PLATE IV.—THE ANNUNCIATION
(In the National Gallery, London)
This charming lunette and its companion, "St. John the Baptist and Six Saints," were painted for the decoration of an apartment in the Riccardi Palace, by order of Cosimo de' Medici, whose crest—three feathers in a ring—is introduced in the stucco ornamentation of the balustrade. They were painted about 1438, towards the end of Fra Filippo's first Florentine period, and show far greater richness of colour and better management of light than his earlier known works at the Florence Academy. The perspective is still faulty, and the vase in the centre of the picture is terribly out of drawing. It has been suggested that this picture and the "Seven Saints" were the very panels on which Filippo Lippi was at work when he effected his romantic escape from Cosimo's palace, which is the subject of Browning's well-known poem.
There can be no doubt that the gay friar led the life of a true "Bohemian"—that he was fond of women and wine, and wasted his substance in the company of his boon companions. He spent his money as rapidly as he earned it, and was therefore in constant financial difficulties, which involved him in no end of litigation. His most prosperous years apparently began in 1442, when, probably through Cosimo's intervention, Pope Eugene IV. made him rector of the parish church of S. Quirico a Legnaja, of which post he was deprived by papal decree as a result of an action brought against him by his assistant, Giovanni da Rovezzano. Giovanni sued him for the amount of forty florins due to him for work done, and Fra Filippo did not shrink from producing a forged receipt. To this at least he confessed on the rack "when he saw his intestines protruding from his wounds." Whether much weight can be attached to a confession obtained by such means is another question, but there is nothing in the career of Fra Filippo to make such disgraceful conduct appear impossible.
An appeal to the Pope led to another investigation of the case. The judgment of the Curia was confirmed, the Pope referring on this occasion to Fra Filippo as a painter qui plurima et nefanda scelera perpetravit. Nevertheless, some years later, our artist is still mentioned as rettore e commendatario di San Quirico a Legnaja. From which it may be assumed that the judgment deprived him merely of his spiritual office, and left him in enjoyment of the revenue connected with the post.
The ups and downs of Filippo Lippi's career in the fifties of the fourteen-hundreds are more than a little confusing. Of commissions there was no lack. And certain emoluments must have come to him from his ecclesiastic appointments. His disgraceful conduct towards Giovanni da Rovezzano, and the notorious looseness of his morals—one need only recall the well-known anecdote of his escape through a window of the Medici Palace in search of amorous adventure—did not stand in the way of his being made chaplain to the nuns of S. Niccolò de' Fieri, in 1450,[2] and of Santa Margherita in Prato, in 1456. He bought a little house at Prato in 1452, and another in 1454. During this whole period he had so much work on hand that he was unable to fulfil his contracts, which led to further unpleasant litigations. Yet in 1454, as we learn from Neri di Lorenzo di Bicci's diaries, he found it advisable to deposit some gold-leaf with the said Neri, in order to save it from seizure by his creditors. On July 20, 1457, he writes to Giovanni de' Medici to ask for an advance payment for work in hand—the same work, presumably, over the execution of which he was so tardy that Francesco Cantamanti had to visit his studio daily to urge its completion on behalf of his patron. In his report to Giovanni de' Medici, dated August 31, 1457, Cantamanti states that on the preceding day Fra Filippo's studio was seized by his landlord for arrears of rent.
PLATE V.—THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN
(In the Accademia, Florence)
The crowning achievement of Filippo Lippi's second Florentine period, the great "Coronation of the Virgin," was commissioned by Francesco de Maringhi, chaplain to the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio, who died long before the completion of the picture, having provided in his will of July 28, 1441, for the manner in which settlement should be effected. Thus, in 1441, Filippo was already engaged upon this altarpiece, which he did not complete before 1447. On June 9 of that year he was paid the stipulated fee of 1200 lire. Although the picture has suffered considerably, it is even in its present condition one of the most entrancing creations of Florentine art. That the painter himself was proud of the result of his labours, may be gathered from the fact that he introduced his own portrait in a prominent position. In Borghini's Riposo, published in 1797, it is stated that the painter's name, "Frater Filippus," was then to be seen somewhere near the centre of the picture.