Brigettine Gradual (frontispiece)

Panels for private devotional use dominate Lippo d’Andrea’s output, only one manuscript illumination by him has to date been identified: the frontispiece to a Bridgettine gradual.

St Bridget (c. 1304-1373), a Swedish noblewoman, renounced her ties to the Swedish court for a life of pilgrimage and devotion after being widowed in 1344. She was a crusader for the foundation of a strictly cloistered order of nuns. The rule of the Order of the Holy Saviour, also known as the Bridgettines, was approved by Pope Urban V in 1370, and Saint Bridget was canonised by Boniface IX in 1391. The only Bridgettine house in Tuscany was established in 1394 at Santa Maria del Paradiso in the Pian di Ripoli. Lippo d’Andrea’s illumination was executed for the gradual commissioned by the convent of the Paradiso.

The large, full-page illumination is divided into two scenes by a red frame painted as fictive moldings receding into depth. In the upper scene the Annunciation takes place within a two-story Gothic palace extending the full width of the picture field. The lower scene is set in the nave of a church. The scene depicts St Bridget and a choir of Bridgettine nuns.