The life and inspiring works of the artist who gives your room his name: 11. Filippo Lippi***

Filippo Lippi. Madonna and Child with two Angels, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Public Domain via Wiki Commons.

There are many wonderful pictures in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a treasure trove of Italian art, particularly from the Renaissance. And none finer, to our minds, than the delightful Madonna and Child with Two Angels, (above) painted by Filippo Lippi in the 1460s. It succeeds in being calm and reverential, yet sensual, playful, mischievous even.

A human Madonna and mischievous angels

Compare this Virgin (left, below) with the idealised, solemn representations in the mediaeval paintings that precede it in the Uffizi. Mary is a flesh-and-blood young woman, beautiful and serene though perhaps saddened by the foreknowledge of her son’s death.

And what of the two Angels (right, below)?

Filippo Lippi. Madonna and Child with two Angels, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Details. Public Domain via Wiki Commons.

The angel in the foreground looks very playful. We’re sure he’s just been knocking on an old lady’s door and running away. Is this the most mischievous angel in the history of art? He’s certainly no cherub!

And look at the second angel, if you can find him! No earlier painter, and most contemporary ones, would dare hide most of an angel behind the arm of the Holy Child. Both these angels are real kids, the sort that could be found playing in the streets of 15^th century Florence.

Look, too, at how Lippi makes the frame of the window behind almost the frame of the painting (below), so that the portraits are set in a landscape, rather than on a plain background, a Florentine nod to the influence of Flemish art.

Filippo Lippi. Madonna and Child with two Angels, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Detail. Public Domain via Wiki Commons.

There is so much more to see in this wonderful painting. (What do you make of the embroidered cushion or the wispy lace head-covering?) And if it’s all reminding you of Botticelli’s style, don’t forget that he was Lippi’s pupil.

From tenderness to splendour: another side of Lippi

Here is another Filippo Lippi, with a completely different flavour: the massed ranks of the great and the good in The Coronation of the Virgin, originally in the church of San Ambrogio, Florence, now also in the Uffizi Gallery.

Filippo Lippi, Coronation of the Virgin, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Tucked away in the lower left-hand corner is a self-portrait of Filippo Lippi, who as well as a painter, was also a Dominican monk. Here’s a close-up (below):

Filippo Lippi, Coronation of the Virgin, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Detail. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

If every picture tells a story, the face in this self-portrait speaks volumes. For, not to put too fine a point on it, Filippo Lippi was not the ideal monk. He was notorious for his unstinting pursuit of pleasure. His vows of celibacy meant nothing and eventually, released from them, he married an ex-nun, Lucrezia Buti, who many believe was the model for the Virgin with the two angels.

We like this story about Lippi by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists:       

“He was taken into great favour by Cosimo de’ Medici, but being devoted to pleasure, he neglected his work for it. Cosimo therefore, when he was working for him in his house, caused him to be shut in, so that he could not go out and waste his time; but he, cutting up the sheets of the bed with a pair of scissors, made a rope and let himself down by the window.

“When after many days he returned to his work, Cosimo gave him his liberty, considering the peril he had run, and sought to keep him for the future by many favours, and so he served him more readily, saying that genius is a heavenly being, and not a beast of burden.”

I’m not sure how heavenly Filippo Lippi was, but his painting of the Madonna and two Angels certainly is, and it has made him immortal.

***  Who wants a number on the bedroom door when they could be staying in Botticelli, Bronzino or Brunelleschi? Or Donatello,  Gentileschi, Ghirlandaio or Ghiberti? Or in one of another half-dozen famous Italian artists, from Alberti to Fra Angelico, from Lippi to Vasari??

Some years ago, we decided to switch from numbers to names in each of our rooms. They celebrate famous Italian artists, mainly from the Renaissance and mainly men, because (a) the early Renaissance is our favourite artistic period and (b) because few women were painting professionally in those days, and even fewer have become famous.

At Lois’ insistence we included Artemesia Gentileschi on our list a few years ago, and in 2026 we have introduced Sofonisba Anguissola, despite her tongue-twisting name.