Other similar subjects are represented in six "stories" divided into two panels (No. 234, Catalogue of 1893) in the Belle Arti. In the first the saints are seen exercising the healing art without receiving payment; they cure Palladia, who in her gratitude prays St. Damian in the name of God to accept a gift, her brother being wrathful not knowing the cause. In the second the judge Lisia obliges the saints and their three brethren to sacrifice to idols; in the third the angels save them from drowning; in the fourth they are condemned to be burnt alive, and sing psalms in the midst of the flames; in the fifth is the stoning; and lastly the decapitation.
These works, however, do not always show equal execution, therefore we might judge that the artist sometimes availed himself of the hand of an assistant.
From the records remaining to us, it does not appear that Fra Giovanni worked at any other pictures for his church, so it is probable he gave all his attention to adorning the convent, which on account of the works he has left there, may fairly be considered one of the finest monuments of Italian art.
It was not the first time that Fra Angelico had painted large mural frescoes. As he had already shown at Fiesole his mastery in that more minute style, which was to find more complete expression in the Roman pictures, so the convent of San Marco gave him scope to prove his genius also in this freer branch of art. In the cloisters, the corridors, the cells, and the rooms in which the monks met together, we find specimens of his artistic work, and in these various pictures all his favourite personages reappear one by one in larger proportions, but without losing that original grace and sentiment with which his smaller works are imbued. Indeed these show that he had studied from the life with independence and sincerity of purpose, and could render it with greater facility and decision.
A very noteworthy change in the character of Fra Angelico's art may be observed in these mural paintings. He must have perceived, after painting the tabernacle for the Linen Weavers' Guild, that a deeper study of the real was necessary to give life to his figures, especially when these should assume larger proportions.