XVIII
FILIPPINO LIPPI
1457-1504
Filippino Lippi was the son of Fra Filippo and Lucrezia Buti, the nun of Prato, and adopted this name to distinguish him from his father. He was born at Prato, in 1457, and received his first training from Fra Filippo, after whose death, in 1469, he returned to Florence with Fra Diamante and was placed in Sandro Botticelli's workshop. Under the eye of this master, who, we are told by Vasari, took the keenest interest in promising students, the boy made rapid progress, and soon became an independent master. With none of Sandro's genius, and without any strong individuality of his own, Filippino was a clever and accomplished artist, whose pleasant and gentle nature made him a general favourite. His early works—a tondo of the Madonna and Child, with angels offering flowers, in the Corsini Gallery, an Annunciation at Naples, and a panel of four Saints in a meadow, at San Michele of Lucca—show a marked likeness to Fra Filippo's style, together with a grace and refinement peculiar to himself. His own qualities and his father's memory
