Lippi, Fra Filippo

The Madonna and Child with Two Angels, tempera on wood by Fra Filippo …

(credit: Alinari—Art Resource/EB Inc.)

(born c. 1406, Florence—died Oct. 8/10, 1469, Spoleto, Papal States) Italian painter. In 1421 he became a Carmelite monk at Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, where Masaccio was soon decorating the Brancacci Chapel with frescoes. Lippi himself painted frescoes in the church, much influenced by Masaccio's, then disappeared from the monastery in 1432. In 1434 he was in Padua, but in 1437 he returned to Florence under the protection of the Medici family and was commissioned to execute several works for convents and churches. His Madonna and Child (1437) and Annunciation (c. 1442) show a maturing style characterized by warm colouring and attention to decorative effects. Later critics have recognized in Lippi a “narrative” spirit that reflected the life of his time and translated into everyday terms the ideals of the early Renaissance. In 1456, while painting in a convent in Prato, he fled with one of the nuns, Lucrezia Buti. The couple was later released from their individual vows and permitted to marry, and from that union was born the illustrious Filippino Lippi. The former friar returned often to Prato, and his frescoes in the cathedral there stand among his finest achievements.