Filippo Lippi

Filippo Lippi was the rebel friar who became one of the Renaissance's most vital painters - a man who abandoned his Carmelite vows to pursue art and Lucrezia Buti with equal passion. Paul G. Konody's 1911 biography captures this contradictions: Lippi as both priest and painter, teacher of Botticelli yet prone to wild behavior. The book traces his artistic development from early Gothic work through the innovative Renaissance style that would influence generations, set against the glittering patronage of the Medici. Konody examines Lippi's notable works while exploring the personal dramas that shaped him - his difficult youth, his brushes with debt and the law, his scandalous relationship with Buti. This is a window into how a gifted but restless man transformed the art of his age, and why his paintings still breathe with startling humanity six centuries later.