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FILIPPO LIPPI
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Filippo Lippi, Public domain
Self portrait - 1452
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- Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) and was the product of Florence’s intense artistic culture during the reign of the Medici family.
- He was at one time a Carmelite
priest and that is what the
title 'Fra' stands for.
- Also known as Lippo Lippi, an Italian Renaissance painter of the Quattrocento (15th-century).
- The 1400s was the era of the
early Renaissance in Italy that prepared the way for the
better-known figures of the high Renaissance like Michelangelo
and Leonardo.
- Filippo had a son named Filippino Lippi
(1457-1504) who was also very accomplished.
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He was an early Renaissance master of a painting
workshop, who taught many painters. Sandro Botticelli
and Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) were among
his most distinguished pupils. His son, Filippino
Lippi, also studied under him and assisted in some
late works.
(Wikipedia)
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Fraught with problems
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- Filippo enjoyed the patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici, and the support of Florence’s most powerful family proved crucial to the artist, whose personal and business lives were fraught with problems.
- After Filippo had been appointed chaplain of a convent in nearby Prato, he began a long relationship with one of its residents, Lucrezia Buti,
a Catholic nun.
- She was the model for several of his Madonnas.
- The two lived together openly between 1456 and 1458 and had a son, the painter Filippino Lippi.
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Filippo Lippi was born around 1406 in
Florence, one of many children of an impoverished
butcher. Orphaned at a very young age, he and a
brother were sent to the Carmelite monastery; Filippo
may have been as young as eight. In 1421, he took the
vows of a Carmelite monk, entering a religious life
for which he was wholly unsuited.
(nga.gov)
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Protective custody
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- The scandal was compounded by civil complaints because patrons claimed that Flilppo did not fulfill his contracts, and an assistant accused him of withholding wages.
- At one point, he was tortured on the rack.
- Finally, with help from Cosimo and the humanist pope Pius II, Filippo was allowed to leave his order.
- He and Lucrezia married and had one more child, a daughter.
- After he left the priestly order, Filippo continued to
sign his work 'Frater' which means brother.
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Even the Medici had difficulties with the artist, once holding him in “protective custody” within the palace so Filippo would complete a commission. He escaped.
(nga.gov)
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Productive worshop
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- All the while, Filippo maintained one of the two busiest workshops in Florence and enjoyed high regard as an artist.
- Filippo trained his son and Botticelli and took on major
commissions in Florence and elsewhere and a large number of
his paintings survive.
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The world and life's too big to pass for a dream..
Robert Browning, Fra Lippo Lippi
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