I. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI (1406-1469), commonly called Lippo Lippi, one of the most renowned painters of the Italian quatro cento, was born in Florence. In 1421 he was registered in the corn munity of the Carmelite friars of the Carmine in Florence. Here he remained till 1432, and his early faculty for fine arts was probably developed by studying the works of Masaccio in the chapel of the Brancacci. It is not known who his master was. Berenson suggests that he may have been Lorenzo Monaco. The influence of Fra Angelico can be traced in his early work. Between 1430 and 1432 he executed some works in the monastery, which were destroyed by a fire in 1771; they are specified by Vasari, and one was particularly marked by its resemblance to Masaccio's style. Eventually Fra Filippo left his convent, but it appears that he was still bound by some religious vow. In 1452 he was ap pointed chaplain to the convent of S. Giovannino in Florence, and in 1442 rector (Rettore Commendatario) of S. Quirico at Legnaia.
Except through Vasari nothing is known of Fra Filippo's 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, when his career is not otherwise clearly accounted for and modern biographers doubt the accuracy of Vasari's account. Towards June 1456 Fra Filippo was settled in Prato to fulfil a commission to paint frescoes in the choir of the cathedral. Before undertaking this work he set about painting in 1458 a picture for the convent chapel of S. Margherita of Prato, and there saw Lucrezia Buti, a Florentine, who was under the nuns' guardianship. Lippi asked that she might be permitted to sit to him and abducted her to his own house. The fruit of their love was a boy, who became the celebrated painter Filippino Lippi (see below). The Virgin in the fine picture in the Pitti gallery is said to be the portrait of Lucre zia Buti.
The frescoes in the choir of Prato cathedral, being the stories of the Baptist and of St. Stephen, represented on the opposite walls, are Fra Filippo's most important and monumental works. At the end wall of the choir are S. Giovanni Gualberto and S. Alberto, and on the ceiling the four evangelists. The close of Lippi's life was spent at Spoleto, where he was commissioned to paint, for the apse of the cathedral, some scenes from the life of the Virgin. In the semidome of the apse is Christ crowning the
Madonna, with angels, sibyls and prophets. This series was com pleted by Fra Diamante after Lippi's death. Lippi died in Spoleto about Oct. 8, 1469. He lies buried in Spoleto, with a monument erected to him by Lorenzo the Magnificent ; he was zealously patronized by the Medici family, beginning with Cosimo, Pater Patriae. Jacopo de Sellaio, Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) and Sandro Botticelli were among his most distinguished pupils.
In 1441 Lippi painted an altarpiece for the nuns of S. Ambro gio, now in the Uffizi at Florence, which has been celebrated by Browning. 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 the abbot, pointed out by an inscription upon an angel's scroll "Is perfecit opus." For the church of San Lorenzo he painted an "Annuncia tion." In the Uffizi is a "Virgin Adoring the Infant Christ" and a "Nativity"; in the National Gallery, London, an "Annunciation" and "Seven Saints"; in the Louvre, Paris, a "Madonna and Angels," painted for S. Spirito in Florence. The museum of Berlin has three early works. There is an early "Adoration of the Magi" in Sir Herbert Cook's collection at Richmond. In the Vatican gallery is a triptych representing "Coronation, Saints and Donors," and in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, an "Annunciation" from the Hertz collection.
Lippo Lippi's pictures show the naïveté of a strong, rich nature. He approaches religious art from its human side. He was perhaps the greatest colourist of his time, with good draughtsmanship—a naturalist, with much genuine episodical animation. He was fond of ornamenting pilasters and other architectural features. Vasari says that Lippi was wont to hide the extremities in drapery to evade difficulties.