Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/176

144 new technical methods. The old tempera painting was good enough for him, and he carried this form of art to the highest point of perfection, while at the same time he profited by all the advance which Masaccio and his followers had made, and gave a marked impulse to the new realism by the strong human element which he introduced in his works. His genial delight in all bright and pleasant things, in the daisies and the springtime, in rich ornament and glowing colour, in splendid architecture and sunny landscapes, in lovely women and round baby-faces, fitted him in an especial manner to be the herald of that fuller and larger life which was dawning on the men and women of the Renaissance.

This painter, who was to carry out Masaccio's principles and continue his teaching, began life in the convent of the Carmelite church, where that short-lived master painted his great frescoes. Filippo Lippi was a butcher's son, and was born in 1406, in a street behind the Carmine Church. His mother died at his birth, and his father two years afterwards, and at the age of eight the boy was taken to the neighbouring convent by his aunt, Mona Lapaccia, who could no longer support him. The friars taught him to read, and placed him in the novices' school; but instead of learning grammar the boy drew figures on his copy-book, and turned musical notes into arms and legs. Fortunately the Prior encouraged these artistic tastes, and sent young Lippo to learn of Lorenzo Monaco, from whom he acquired the skill in handling colour and glazes that distinguished his tempera-paintings. Afterwards he studied in the Brancacci Chapel, where his greatest delight was to watch