From Library Journal
This scholarly, well-documented book presents a complex view of Renaissance painter Fra Filippo Lippi, who straddled the social order as both a priest in the church and an artist working under Medici patronage. Holmes (art history, Florida State Univ., Florence) focuses on manifold aspects of 15th-century society in Florence. The importance of religious pageants, the frescoes of Massaccio on the walls of Lippi's church, and the ideas of Alberti, Brunelleschi, and Donatello and their significance in Lippi's imagery are all examined. Lippi's relationships to his contemporaries, especially the Dominican Fra Angelico, are also explored, opening a discussion of the differences in the Dominican and Carmelite orders. Though the book is exquisitely produced, with several hundred illustrations in color and black and white, the highly abstract and philosophical level of discourse addresses a scholarly audience, and the book will be of most interest to artists and to serious readers of Florentine social structure.-Ellen Bates, New York Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Minneapolis Star Tribune
Assess Lippi's lusty biography in the context of 15th-century Florentine religious and artistic life. Holmes establishes that Carmelite religious principles defined Lippi's work long after he abandoned his religious vows and fathered a son. . . . This is an especially gorgeous book with dazzling photos of Lippi's tender, fresh-faced Madonnas and details often difficult to see in the shadowy churches of Spoleto and Florence.


Book Description
This beautiful and compelling book shines new light on Fra Filippo Lippi`s life and career, from his first paintings as a friar to later works painted outside the monastery for the Medicis and other patrons. Focusing on the fascinating conjunction of Lippi`s work as a painter and his experiences as a Carmelite friar, Megan Holmes transforms our understanding of the artist and of art in fifteenth-century Florence.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This beautiful and compelling book shines new light on Fra Filippo Lippi's life and career, from his first paintings as a friar to later works painted outside the monastery for the Medicis and other patrons. Focusing on the fascinating conjunction of Lippi's work as a painter and his experiences as a Carmelite friar, Megan Holmes transforms our understanding of the artist and of art in fifteenth-century Florence.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal