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See also |
List of Italian painters |
List of famous Italians |
Early Renaissance painting |
Poor Man's Bible |
Fray Angelico Chavez – Franciscan friar, historian and artist who was named after Fra Angelico due to his interest in painting |
Western painting |
Footnotes |
References |
Further reading |
Nathaniel Silver (ed.), Fra Angelico: Heaven of Earth, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston 2018 |
Gerardo de Simone, Il Beato Angelico a Roma. Rinascita delle arti e Umanesimo cristiano nell'Urbe di Niccolò V e Leon Battista Alberti, Fondazione Carlo Marchi, Studi, vol. 34, Olschki, Firenze 2017 |
Cyril Gerbron, Fra Angelico. Liturgie et mémoire (= Études Renaissantes, 18), Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2016. ISBN 978-2-503-56769-3; |
Gerardo de Simone, "La bottega di un frate pittore: il Beato Angelico tra Fiesole, Firenze e Roma", in Revista Diálogos Mediterrânicos, n. 8, Curitiba (Brasil) 2015, ISSN 2237-6585, pp. 48–85 – http://www.dialogosmediterranicos.com.br/index.php/RevistaDM |
Gerardo de Simone, "Fra Angelico: perspectives de recherche, passées et futures", in Perspective, la revue de l'INHA. Actualités de la recherche en histoire de l'art, 1/2013, pp. 25–42 |
Gerardo de Simone, "Velut alter Iottus. Il Beato Angelico e i suoi 'profeti trecenteschi'", in 1492. Rivista della Fondazione Piero della Francesca, 2, 2009 (2010), pp. 41–66 |
Gerardo de Simone, "L'Angelico di Pisa. Ricerche e ipotesi intorno al Redentore benedicente del Museo Nazionale di San Matteo", in Polittico, Edizioni Plus – Pisa University Press, 5, Pisa 2008, pp. 5–35 |
Gerardo de Simone, "L'ultimo Angelico. Le "Meditationes" del cardinal Torquemada e il ciclo perduto nel chiostro di S. Maria sopra Minerva", in Ricerche di Storia dell'Arte, Carocci Editore, Roma 2002, pp. 41–87 |
Creighton Gilbert, How Fra Angelico and Signorelli Saw the End of the World, Penn State Press, 2002 ISBN 0-271-02140-3 |
John T. Spike, Angelico, New York 1997. |
Georges Didi-Huberman, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1995. ISBN 0-226-14813-0 Discussion of how Fra Angelico challenged Renaissance naturalism and developed a technique to portray "unfigurable" theological ideas. |
J. B. Supino, Fra Angelico, Alinari Brothers, Florence, undated, from Project Gutenberg |
External links |
Fra Angelico – Painter of the Early Renaissance[usurped] |
Fra Angelico in the "History of Art" Archived 2012-02-25 at the Wayback Machine |
Ross Finocchio, Robert Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Fra Angelico Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (October 26, 2005 – January 29, 2006). |
"Soul Eyes" Archived 2008-12-03 at the Wayback Machine Review of the Fra Angelico show at the Met, by Arthur C. Danto in The Nation, (January 19, 2006). |
Fra Angelico, Catherine Mary Phillimore, (Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1892) |
Frescoes and paintings gallery Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine |
Italian Paintings: Florentine School, a collection catalog containing information about the artist and his works (see pages: 77–82). |
Fra Carnevale OP (c. 1420–25 – 1484) was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento, active mainly in Urbino. Widely regarded as one of the most enigmatic artists, there are only nine works that can be definitively attributed to Carnevale known of today. Most of these have even been contested as authentic to Carnevale at various points in history. |
He is cited by a number of names including Bartolomeo di Giovanni Corradini, Bartolomeo Coradini, and Fra' Carnevale. |
Historical background |
He was born in Urbino, and entered the order of Dominicans in 1449 under the name of Fra’ Carnevale or Carnovale. He was a pupil of the Ferrarese painter Antonio Alberti. Farquhar claims he was the teacher of Giovanni Santi. Between 1445-1446, he worked in the studio of Filippo Lippi in Florence. Then, sometime before 1450, he returned to Urbino and joined San Dominico. Local scholars show evidence of his activities between 1456 and 1488. During this time, he apprenticed with Fra Jacopo Veneto. He was commissioned for the altarpiece at del Corpus Domini, but ended his work on this in 1456. In 1467, local record shows his payment for the Santa Maria della Bella altarpiece. From records, we also know that he was curator of San Cassiano del Cavallino and joined the Confraternità di Santa Croce. |
For centuries, the only reference to Carnevale existed in Giorgio Vasari's "The Lives of the Artists." Here, Vasari referred to Carnevale as Carnovale da Urbino, the painter of the altarpiece at Santa Maria della Bella in Urbino as well as the influence behind Bramante's architecture of St. Peter's in Rome. Baldinucci's Dictionary of Masters of Disegno cited Fra Carnevale as a student who was well-known to local scholars with a reputation for excellence in the art of perspective. These scholars also attributed the altarpiece to him. Luigi Lanzi’s 1787 Storia Pittorica dela Italia discusses Fra Carnevale, noting that “Bramante and Raphael studied his work, as nothing better could then be found in Urbino.” Although he was quite harsh in judgement of the perspective used in the altarpiece, he was equally complimentary of the architecture. He also was an architect for the portals of San Domenico in Urbino, providing a foundation for the use of perspective and emphasis on architecture in his paintings. |
Carnevale surrounded himself with prominent members of local society including lawyer Guido Bonclerici, vicar general to the Bishop Giovanni Battista Mellini, Ottaviano Ubaldini who held power in the court of Urbino, and Matteo di Cataneis who was close to the Lords of Urbino. His paintings reflect this experience within the elitist culture of his society, even more so than would be expected from the member of a prominent religious order. Within his order, he was a spiritual ascetic given the name “carnevale,” which means “lent.” |
Influences |
Carnevale's earliest works showed the influence of Dominico Veneziano. However, based on a payment taken by Fra Carnevale on behalf of Antonio Alberti, the assumption is that he apprenticed with this painter in the 1430s. He therefore arrives in Florence in 1445 "as a pupil not an apprentice which implies his early training was in the Marshes, possibly under the monk Jacopo Veneto; however another document connects him with Antonio Alberti." Lippi was recognized as “a crucible for artistic experiments by ‘the 1425 generation.’” |
Returning to Urbino, at this time he began an architectural project and brought artists from Florence such as Maso di Bartolomeo and Luca della Robbia. |
His facial types and technique for articulating drapery folds are recognized from Piero della Francesca. Although his paintings are widely seen as perspectively inaccurate, he uses the motif of architectural backgrounds to his advantage, basing the precision of his style on the influence of his work as an architect. Lomazzo recorded Carnevale as an architect, and the stonework for the cathedral in Urbino is attributed to Carnavale. |
Paintings |
The painting, "The Ideal City," very often referred to in books on the theory and history of urban design and housed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, is one of three similarly styled paintings and arguably attributed to Fra Carnevale. However, the painting is attributed by others to Francesco di Giorgio Martini, partly due to the latter's greater significance at the Urbino court and because the painting refers to architectural themes he refers to in his architectural treatise derived from Leon Battista Alberti's slightly earlier published treatise. This painting shows Carnevale’s strong sense and knowledge of architecture. The linear perspective and the three dimensional details of the building's facades are impeccable, all very much in the style of Carnevale’s work. |
Only one of Fra Carnevale's works appears in its original location: in Urbino, Carnevale painted the Federico da Montelfeltro alcove in the Palazzo Ducale. The eight other works attributed to Carnevale include the Santa Maria della Bella altarpiece (also known as the Barberini panels or The Birth of the Virgin), an oblong panel in Palazzo Staccoli, The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, The Annunciation, The Coronation of the Virgin with Lippi, The Crucifixion, Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, and A Portrait of Man. Several of these works are often contested in regards to Carnevale's hand-- The Coronation of the Virgin with Lippi, The Crucifixion, Saint John the Baptist in the Desert, and A Portrait of Man all have conflicting opinions regarding their origin. Nonetheless, the 2004 exhibit of Carnevale's works in Milan definitively attributed these nine to the artist friar of Urbino. |
The Birth of the Virgin and The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, now attributed to Carnevale, are two panels and that are now housed in part in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and part in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The panels were part of an altarpiece commissioned on behalf of the Santa Maria della Bella in Urbino in 1467. The altarpiece became known as the Barberini panels when they were taken to Rome by Antonio Barberini in 1632. Both pieces are contemporary in conceptualization while showing humanist-antiquarian interests. The architectural aspects are once again strong and in the forefront and there is great detailing in the Roman style reliefs of the buildings. These reliefs reflect the architecture of the ducal palace at Urbino. The play of light on the draping of the clothing and the shadow and light of the buildings is another signature Carnevale trait. The Birth of the Virgin is non-conventional in its composition as the infant is not in the forefront and the focal point of the painting, while in The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple Carnevale chooses to place three figures at the high-altar instead of the traditional Jewish priest. The story of the Virgin's life is shown in the reliefs on the buildings while showing symbolism to a pagan past. |
In 1930, the Barberini panels appeared in the "Exhibition of Italian Art" at the Royal Academy of London. They were well-received and acclaimed, due in part to their uncertain attribution. The panels were sent together to a 2004 exhibit of Carnevale's works in Milan. At that time, there were only nine pieces definitively attributed to Carnevale, though there is speculation that other works not yet attributed to Carnevale's and that other works exist from Carnevale in private collections. The Milan exhibit included works hypothesized to be from Carnevale in order to prompt theoretical discussion regarding the true attribution. |
The Annunciation is currently at National Gallery in Washington, DC. This piece shows steep perspective of the buildings as in his other works, bright colors in the buildings and clothing with deep folds and crevices in the cloth. Here again, Carnevale is non-traditional by setting the scene outdoors on a street. |
A Portrait of a Man, one of the controversial works, looks almost like a Roman relief from one of the buildings in Carnevale’s other paintings but with color added. The deep, chiseled details of the hair are reminiscent of the painting style used for the heavy undulating fabric in the Barberini panels. The detail of the muscles and veins in the neck is very naturalistic. This painting does, however, lack the usual vibrancy of color that is known in Carnevale’s work. |
Controversy surrounded the four pieces, Saint John the Baptist, The Crucifixion, Saint Peter, and Saint Francis, regarding whether or not they were from the same altarpiece. The examination of the carpentry of the panels undertaken for the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum demonstrates that, despite discrepancies in the dimensions of the painted surfaces, the four works are, indeed, from a single polyptych. The Crucifixion had previously been attributed to Giovanni Boccati, Piero della Francesca, and Domenico Veneziano, but since the piece referred more to Lombard art styles versus the Florentine culture of Lippi or Veneziano’s works, it was in the end attributed to Carnevale. When viewing all four of these panels, we see the dense model-like treatment of the drapery with its deep shadows, yet there is a sensitivity in the manner by which the highlights are painted. Even the rocks in the background of The Crucifixion appear to be made of cloth instead of solid earth. |
Drawings |
One drawing now attributed to Fra Carnevale appears as the middle drawing from the bottom part of a page from Vasari’s Libro de’ Disegni. This drawing was originally attributed to Piero della Francesca, whose works overlapped the latter years of Carnevale’s productions. This, however, appears to be an anachronism of sorts, as the center drawing appears instead to be from Florence during Fra Carnevale’s teenage years. The drawing depicts a youth worker in rumpled clothing whose proud stature betrays his misshapen appearance. Stylistically, this youth shows a pouting expression that is a trademark Carnevale caricature as well as the standardized form of Carnevale’s characterization of the physique and the details of the character’s dress. Known more for his ability to use shadow and light convincingly, Fra Carnevale failed to produce equally convincing physiology in his human subjects. They instead appear sinuous and the affect is flat rather than alive. |
Libro de’ Disegni contains another drawing likely completed by Fra Carnevale. This depiction of eleven male nudes was originally attributed Domenico Veneziano, but instead was likely completed between 1445 and 1450 when Fra Carnevale apprenticed with Filippo Lippi. |
Another set of drawings has a more controversial attribution to Fra Carnevale, coming out of Filippo Lippi's Coronation of the Virgin. Within this body of art, there are two reproductions that may possibly have been completed by Fra Carnevale; a woman standing and a monk kneeling. Due to the fact that these are reproductions of other works, the attribution to Fra Carnevale is less certain. |
Notes |
References |
Biography in Italian. |
Farquhar, Maria (1855). Ralph Nicholson Wornum (ed.). Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters. London: Woodfall & Kinder. p. 28. |
External links |
Media related to Fra Carnevale at Wikimedia Commons |
Filippo Lippi (c. 1406 – 8 October 1469), also known as Lippo Lippi, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Quattrocento (fifteenth century) and a Carmelite priest. He was an early Renaissance master of a painting workshop, who taught many painters. Sandro Botticelli and Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) were among his most distinguished pupils. His son, Filippino Lippi, also studied under him and assisted in some late works. |
Biography |
Lippi was born in Florence in 1406 to Tommaso, a butcher, and his wife. He was orphaned when he was two years old and sent to live with his aunt, Mona Lapaccia. Because she was too poor to rear him, she placed him in the neighboring Carmelite convent when he was eight years old. There, he started his education. In 1420, he was admitted to the novitiate of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, known commonly as the Carmelites, at the priory of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, taking religious vows in the Order the following year, at the age of sixteen. He was ordained as a priest in approximately 1425 and remained in residence at the priory until 1432. Giorgio Vasari, the first art historian of the Renaissance, writes in his Lives of the Artists that Lippi was inspired to become a painter by watching Masaccio at work in the Carmine church. Lippi's early work, notably the Tarquinia Madonna (Galleria Nazionale, Rome) shows the influence of Masaccio. Vasari writes of Lippi: "Instead of studying, he spent all his time scrawling pictures on his own books and those of others." Due to Lippi's interest, the prior decided to give him the opportunity to learn painting. |
In 1432, Filippo Lippi quit the monastery, although he was not released from his vows. In a letter dated 1439 he describes himself as the poorest friar of Florence, charged with the maintenance of six marriageable nieces. |
According to Vasari, Lippi then went on to visit Ancona and Naples, where he was captured by Barbary pirates and kept as a slave. Reportedly, his skill in portrait-sketching helped to eventually release him. Louis Gillet, writing for the Catholic Encyclopedia, considers this account and other details reported about Lippi, as "assuredly nothing but a romance". |
With Lippi's return to Florence in 1432, his paintings had become popular, warranting the support of the Medici family, who commissioned the Annunciation and the Seven Saints. Cosimo de' Medici had to imprison him in order to compel him to work, and even then the painter escaped by a rope made of his sheets. His escapades threw him into financial difficulties from which he did not hesitate to extricate himself by forgery. His life included many similar tales of lawsuits, complaints, broken promises, and scandal. |
In 1441, Lippi painted the altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin for the nuns of Sant'Ambrogio. The painting shows the Virgin being crowned among angels and saints, including many Bernardine monks. One of these, placed to the right, is a half-length figure originally thought to be a self-portrait of Lippi, pointed out by the inscription is perfecit opus upon an angel's scroll. Later, it was believed instead to be a portrait of the benefactor who commissioned the painting. The painting was celebrated in Robert Browning's poem "Fra Lippo Lippi" (1855). |
In 1452, Lippi was appointed chaplain to the nuns at the Monastery of Santa Maria Maddalena in Florence. |
Fra Filippo is recorded as living in Prato (near Florence) in June 1456 to paint frescoes in the choir of the cathedral. In 1458, while engaged in this work, he set about creating a painting for the monastery chapel of Santa Margherita in that city, where he met Lucrezia Buti, a beautiful boarder or novice of the Order and the daughter of the Florentines Caterina Ciacchi and Francesco Buti. Lippi asked that she might be permitted to sit for the figure of the Madonna (or perhaps Saint Margaret). Lippi engaged in sexual relations with her and abducted her to his own house. She remained there despite efforts by the nuns to reclaim her. This relationship resulted in their son Filippino Lippi in 1457, who became a famous painter following his father, as well as a daughter, Alessandra, in 1465. Lucrezia is thought to be the model for many of Filippo Lippi's paintings of the Madonna, as well as for Salome in one of his monumental works. |
In 1457, he was appointed commendatory Rector (Rettore commendatario) of San Quirico in Legnaia, from which institutions he occasionally made considerable profits. Despite these profits, Lippi struggled to escape poverty throughout his life. |
The close of Lippi's life was spent at Spoleto, where he had been commissioned to paint scenes from the Life of the Virgin for the apse of the cathedral. His son, Filippino, served as workshop adjuvant in the construction. In the semidome of the apse is the Coronation of the Virgin, with angels, sibyls, and prophets. This series, which is not wholly equal to the one at Prato, was completed after Lippi's death by assistants under his fellow Carmelite, Fra Diamante. |
Lippi died in Spoleto, on or about 8 October 1469. The mode of his death is a matter of dispute. It has been said that the pope granted Lippi a dispensation to marry Lucrezia, but before the permission arrived Lippi had been poisoned by indignant relatives of Lucrezia or, in another version, by relatives of someone who had replaced her in the painter's affections. |
Works |
The frescoes in the choir of the cathedral of Prato, which depict the stories of Saint Stephen and Saint John the Baptist on the two main facing walls, are considered Fra Filippo's most important and monumental works, particularly the figure of Salome dancing, which has clear affinities with later works by Sandro Botticelli, his pupil, and Filippino Lippi, his son, as well as the scene showing the ceremonial mourning over Stephen's corpse. This latter is believed to contain a portrait of the painter, but there are various opinions as to which is the exact figure. The figure of the dancing Salome in the scene of the Feast of Herod is believed to be a portrait of Lucrezia. On the end wall of the choir are Saint John Gualbert and Saint Alberto, while the vault has monumental representations of the four evangelists. |
For Germiniano Inghirami of Prato he painted the Death of Saint Bernard. His principal altarpiece in this city is a Nativity in the refectory of San Domenico: the Christ child on the ground adored by the Virgin and Joseph, between Saints George and Dominic, in a rocky landscape, with the shepherds playing and six angels in the sky. A Vision of Saint Bernard is held in the National Gallery, London. |
In the Uffizi is a fine painting of the Virgin, also called "Lippina", adoring the infant Christ, who is held by two angels. The model for the Virgin is Lucrezia. A sometime lecturer at the gallery, the art historian Rocky Ruggiero identifies the painting as "one of the most beautiful paintings of the Italian Renaissance" and asserts that arguably, Lippi "is the first Italian painter with a true sensibility for feminine beauty". |
The painting of the Virgin and Child with an Angel also in the Uffizi is ascribed to Lippi, but that is disputed. |
Filippo Lippi died in 1469 while working on the frescoes of scenes from the Life of the Virgin (1467–1469) in the apse of Spoleto Cathedral. The frescoes show the Annunciation, the Funeral of the Virgin, the Adoration of the Christ Child, and the Coronation of the Virgin. A group of bystanders depicted at the funeral includes a self-portrait of Lippi and his helpers, Fra Diamante and Pier Matteo d'Amelia, together with his son Filippino. Lippi was buried on the right side of the transept, with a monument commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici. |
Francesco di Pesello (called Pesellino) and Sandro Botticelli were among his most distinguished pupils who participated in his workshop. |
Selected works |
Enthroned Madonna and Child (Madonna of Tarquinia) (1437) –Tempera on panel, 151 × 66 cm, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome |
Pietà (1437–1439) – Tempera on panel, 86 × 107 cm, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan |
Madonna and Child with Saints (1438) – Panel, 208 × 244 cm, Louvre, Paris |
Penitent Saint Jerome with a Young Monk (c. 1439) – Tempera on panel, 54 × 37 cm, Lindenau Museum, Altenburg |
The Annunciation with two Kneeling Donors (c. 1440) – Oil on panel, 155 × 144 cm, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome |
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