Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/185

1469] "I laughed heartily," wrote Cosimo's younger son, Giovanni de' Medici, "when I heard of Fra Filippo's escapade." In the same letter, addressed to a Florentine envoy at the Court of Naples, Giovanni alludes to the picture by Fra Lippo which he had presented to King Alfonso, and which had greatly pleased His Majesty. This little panel, a Madonna and Child with Angels and a youthful St. Michael, was painted by the Friar in 1457, after repeated delays and interruptions. On the 20th of July, he addressed a letter to his "dearest and most illustrious lord," Giovanni de' Medici, who was spending the summer in his villa at Fiesole, professing himself to be his willing slave, and sending a sketch of the proposed picture, but asking for supplies of money, that he may obtain gold and silver leaf for the armour and wings of St. Michael. As usual, he is without a farthing, and has been unable to work for three days for want of gilding. "And I entreat you to answer," he adds; "for here I am dying, and only long to get away." This anxiety to leave Florence was not entirely due to the heat of the season, or even to the Friar's desire to see Lucrezia and her new-born son, for, six weeks later, a servant of the Medici, Francesco Cantansanti, writes to inform Giovanni, that up till Saturday evening he has been vainly urging Fra Filippo to finish the picture, and now hears that the goods in his shop have been seized by his creditors, and that he himself has disappeared. "But what risks the man runs!" is the conclusion with which the long-suffering agent ends his tale. The picture in question was eventually finished by the following spring, and sent to Naples in May 1458. The next year Fra Lippo found him-