Lippi, Fra Filippo 447Their miniatures in the BOOKS OFHOURScontain scenes
representing the months and included images of CASTLESin
brilliant detail. Their style, heavily influenced by GOTHIC
sculpture, was nonetheless original and open to a realistic
and monumental representation of nature with very deli-
cate coloring. All the brothers apparently had died by 1416.
See alsoART AND ARCHITECTURE, WESTERNEUROPEAN;
ILLUMINATION.
Further reading: Jean Longnon and Raymond
Cazelles, TheTrès riches heures of Jean, Duke of Berry,
trans. Victoria Benedict (New York: G. Braziller, 1969);
Millard Meiss, TheBelles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry:
The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art(New York:
G. Braziller, 1974); French Primitives of the XVth Century:
The Limbourg Brothers, Jean Fouquet, Enguerrand Quarton,
Nicolas Froment, the Master of Moulins, and Two Anony-
mous Painters(Paris: Éditions du Chêne, 1950); Ray-
mond Cazelles, Illuminations of Heaven and Earth: The
Glories of theTrès Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, trans.
Theodore Swift Faunce and I. Mark Paris (New York: H.
N. Abrams, 1988).
Lindisfarne Gospels The Lindisfarne Gospels is a beau-
tiful manuscript written in an insular hand between 698
and 721 by Eadfrith (d. 721), bishop of Lindisfarne, in
the island monastery called Holy Isle, off the coast of
Northumbria. Its images and iconography are similar to
those of the Book of Durrowand the Codex Amaitinus.
Influenced by many sources, it included arcaded canon
tables and naturalistic portraits of the evangelists. It also
had very detailed carpet-pages or ornamental pages of
abstract and intricate spirals and interlacing with glosses
in Anglo-Saxon from the 10th century. It is now in the
British library (Cotton Nero D. IV).
See alsoILLUMINATION;KELLS,BOOK OF.
Further reading: J. J. G. Alexander, Insular
Manuscripts, Sixth to the Ninth Century (London: H.
Miller, 1978); Janet Backhouse, The Lindisfarne Gospels
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981); Janet Back-
house, The Lindisfarne Gospels: A Masterpiece of Book
Painting(London: British Library, 1995).lineage SeeFAMILY AND KINSHIP.Lippi, Fra Filippo(ca. 1406–1469)Florentine painter,
Carmelite friar
Fra Lippi, born at FLORENCEabout 1406, assimilated the
formal and technical innovations of his Renaissance Flo-
rentine predecessors and expressed them in a variety of
styles. He was probably a pupil of MASSACCIO. His stylistic
independence was paralleled by his libertine lifestyle. As
was Fra ANGELICO, Lippi was a MENDICANTfriar. He was
left as an orphan at the convent. In 1421, he became a
member of the CARMELITEorder and was in the Florentine
chapter until 1431. He left the convent in Florence in
1432 and moved on to Padua. Then in 1434 he returned
to Florence and opened a shop, living as a secular monk.
In 1456 he was appointed chaplain of a convent at Prato.
There he fell in love and abducted or eloped with a nun
who had posed for him. Their son was the painter Filip-
pino Lippi (1457–1504). In 1461, Cosimo de’ MEDICI
(1389–1464) helped Filippo obtain a dispensation from
his vows and his marriage to the nun was legalized.PAINTING
Lippi’s early work showed a personal stylistic element
derived from those of MASACCIO, Masolino (ca. 1383–ca.
1447), and GENTILE DA FABRIANO. His different later
work had a strong affinity with the more GOTHICstyle of
Fra Angelico. Its fervent religiosity showed a versatility
that at times reinterpreted sacred scenes. In his later years
he was under Flemish influence, in linking an interior
space with its surrounding world. He did a Coronation of
the Virginfor the church of Sant’Ambrogio between 1441
and 1445, and an Adoration of the Childfor the chapel of
the Florentine palace of Cosimo de’ Medici from 1460.
There are also important frescos in Prato. Ill from 1466,
Lippi died at Spoleto in 1469 before finishing decorating
the apse of its cathedral with the Story of the Virgin.His
influence was felt in the second half of the 15th centurySaint Mark the Evangelist from the Lindisfarne Gospels, Ms.
Cotton Nero D. IV. (ca. 698), British Library, London (Art
Resource)