Filippo Lippi
born: 1406 – October 8, 1469
Biography:
Lippi was born in Florence to Tommaso, a butcher. Both his parents died while he was a child. His aunt, Mona Lapaccia, then took charge of the boy till 1420, when, at the age of fourteen, he was registered in the community of the Carmelite friars of the Carmine in Florence, There he remained till 1432. Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists says: "Instead of studying, he spent all his time scrawling pictures on his own books and those of others," and so eventually the prior decided to give him every chance and opportunity of learning to paint. Eventually Fra Filippo quit the monastery, but it appears that he was not relieved from his religious vow; in a letter dated in 1439 he speaks of himself as the poorest friar of Florence, and says he is charged with the maintenance of six marriageable nieces. In 1452 he was appointed chaplain to the convent of S. Giovannino in Florence, and in 1457 rector (Rettore Commendatario) of S. Quirico in Legania, and his gains were considerable and uncommonly large from time to time; but his poverty seems to have been chronic, the money being spent, according to one account, in frequently recurring amours. Vasari relates some romantic adventures of Fra Filippo, which modern biographers are not inclined to believe. Except through Vasari, nothing is known of his visits to Ancona and Naples, and his intermediate capture by Barbary pirates and enslavement in Barbary, whence his skill in portrait-sketching availed to release him. This relates to a period, 1431-1437, when his career is not clearly accounted for. The doubts thrown upon his semi-marital relations with a Florentine lady appear, however, to be somewhat arbitrary; Vasari's account is circumstantial, and in itself not greatly improbable.
Filippo Lippi died in 1469 while working on the frescos Storie della Vergine (Scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary, 1467 - 1469) in the apse of the Spoleto Cathedral. The Frescos show the Annunciation, the Funeral, the Adoration of the Child and the Coronation of the Virgin. A group of bystanders at the funeral show a self portait of Lippi together with his son Fillipino and his helpers Fra Diamante and Pier Matteo d'Amelia. Lippi was buried on the right side of the transept.
Lippi was born in Florence to Tommaso, a butcher. Both his parents died while he was a child. His aunt, Mona Lapaccia, then took charge of the boy till 1420, when, at the age of fourteen, he was registered in the community of the Carmelite friars of the Carmine in Florence, There he remained till 1432. Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists says: "Instead of studying, he spent all his time scrawling pictures on his own books and those of others," and so eventually the prior decided to give him every chance and opportunity of learning to paint. Eventually Fra Filippo quit the monastery, but it appears that he was not relieved from his religious vow; in a letter dated in 1439 he speaks of himself as the poorest friar of Florence, and says he is charged with the maintenance of six marriageable nieces. In 1452 he was appointed chaplain to the convent of S. Giovannino in Florence, and in 1457 rector (Rettore Commendatario) of S. Quirico in Legania, and his gains were considerable and uncommonly large from time to time; but his poverty seems to have been chronic, the money being spent, according to one account, in frequently recurring amours. Vasari relates some romantic adventures of Fra Filippo, which modern biographers are not inclined to believe. Except through Vasari, nothing is known of his visits to Ancona and Naples, and his intermediate capture by Barbary pirates and enslavement in Barbary, whence his skill in portrait-sketching availed to release him. This relates to a period, 1431-1437, when his career is not clearly accounted for. The doubts thrown upon his semi-marital relations with a Florentine lady appear, however, to be somewhat arbitrary; Vasari's account is circumstantial, and in itself not greatly improbable.
Filippo Lippi died in 1469 while working on the frescos Storie della Vergine (Scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary, 1467 - 1469) in the apse of the Spoleto Cathedral. The Frescos show the Annunciation, the Funeral, the Adoration of the Child and the Coronation of the Virgin. A group of bystanders at the funeral show a self portait of Lippi together with his son Fillipino and his helpers Fra Diamante and Pier Matteo d'Amelia. Lippi was buried on the right side of the transept.
painting gallery
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his work:
The frescoes in the choir of Prato cathedral, which depict the stories of St John the Baptist and St Stephen on the two main facing walls, are considered the most important and monumental works which Fra Filippo has left, particularly the figure of Salome dancing, which has clear affinities with later works by Sandro Botticelli, his pupil, and Filippino Lippi, his son, as well as the scene showing the ceremonial mourning over Stephen's corpse. This latter is believed to contain a portrait of the painter, but there various opinions as to which is the exact figure. On the end wall of the choir are S. Giovanni Gualberto and S. Alberto, while the vault has monumental representations of the four evangelists.
In 1441 Lippi painted an altar-piece for the nuns of S. Ambrogio which is now a prominent attraction in the Academy of Florence, and has been celebrated in Brownings well-known poem. It represents the coronation of the Virgin among angels and saints, of whom many are Bernardine monks. One of these, placed to the right, is a half-length portrait of Lippo, pointed out by an inscription upon an angel's scroll is perfecit opus. The price paid for this work in 1447 was 1200 Florentine lire, which seems surprisingly large.
For Germiniano Inghirami of Prato he painted the Death of St. Bernard, a fine specimen still extant. His principal altarpiece in this city is a Nativity in the refectory of S. Domenico — the Infant on the ground adored by the Virgin and Joseph, between Saints George and Dominic, in a rocky landscape, with the shepherds playing and six angels in the sky. In the Uffizi is a fine Virgin adoring the infant Christ, who is held by two angels; in the National Gallery, London, a Vision of St Bernard. The picture of the Virgin and Infant with an Angel, in this same gallery, also ascribed to Lippi, is disputable.