FRA LIPPO LIPPI. This dramatic monologue by Browning is like his 'Andrea del Sarto,' at once a revelation of character and a statement of a theory of aesthetics with special application to painting. It consists of about 400 lines of easy, flexible blank-verse, highly colloquial in style. It was written at Rome during the winter of 1853-54 and was published in 1855 in the volume entitled 'Men and Women.' The monologue is supposed to be spoken by the painter-friar himself as he re turns in the dawn of a spring day from one of his amorous adventures in Florence. Taken by the police, he tells his name and pauses for a friendly chat with the captain. How he came to be just what he is, both libertine and painter of the world as he sees it; how as a street gamin he learned to read men's faces; how he was taken into the convent, given leave to paint, painted men and women as they really were, to the confusion and scandal of the friars; how he escaped into a freer atmosphere, and now, as the protégé of the great Cosimo de Medici, paints as he likes, still following the flesh and often in pursuit of a pretty girl — all this bub bles from him as he faces a friendly listener. The character is complete; for all that Lippo is an old libertine, Browning likes him and the reader likes him. The poet took his facts from Vasari's 'Life,' but if one wishes to see the difference between poetry and prose he only compare the two accounts. Lippo's ideas
about his art Browning has drawn less from Vasari than from a study of the painter's works. Lippo believes in tithe value and sig nificance of ,• that tthis world's no blot for us, Nor blank— it means intensely and means ; and the philosophy of aesthetics has perhaps never been more tersely put than in these six lines: Or say there's beauty with no soul at all never saw it —put the case the same —) If you get simple beauty and naught else, You'll get about the best thing God invents,— That's somewhat. And you'll find the soul you have missed, Within yourself when you return him thanks.
In its dramatic revelation of character, its swift, graphic suggestions of setting, and its in direct building-up of a theory of art at once characteristic of the speaker and sound in it self, 'Fra Lippo Lippi is altogether a master piece. It should be read in connection with the same poet's 'Andrea del Sarto' (q.v.); the joy in life, the rollicking good humor, and the spring-time of the one are in striking contrast with the weary acquiescence of the other. Con sult Mrs. Orr, 'Handbook to Browning); and Cooke, 'Guide Book to Browning' which prints Vasari's life of Lippo, with explanatory notes on the poem.