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Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileSaint Dominic appears in two distinct settings separated by a white column: on the left, he raises a young man from the dead in a town square; on the right, he oversees a 'trial by fire' where a book miraculously levitates above flames. The narrative scenes are flanked by narrow gilded niches containing the Archangel Michael and a saint in red deacon's robes. The painting uses early Renaissance perspective to depict the architecture of 15th-century Florence.
This work reflects the Dominican intellectual tradition of early 15th-century Florence, which was the dominant philosophical and theological framework (Thomism) before the Neoplatonic revival. The 'Trial by Fire' motif emphasizes the divine authority of specific texts and the triumph of orthodox doctrine over heresy, a central theme in the medieval and early modern history of Western thought.
Thomas Aquinas
As a Dominican friar, Fra Angelico's visual program is deeply rooted in the Thomistic synthesis of Aristotelian logic and Catholic theology.
Object
Web Gallery of Art
Oil on panel
religious
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artworkwga QS:P11807,"a/angelico/05/predell2"
Public domain
2004 × 550 px
8acea33d3b4ece950224e44f59d81a4ebf33a00f
June 13, 2011
March 23, 2026
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on March 31, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.