Last Judgement (Fra Bartolomeo)

Last Judgement is a fresco, begun by the Italian Renaissance painter Fra Bartolomeo in 1499 and completed by his colleague Mariotto Albertinelli in 1501.

[1] On 22 April 1499, Gerozzo di Monna Vanna Dini commissioned the work from Fra Bartolomeo, though he was only able to complete the upper part of the lunette before taking vows as a Dominican friar on 26 July 1500 and temporarily renouncing painting.

[2] Using Fra Bartolomeo's "finished cartoon" and preparatory drawings, Albertinelli completed the fresco and received payment on 11 March 1501.

[4] The upper part of the painting shows Christ the judge within a luminous almond, raising His arm as a sign of judgment, a typical gesture of iconography.

He would have great influence on his young friend Raphael, who copied the setting of the figures in the Trinity and Saints of Perugia and who also had it in mind, a few years later, for the Dispute of the Sacrament in the Stanza della Segnatura.