Our new header image is a detail of a detail. This sumptuous scene is tempera and gold on panel, by Fra Angelico, c. 1435. The lower image is of the entire scene, with the Virgin Mary being crowned in the high center. Angels herald the moment with playing of trumpets, lutes, and harps. At the lower center of this heavenly scene (note that they all sit or stand upon clouds), a lone angel plays obeisantly on a portative organ.
The upper image is a detail of the group of angels over the shoulder of the Virgin, and the header image is a horizontal slice of the same.
P.S. We need an art historian to tell us how this does or does not fit into the “essential spirit of the age” of Renaissance art…
Yes, I kind of wish we had staff art historians, general European historians, theologists, economic historians, linguists, Latinists, and a raft of other specialists on board!