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Fra Fillippo Lippi, Confirmation of the
Carmelite Rule, c. 1432, Fresco, Museo di Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.
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A painter who developed alongside Uccello in Florence was
Fra Fillippo Lippi. As his name suggests, he was a monk, a young Carmelite
friar. An unwanted child, Lippi was raised in the Carmelite friary of the
Carmine, where he took his vows in 1421. Unlike the Dominican Fra Angelico,
Lippi was not cut out for the religious life, and infamously scandalized his
brethren by running off with a nun, Lucrezia Buti, who had been persuaded to
pose as a model. She bore his son Filippino and a daughter Alessandra. Despite
the couple being released from their vows and marrying, Lippi insisted on
signing himself "Frater Philippus". Never one to miss an opportunity
to embellish a biography, Vasari really pulled out all the stops, throwing in
capture by Barbary pirates and portrayed a headstrong, wordly artist at odds
with the strictures of the renaissance church. Where art was concerned Lippi took the best
model available, Masaccio, whose frescoes where available to see in the
Carmine. According to Vasari, Lippi’s first painting was done in 1432, in the
Carmine, a fresco showing the Confirmation of the Carmelite rule. Vasari was
proved right when Lippi’s fresco was discovered in 1860 beneath a layer of
plaster in the convent. It took Lippi some time to get into his stride as a
painter; his early Madonna of Humility is a curious blend of Masaccio and
bizarre experimentation. Of interest here is Lippi’s treatment of angels, who
as Antal notes do not conform to the antique model, but have the faces of
Florentine urchins, and pretty ugly ones at that.[1]
However, Fra Fillippo introduced a new standard of beauty to Florentine art
with his later Madonnas, his portraits, such as the first double portrait with
a landscape (New York) and his fresco cycle at Prato, especially Herod’s
Banquet. Botticelli became Fra Fillippo’s pupil and the swirling rhythms
and effortless grace of this picture would re-appear in the younger artist’s
work.
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Fra Filippo Lippi Herod's Banquet, 1452-65,
Fresco, Duomo, Prato.
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