LIPPO DI DALMASIO

Lippo di Dalmasio (originally Filippo Scannabecchi), Italian painter, mainly active in Bologna. His father was the painter Dalmasio di Jacopo Scannabecchi (c. 1320-1373), his maternal uncle was the painter Simone dei Crocifissi. Lippo is fist securely documented as a painter in Pistoia in 1377. In 1383 he was paid for a polyptych showing the Virgin and Child with Sts Benedict, Andrew, John the Baptist and Paul (lost) for the chapel of St Benedict in Santa Maria dei Servi in Pistoia, and also in 1383 he was paid for 40 torches to surround a bier.

Lippo was still in Pistoia in 1384, but by 1387 had returned to Bologna and was living in the parish of San Domenico, with a workshop in the parish of San Michele del Mercato di Mezzo. In 1394 he signed and dated a small devotional triptych (wings now lost) with the Coronation of the Virgin (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna) and began a painting (now lost) for the altar of St Cecilia in San Giacomo, Bologna, which he did not complete until 1408. He painted numerous versions of the Madonna of Humility, which include a detached fresco dated 1397 in Santa Maria della Misericordia, and several on canvas, among them one in the National Gallery, London. Close in style to his fresco of 1397 is a signed triptych showing the Virgin and Child with Saints (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna). His last surviving work was a signed Virgin and Child enthroned dated 1409.

In Bologna Lippo undertook a number of administrative jobs. Among his prolific output around ten signed works survive and five are recorded as signed. He was particularly influenced by the paintings and punchwork of Bernardo Daddi, and also by the Lorenzetti brothers.