Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/315

 LlPPl Z

John the Baptist, Victor, Bernard, andZ&nobi" (Uf- fiii), shows an exaltation of tone and a metallic dryness beyond the most glaring and the aharpcat of Botti- ccUi's works. Shortly afterwards Fiiippino went to Rome to paint," at the Minerva, the frescoes of the "Life ofSt. Thomas Aquinas" (1487-931. Thu work is very powerful, and enough has not been said of Raphael's indebtedness to it for his first ideas for the "School of Athens" and the"Dispufa". These fres- coes mark an important period in the artist's develop- ment. At Rome the antique inspired him, not as an historian, a humanist, or a scholar, but as a painter and a poet who discovered in it new elements of de- light. The antique appeared to hirn as an inexhausti- ble source of the picturesque' the rich ornamentation ivith its foliage, garlands, nia.sks, trophies, was like a ven enriched it still more

orphan at the age of two hi- was cared for by an aunt who being too poor to rear him placed him at the age of eight in the neighbouring Carmclit* convent, wheri ■■- educated. At the age of fifteen he r " '" '

Carmelite church those frescoes of the Brancacci chape! (l-12;j-28), which brought about a revolution in the Florentine school. This event decided Lippi's vocation. Perhaps he even worked in the Brancacci chapel under the direction of the two mastera but nothing remains of the cameo frescoes which he exe- cuted in the cloister.

A life of adventure was about to begin tor the young

a his hands, lie <

" to see the strange fancies which he has expressed in his painting. He was always introducing vases, foot- gear, temple-ornaments, head-dresses, strange trap- pings, annour, trophies, seimitara, swords, togas, cloaks, and an array of things BO various and so beauti- ful that we owe him tonJay a great and eternal obliga- tion for all the beauty and ornamentation that be thus added to our art."

To these antique influences were soon added those of German engraving, so widespread at that time. The trace of them is visible in the " Adoration of the Magi" (Uffiii), painted in 1495 for the Convent of Scopeto. This is an astonl.'iliing picture, full of con- fusion and oddities, eccentric, disjointed in composi- tion, and crowded with admirable trifles and acces- sories. Of all Filippino's works it is perhaps the most hybrid and composite. At Prato, however, he aoms- times recovered momentarily a pure inspiration as in the "Virgin with" Four Saints", a fresco in a niche at the market comer (149S); it is one of his simplest and most delightful figures, llis last important work was the decoration of the Strozzi chapel at Sta. Haria Novella, completed in 154)2, which shows on the ceiling figures of patriarchs, and on both walls episodes from the lives of St. John and St. Philip. Nowhere else is the strange, theatrical character of his imagination so strongly shown as in this composition, in which there is, nevertheless, much of grace, movement, and lyri- cism. In the scene "St. I'liiiip forcing an exorcized demon to enter the idol of Mars ", the Apostle uses so Commanding a gesture that Raphael has reproduced it in his " Preaching of St. Paul . Here the brilliant and fantastic architecture sugsesta some dream city or magic temple. Its glitter and profusion of ornament, its waving lines and undulating surfaces, foreshadow the stvle of Reniiui and IJorromini; and yet some of the patriarchs, suth as the Adam and Jacob, possess an ascetic and meditative grandeur which foresnadow the Prophets of the Sistine Chapel, while some of the female figures ore the closest approach to the "St. Anne and the Virgin" of Leonardo.

Fiiippino had no pupib of distinction. It cannot even be said that he founded a tradition; he himself was too much dominated bv the influence of others. But of the generation immediately preceding the great works of Michelangelo and Leonanio, of that restless and subtile, complex and nervous generation of Botti- celli and Cosimo Roselli, he is perhaps the most varied, the most gifted, and the most lovable.

Vabahi, ed. MiLAKEai. Viie. It. Ill (norence. 187SI ; Csowe AND Cavalcabelu;, Hitl. 0/ Painiing in Ilatv (London. l8«4-a6); ROMOB, Italinucht Fortchunem. II (Leinnie. — h Ml'NTI, Hi*, dtVarlxtal\tnpmiinialaRniaitKtnct(Ps.Ta.—): GooNCHENB.rHBcd'Or (Paris. 1891); Vi.ntio, Arthi<r<o HoHeo drttarU (Florance, 1S88); Laiekestm. La Ptmlvre ilalimnt (Puia). LOCIB GlLLbT.

Llppl, Fnjppo, Italian painter, b. at Florence. . ..

ftbout 1406; d. at Spoleto, 9 October, 1469. Left an forgery. Callistus III

Carmelite. Vasari's account of a journey to Ancona, during which, in the cour^ of a sea-trip, he was seiiea by Barbary pirates and held captive for two years, is assuredly nothing but a romance. It is not likely that he was at Padua in 1434; on the contrary everything

{roves that at that date he was not absent from lorence, where he had already acquired a great reputation. Cosmo de' Medici commanded him to paint for his private oratory the charming "Madonna" of the Uffiii, and for his wife's the "Nativity" of the Acadfimie des Beaux-Arts. In 1438 he painted the retable of San Spirito, now at the Louvre, and the "Coronation of the Blessed Virgin", ordered by Charles Marsuppini, and preserved at Rome in thie Lateran Museum. In 1441 he painted a variation of the same subject at the Academy of Florence for the religious of S. Ambroeio, receiving 1200 livrea for it. Lastly, in 1447 he painted for the Chapel of the Si- CTioi^ the wonderful "Vision ot St. Bernard" now in the National Gallery. Inthemidstofall these labours the fiainter could not have taken long journeys. The great artist lived in the continual embarrassments caused by his deplorable morals. Never was anyone less fitted for religious life. Mis portraits show us a flat-nosedindividual with a jesting, but vicious lookinK, thick-lipped, sensual face. To compel him to work Cosmo de' Medici was forced to lock him up. and even then the painter escaped by a rope made of his sheets. His escapades threw bim into financial difficulties from which he did not hesitate to extricate himself by

i obliged to deprive thia