ague broke out in the country
about them, and again they fled to Cortona. Pictures painted by Fra
Angelico at this time still remain in the churches of Cortona.

After an absence of ten years the monks returned to Fiesole, where our
artist passed the next eighteen years. This was the richest period of his
life: his energy was untiring, and his zeal both as an artist and as a
priest burned with a steady fire. His works were sought for far and wide,
and most of his easel-pictures were painted during this time. Fra Angelico
would never accept the money which was paid for his work; it was given
into the treasury of his convent; neither did he accept any commission
without the consent of the prior. Naturally, the monk-artist executed
works for the adornment of his own convent. Some of these have been sold
and carried to other cities and countries, and those which remain have
been too much injured and too much restored to be considered important
now.

[Illustration: FIG. 31.--FRA ANGELICO. _From the representation of him in
the fresco of the "Last Judgment," by Fra Bartolommeo, in Santa Maria
Nuova, Florence._]

He painted so many pictures during this second residence at Fiesole, not
only for public places, but for private citizens, that Vasari wrote: "This
Father painted so many pictures, which are dispersed through the houses of
the Florentines, that sometimes I am lost in wonder when I think how works
so good and so many could, though in the course of many years, have been
brought to perfection by one man alone."

In 1436 the great Cosimo de Medici insisted that the monks of Fiesole
should again leave their convent, and remove to that of San Marco, in
Florence. Most unwillingly the brethren submitted, and immediately Cosimo
set architects and builders to work to erect a new convent, for the old
one was in a ruinous state. The new cloisters offered a noble field to the
genius of Fra Angelico, and he labored for their decoration with his whole
soul; though the rule of the order was so strict that the pictures in the
cells could be seen only by the monks, he put all his skill into them, and
labored as devotedly as if the whole world could see and praise them, as
indeed has since been done. His pictures in this convent are so numerous
that we must not describe them, but will say that the Crucifixion in the
chapter-room is usually called his masterpiece. It is nearly twenty-five
feet square, and, besides the usual figures in