LIPPI, FILIPPINO. - Born in Prato, between August 1457 and May 1458, to Filippo L. and Lucrezia Buti, died in Florence on 18 April 1504; he was raised in his father's house and must have been set to the art at once, since from 26 April 1467 to 31 December 1469 he appears as his father's assistant, together with Fra Diamante, on the fresco work of the cathedral of Spoleto. On his father's death, in October 1469, he followed Fra Diamante, who moved to Florence as soon as the decoration of the apse was finished. In 1472 he appears enrolled in the Compagnia di S. Luca, as "painter of Sandro Botticelli." But when he entered his workshop remains unknown. Since he did not collaborate with the master on the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, it is presumed that by October 1481 he was already independent.
His fame must have been considerable if on 31 December 1482, at only 24 years of age, he was entrusted, in place of Perugino, with the decoration of a wall of the Sala del Consiglio in the Palazzo della Signoria, perhaps in view of the happy outcome of a decoration in the Palazzo pubblico of S. Gimignano. After 1483, with Cosimo Rosselli, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino, he collaborated on the frescoes of the Villa di Spedaletto near Volterra, for Lorenzo the Magnificent. The following years are fundamental for Filippino's artistic development and show him engaged in works of high value. Between 1484 and 1487 he must have completed in the Brancacci chapel the Stories of Sts. Peter and Paul left unfinished because of Masaccio's departure; of about 1486 is the great panel for S. Francesco alle Campora, now in the Badia in Florence, "which painting is held marvellous as in rocks, books, grasses, and similar things that he made within it" (Vasari). In August 1488 he was in Rome, to begin the walls and the vault of the Carafa chapel in S. Maria sopra Minerva, in fresco. In April 1487 he had already received the commissions for the decoration of the Strozzi chapel in S. Maria Novella, which was begun only in the summer of 1489 and continued after the completion of the Roman works (1492), especially in the years between 1498 and 1502. Filippino had to meet numerous requests: the altarpiece for the charterhouse of Pavia (1495), the Adoration of the Magi now in the Uffizi (1496), the Meeting of Joachim with Anna of Copenhagen (1497), the tabernacle of Prato (1498), the Betrothal of St. Catherine, in S. Domenico in Bologna (1501), the panel of the Museum of Prato, with Madonna and Saints (1501-1503).
According to Vasari F. L. was courteous in manner, affable, gentle, and always loved to live in grandeur and reputation. A sociable man, he took an active part in the artistic life of the city and was often called upon to judge the works of others and to give advice.
The first works of L. are to be sought among those that came out of the school of Sandro Botticelli, especially in the group assigned by Berenson to the hypothetical "friend of Sandro," but he shows himself very attentive to the developments of contemporary art. If the task of continuing Masaccio's frescoes helped to strengthen his plastic sense, the Roman stay remained fundamental to his taste, turned toward "the most charming invention, the whimsicality, the novelty of the ornaments," thus also preparing the way for Mannerism. But the art of L. is to be sought in the acute rendering of individual expressions, in the portraits that appear in his frescoes and panels, and in the pathetic sensibility of his devotional images.
Bibliography3 works
Eugenio Battisti