The Stories of St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist (Italian : Storie di santo Stefano e san Giovanni Battista) is a fresco cycle by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi and his assistants, executed between 1452 and 1465. It is located in the Great Chapel (Cappella Maggiore) of the Cathedral of Prato, Italy.
Geminiano Inghirami, the preposto of the Cathedral of Prato, then capitular church, was at the time an influential man in culture and politics, with important friendships in Rome and Florence. [1] Himself a humanist, he often commissioned artworks to Renaissance artists, and sometimes called them to Prato, such as with Donatello and Michelozzo for the cathedral's external pulpit. The city decided to decorate the Great Chapel in the church in 1440, allocating a budget of 1200 gold florins for the work. [2] Inghirami asked archbishop Antonino Pierozzi to call Fra Angelico. However, the aging friar, perhaps due to the extent of the work or because he was already committed to other works, declined the offer. Next was Fra Filippo Lippi, who accepted and established himself in Prato in 1452. Collaborators he brought with him included Fra Diamante, who had been his companion in novitiate. [3]
The completion of the work took fourteen years, with lates, pauses and scandals, such as that involving the painter (also a professed Carmelite friar and ordained priest) [4] and a nun from the monastery of Santa Margherita, where Lippi had been chaplain from 1456 to the issue of a tamburazione (secret accusation) in May 1461. [4] [5] [6] Her name was Lucrezia Buti: [3] after acting as his model for some paintings, she gave birth to two children, Filippino Lippi in 1457 and Alexandra in 1465. The two lived together in a house near the city's Duomo. Once the scandal broke out, Lippi and Buti fled from the city. According to his biographer Giorgio Vasari, Pope Eugene IV released, only after the intercession of Cosimo de' Medici, Lippi from his vows and "had offered in his lifetime to give him a dispensation, that he might make Lucrezia (...) his legitimate wife, but [that] Fra Filippo desiring to retain the power of living after his own fashion, and of indulging his love of pleasure as might seem good to him, did not care to accept that offer." [7] It was however Pope Pius II that granted them the dispensation allowing them to marry. [5] [8]
The frescoes were finished in 1465 under the supervision of the new preposto Carlo di Cosimo de' Medici. [9] The following year Lippi moved to Spoleto, with his son Filippino and his apprentice Sandro Botticelli, [10] where he died four years later.
In October 1993 the paintings were vandalized with a black pen by Pietro Cannata who had already performed vandalistic acts on other works of art among which the David of Michelangelo in 1991. [11] They were restored starting from 2001, the chapel being reopened to the public in 2007. [12]
The cycle occupies the two lateral walls and the end wall of the Cappella Maggiore, covering a surface of 400 m2 (4,300 sq ft) in total. [2] At the left (looking from the nave towards the high altar) are the Stories of St. Stephen , the titular saint of the church and patron saint of Prato; at the right are the Stories of St. John the Baptist , the protector of nearby Florence. The end wall, at the side of the stained glass window (also designed by Lippi) are two saints in painted niches and, below, bent around the corners, are the martyrdoms of St. Stephen (left) and St. John the Baptist (right). At the top, in the pendentives of the cross-vaults, are the four Evangelists.
The two saints' stories are to be read from the top to the bottom, and mirror each other on the opposite walls. The two lunette depict scenes of the birth of the two saints, while in the central scenes is their abandon of the secular life to take the vows; finally, the lower scenes show their martyrdom (central wall) and their death or funeral (side walls).
The Stories of St. Stephen include:
The Stories of St. John the Baptist include:
Lippi's frescoes were largely completed a secco (i.e. after the plaster used for fresco painting had dried), and therefore numerous details are now mere halos (for example, in the Feast of Herod the vases on the right and the table companions at the left).
Fra Angelico, OP was a Dominican friar and Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent". He earned his reputation primarily for the series of frescoes he made for his own friary, San Marco, in Florence, then worked in Rome and other cities. All his known work is of religious subjects.
Fra Bartolomeo or Bartolommeo, also known as Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Bartolommeo di San Marco, Paolo di Jacopo del Fattorino, and his original nickname Baccio della Porta, was an Italian Renaissance painter of religious subjects. He spent all his career in Florence until his mid-forties, when he travelled to work in various cities, as far south as Rome. He trained with Cosimo Rosselli and in the 1490s fell under the influence of Savonarola, which led him to become a Dominican friar in 1500, renouncing painting for several years. Typically his paintings are of static groups of figures in subjects such as the Virgin and Child with Saints.
Filippino Lippi was an Italian painter working in Florence, Italy during the later years of the Early Renaissance and first few years of the High Renaissance.
Domenico Veneziano was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance, active mostly in Perugia and Tuscany.
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Domenico di Michelino (1417–1491) was an Italian Renaissance painter who was born and died in Florence. His real name was Domenico di Francesco. The patronymic "di Michelino" was adopted in honour of his teacher, the cassone painter Michelino di Benedetto, by whom no works have been identified. Giorgio Vasari reports that Domenico was also a pupil of Fra Angelico, whose influence is reflected in many of Domenico's paintings along with that of Filippo Lippi and Pesellino.
Filippo Lippi, also known as Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento and a Carmelite priest. He was an early Renaissance master of a painting workshop, who taught many painters. Sandro Botticelli and Francesco di Pesello were among his most distinguished pupils. His son, Filippino Lippi, also studied under him and assisted in some late works.
Fra Diamante was an Italian Renaissance painter.
San Marco is a religious complex in Florence, Italy. It comprises a church and a convent. The convent, which is now the Museo Nazionale di San Marco, has three claims to fame. During the 15th century it was home to two famous Dominicans, the painter Fra Angelico and the preacher Girolamo Savonarola. Furthermore, the church houses the tomb of Pico Della Mirandola, a Renaissance philosopher and the so called "Father of Humanism."
Prato Cathedral, or Cathedral of Saint Stephen, is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Prato, Tuscany, Central Italy, from 1954 the seat of the Bishop of Prato, having been previously, from 1653, a cathedral in the Diocese of Pistoia and Prato. It is dedicated to Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
The decade of the 1460s in art involved some significant events.
The decade of the 1450s in art involved many significant events, especially in sculpture.
The Funeral of St. Jerome is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi of Saint Jerome's funeral. It is housed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo next to the Cathedral of Prato, central Italy.
Madonna with Child is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Filippo Lippi. The date in which it was executed is unknown, but most art historians agree that it was painted during the last part of Lippi's career, between 1450 and 1465. It is one of the few works by Lippi which was not executed with the help of his workshop and was an influential model for later depictions of the Madonna and Child, including those by Sandro Botticelli. The painting is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, and is therefore commonly called “The Uffizi Madonna” among art historians.
The Palazzo Pretorio is a historical building in Prato, Tuscany, Italy. It was the old city hall, standing in front of the current Palazzo Comunale. It now accommodates the Civic Museum of Prato, which was reopened in September 2013.
Lucrezia Buti was an Italian nun who later became the lover of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi and the mother of his children. She is believed to be the model for several Madonnas portrayed in Lippi's paintings.
Scenes from the Life of the Virgin Mary is a cycle of frescos by Filippo Lippi in Spoleto Cathedral.
The Mystical Nativity or Adoration in the Forest was painted by Fra Filippo Lippi around 1459 as the altarpiece for the Magi Chapel in the new Palazzo Medici in Florence. It is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, with a copy by another artist now hanging in the chapel. It is a highly individual depiction of the familiar scene of the Nativity of Jesus in art, placed in a mountainous forest setting, with debris from woodcutting all around, rather than the familiar stable in Bethlehem, and with the usual figures and animals around the mother and child replaced by others.
The Last Judgment in the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence, Italy is a fresco painting which was begun by the Italian Renaissance master Giorgio Vasari in 1572 and completed after his death by Federico Zuccari, in 1579. Initially commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, it is located on the ceiling of the dome of the cathedral. It was the subject of an extensive restoration undertaken between 1989 and 1994.
Papa Eugenio, il quale in vita sua volse dispensarlo, che potesse avere per donna legitima la Lucrezia di Francesco Buti, la quale per potere far di sé e de lo appetito suo come paresse, non si volse curare d'avere
