Page:The painters of Florence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (1915).djvu/189

bed, is touchingly represented. But instead of taking place in a church, the scene is set in a rocky landscape, and the form of Christ is seen throned on the clouds receiving the Virgin's soul into heaven. Fra Diamante, the Carmelite friar of Prato, who had become Fra Filippo's assistant, and had shared his good and evil fortunes, worked under him here and executed the chief part of the remaining frescoes in the choir, after his master's death. For, long before the work was ended, Fra Lippo died, on the 9th October, 1469, leaving his orphan son in the charge of his faithful follower, who finished the frescoes and gave the boy a share in the 200 ducats which he received from the Municipality of Spoleto. The master himself was buried in the Duomo, where he had his last works, under a tomb of red and white marble. Many years afterwards, Lorenzo de' Medici begged the citizens of Spoleto to allow Fra Filippo's bones to be removed to Florence, and when this request was refused, sent the painter's son, Filippino, to erect a monument above his resting-place, and employed Angelo Poliziano to celebrate his memory in a Latin epitaph. In his old convent of the Carmine the friar was not forgotten, and the following record of his death may be found in a book which gives the names of the Carmelites who died in the year 1469:—

"On the 9th of October, F. Philippus Thomæ Lippi de Lippis, of Florence, the famous painter, died at Spoleto, where he was painting the choir of the Cathedral, and was buried with great honour in a marble tomb in front of the central door of this church. So rare was his grace in painting, that scarcely any other artist came near him in our