een chosen, not so much from
any devotional spirit on the part of the painter, as from force of
imitation of the prevailing Florentine fashion. This is especially
true in the case of Filippo Lippi, who does not bear the best of
reputations. Although a brother in the Carmelite monastery, his love
of worldly pleasures often led him astray, if we are to believe the
gossip of the old annalists. We may allow much for the exaggerations
of scandal, but still be forced to admit that his candid realism is
plain evidence of a closer study of nature than of theology.

Browning has given us a fine analysis of his character in the poem
bearing his name, "Fra Lippo Lippi." The artist monk, caught in the
streets of the city on his return from some midnight revel, explains
his constant quarrel with the rules of art laid down by ecclesiastical
authorities. They insist that his business is "to the souls of men,"
and that it is "quite from the mark of painting" to make "faces, arms,
legs, and bodies like the true." On his part, he claims that it will
not help the interpretation of soul, by painting body ill. An intense
lover of every beautiful line and color in God's world, he believes
that these things are given us to be thankful for, not to pass over or
despise. Obliged to devote himself to a class of subjects with which
he had little sympathy, he compromised with his critics by adopting
the traditional forms of composition, and treating them after the
manner of _genre_ painters, in types drawn from the ordinary life
about him. The kneeling Madre Pia he painted three times: two of the
pictures are in the Florence Academy, and the third and best is in the
Berlin Gallery.

[Illustration: FILIPPO LIPPI.--MADONNA IN ADORATION.]

In the Madonna of the Uffizi, he broke away somewhat from tradition,
and rendered quite a new version of the subject. The Virgin is seated
with folded hands, adoring her child, who is held up before her by two
boy angels. His type of childhood is by no means pretty, though
altogether natural. The Virgin cannot be called either intellectual or
spiritual, but "where," as a noted critic has asked, "can we find a
face more winsome and appealing?" Certainly she is a lovely woman, and

"If you get simple beauty and naught else,
That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed
Within yourself, when you return him thanks."

The idea of the seated Madre Pia, comparatively rare in Florentine
art, is