frescoed because they originally held clothing. This cycle of frescoes, unique in the world, is considered to be completely the work of Fran Angelico, although he was helped by assistants.
  First Corridors Cells
  To the left of the Annunciation is the Fathers'Corridor, the first built by Michelozzo to house the Dominican friars who had just settled into the monastery. In 1437 the first twenty cells had already been completed, arranged on both sides of the corridor and soon after were frescoed by Fra Angelico, each with a scene from the Life of Christ. On the left side are the frescoes painted entirely by Fra Angelico, while those on the right were designed by the Master but painted in great part by faithful assistants.
  Novices’Corridor
  This Dormitory, reserved for Novices, was built some time after the Dormitory of the Fathers and adjacent to it, as can be seen in the facade looking onto the cloister, in addition to three rooms at the end of the corridor, formerly designated as ‘’wardrobes’’ before becoming the quarters occupied by Fra Girolamo Savonarola near the end of the 15th century.
  The cells, larger in size than those of the Fathers to allow the Novices to become gradually accustomed to a reduction in their personal space, all contain frescoes of the same subject, St. Dominic worship the Crucifix. The only difference in the frescoes is the attitude of the kneeling Saint, shown in the various modes of prayer indicated by St. Dominic himself.  
  In the last two cells before ascending to the so-called ‘’Prior’s Quarters’’, some objects traditionally linked to Savonarola are displayed, such as the Processional Standard, the Cloak and the devotional Cross.
  Third Corridor Cells
  This frescoes in the cells of the Third Corridor, the one designated also to lay brothers and guest, at the end of which are the two cells reserved for Cosimo de’Medici, where Pope Eugenius IV slept the night of Epiphany 1443 when he came to consecrate the new church, differ in some respects from the others. The language is more descriptive and the colours are brighter, the composition is more complex and next to the Master the contribution of his assistants increases.
caption: Annunciation by Fra Angelico (cell 3)
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