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“Fra Flippo Lippi”
Bakı -2024
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Filippo Lippi O.Carm. (c. 1406 – 8 October 1469), also known as Lippo
Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento (fifteenth century) and a
Carmelite priest. 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.
Lippi was born in Florence in 1406 to Tommaso, a butcher, and his wife. He
was orphaned when he was two years old and sent to live with his aunt, Mona
Lapaccia.[citation needed] Because she was too poor to rear him, she placed him
in the neighboring Carmelite convent when he was eight years old. There, he
started his education. In 1420, he was admitted to the novitiate of the Order of
the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, known commonly as
the Carmelites at the Priory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Florence, taking
religious vows in the Order the following year, at the age of sixteen. He was
ordained as a priest in approximately 1425 and remained in residence at the
priory until 1432. Giorgio Vasari, the first art historian of the Renaissance,
writes in his Lives of the Artists that Lippi was inspired to become a painter by
watching Masaccio at work in the Carmine church. Lippi's early work, notably
the Tarquinia Madonna (Galleria Nazionale, Rome) shows that influence from
Masaccio.[3] Vasari writes of Lippi: "Instead of studying, he spent all his time
scrawling pictures on his own books and those of others." Due to Lippi's
interest, the prior decided to give him the opportunity to learn painting.
In 1432, Filippo Lippi quit the monastery, although he was not released from
his vows. In a letter dated 1439 he describes himself as the poorest friar of
Florence, charged with the maintenance of six marriageable nieces.
According to Vasari, Lippi then went on to visit Ancona and Naples, where
he was captured by Barbary pirates and kept as a slave. Reportedly, his skill in
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portrait-sketching helped to eventually release him. Louis Gillet, writing for the
Catholic Encyclopedia, considers this account and other details reported about
Lippi, as "assuredly nothing but a romance"
With Lippi's return to Florence in 1432, his paintings had become popular,
warranting the support of the Medici family, who commissioned The
Annunciation and the Seven Saints. Cosimo de' Medici had to imprison him in
order to compel him to work and even then, the painter escaped by a rope made
of his sheets. His escapades threw him into financial difficulties from which he
did not hesitate to extricate himself by forgery. His life included many similar
tales of lawsuits, complaints, broken promises, and scandal.
In 1441, Lippi painted an altarpiece for the nuns of Sant'Ambrogio that now
is a prominent attraction in the Academy of Florence and was celebrated in
Browning's well-known poem Fra Lippo Lippi. The painting represents the
coronation of the Virgin among angels and saints, including many Bernardine
monks. One of these, placed to the right, is a half-length figure originally
thought to be a self-portrait of Lippi, pointed out by the inscription is perfecit
opus upon an angel's scroll. Later, it was believed instead to be a portrait of the
benefactor who commissioned the painting.
In 1452, Lippi was appointed chaplain to the nuns at the Monastery of St.
Mary Magdalene in Florence.
Madonna with the Child and two Angels (1465), tempera on wood, Uffizi,
(also called "Lippina" – Lucrezia Buti is thought to be the model)
Fra Filippo is recorded as living in Prato (near Florence) in June 1456 in order to
paint frescoes in the choir of the cathedral. In 1458, while engaged in this work,
he set about creating a painting for the monastery chapel of St. Margherita in
that city, where he met Lucrezia Buti, a beautiful boarder or novice of the Order
and the daughter of the Florentines, Caterina Ciacchi and Francesco Buti. Lippi
asked that she might be permitted to sit for the figure of the Madonna (or
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perhaps St. Margherita). Lippi engaged in sexual relations with her, abducted her
to his own house. She remained there despite efforts by the nuns to reclaim her.
[citation needed] This relationship resulted in their son, Filippino Lippi in 1457,
who became a famous painter following his father, as well as a daughter,
Alessandra, in 1465. Lucrezia is thought to be the model for many of his
paintings of the Madonna as well as for Salome in one of his monumental
works.
In 1457, he was appointed commendatory Rector (Rettore commendatario)
of San Quirico in Legnaia, from which institutions he occasionally made
considerable profits. Despite these profits, Lippi struggled to escape poverty
throughout his life.
The close of Lippi's life was spent at Spoleto, where he had been
commissioned to paint scenes from the life of the Virgin for the apse of the
cathedral. His son, Filippino, served as workshop adjuvant in the construction.
In the semidome of the apse is the Coronation of the Virgin, with angels, sibyls,
and prophets. This series, which is not wholly equal to the one at Prato, was
completed after Lippi's death by assistants under his fellow Carmelite, Fra
Diamante.
Lippi died in Spoleto, on or about 8 October 1469. The mode of his death is
a matter of dispute. It has been said that the pope granted Lippi a dispensation in
order to marry Lucrezia, but before the permission arrived Lippi had been
poisoned by indignant relatives of Lucrezia or, in another version, by relatives of
someone who had replaced her in the painter's affections.
The frescoes in the choir of the cathedral of Prato, which depict the stories of
St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen on the two main facing walls, are
considered Fra Filippo's most important and monumental works, 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
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a portrait of the painter, but there are various opinions as to which is the exact
figure. The representation of dancing Salome in the depiction of Herod's
Banquet is believed to be a portrait of Lucrezia. On the end wall of the choir are
St. Giovanni Gualberto and St. Alberto, while the vault has monumental
representations of the four evangelists.
For Germiniano Inghirami of Prato he painted the Death of St. Bernard. His
principal altarpiece in this city is a Nativity in the refectory of St. 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. A Vision of St. Bernard is held in the National Gallery,
London.
In the Uffizi is a fine painting of the Virgin, also called "Lippina", adoring
the infant Christ, who is held by two angels. The model for the Virgin is
Lucrezia. A sometime lecturer at the gallery, art historian Rocky Ruggiero
identifies the painting as "one of the most beautiful paintings of the Italian
Renaissance" and asserts that arguably, Lippi "is the first Italian painter with a
true sensibility for feminine beauty".
The painting of the Virgin and Infant with an Angel that also is in the Uffizi
Gallery is ascribed to Lippi, but that is disputable.
Filippo Lippi died in 1469 while working on the frescoes of 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 depicted at the funeral includes
a self-portrait of Lippi and his helpers, Fra Diamante and Pier Matteo d'Amelia
together with his son, Filippino. Lippi was buried on the right side of the
transept, with a monument commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici.
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Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) and Sandro Botticelli were among his
most distinguished pupils who participated in his workshop.
Selected works
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Seven Saints (c. 1449–1459) – Tempera on panel, 68 x 151.5 cm, National
Gallery, London
Madonna and Child (c. 1452) – Panel, diameter 135 cm, Pitti Gallery,
Florence
Funeral of St. Jerome (c. 1452–1460) – Tempera on panel, 268 x 165 cm,
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Prato Cathedral
Stories of St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist (1452–1465) – Fresco cycle,
Cathedral of Prato
Madonna del Ceppo (c. 1452–1453) – Panel, 187 x 120 cm, Civic Museum,
Prato
Madonna and Child (c. 1455) – Panel, Uffizi, Florence
Adoration in the Forest (late 1450s) – Panel, 127 x 116 cm, Staatliche
Museen, Berlin
Madonna of Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (1466–1469) – Tempera on panel, 115
x 71 cm, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence
Scenes from the Life of the Virgin Mary (1467–1469) – Fresco, apse of the
Spoleto Cathedral
Madonna and Child (between circa 1446 and circa 1447), Walters Art
Museum
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The Nativity (c. 1445), National Gallery of Art
The Adoration of the Magi, tondo credited to Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi (c.
1440–1460)
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Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement (c. 1440), Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York City
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Portrait of a woman (1445), Gemäldegalerie
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Madonna with Child with scenes of life of St. Anne (1452), detail
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Madonna and Child Follower of Fra Filippo Lippi and Francesco Pesellino
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tych of the Madonna of Humility with saints
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