Filippino Lippi

Filippino Lippi
Self-portrait. Detail from The Dispute with Simon Magus (1481–1482) Fresco. Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.
Born	Filippo Lippi c. April 15, 1459 Prato, Republic of Florence
Died	April 20, 1504 Florence, Republic of Florence
Nationality	Italian
Education	Filippo Lippi
Known for	Painting, Fresco
Notable work	Apparition of the Virgin to St Bernard Adoration of the Magi
Movement	Italian Renaissance

Filippino Lippi (April 1459 – April 1504) was an Italian painter working during the High Renaissance in Florence, Italy.

Born Filippo Lippi in Prato, Tuscany, the illegitimate son of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, Filippino first trained under his father. They moved to Spoleto, where Filippino served as workshop adjuvant in the construction of the Cathedral there. When his father died in 1469, he completed the frescos with Storie della Vergine (Histories of the Virgin) in the cathedral. Filippino Lippi completed his apprenticeship in the workshop of Botticelli, who had been a pupil of Filippino's father. In 1472, Botticelli also took him as his companion in the Compagnia di San Luca.

His first works greatly resemble those of Botticelli's, but with less sensitivity and subtlety. The very first ones (dating from 1475 onwards) were initially attributed to an anonymous "Amico di Sandro" ("Friend of Botticelli"). Eventually Lippi's style evolved into a more personal and effective one in the years 1480-1485. Works of the early period include: the Madonnas of Berlin, London and Washington, the Journeys of Tobia of the Galleria Sabauda, Turin, the Madonna of the Sea of Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, and the Histories of Ester.

Together with Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli, Lippi worked on the frescoed decoration of Lorenzo de' Medici's villa at Spedaletto. On December 31, 1482 he was commissioned to work on a wall of Sala dell'Udienza of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, a work never begun. Soon after, probably in 1483-84, he was called to complete Masaccio's decoration of Brancacci Chapel in the church of the Carmine, left unfinished by the artist's death in 1428. Here he realized the Stories of Saint Peter on the following frescoes: Quarrel with Simon Magus in face of Nero, Resurrection of Teophilus' Son, Saint Peter Jailed, Liberation and Saint Peter's Crucifixion.