Filippo Lippi

Lore & Background

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. 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 Santa Maria del Carmine 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 writes that 'while he was in his noviciate and under the discipline of the grammar master, did nothing but cover his books with drawings of figures, until at last the prior determined to give him every help in learning to paint.' The Brancacci chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine had been recently painted by Masaccio, and Lippi used to go there. Later 'he painted a pope confirming the rule of the Carmelites and other pictures so much in Masaccio's style that many said that the spirit of Masaccio had entered into Fra Filippo.' Lippi's early work, notably the Tarquinia Madonna, shows the influence of Masaccio. 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 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 the altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin for the nuns of Sant'Ambrogio. The painting shows the Virgin being crowned 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. The painting was celebrated in Robert Browning's poem 'Fra Lippo Lippi' (1855). In 1452, Lippi was appointed chaplain to the nuns at the Monastery of Santa Maria Maddalena in Florence. Fra Filippo is recorded as living in Prato (near Florence) in June 1456 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 Santa 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 perhaps Saint Margaret). Lippi engaged in sexual relations with her and abducted her to his own house. She remained there despite efforts by the nuns to reclaim her. 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 Filippo Lippi's 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 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.

Reader's Guide

Filippo Lippi's most important and monumental works are the frescoes in the choir of the cathedral of Prato, which depict the stories of Saint Stephen and Saint John the Baptist on the two main facing walls. The figure of Salome dancing 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 a portrait of the painter, but there are various opinions as to which is the exact figure. The figure of the dancing Salome in the scene of the Feast of Herod is believed to be a portrait of Lucrezia. On the end wall of the choir are Saint John Gualbert and Saint Alberto, while the vault has monumental representations of the four evangelists. For Germiniano Inghirami of Prato he painted the Death of Saint Bernard. His principal altarpiece in this city is a Nativity in the refectory of San Domenico: the Christ child 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 Saint 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, the 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 Child with an Angel also in the Uffizi is ascribed to Lippi, but that is disputed. Filippo Lippi died in 1469 while working on the frescoes of scenes from the Life of the Virgin (1467–1469) in the apse of Spoleto Cathedral. The frescoes show the Annunciation, the Funeral of the Virgin, the Adoration of the Christ 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. Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) and Sandro Botticelli were among his most distinguished pupils who participated in his workshop.

Did You Know?

• Lippi was orphaned at age two and placed in a Carmelite convent at age eight.
• According to Vasari, Cosimo de' Medici imprisoned Lippi to force him to work, but he escaped using a rope made of his sheets.
• Lippi's son Filippino was born in 1457, and his daughter Alessandra in 1465, both from his relationship with Lucrezia Buti.
• The painting 'Coronation of the Virgin' (1441) was celebrated in Robert Browning's poem 'Fra Lippo Lippi' (1855).
• Lippi's death in Spoleto on 8 October 1469 is disputed: he may have been poisoned by relatives of Lucrezia or of another woman.

Orphan to Novice: The Making of a Painter

Filippo Lippi entered the world around 1406 in Florence, the son of a butcher named Tommaso. His childhood was defined by loss: orphaned at just two, he was placed with his aunt Mona Lapaccia, whose poverty made it impossible for her to raise him. By age eight, the boy was deposited in the Carmelite convent at Santa Maria del Carmine, where his formal education began. In 1420 he entered the novitiate, took vows the following year at sixteen, and was ordained a priest around 1425. Yet the monastery's grammar master could not contain his restless hand. As the art historian Giorgio Vasari recounted, the young novice spent his hours sketching figures across the margins of his textbooks until the prior, recognizing the talent, chose to channel it toward painting. The recently completed Brancacci Chapel, frescoed by Masaccio, became his true classroom. Lippi would walk there repeatedly, absorbing the master's revolutionary approach to form and space. His early output, such as the Tarquinia Madonna now in Rome's Palazzo Barberini, bears the unmistakable imprint of Masaccio's influence, with contemporaries remarking that the dead master's spirit seemed to inhabit Lippi's brush.

Medici Patronage and a Restless Career

By the early 1430s, Lippi had left the monastery—though his vows technically remained binding—and his paintings had gained enough public favor to attract the attention of the Medici. Cosimo de' Medici commissioned works including the Annunciation and the Seven Saints, yet the relationship was fraught. The painter's notorious reluctance to sit still at his easel led Cosimo to have him locked up to force productivity; Lippi responded by escaping over the prison wall using a rope fashioned from his own bed sheets. His financial life was a perpetual tangle of lawsuits, broken promises, and at least one instance of forgery to cover debts. In 1439 he described himself in a letter as the poorest friar in Florence, saddled with the upkeep of six marriageable nieces. Despite this chaos, his output was substantial: in 1441 he delivered the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece for the nuns of Sant'Ambrogio, a work later immortalized in Robert Browning's 1855 poem. In 1452 he became chaplain to the nuns at Santa Maria Maddalena, and in 1457 he was appointed commendatory rector of San Quirico in Legnaia, a post that yielded considerable income even as he remained mired in poverty.

Lucrezia Buti and the Prato Frescoes

In 1456, Lippi traveled to Prato to paint the choir frescoes of the cathedral, and it was there, at the nearby monastery chapel of Santa Margherita in 1458, that he encountered Lucrezia Buti, a beautiful boarder or novice and the daughter of Caterina Ciacchi and Francesco Buti. He initially requested permission to use her as a model for the Madonna or Saint Margaret, but the arrangement quickly escalated into a scandal: Lippi engaged in a sexual relationship with her and ultimately abducted her to his own home, where she stayed despite the nuns' attempts to retrieve her. Their union produced two children—Filippino in 1457, who would grow into a celebrated painter, and Alessandra in 1465. Lucrezia's face is widely believed to have inspired many of Lippi's Madonnas and, most strikingly, the dancing Salome in the Feast of Herod scene among the Prato frescoes. Those choir paintings, depicting the stories of Saint Stephen and Saint John the Baptist, stand as his most monumental achievement. The circumstances of Lippi's death in Spoleto around 8 October 1469 remain disputed, with one version holding that he was poisoned by Lucrezia's outraged relatives before a papal dispensation to marry her could arrive.

A Workshop That Shaped a Generation

Lippi's influence extended far beyond his own canvases. Operating as an early Renaissance workshop master, he trained a generation of painters who would define the next wave of Florentine art. Among his most distinguished pupils were Sandro Botticelli and Francesco di Pesello, known as Pesellino, both of whom carried forward and transformed the visual language Lippi had helped establish. His own son, Filippino Lippi, studied under him and assisted in several late works, including the Spoleto cathedral cycle. The Prato frescoes, particularly the dancing Salome, show clear affinities with later compositions by both Botticelli and Filippino, illustrating how a single workshop could seed stylistic threads across decades. Even after Lippi's death, his projects continued: the Life of the Virgin series in the Spoleto apse, begun with Filippino as workshop adjuvant, was completed by assistants working under the direction of his fellow Carmelite Fra Diamante. Vasari, writing the first systematic history of Renaissance art, placed Lippi firmly in the lineage from Masaccio forward, while later figures like Robert Browning ensured his name survived in the literary imagination. The Tarquinia Madonna, the Sant'Ambrogio altarpiece, and the Prato and Spoleto cycles together anchor his place as a pivotal bridge between the early and high Renaissance.