LIPPO DI BENIVIENI - b. ~1266 Firenze, d. ~1320 Firenze

Italian painter. The earliest documentary reference to the artist records the apprenticeship of a certain Nerio di Binduccio to him in 1296, which suggests that Lippo was an established figure by this date. He is further recorded as a member of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in Florence from 1312 to 1320. No documented works by him are known. The documented dates make Lippo a contemporary of Giotto, but the works attributed to him show a much stronger response to Sienese rather than Florentine painting, particularly that of the followers of Duccio.

The large dossal of a Lamentation (Museo Civico, Pistoia), with its intense characterization and emotional impact, is probably the artist’s finest work and shows him to have been one of the most original Florentine painters of his time. Other attributions to Lippo are still debated but should surely include the portable altar in Memphis (Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis).

Virgin and Child

This altarpiece showing the Virgin between a pope and a bishop has the appearance of a triptych; however, the form of the backing - which is made from long, horizontally placed boards rather than from assembled single panels, following a method commonly used in the 13th century - confirms the antiquity of the piece and places the artistic culture of the painter somewhere between Cimabue and Giotto.

No attributes allow us to identify the saints alongside the Virgin and Child. Both men are dressed in ecclesiastical robes and were therefore members of the secular Church. The different style of the tiaras they wear identify the saint on the right as a pope and the one on the left, who is also holding a book and a crozier, as a bishop.

Although the gold background to the painting is seriously damaged, it is still possible to make out the decoration of the halos, created with freehand engraving. This too is a technique that was replaced in the early 14th century by more complex decorations, incised using mechanical punches.