Lippi, Fra Filippo

(ca. 1406-1469)

   Florentine painter and Carmelite monk. His early work (for example, Madonna Enthroned, 1437) shows the influence of Masaccio but also suggests the influence of the sculptors Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti. His use of color, well exemplified by his Adoration (ca. 1459), suggests exposure to contemporary Flemish art. The evolution of his style is important because he exercised considerable influence on the next generation of artists, especially on his own pupil Sandro Botticelli. His many Madonnas are typical of the girlish image and wistful beauty of Florentine Madonnas of the Quattrocento. Cosimo de' Medici was an important patron. The paintings of events in the lives of St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen done for the cathedral at Prato, especially the Death of St. Stephen, are other well-known examples of his work.

   Unlike the pious Dominican painter Fra Angélico, Fra Filippo led a disorderly personal life, marked by an early conviction for forgery and his elopement with a nun by whom he had two children, one of whom also became a successful painter, Filippino Lippi (ca. 1457-1504), who was his father's pupil.