Fra Bartolommeo (1473–1517) spent the majority of his life in Florence, the city of his birth. Curator Albert Elen and Chris Fischer, leading expert on the artist’s oeuvre, take you there in this film, and show you the places that mark the most important events in the life of the drawing and painting monk.

Baccio della Porte, as Fra Bartolommeo was called before he entered the monastery, lived in a time of political turmoil, during which the ruling De’ Medici family was driven from the city – and also returned to take an even firmer grip on it than before. Major developments also took place in the arts. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael created, with the statues of antiquity in their minds, almost tangible figures in a monumental setting. Fra Bartolommeo knew them all. In fact, if he had not withdrawn into the monastery, he most probably would have been mentioned over the centuries in the same breath as those great masters of the Italian Renaissance.

Credits: Told by Albert Elen & Chris Fischer; written by Els Hoek; acted, directed & edited by Kuba Szutkowski; camera by Esther de Vries; edit assistants Isabel van Schilt & Leonie Knibbe; animation by Ronald Frey & Marc van Vliet; music by Leonie Knibbe; additional music Nine Inch Nails – ghosts II & Wouter Siteur – Morning at the Chateau – v 03; chief editor Els Hoek