Filippino Lippi, Michelangelo and the Concept of Chapel Decoration

Home , Filippino Lippi

276 _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien B2 voor dit chapter en dubbelklik nul hierna en zet 2 auteursnamen neer op die plek met and): 0 _full_articletitle_deel (kopregel rechts, vul hierna in): Lippi, Michelangelo and the concept of chapel decoration _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0

Lippi, Michelangelo and the concept of chapel decoration 277

Chapter 11 Never Being Boring: Filippino Lippi, Michelangelo and the Concept of Chapel Decoration

Charles Robertson

There were surprisingly few circumstances that linked Filippino Lippi and Mi- chelangelo Buonarroti directly, and indeed they were very dissimilar as artists. Their approaches, notably evident in drawing, were markedly different: Filip- pino characteristically had a scintillating elegance and lightness of touch that was largely alien to Michelangelo, who had been formed in quite another am- bience, as a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio. Yet it is generally understood that the extraordinary Carafa Chapel at Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome and Strozzi Chapel at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, are immediate precedents for Michelangelo’s solutions in the Sistine Chapel.1 Although from different generations, they were peers among the elite of Flo- rentine artists in the years around 1500. Both were commissioned to contribute to the decoration of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio.2 Filippino was among the artists to advise on the placement of the giant statue of David in January 1504.3 He argued that Michelangelo’s opinion about the location should be respected, suggesting positive relations between the two artists. These connections are still quite remote, but there is also the odd and evidently garbled story in the Anonimo Magliabechiano, notes on Florentine artists compiled in the 1530s and 40s.4 According to this, Michelangelo was interdicted for spilling some- one’s blood, described as ‘one of the Lippis’, and then hiding the body in a vault where he carried out anatomical investigations on the corpses he found there.

1 P. Zambrano and J. K. Nelson, Filippino Lippi, Milan 2004, 529. C. Brothers, Michelangelo, Drawing and the Invention of Architecture, New Haven/London 2008, 49-50, 96 2 M. Hirst, Michelangelo, The Achievement of Fame 1475-1534, New Haven/London 2011, 57 3 G. Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI, Florence 1839-40, II, 455. 4 Michele Agnolo quando era interdetto per sparsione di sangue di uno de Lippi [interdetto], entro la in una volta, doue erano moltj depositj di mortj, et quiuj fece notomia di assaj corpo et taglió et sparó, aqualj a caso prese uno de Corsinj, che ne fu gran rumore, fatto dalla casata de dettj Corsinj. Et funne fatta richiama a Piero Soderinj, allora gonfaloniere di iustitia, del che ei rise, ueggiendo hauerlo fatto per aquistare nell’ arte sua. C. Frey, (ed.), Il Codice Magliabechiano cl. XVII.17: contenente notizie sopra l’arte degli antichi e quella de’ fiorentini da Cimabue a Michelangelo Buonarroti, scritte da anonimo fiorentino, Berlin 1892, 115.

← Filippino Lippi, Exorcism of the Temple of Mars by St Philip, detail of fig. 11.6