Part 1

MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR EDITED BY T. LEMAN HARE

FRA FILIPPO LIPPI

(1406-1469)

"MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR" SERIES

ARTIST. AUTHOR.

BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. BOUCHER. C. HALDANE MACFALL. BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND. COROT. SIDNEY ALLNUTT. DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. DELACROIX. PAUL G. KONODY. DÜRER. H. E. A. FURST. FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. PAUL G. KONODY. FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. HOGARTH. C. LEWIS HIND. HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. INGRES. A. J. FINBERG. LAWRENCE. S. L. BENSUSAN. LE BRUN (VIGÉE). C. HALDANE MACFALL. LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. LUINI. JAMES MASON. MANTEGNA. MRS. ARTHUR BELL. MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE. MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER. MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN. PERUGINO. SELWYN BRINTON. RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW. RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. SARGENT. T. MARTIN WOOD. TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND. WATTS. W. LOFTUS HARE. WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD.

_Others in Preparation._

Filippo Lippi

BY P. G. KONODY

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK

NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.

CONTENTS

Page I. 9

II. 19

III. 41

IV. 66

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate I. The Virgin Adoring the Infant Saviour Frontispiece In the Accademia, Florence

Page II. St. John the Baptist with six other Saints 14 In the National Gallery, London

III. The Vision of St. Bernard 24 In the National Gallery, London

IV. The Annunciation 34 In the National Gallery, London

V. The Coronation of the Virgin 40 In the Accademia, Florence

VI. The Virgin and Child 50 In the Pitti Palace, Florence

VII. The Virgin and Child with two Angels 60 In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

VIII. The Virgin and Child with Angels and two Abbots 70 In the Louvre, Paris

I

In Vasari's gossipy _Lives of the Painters_, and indeed in most art histories written before the era of scientific critical research, there is an inclination, in the absence of documentary material, to reconstruct the old masters' characters and lives from the evidence of their extant works. Many a charming legend, that was originally suggested by the expression of the painter's personality in his art, and has been handed down from generation to generation, had to be shelved as dusty archives yielded new knowledge of indisputable prosaic facts to the diligent searcher. Whilst the serious student owes a debt of deep gratitude to those who devote their time and labour to the investigation of documentary evidence, and to establishing critical standards for the sifting of the great masters' works from those of their followers and imitators, the elimination of romance from the history of art is a hindrance rather than a help to the ordinary person who cares not a jot about morphological characteristics, but loves nevertheless to spend an hour now and then in communion with the old masters. For him, paradoxical though it may seem, there is more significant truth in many an entirely fictitious anecdote, than in the dry facts recorded by the conscientious historian.

Thus we know now that Domenico Veneziano outlived Andrea dal Castagno by several years, and could therefore not have been foully murdered by his jealous rival. But does not the fable of this act of violence, suggested no doubt by the fierceness and rugged strength of Andrea's art, help the layman to understand and appreciate the qualities which constitute the greatness of that art? We know now that Fra Angelico, far from accounting it a sin to paint from the nude, was an eager student of human anatomy; but the stories told of his piety and angelic sweetness have become so fused with everybody's conception of the Dominican friar's art, that even those to whom the spiritual significance of art is a sealed book, search almost instinctively for signs of religious fervour and exaltation in Fra Angelico's paintings. The stories of Sodoma's habits of life and of his strange doings at Mont' Oliveto belong probably to the realm of fiction, but they serve to explain and accentuate the worldly tendencies of his artistic achievement.

In these instances, to which many others might easily be added, the artists' personality and manner of life have been fancifully reconstructed from the character of their work. Very different is the case of Fra Filippo Lippi. Here criticism has seized upon certain authentic facts of the Carmelite friar's life and amorous adventures--facts that in their main current have been established beyond the possibility of dispute, even though they have been embroidered upon by imaginative pens--and has dealt with his art in the light of that knowledge, reading into his paintings not only his artistic emotions, but his personal desires and passions. Only thus can it be explained that generation after generation of writers on art have misconstrued the exquisite and touching innocence and virgin purity of his Madonna type into an expression of sensuality. Again and again we read about the pronounced worldliness of Fra Filippo's religious paintings, about their lack of spiritual significance and devout feeling.

Vasari, of course, is the fountain-head of this misconception of the Carmelite's art. According to the Aretine biographer, "it was said that Fra Filippo was much addicted to the pleasures of sense, insomuch that he would give all he possessed to secure the gratification of whatever inclination might at the moment be predominant, but if he could by no means accomplish his wishes, he would then depict the object which had attracted his attention in his paintings, and endeavour by discoursing and reasoning with himself to diminish the violence of his inclination. It was known that, while occupied in the pursuit of his pleasures, the works undertaken by him received little or none of his attention."

It so happens that many of the discreditable incidents of the friar's life, recorded by Vasari, have been confirmed by documentary evidence. There is not a shadow of doubt that Fra Filippo did abduct the nun Lucrezia Buti from her convent; that Filippino Lippi was the offspring of this illicit union; and that the Frate subsequently did not avail himself of the special papal dispensation to wed the nun. There is also abundant proof to show that Fra Filippo, in spite of the high esteem in which he was held as an artist, and which caused him to be entrusted with many a remunerative commission, was for ever in financial straits, was involved in many vexatious law cases, attempted to cheat his own assistants, and had no hesitation to break faith with his patrons. But all this does not affect his art. To read sensuality into his types of womanhood can only be the result of prejudice, of approaching his pictures in the light of the knowledge gathered from the pages of the chroniclers. Worldly he is compared with the pure, exalted spirituality of the Dominican Fra Angelico, but only in so far as he belonged already to the new era which had discovered, and revelled in, the visible beauty of this world of ours, whilst Fra Angelico, his contemporary, still belongs to the earlier age that looked to the empyrean for all true happiness. The art of both masters is planted in Gothic soil, though it bore different fruit, that of Fra Angelico being still essentially Gothic, though often tinged with a Renaissance flavour, whilst that of Fra Filippo has all the richness and fullness of the Renaissance, of which he was one of the great initiators.

That such conceptions as the Virgin in National Gallery "Annunciation," or the lovely Madonna in the _tondo_ at the Palazzo Pitti, and many other authentic works by the master, are lacking in spirituality of expression, cannot be seriously maintained by anybody who approaches these pictures with an open mind and judges the artist by his achievement, not by his manner of life. Even Mr. Berenson, the most authoritative modern critic of Italian art, denies Fra Filippo a "profound sense of either material or spiritual significance--the essential qualifications of the real artist," although he admits in the same essay[1] that "his real place is with the genre painters, only his genre _was that of the soul_, as that of others--of Benozzo Gozzoli, for example--was of the body." Browning, with the true poet's intuition, states the case of Fra Filippo more clearly than the vast majority of professional critics from Vasari to the present day, when he makes the friar exclaim:

"... Now is this sense, I ask? A fine way to paint soul, by painting body So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further And can't fare worse!...

* * * * *

Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, Left foot and right foot, go a double step, Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, Both in their order?...

* * * * *

Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, And then add soul and heighten them threefold?"

II

Whereas all questions concerning Fra Filippo's artistic education remain largely a matter of conjecture and deduction, there is no lack of documentary material for a fairly accurate reconstruction of his life. Vasari remains, of course, the basis for any such attempt; but the archives of Florence and Prato have yielded a rich harvest of contemporary records, on the strength of which it is possible to clear up the contradictions and to correct the numerous errors that have crept into Vasari's life of _The Florentine Painter, Fra Filippo Lippi_.

Filippo was the son of Tommaso di Lippo, a butcher in a poor quarter of Florence, and of Mona Antonia di Bindo Sernigi. None of the various dates given in his wonted loose fashion by Vasari for the birth of the artist, accords with ascertainable facts, which point to the years 1406 to 1409, with probability favouring the earlier date. According to a document in the Archivio di Stato in Florence, confirmed by an entry in the account books of the convent of the Carmine, in which "Philippus Tomasi" is stated to have received his garments at the expense of that establishment, Filippo took the habit in the year 1421. There are no reasons to doubt Milanesi's well-reasoned suggestion that the artist was fifteen years of age when he took the vow--which would place the year of his birth about 1406.

"By the death of his father," continues Vasari, "he was left a friendless orphan at the age of two years, his mother having also died shortly after his birth. The child was for some time under the care of a certain Mona Lapaccia, his aunt, the sister of his father, who brought him up with great difficulty till he had attained his eighth year, when, being no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she placed him in the convent of the Carmelites." Since, however, an income-tax return, discovered by Milanesi, proves Mona Antonia, Filippo's mother, to have been still alive in 1427, and apparently in tolerably comfortable circumstances, this account of Filippo's sad childhood must be relegated to the sphere of fiction. Destined for the Church, he was presumably at the age of eight placed with the Carmelites to be prepared for his vocation. That he showed no inclination for book-learning and "manifested the utmost dullness and incapacity in letters," and that he preferred to daub his and the other boys' books with caricatures, need not be doubted, for his extant letters prove him to have been strikingly illiterate even for his days. Nor is Filippo the only artist who evinced an early inclination for the artistic profession in this manner.

And now Vasari loses himself in a tangle of incorrect and contradictory assertions. First, that the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine had "then" just been finished by Masaccio, and so delighted the young Carmelite that he "frequented it daily for his recreation," and so completely absorbed Masaccio's style "that many affirmed the spirit of Masaccio to have entered the body of Fra Filippo." At this period he painted several frescoes in the Carmine, and one in _terra verde_ in the cloister of that church. As a result of the high praise bestowed upon him for these early efforts, "he formed his resolution at the age of seventeen, and boldly threw off the clerical habit."

To begin with, the account books of the Carmine show that Fra Filippo remained at that monastic establishment at least until 1431, when he was about twenty-five years of age. That even then he did not throw off his clerical habit is clearly proved by the fact that he subsequently held the posts of abbot of S. Quirico a Legnaja, and of chaplain to the nuns of Sta. Margherita at Prato. Of the early frescoes recorded by Vasari and other writers, every vestige has disappeared, so that it is impossible to trace through them the supposed direct or indirect teaching of Masaccio. But there is something wrong about the dates. Masaccio wrought his Carmine frescoes between 1425 and 1427, so that his could not possibly have been the earliest influence upon the young monk's impressionable mind. Nor is there even a hint of Masaccio's monumental style in the earliest known works by Filippo: the two "Nativities" in the Florence Academy, and the "Annunciation" in the Pinakothek in Munich. That Fra Filippo, like all the masters of the Florentine Renaissance, was, in his later life, powerfully influenced by the genius of Masaccio, is only natural, and cannot be doubted by anybody who has seen his frescoes at Prato. For his earliest inspiration, however, one has to look for other sources; and modern criticism is pretty well agreed upon this point, that the pictures painted by the friar in his youthful years are based on the trecento tradition, and that the only late Giottesque who could have been his master is the Camaldolese, Lorenzo Monaco.

Lorenzo Monaco's teaching, at any rate, is suggested by Fra Filippo's first "Nativity" at the Florence Academy, which suggests the methods of the school of miniaturists in which Lorenzo had been trained, although these tendencies are clearly tempered by the influence of Masolino, Masaccio's precursor in the decoration of the Brancacci Chapel, and also of Fra Angelico. Indeed, this "Nativity" was actually for a long time attributed to Masolino. Throughout his life, Fra Filippo, in his steady advance from Giottism to such triumphantly vital achievement as his Prato frescoes, evinced the greatest eagerness to absorb what was newest and best. No doubt he watched Masolino at work at the Carmine, and later on Masaccio, whose influence clearly appears in Fra Filippo's mature work. But he also learnt from the example of all the other masters who wrought in and near Florence in the early part of the fifteenth century. Sir Frederick Cook's _tondo_ clearly shows the influence of Gentile da Fabriano. Of Fra Angelico we are reminded by the profound devotional feeling and mystic intentness of his early works. From Pier dei Franceschi he acquired afterwards the feeling for atmospheric effects which was unknown to the Giottesques, to Fra Angelico, and even to Masaccio. Nor did he fail to study the reliefs of Donatello, of which we are forcibly reminded by the "Madonna and Child with the laughing Angel" at the Uffizi. And since Miss Mendelssohn has shown that the dancing Salome in the Prato fresco is practically copied from the figure of "Luna descending from her Chariot" in the relief on the Endymion sarcophagus, we have proof that Lippi was also a student of the antique.

The patronage which the powerful Medici family, and especially Cosimo de' Medici, bestowed upon Fra Filippo Lippi, probably dates back to the time when the friar was still working within the walls of the Carmine. The "Nativity" (No. 79) at the Florence Academy was painted in the early thirties of the fifteenth century for Cosimo's wife, who commissioned it for the Camaldoli hermitage. For Cosimo himself he painted the two lunettes now in the National Gallery: "The Annunciation" and "St. John the Baptist with six other Saints," which were originally placed over two doors in the Riccardi Palace. Other pictures by their protégé were sent by members of the Medici family as gifts to the King of Naples and other Italian princes. And there is no lack of documentary evidence that the friar frequently petitioned members of that powerful family for pecuniary or other assistance, for his disorderly habits of life brought him into many a scrape, and resulted in constant financial stress. Thus in a letter of August 13, 1439, to Piero de' Medici, he describes himself as "one of the poorest friars in Florence," whom God left to look after six unmarried, infirm, and useless nieces. The object of the letter was to beg his patron to be supplied with wine and corn on credit.

When Cosimo was banished from Florence in 1433, and took up his residence at Padua, he was accompanied by a small army of courtiers and artists. It is very probable that Fra Filippo was of their number. Vasari's brief reference to paintings executed by the master in Padua is supported by Filarete and the Anonimo Morelliano, and may therefore be relied upon, although every trace of these works has vanished. There is nothing in the extant records of the artist's movements to make his presence at Padua in 1433-4 appear impossible. On the other hand, Vasari's story of Filippo's capture by pirates on the coast of the Marches of Ancona, his long-extended captivity and final liberation by his master whose favour he had gained by the excellence of art, and his visit to Naples on the home journey, belongs to the realm of fable.

In or before 1437, Fra Filippo was certainly back in Florence, since the _Deliberazioni_ of the Company of Orsanmichele show that in that year he was commissioned to paint the great altarpiece of the "Madonna and Child, with Angels and two Abbots" for the Barbadori Chapel in Santo Spirito, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre. It is this picture to which Domenico Veneziano refers in a letter to Piero de' Medici, dated Perugia, April 1, 1438, asking to be entrusted with the commission for an altarpiece, since "Fra Filippo and Fra Giovanni have much work to do, and especially Fra Filippo has a panel for Santo Spirito which, should he work day and night, will not be done in five years, so great is the work." Yet in the following year we find him writing a begging letter to the same Piero de' Medici.