In the 1430s, the quiet friar-artist Fra Angelico was entrusted with a remarkable commission for the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole: a pair of panels narrating the miraculous deaths of two saints central to the Dominican order. What makes this work especially fascinating is its rare double narrative—two separate saintly visions of martyrdom and divine favor, painted side by side by a man who would himself become a candidate for sainthood. The painting stands as an early testament to Fra Angelico’s ability to merge storytelling and spiritual contemplation, just as the Dominican order was seeking to inspire devotion through art. The left side of the panel captures the instant St Francis of Assisi receives the stigmata on Mount La Verna, his arms open in awe as rays of gold descend from a seraphic Christ.

Opposite, St Peter Martyr collapses under the fatal blows of assassins, his white Dominican habit already marked by blood, while an angel inscribes "Credo"—“I believe”—in his wound, a symbol of faith unto death. The rocky landscape, delicate trees, and luminous sky echo the clarity and order found in Fra Angelico’s Florentine contemporaries, yet his figures are gentler, suffused with a quiet intensity. Unlike Giotto’s dramatic Stigmatization of St Francis, Fra Angelico’s version is less about physical agony, more about the saint’s rapturous surrender. Though the exact early history of this panel is uncertain, it was likely created for the Dominican friars of Fiesole, where Fra Angelico was himself a brother.

Over centuries, the painting survived the upheavals of monastic reform and Napoleonic suppression, eventually entering the collection of the Museo del Prado. Today, it is seen as a pivotal work in Fra Angelico’s career, bridging the Gothic tradition and the new clarity of the early Renaissance, and revealing the artist’s unique gift for turning sacred legend into living drama.