In this passage seven paintings and three groups of paintings are mentioned. Most are pointed out by their conventional subjects, but as to the works in Gondi's possession (2), although 'a cross' seems to mean the Crucifixion, the subjects of the other two pictures are left out. Those of the pictures in San Domenico(3), for the Cloth Guild (6) and for the Dominican church in Cortona (7) are also omitted. Vasari, however, gives his readers some clues to identify all the works by mentioning their whereabouts or the people who had commissioned them. Therefore, the paintings referred to by Vasari in this passage are now identified as follows except those owned by Borghini and Gondi. The titles in Italian and the dates are from L'opera completa dell'Angelico (by Elsa Morante and Umberto Baldini), Classici dell’arte, Milan, 1970. Those in English are from Fra Angelico at San Marco (by W. Hood), New Haven, 1993. (5) is not mentioned in either of them. The paintings whose whereabouts are not specified in this list are all in the Museo di San Marco, Florence.

(1) ----
(2) ----
(3)Lost.
(4)Pala di Santa Trinità / Deposition, c.1437-40.
(5)Annunciation, National Gallery, London. Now attributed to a follower of Fra Angelico.
(6)Tabernacolo dei Linaioli / Linaiuoli tabernacle, c.1433 [fig.2].
(7)
a. Madonna con il Bambino, San Domenico e San Pietro Martire / Madonna and Child with Saints Dominic and Peter Martyr, 1435-36, San Domenico, Cortona.
b. Although we have two altarpieces by Fra Angelico in Cortona, neither is thought to have been painted for the high altar. It is possible that Vasari made a mistake here. The two altarpieces are now both in the Museo Diocesano, Cortona.
Trittico di Cortona / Cortona altarpiece (San Domenico altarpiece) c.1435-36
Pala di Cortona / Annunciation, c.1433-34.
(8) Compianto su Cristo (Deposizione della Croce al Tempio / Croce al Tempio Lamentation, 1436.
(9)Il Giudizio Universale / Last Judgement, c.1432-35.
(10)Trittico di San Pietro martire / San Pier Martire altarpiece, c.1425-28 [fig.3]

    The passage from Vasari's Lives clearly shows us the condition in which artworks required naming. In earlier time, a painter or a sculptor mostly catered for local clients and their products, mainly intended for churches or religious houses in the district, could be seen by the local public. In such a situation, if they wanted to specify a certain altarpiece, the simplest way would have been to point it out. However, if one of the local people wanted to tell something about it to someone he happened to encounter in foreign parts, he should have to designate the altarpiece in question in one way or another. This was when the custom of naming artworks started. Vasari wrote his voluminous Lives in order to make the artists and their works he admired known to a wider public, both geographically and historically, beyond the local one.
    This seems to have been a new attitude towards artists and their works, or to be more precise, the concepts of Art and Artist, as they are opposed to mere handicraft and ordinary artisan seem to have appeared in Vasari's time, that is, during the 16th century. In fact, it was pointed out by the British art historian Michael Baxandall in his illuminating study on art and society in Renaissance Italy that towards the end of the 15th century, the public started to evaluate artworks according to their artistic merits, not according to the cost of their material or the importance of their function(Note:4). At least, such paintings created by Fra Angelico and others of his calibre began to be regarded as something different from useful commodities, something more precious and valuable, and greatly admired by art-loving gentlemen like Borghini and Gondi as well as artists like Vasari. We could probably say that a Renaissance altarpiece as a functional object changed into a work of Art in a modern sense when it was named, or given a title of a sort, by someone who found the altarpiece worthy of recording and discussing.

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Note:4
Michael Baxandall, Paintings and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Oxford, 1972, Ch. 1.

2. Fra Angelico,Linaiuori Tabernacle,
c.1433, Florence, Museo di San Marco.
3. Fra Angelico, San Pier Martire Altarpiece, c.1425-28, Florence,
Museo di San Marco.