Fra Filippo Lippi

c. 1406 - 1469 • Italian • Painter • Renaissance

"You reply ... you cannot give me another farthing. This has been very painful to me ... I am clearly one of thy poorest friars in Florence-that's me. God has left me with six nieces to find husbands for, all sickly and useless . ... Tears come to my eyes when I think that if I die ..." - Letter to Piero de' Medici, Aug. 13, 1439

After he was orphaned, Filippo's relatives put him in a Carmelite monastery, a most unsuitable placement. His misdemeanors there ranged from forgery to the abduction of a nun, with whom he had a child, Filippino (see above), who also became a painter. It is speculated that Fra Filippo met MASACCIO at the church associated with his monastery, Santa Maria de! Carmine in Florence, where the Brancacci Chapel that Masaccio decorated is located (and where Filippino would eventually complete the frescoes in 1484). Fra Filippo's early work, now largely destroyed, may have resembled the bold, natural approach Masaccio favored, but Filippo's later style was LINEAR and more decorative. This linear definition of form was adopted by Fra Filippo's best-known student, BOTTICELLI.