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LIPPI
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LIPPI , the name of three celebrated See also:Italian painters. I. FRA FILIrro Lrrrs (1406–1469), commonly called Lippo Lippi, one of the most renowned painters of the Italian quattrocento, was See also:born in See also:Florence—his See also:father, Tommaso, being a See also:butcher. His See also:mother died in his childhood, and his father survived his wife only two years. His aunt, a poor woman named =donna Lapaccia, then took See also:charge of the boy; and in 1420, when fourteen years of See also:age, he was registered in the community of the Carmelite friars of the See also:Carmine in Florence. Here he remained till 1432, and his See also:early See also:faculty for See also:fine arts was probably See also:developed by studying the See also:works of See also:Masaccio in the neighbouring See also:chapel of the Brancacci. Between 1430 and 1432 he executed some works in the monastery, which were destroyed by a See also:fire in 1771; they are specified by See also:Vasari, and one of them was particularly marked by its resemblance to 11Masaccio's See also:style. Eventually Fra Filippo quitted his See also:convent,but it appears that he was not relieved from some sort of religious See also:vow; in a See also:letter dated in 1439 he speaks of himself as the poorest See also:friar of Florence, and says he is charged with the See also:maintenance of six marriageable nieces. In 1452 he was appointed See also:chaplain to the convent of S. Giovannino in Florence, and in 1457 See also:rector (Rettore Commendalario) of S. Quirico at Legania, and his gains were considerable and uncommonly large from See also:time to time; but his poverty seems to have been chronic, the See also:money being spent, according to one See also:account, in frequently recurring amours. Vasari relates some curious and romantic adventures of Fra Filippo, which See also:modern biographers are not inclined to believe. Except through Vasari, nothing is known of his visits to See also:Ancona and See also:Naples, and his intermediate See also:capture by See also:Barbary pirates and enslavement in Barbary, whence his skill in portrait-sketching availed to See also:release him. This relates to a See also:period, 1431–1437, when his career is not otherwise clearly accounted for. The doubts thrown upon his semi-marital relations with a Florentine See also:lady appear, however, to be somewhat arbitrary; Vasari's account is circumstantial, and in itself not greatly improbable. Towards See also:June 1456 Fra Filippo was settled in See also:Prato (near Florence) for the purpose of fulfilling a See also:commission to paint frescoes in the See also:choir of the See also:cathedral. Before actually undertaking this See also:work he set about See also:painting, in 1458, a picture for the convent chapel of S. Margherita of Prato, and there saw Lucrezia Buti, the beautiful daughter of a Florentine, See also:Francesco Buti; she was either a novice or a See also:young lady placed under the nuns' guardianship. Lippi asked that she might be permitted to sit to him for the figure of the Madonna (or it might rather appear of S. Margherita); he made passionate love to her, abducted her to his own See also:house, and kept her there spite of the utmost efforts the nuns could make to reclaim her The See also:fruit of their loves was a boy, who became the painter, not less celebrated than his father, Filippino Lippi (noticed below). Such is substantially Vasari's narrative, published less than a See also:century after the alleged events; it is not refuted by saying, more than three centuries later, that perhaps Lippo had nothing to do with any such Lucrezia, and perhaps Lippino was his adopted son, or only an See also:ordinary relative and See also:scholar. The See also:argument that two reputed portraits of Lucrezia in paintings by Lippo are not alike, one as a Madonna in a very fine picture in the Pitti See also:gallery, and the other in the same See also:character in a Nativity in the Louvre, comes to very little; and it is, reduced to nothing when the disputant adds that the Louvre painting is probably not done by Lippi at all. Besides, it appears more likely that not the Madonna in the Louvre but a S. See also:Margaret in a picture now in the Gallery of Prato is the See also:original portrait (according to the tradition) of Lucrezia Buti. The frescoes in the choir of Prato cathedral, being the stories of the Baptist and of St See also:Stephen, represented on the two opposite See also:wall spaces, are the most important and monumental works which Fra Filippo has See also:left, more especially the figure of See also:Salome dancing, and the last of the See also:series, showing the ceremonial See also:mourning over Stephen's See also:corpse. This contains a portrait of the painter, but which is the proper figure is a question that has raised some diversity of See also:opinion. At the end wall of the choir are S. Giovanni Gualberto and S. Alberto, and on the See also:ceiling the four evangelists. The See also:close of Lippi's See also:life was spent at See also:Spoleto, where he had been commissioned to paint, for the See also:apse of the cathedral, some scenes from the life of the Virgin. In the semidome of the apse is See also:Christ crowning the Madonna, with angels, sibyls and prophets. This series, which is not wholly equal to the one at Prato, was completed by Fra See also:Diamante after Lippi's See also:death. That Lippi died in Spoleto, on or about the 8th of See also:October 1469, is an undoubted fact; the mode of his death is again a See also:matter of dispute. It has been said that the See also:pope granted Lippi a See also:dispensation for marrying Lucrezia, but that, before the permission arrived, he had been poisoned by. the indignant relatives either of Lucrezia herself, or of some lady who had replaced her in the inconstant painter's affections. This is now generally regarded as a See also:fable; and indeed a See also:vendetta upon a See also:man aged sixty-three for a See also:seduction committed at the already mature age of fifty-two seems hardly plausible. Fra Filippo lies buried in Spoleto, with a See also:monument erected to him by Lorenzo the Magnificent; he had always been zealously patronized by the See also:Medici See also:family, beginning with Cosimo, See also:Pater Patriae. Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) and Sandro See also:Botticelli were among his most distinguished pupils. In 1441 Lippi painted an altarpiece for the nuns of S. Ambrogio which is now a prominent attraction in the See also:Academy of Florence, and has been celebrated in See also:Browning's well-known poem. It re-presents the See also:coronation of the Virgin among angels and See also:saints, of whom many are Bernardine monks. One of these, placed to the right, is a See also:half-length portrait of Lippo, pointed out by an inscription upon an See also:angel's See also:scroll " Is perfecit See also:opus." The See also:price paid for this work in 1447 was 1200 Florentine lire, which seems surprisingly large. For Germiniano See also:Inghirami of Prato he painted the " Death of St See also:Bernard," a fine specimen still extant. His See also:principal altarpiece in this See also:city is a Nativity in the See also:refectory of S. Domenico—the See also:Infant on the ground adored by the Virgin and See also:Joseph, between Sts See also:George and See also:Dominic, in a rocky landscape, with the shepherds playing and six angels in the See also:sky. In the Uffizi is a fine Virgin adoring the infant Christ, who is held by two angels ; in the See also:National Gallery, See also:London, a " See also:Vision of St Bernard." The picture of the " Virgin and Infant with an Angel," in this same gallery, also ascribed to Lippi, is disputable. Few pictures are so thoroughly enjoyable as those of Lippo Lippi; they show the naivete of a strong, See also:rich nature, redundant in lively and somewhat whimsical observation. He approaches religious See also:art from its human See also:side, and is not pietistic though true to a phase of See also:Catholic devotion. He was perhaps the greatest colourist and technical See also:adept of his time, with See also:good draughtsmanship—a naturalist, with less vulgar See also:realism than some of his contemporaries, and with much genuine episodical animation, including semi-humorous incidents and See also:low characters. He made little effort after See also:perspective and none for foreshortenings, was fond of ornamenting pilasters and other architectural features. Vasari says that Lippi was wont to hide the extremities in drapery to evade difficulties. His career was one of continual development, without fundamental variation in style or in colouring. In his See also:great works the proportions are larger than life. Along with Vasari's interesting and amusing, and possibly not very unauthentic, account of Lippo Lippi, the work of See also:Crowe and Cavalcaselle should be consulted. Also: E. C. See also:Strutt, Fra Lippo •Lippi (1901); C. M. See also:Phillimore, Early Florentine Painters (1881); B. Supino, Fra Filippo Lippi (illustrated) (1902). It should be observed that Crowe and Cavalcaselle give 1412 as the date of the painter's See also:birth, and this would make a considerable difference in estimating details of his after career. We have preferred to follow the more usual account. The self-portrait dated 1441 looks like a man much older than twenty-nine.
II. FILIPPINO, or LIPPING LIPP1 (146o-15o5), was the natural son of Fra Lippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, born in Florence and educated at Prato. Losing his father before he had completed his tenth See also:year, the boy took up his avocation as a painter, studying under Sandro Botticelli and probably under Fra Diamante. The style which he formed was to a great extent original, but it bears clear traces of the manner both of Lippo and of Botticelli—more ornamental than the first, more realistic and less poetical than the second. His See also:powers developed early; for we find him an accomplished artist by 148o, when he painted an altarpiece, the " Vision of St Bernard," now in the Badia of Florence; it is in See also:tempera, with almost the same force as oil painting. Soon afterwards, probably from 1482 to 1490, he began to work upon the frescoes which completed the decoration of the Brancacci chapel in the Carmine, commenced by Masolino and Masaccio many years before. He finished Masaccio's " Resurrection of the See also: Spirito—the " Virgin En-throned," with splendidly living portraits of Nerli and his wife,and a thronged distance. In 1489 Lippino was in See also:Rome, painting in the See also: He was admirable in all matters of decorative See also:adjunct and presentment, such as draperies, landscape back-grounds and accessories; and he was the first Florentine to introduce a See also:taste for See also:antique details of See also:costume, &c. He formed a large collection of See also:objects of this See also:kind, and left his designs of them to his son. In his later works there is a tendency to a mannered development of the extremities, and generally to facile overdoing. The National Gallery, London, possesses a good and characteristic though not exactly a first-See also:rate specimen of Lippino, the " Virgin and See also:Child between Sts See also:Jerome and Dominic "; also an " Adoration of the Magi," of which See also:recent See also:criticism contests the authenticity. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, supplemented by the writings of Berenson, should be consulted as to this painter. An See also:album of his works is in Newnes' Art-library. The most esteemed works of Lippi as a painter are a " Crucifixion " in the Uffizi gallery at Florence, and a " See also:Triumph of See also:David " which he executed for the See also:saloon of Angiolo Galli, introducing into it portraits of the seventeen See also:children of the owner. The Malmantile Racquistato is a See also:burlesque See also:romance, mostly compounded out of a variety of popular tales; its principal subject-matter is an expedition for the recovery of a fortress and territory whose See also:queen had been expelled by a See also:female usurper. It is full of graceful or racy Florentine idioms, and is counted by Italians as a " testo di lingua." Lippi is more generally or more advantageously remembered by this poem than by anything which he has left in the art of painting. It was not published until 1688, several years after his death. See also:Lanzi as to Lorenzo Lippi's pictorial work, and See also:Tiraboschi and other See also:literary historians as to his writings, are among the best authorities. (W. M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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