MEMMI, LIPPO (LIPPO DA SIENA). - Sienese painter, son of Memmo di Filippuccio, himself a painter, and brother-in-law of Simone Martini (v.), mentioned and documented between 1317 and 1347.

In 1317, on a wall of the Palazzo comunale of S. Gemignano, he executed the fresco of the Maestà, which had been entrusted to his father, drawing inspiration from Simone Martini's analogous composition, but weighing down its features, in the rendering of details, with a soft and opaque chiaroscuro and a monotonous, sleepy typology. Related characteristics, accompanied by a diligent and polished coloring, distinguish the few panels bearing his name, such as the Madonna of the church of S. Maria dei Servi in Siena and the one in the Berlin Museum. Finer and more lively, certainly through the influence of Simone Martini, his style appears in the parts belonging to him in the Annunciation triptych of the Uffizi (1333), signed by him and by the Sienese master: the prophets in the roundels of the frame (cf. payments of 1333) and in all likelihood also the lateral figures of Sts. Quiricus and Julitta. Within these stylistic extremes is summed up the activity of L. M. - which, chronologically, extends at least to 1347: lost frescoes in S. Francesco of Avignon - so thoroughly encompassed within the sphere of the master's overwhelming personality as to make it arduous to identify his contribution in those parts of Simone's works, at Pisa, at Orvieto (polyptychs) and at Assisi (frescoes in the lower church), where inequalities of quality and slight deviations of style lead one to suppose a collaboration. As regards other works, such as the Madonna of Palazzo Venezia and the St. Gregory of the Parry Collection in Gloucester, their heterogeneous characteristics have recently led criticism to remove them from L. M. and assign them to anonymous personalities of that circle.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: K. Weigelt s. v. in Thieme-Becker, XXIII (1929), p. 275 with the preceding bibliography; id., Minor simonique Masters, in Apollo, 14 (1931), fasc. 79, p. 1 ff.; A. Venturi, Altro gruppo di pitture inedite, in L'arte, 1938, p. 181 ff.; P. Bacci, Fonti e commenti per la storia dell'arte senese, Siena 1944, p. 111 ff.; L. Coletti, I Primitivi, II, Novara 1946, p. XXIX ff.; E. Cecchi, Trecentisti stessi, Milano 1928 and 1948, p. 77; P. Toesca, Il Trecento, Torino 1950, p. 549 ff.

Amalia Mezzetti

@incollection{ec8_memmi_lippo_lippo_da_siena, author = {Mezzetti, Amalia}, title = {Memmi, lippo (lippo da siena)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {660}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/memmi-lippo-lippo-da-siena} }

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Memmi, Lippo (Lippo da Siena)

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