FILIPPINO LIPPI. – 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 home and must have been immediately introduced to the art, since from 26 April 1467 to 31 December 1469 he is recorded as an assistant to his father, together with Fra’ Diamante, on the fresco work in the Duomo of Spoleto. After his father’s death in October 1469, he followed Fra’ Diamante, who moved to Florence once the decoration of the apse was completed. In 1472 he is listed in the Compagnia di S. Luca as “painter under Sandro Botticelli.” When he entered Botticelli’s workshop, however, 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 reputation must have been considerable, for on 31 December 1482, at only twenty-four years of age, he was entrusted—replacing Perugino—with the decoration of a wall in the Sala del Consiglio of the Palazzo della Signoria, perhaps on account of the successful outcome of a decoration in the Palazzo Pubblico of San Gimignano. After 1483, together with Cosimo Rosselli, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Perugino, he collaborated on the frescoes in the Villa di Spedaletto near Volterra, for Lorenzo the Magnificent. The following years were crucial for Filippino’s artistic development and reveal him engaged in works of high value. Between 1484 and 1487 he must have completed in the Brancacci Chapel the Stories of Saints Peter and Paul, left unfinished by Masaccio’s departure; around 1486 is the large panel for San Francesco alle Campora, now in the Badia in Florence, “a painting held to be marvelous in the stones, books, herbs, and similar things that he placed within it” (Vasari). In August 1488 he was in Rome to begin the walls and vault of the Carafa Chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in fresco. In April 1487 he had already received the commission for the decoration of the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, which was only begun in the summer of 1489 and continued after the completion of the Roman work (1492), especially in the years between 1498 and 1502. Filippino had to meet numerous requests: the altarpiece for the Certosa of Pavia (1495), the Adoration of the Magi now in the Uffizi (1496), the Meeting of Joachim and Anna in Copenhagen (1497), the tabernacle of Prato (1498), the Betrothal of Saint Catherine in San Domenico in Bologna (1501), the panel in the Museum of Prato with the Madonna and Saints (1501–1503).
According to Vasari, F. L. was courteous in manner, affable, gentle, and always loved to live in grandeur and esteem. A sociable man, he took an active part in the city’s artistic life and was often called upon to judge others’ works and give advice.
The earliest works of L. must be sought among those produced in the school of Sandro Botticelli, particularly in the group assigned by Benenson to the hypothetical “friend of Sandro,” but he shows himself highly attentive to the developments of contemporary art. If the task of continuing Masaccio’s frescoes helped to strengthen his plastic sense, his stay in Rome was fundamental to his taste, directed toward “the most exquisite invention, the bizarre, the novelty of the ornaments,” thus also preparing the ground for Mannerism. Yet Lippi’s art is to be found in the rendering of individual expressions, in the portraits that appear in his frescoes and panels, and in the pathetic sensitivity of his devotional images.