difficulty till he had attained his eighth year, when, being no longer able to support the burden of his maintenance, she placed him in the convent of the Carmelites." Since, however, an income-tax return, discovered by Milanesi, proves Mona Antonia, Filippo's mother, to have been still alive in 1427, and apparently in tolerably comfortable circumstances, this account of Filippo's sad childhood must be relegated to the sphere of fiction. Destined for the Church, he was presumably at the age of eight placed with the Carmelites to be prepared for his vocation. That he showed no inclination for book-learning and "manifested the utmost dullness and incapacity in letters," and that he preferred to daub his and the other boys' books with caricatures, need not be doubted, for his extant letters prove him to have been strikingly illiterate even for his days. Nor is Filippo the only artist who evinced an early inclination for the artistic profession in this manner.

And now Vasari loses himself in a tangle of incorrect and contradictory assertions. First, that the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine had "then" just been finished by Masaccio, and so delighted the young Carmelite that he "frequented it daily for his recreation," and so completely absorbed Masaccio's style "that many affirmed the spirit of Masaccio to have entered the body of Fra Filippo." At this period he painted several frescoes in the Carmine, and one in terra verde in the cloister of that church. As a result of the high praise bestowed upon him for these early efforts, "he formed his resolution at the age of seventeen, and boldly threw off the clerical habit."

To begin with, the account books of the Carmine show that Fra Filippo remained at that monastic establishment at least until 1431, when he was about twenty-five years of age. That even then he did not throw off his clerical habit is clearly proved by the fact that he subsequently held the posts of abbot of S. Quirico a Legnaja, and of chaplain to the nuns of Sta. Margherita at Prato. Of the early frescoes recorded by Vasari and other writers, every vestige has disappeared, so that it is impossible to trace through them the supposed direct or indirect teaching of Masaccio. But there is something wrong about the dates. Masaccio wrought his Carmine frescoes between 1425 and 1427, so that his could not possibly have been the earliest influence upon the young monk's impressionable mind. Nor is there even a hint of Masaccio's monumental style in the earliest known works by Filippo: the two "Nativities" in the Florence Academy, and the "Annunciation" in the Pinakothek in Munich. That Fra Filippo, like all the masters of the Florentine Renaissance, was, in his later life, powerfully influenced by the genius of Masaccio, is only natural, and cannot be doubted by anybody who has seen his frescoes at Prato. For his earliest inspiration, however, one has to look for other sources; and modern criticism is pretty well agreed upon this point, that the pictures painted by the friar in his youthful years are based on the trecento tradition, and that the only late Giottesque who could have been his master is the Camaldolese, Lorenzo Monaco.

Lorenzo Monaco's teaching, at any rate, is suggested by Fra Filippo's first "Nativity" at the Florence Academy, which suggests the methods of the school of miniaturists in which Lorenzo had been trained, although these tendencies are clearly tempered by the influence of Masolino, Masaccio's precursor in the decoration of the Brancacci Chapel, and also of Fra Angelico. Indeed, this "Nativity" was actually for a long time attributed to Masolino. Throughout his life, Fra Filippo, in his steady advance from Giottism to such triumphantly vital achievement as his Prato frescoes, evinced the greatest eagerness to absorb what was newest and best. No doubt he watched Masolino at work at the Carmine, and later on Masaccio, whose influence clearly appears in Fra Filippo's mature work. But he also learnt from the example of all the other masters who wrought in and near Florence in the early part of the fifteenth century. Sir Frederick Cook's tondo clearly shows the influence of Gentile da Fabriano. Of Fra Angelico we are reminded by the profound devotional feeling and mystic intentness of his early works. From Pier dei Franceschi he acquired afterwards the feeling for atmospheric effects which was unknown to the Giottesques, to Fra Angelico, and even to Masaccio. Nor did he fail to study the reliefs of Donatello, of which we are forcibly reminded by the "Madonna and Child with the laughing Angel" at the Uffizi. And since Miss Mendelssohn has shown that the dancing Salome in the Prato fresco is practically copied from the figure of "Luna descending from her Chariot" in the relief on the Endymion sarcophagus, we have proof that Lippi was also a student of the antique.

The patronage which the powerful Medici family, and especially Cosimo de' Medici, bestowed upon Fra Filippo Lippi, probably dates back to the time when the friar was still working within the walls of the Carmine. The "Nativity" (No. 79) at the Florence Academy was painted in the early thirties of the fifteenth century for Cosimo's wife, who commissioned it for the Camaldoli hermitage. For Cosimo himself he painted the two lunettes now in the National Gallery: "The Annunciation" and "St. John the Baptist with six other Saints," which were originally placed over two doors in the Riccardi Palace. Other pictures by their protégé were sent by members of the Medici family as gifts to the King of Naples and other Italian princes. And there is no lack of documentary evidence that the friar frequently petitioned members of that powerful family for pecuniary or other assistance, for his disorderly habits of life brought him into many a scrape, and resulted in constant financial stress. Thus in a letter of August 13, 1439, to Piero de' Medici, he describes himself as "one of the poorest friars in Florence," whom God left to look after six unmarried, infirm, and useless nieces. The object of the letter was to beg his patron to be supplied with wine and corn on credit.

When Cosimo was banished from Florence in 1433, and took up his residence at Padua, he was accompanied by a small army of courtiers and artists. It is very probable that Fra Filippo was of their number. Vasari's brief reference to paintings executed by the master in Padua is supported by Filarete and the Anonimo Morelliano, and may therefore be relied upon, although every trace of these works has vanished. There is nothing in the extant