ration of the Magi (completed 1496; Uffizi, Florence),
which LEONARDO DA VINCI had begun in 1481 for the
monks of San Donato a Scopeto near Florence and had left
unfinished. During his last years in Rome he painted
many panels and was able to study antique remains. As a
result of this all his paintings included fragments of antiq-
uity, brought in entirely for their own sake.
Lippi, Filippo (c. 1406–1469) Italian painter
Lippi was an orphan and became a Carmelite monk in his
native Florence at the age of eight, taking orders in 1421.
His earliest works, the damaged fresco of the Relaxation of
the Carmelite Rule in the cloister of Sta. Maria del Carmine
(c. 1432), is heavily influenced by MASACCIO’s bold three-
dimensional style, suggesting that he was indeed the pupil
of Masaccio, who was painting the Brancacci chapel in the
same Florentine church during the 1420s.
Filippo Lippi’s first important work, the Tarquinia
Madonna (1437), shows a lessening of this influence and
an interest in DONATELLOand Flemish painting. In the Bar-
badori altarpiece (Louvre, Paris), also begun in 1437, with
its complicated composition and decorative features there
is almost none of Masaccio. In about 1438 he painted the
Annunciation in San Lorenzo, Florence, remarkable at the
time for its careful composition and use of perspective. In
1442 Filippo Lippi became the rector and abbot of the
parish of San Quirico at Legnaia near Florence. Among
other paintings during this period was the Bartolini tondo,
a Madonna and Child with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin
(1452; Palazzo Pitti, Florence), which shows his mastery
of spatial organization.
The frescoes in the cathedral at Prato, begun in 1452
and completed 12 years later, are generally considered his
finest achievement. They showed a revival of interest in
Gothic features, using a Gothic landscape and an increas-
ingly dramatic style which included several events in one
area of space. In 1456 while chaplain at the convent of Sta.
Margherita, where he painted a large altarpiece, he met the
nun, Lucrezia Buti, who became the mother of his son,
Filippino LIPPI; she is supposed to have been the model for
Salome in the Banquet of Herod fresco in Prato cathedral.
In his later years he painted several beautiful Nativities,
notably the Uffizi Madonna and Child, set in landscapes
filled with gold light, full of religious feeling, and more
poetic than his early works. His last work was at Spoleto
cathedral, where he went with his son in 1466 to paint
frescoes. This cycle of scenes from the life of the Virgin,
culminating in a dramatic Coronation of the Virgin, was un-
finished at his death and completed by pupils and assis-
tants. As well as influencing 15th-century artists such as
BOTTICELLI, who was his pupil, the style that Lippi devel-
oped served as an inspiration for the Pre-Raphaelites in
the 19th century.
Further reading: Megan Holmes, Fra Filippo Lippi:
The Carmelite Painter (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1999); Jeffrey Ruda, Filippo Lippi Studies: Natural-
ism, Style, and Iconography in Early Renaissance Art (New
York: Garland, 1982): ∼Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and Work,
with a Complete Catalogue (New York and London: Harry
N. Abrams, 1993).Lipsius, Justus (1547–1606) Netherlands scholar and
teacher
Born at Issche, Lipsius was educated at the Catholic uni-
versity of Louvain and then went to Italy as secretary to
Cardinal GRANVELLE. Returning via Vienna, he then taught
at the Lutheran university of Jena, where he became a
Lutheran. He married a Catholic and returned to lecture at
Louvain. In 1579 he accepted an invitation to the Calvin-
ist university of Leyden, where he was professor of Roman
history for 12 years. He then reverted to Catholicism and
spent the last 14 years of his life teaching at Louvain,
where he died. His major editions of TACITUS(1574; sec-
ond edition, 1600) and SENECA(1605), combine critical
insight with wide knowledge of Roman social and politi-
cal history. His much admired and translated De Constan-
tia (1584) advocates a Christianized form of the ancient
philosophy of Stoicism on which he was an acknowledged
expert. RUBENSwas an admirer of Lipsius and painted a
posthumous portrait of him with three disciples, one of
whom was Rubens himself, around a table overlooked by
a bust of Seneca (c. 1612; Palazzo Pitti, Florence).literacy The dictionary definition of literacy as the ability
to read and write has been interpreted in various ways
when dealing with early modern European societies. A
distinction was drawn in medieval Europe between the lit-
erate who knew Latin and the illiterate who did not. This
criterion became increasingly irrelevant for practical pur-
poses as reading and writing skills spread among the
lay nobility and the mercantile classes and individual ver-
nacular languages attained respectability as a literary
medium.
For social historians, the ability to sign one’s name on
a legal document is an often-used indicator of basic liter-
acy since it is the only one consistently available—though
of course it is not unproblematical, as the signatory could
have acquired the knack by mere copying, and there is no
guarantee that such a person would have been able to
read. However, where there is evidence of elementary
schools to which the children of merchants and artisans
could be sent it is clear that both reading and writing were
taught. These could be supplemented by the basic arith-
metical skills necessary for commerce and the carrying on
of a trade. Another useful indicator of literacy is owner-
ship of books attested in wills of the period. This too has
to be used with some caution, as possession of a book of
hours does not necessarily mean the practice of more
mundane literate skills. However, ownership of a vernac-
ular book of devotion or self-improvement strongly sug-22882 2 LLiippppii,, FFiilliippppoo