Part 4
Like the companion panel, _Gabriel, the Announcing Angel_, the background is gold. The dimensions of each are 14½ × 10 inches. Both pictures were long in the Collection of the Duke of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace; and afterwards were in the Collection of Mr. John Edward Taylor and in that of Mr. Carl W. Hamilton. In an unpublished letter regarding these works Mr. Berenson writes:
“They are among the sweetest, purest, and most candid of Fra Angelico’s paintings. I could not easily point to others which better justify the surname of ‘The Angelic’ given to this artist, who was so great that he was child-like. These panels date from about 1425, that is to say from the best year of Fra Angelico’s maturity. They show his best self, emancipated from the cramping traditions he was heir to, but not yet showing sign of spiritual fatigue leading finally to his painting a little by rote. In coloring they are exquisite; and for pictures five centuries old, they are almost miraculously well preserved.”
Vasari’s words show how deeply Fra Angelico was appreciated by men who lived closer to his time than we:
“This truly angelic father spent his whole life in the service of God and his fellow-creatures. He was a man of simple habits and most saintly in all his ways. He kept himself from all worldliness and was so good a friend to the poor that I think his soul must be already in Heaven. He worked continually at his art, but would never paint anything but sacred subjects. He might have been a wealthy man, but he did not care for money and used to say that true riches consist in being content with little. He might have enjoyed high dignities both in his convent and in the world, but he cared nothing for these things, saying that he who would practice painting has need of quiet and should be free from worldly cares; and that he who would do the work of Christ must live continually with Him. He was never known to be impatient with the Brothers,--a thing to me almost incredible! When people asked him for a picture he always replied that, with the Prior’s approval, he would try and satisfy their wishes. He never corrected or retouched his works, but left them as he first painted them, saying that such was the will of God. He never took his pencil up without a prayer and could not paint a _Crucifixion_ without the tears running down his cheeks. And the saints that he painted are more like saints in face and expression than those of any other master. And since it seemed that saints and angels of beauty so divine could only be painted by the hand of an angel, he was always called Fra Angelico.”
Fra Angelico was born in 1387 in a little hamlet called Vicchio, in the province of Mugello in Tuscany, about twenty miles from Florence. His surname is unknown--if indeed he had one--for his father, who lived in a cottage belonging to the lord of the Castle of Vicchio, was simply known as Pietro of Mugello. Guido was the name his father gave him but he changed this to Fra Giovanni, when he became a monk of the Dominican Order at Fiesole in 1406. It is supposed that he had been thoroughly trained as a painter, because he immediately began to paint frescoes for the monks; and it is also supposed that “Starnina” was his master. Owing to religious troubles, the Dominican monks were driven from Fiesole to Foligno and thence to Cortona, where the earliest extant works--movable altar-pieces--of Fra Angelico are preserved. In 1418 the Dominicans returned to Fiesole, where Fra Angelico, or rather Fra Giovanni, lived for the next few years and where he painted many of his most famous altar-pieces.
In 1434 Cosimo de’ Medici was recalled from banishment and he immediately had the Convent of San Marco rebuilt for the Dominican monks of Fiesole. When the new building was ready in 1436 he commissioned Fra Angelico to decorate the walls. In a cell which Cosimo de’ Medici had reserved for his own personal retreat from worldly cares, he had Fra Angelico paint a large _Adoration of the Magi_, for he desired to have “this example of Eastern kings laying down their crowns at the manger of Bethlehem always before his eyes as a reminder for his own guidance as a ruler.”
While Fra Angelico was busy on a series of small panels depicting the _Life of Christ_ for a _credenza_ in which the altar-plate was kept and which had been ordered by Piero de’ Medici (Cosimo’s son), Pope Eugenius IV called him to Rome, to paint a chapel in St. Peter’s. Three of the remaining panels of the _credenza_ were painted by Alesso Baldovinetti.
After completing the chapel in St. Peter’s, Fra Angelico was invited to paint in the Cathedral at Orvieto; and, on finishing the work there, he returned to Rome to spend three years decorating the Pope’s Oratory in the Vatican. In 1450 he was back in Florence, and he began the new year of 1451 as Prior of his old monastery at Fiesole. Again he went to Rome and died there in the House of his Order at Santa Maria sopra Minerva on March 18, 1455. He was buried in the monastery church by the high altar and not far from the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena. Pope Nicholas V wrote for him a Latin epitaph, the last line of which reads: “That city which is the flower of Etruria bore me, Giovanni.”
The paintings of Fra Angelico are noted for their fine composition, beautiful coloring, and variety and expression in the heads and faces of his persons and Angels. Fra Angelico’s Angels are particularly beautiful; and it is reasonable to infer that it is because of these Angels so many of his works have been preserved. No other painter of the Fifteenth Century has been treated with so much reverence as Fra Angelico. The consequence is that there are somewhere between two and three hundred of his compositions in existence. The greater number are still in Florence. Every large gallery, however, possesses one or more. Among the most famous ones that all the world knows and loves are _The Virgin and Child surrounded by Twelve Angels_, ten of whom are playing musical instruments (now in the Uffizi); _Christ with the Banner of Resurrection_ (in the National Gallery, London); and _The Coronation of the Virgin_ (in the Louvre), of which Gautier said the figures represented “visible souls rather than bodies--thoughts of human form enveloped in chaste draperies of white, rose, and blue, sown with stars and embroidered, clothed as might be the happy spirits who rejoice in the eternal light of Paradise.” Fra Angelico’s greatest frescoes are in the Convent of San Marco at Florence and in the Vatican at Rome.
Fra Angelico is classed variously as a “Primitive,” a “Gothic,” an “International,” and an “Early Renaissance” painter. The fact is he stands between the old and the new. His position in Art is very definitively described by Berenson:
“Yet simple though he was as a person, simple and one-sided as was his message, as a product he was singularly complex. He was the typical painter of the transition from Mediæval to Renaissance. The sources of his feeling are in the Middle Ages, but he _enjoys_ his feelings in a way which is almost modern; and almost modern also are his means of expression. Moreover, he was not only the first Italian to paint a landscape that can be identified (a view of Lake Trasimene from Cortona) but the first to communicate a sense of the pleasantness of Nature.”
As a tribute to his spiritual qualities let us listen to Mrs. Cartwright’s eulogy:
“All the mystic thought of the Mediæval world, the passionate love of God and man that beat in the heart of St. Francis, the yearnings of Dante’s soul after a higher and more perfect order, the poetic dreams of the monks who sang of the Celestial Country are embodied in the art of Angelico. The depth and sincerity of his own religious feeling lent wings to his imagination and the exquisite purity of his soul breathes in every line of his painting: it is his own sweet and gentle fancy that brings down these enchanted visions of Paradise.”
ST. COSIMAS AND ST. DAMIANUS.
_Fra Angelico (1387–1455)._
_Collection of Mr. Albert Keller._
About the year 1436 Cosimo commissioned Fra Angelico to paint the altar-piece for the Church of San Marco in Florence (see page 37). Underneath the group of the _Virgin and Child_ Fra Angelico painted for the predella nine beautiful panels representing the legendary history of _Cosimas and Damianus_, the patron saints of the Medici family. The panel, shown here, tempera on wood (14¼ × 18 inches), which comes from the collection of Mr. F. Böhler of Munich, is one of these nine pictures. The companion pictures of this S. Marco altar-piece are now in Dublin, Florence, Munich, and Paris.
This composition, divided into two episodes in one building, represents the traditional benevolence of the two Saints, Cosimas and Damianus. In the scene at the left, enacted within a room, which we view through a large, rounded, door-like opening, St. Cosimas and St. Damianus, with golden _nimbi_, are administering to a sick man sitting up in a bed which is elevated on a daïs. The two Saints, in the blue robe, red mantle, and red and white _biretta_ of the physicians, are standing on either side of the bed, offering nutriment to the invalid and giving their benediction. Kneeling behind the bed-head are a man and a woman, the latter wearing a red mantle and white hood, the former a turban-like cap. Over the bed stretches a deep, square, brown canopy with an olive-green curtain all around it. On the daïs rests a tray with an ewer, and beside it on the floor, we see a round stool with three legs, and a foot-stool.
The scene on the right, takes place in a cobbled court-yard of a white house, and here we see one of the Saints, in his physician’s gown, colored as in the first scene, who has just handed to an aged woman a loaf of bread, receiving no payment but raising his right hand in benediction. The woman, dressed in a mauve gown and white veil, is cleverly and gracefully posed within a small doorway, and behind her is a room with an open door still farther back, through which flowering shrubs are seen; and in this inner room a ray of light glints on the floor. High on the top of the wall a large terra-cotta flower-vase is silhouetted against a blue sky, and at the left of this there is a narrow slit window.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Albert Keller_
ST. COSIMAS AND ST. DAMIANUS
--_Fra Angelico_]
“Cosimas and Damianus were two brothers, Arabians by birth, but they dwelt in Ægæ, a city of Cilicia. Their father having died while they were yet children, their pious mother, Theodora, brought them up with all diligence, and in the practice of every Christian virtue. Their charity was so great, that they not only lived in the greatest abstinence, distributing their goods to the infirm and poor, but they studied medicine and surgery, so that they might be able to prescribe for the sick, and relieve the sufferings of the wounded and infirm; and the blessing of God being on all their endeavors, they became the most learned and the most perfect physicians that the world had ever seen. They ministered to all who applied to them, whether rich or poor. Even to suffering animals they did not deny their aid, and they constantly refused all payment or recompense, exercising their art only for charity and for the love of God; and thus they spent their days. At length those wicked Emperors, Diocletian and Maximian, came to the throne, in whose time so many saints perished. Among them were the physicians, Cosimas and Damianus, who, professing themselves Christians, were seized by Lycias, the proconsul of Arabia and cast into prison. At first they were thrown into the sea, but an Angel saved them; and then they were cast into fire, but the fire refused to consume them; and then they were bound on two crosses and stoned, but of the stones flung at them, none reached them, but fell on those who threw them and many were killed. So the proconsul, believing that they were enchanters, commanded that they should be beheaded, which was done.” This Oriental legend, which is of great antiquity, was transplanted into Western Europe in the first ages of Christianity. The Emperor Justinian, having recovered, as he supposed, from a dangerous illness, by the intercession of these saints, erected a superb church in their honor. Among the Greeks Cosimas and Damianus succeeded to the worship and attributes of Æsculapius; and from their disinterested refusal of all pay or reward they are distinguished by the honorable title of _Anargyres_, which signifies moneyless, or _without fees_.
MADONNA DELLA STELLA.
_Fra Filippo Lippi (1406?–1469)._
_Collection of Mr. Carl W. Hamilton._
This picture came directly from the Monastery of the Carmine Brethren in Florence to the present owner. It is painted in tempera on a panel 32⅝ × 25¼ inches. The Madonna, with head half turned towards the right, is standing at half length and holding the Holy Child very lovingly in her arms. She wears a dark-green, hooded mantle, with wide gold border and fastened across the breast with two narrow straps of gold embroidery. Under this is seen a bright crimson robe falling in tight, formal plaits from the neck. The sleeve of the right arm shows a gold embroidered band at the wrist. On the right shoulder of the mantle is embroidered a golden star (reminiscent of the Sienese decoration), from which the picture takes the name of _Madonna della Stella_. The head-dress, which permits a little of the blonde hair to be seen, is of a soft, white muslin, which is delicately folded and carried around the base of the long, slender neck. Above the head-dress is a very large golden _nimbus_ with lines radiating from the centre. The Holy Child is firmly supported by both arms of the Virgin and rests His left foot on her right arm, while His right leg hangs down behind her wrist. The Holy Child is swathed in a drapery of purple hue and His head is also encircled by a golden halo. With His left hand He grasps the folds of His mother’s head-dress, where it falls upon her neck, and with His right He supports His chin in a very mature and contemplative way. The background is composed of a loosely hanging gold brocade of decorative pattern. The extravagant use of gold produces a warm and lustrous gleam and glow and the deep colors stand out from the background with great richness and beauty.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Carl W. Hamilton_
MADONNA DELLA STELLA
--_Fra Filippo Lippi_]
It is generally accepted that Lucrezia Buti, the young nun whom Fra Filippo Lippi stole from the Convent of Santa Margherita, served as the model for this Madonna and that the Infant Jesus is none other than Fra Filippino Lippi, the future painter. Comparison with the _tondo_ in the Pitti Palace, representing the _Madonna with Saints_, in which Lucrezia Buti is known to appear, shows the same oval face, slender neck, expressive eyes, dilated nostrils, full lips, slightly dimpled chin, and wistful glance.
Fra Filippo Lippi is one of the strangest personalities in the history of art. He became a Carmelite monk from circumstance rather than choice; and nobody was ever less fitted to belong to Holy Orders than this gay, adventure-loving Florentine. “Lippi was very fond of good company,” Vasari notes, “and led a free and joyous life.” Fra Filippo Lippi presents a strange contrast to the saintly Fra Angelico, who was his contemporary and fellow-worker. Filippo Lippi, son of a butcher, was born in or about 1406, in a street behind the Carmine Church in Florence; and, being left an orphan, was cared for by an aunt, who took him at the age of eight to the Convent of Sta. Maria del Carmine and gave him to the Friars to rear. The Friars soon discovered the boy’s extraordinary talent for drawing, and, fortunately, encouraged it, sending him to study under Lorenzo Monaco.
At this time Masaccio was at work in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church, and young Lippi used to watch him with profound interest and delight. In 1421 Filippo Lippi became a Carmelite monk; but he was permitted to continue his painting and he executed many frescoes for church and cloister. In ten years’ time he left the monastery to give his whole life to his art. However, he always signed his pictures “_Frater Philippus_.” Though not a copyist, by any means, Fra Filippo Lippi shows in his works how much he admired and how much he learned from Masaccio, Masolino, Domenico Veneziano, and Fra Angelico.
Adventures of many kinds filled his life; for instance, there is a story that he was captured by Moorish pirates one day while sailing for pleasure, and taken to Barbary as a slave and that because he drew his master’s portrait so cleverly, he was given his freedom a year or so later. This--if it happened at all--happened in 1431–1434. About the last-named date Fra Filippo Lippi was employed by Cosimo de’ Medici, who took a great fancy to the lively Friar and was most indulgent to his pranks and misdemeanors, excusing everything he did because of his genius and his attractive personality. Fra Filippo Lippi decorated many churches, palaces, and villas for his patron. Among the first works that Lippi painted for the Medici Palace (now the Riccardi) were the _Annunciation_ and _St. John the Baptist with Six Other Saints_ (both in the National Gallery, London). Lippi’s most important picture in Florence is his _Coronation of the Virgin_.
“Lippi’s character, however, only affects his credit as a painter by accounting for the kind of success he achieved. He had, as was to be expected, no ears for the message which Donatello was at this time teaching, and consequently his pictures on religious subjects have an exceedingly mundane character. Nevertheless, the sweet seriousness of his Madonnas falls in no way short of those of Fra Angelico, and the faces of his children are full of a quaint, mischievous character which is delightful, while in both drawing and coloring he shows the immense advance which had now taken place in Painting. And it is here that Lippi’s true claim to fame lies. Masaccio, the only man who up to that time had found out the true methods of the art of Painting, had died too soon to be able to make known his discovery, except to the few who could visit Florence and the Brancacci Chapel. It was left for Lippi, the rough boy whom he had taught, to show the world Masaccio’s discovery. And Lippi did so. Vasari says: ‘Taught as he had been by Masaccio, he was a faithful follower of Masaccio’s style;’ and he adds that he followed the latter’s methods so faithfully, that it appeared that the spirit of Masaccio had entered Lippi’s body. Thus what Masaccio had done for the art of Painting is chiefly to be seen by a comparison of Lippi’s pictures with those of Masaccio’s immediate predecessors, the Giotteschi. Lippi’s principal picture in Florence is his _Coronation of the Virgin_ painted for Cosimo and now in the Accademia delle Belle Arti; but his best work is considered to be his frescoes in the Cathedral at Prato painted between 1456 and 1465.
“It was not an easy thing to get any work out of Lippi. There is an amusing story of how, when he was painting this picture for Cosimo, the latter being at last in despair (owing to Lippi’s lazy ways) of ever seeing the picture finished, had him locked up in the room in the Medici Palace where it was being painted, declaring that he should not be let out until the work was done. Whereupon Lippi tied his bedclothes into a rope, let himself down from the window into the street and disappeared into the slums of Florence, not to be found again for many days.”[6]
Lippi’s drunkenness and his unscrupulous behavior brought him many times before the magistrates and on one occasion he was flogged for embezzlement. However, the Medici family always came to the rescue and helped him out.
In 1452 he was made Chaplain of San Niccolò de Fieri, Florence, and in 1456 Chaplain of Santa Margherita, Prato, and here again it was Cosimo de’ Medici, who obtained these posts for him. At Prato he painted some of his finest pictures. Requested by the Abbess of Sta. Margherita to paint a picture for the Chapel, the gay Friar, who was now over fifty, fell in love with a young nun of twenty-one, Lucrezia Buti, who had taken the vows two years previously. At the Festival of the Holy Girdle in 1456, Fra Filippo Lippi managed to carry off the pretty nun and take her to his house in the vicinity. The next year Filippino Lippi was born, who appears in the arms of Lucrezia Buti in the _Madonna della Stella_ represented here. Two years later Lucrezia Buti re-entered the Convent; but she soon tired of it and returned to Fra Filippo Lippi. A charge of abduction was then brought against the painter, who again appealed to Cosimo de’ Medici; and, through the latter’s influence, Pope Pius II absolved monk and nun from their religious vows and declared them lawfully married.
“I laughed heartily when I heard of Fra Filippo’s escapade,” Giovanni de’ Medici, Cosimo’s younger son, remarked; and that remark shows exactly how the Medici felt towards Fra Filippo Lippi. They adored him as an artist and they did not take him seriously as a man.
About 1465 Fra Filippo Lippi left Prato and went to Spoleto, taking Lucrezia and his two children (there was now a daughter); and there, still under the patronage of the Medici, the energetic painter-monk produced a splendid series of frescoes depicting one of his favorite subjects, the _Coronation of the Virgin_. Fra Filippo was working on the Duomo at Spoleto when he died in 1469. Fra Filippo Lippi gains additional fame for having been the first master of Botticelli. His contemporaries--without dissent--regarded Fra Filippo Lippi as the “rarest master of the time.” Fra Filippo Lippi was one of the first to use the _tondo_ form.