Filippo Lippi

Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi (c. 1406-1469) was one of the most influential Florentine masters of the Quattrocento and the teacher who shaped Sandro Botticelli. Born into poverty in Florence, young Filippo became an orphan at age two. An aunt raised him briefly before placing him in the Carmelite monastery at Santa Maria del Carmine. There, he witnessed Masaccio painting the Brancacci Chapel frescoes (c. 1423-27), some of the most influential paintings of the Renaissance. These works became Lippi's first important contact with art. Despite taking religious vows, he proved a reluctant friar with a talent for getting into trouble.

Lippi's paintings caught the attention of the Medici family by the 1430s, and they became his primary patrons. Cosimo de' Medici even intervened when Lippi was imprisoned and tortured for alleged fraud. His most monumental works are the frescoes in the choir of Prato Cathedral, depicting the stories of Saint Stephen and Saint John the Baptist. His personal life caused scandal: despite being a friar, he had a love affair with a nun named Lucrezia Buti, who bore him a son (the painter Filippino Lippi) and a daughter. The Pope eventually released them from their vows, allowing them to marry. His Barbadori Altarpiece (begun 1437, now at the Louvre) is sometimes credited as the earliest example of the sacra conversazione format. Lippi died in 1469 while working on frescoes in Spoleto Cathedral. Lorenzo de' Medici commissioned his tomb there. Major works are held at the Uffizi Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery in London.