Fra Lippo Lippi

The action begins in medias res, or in the middle of the things, sometime after “midnight” (Line 4) on the streets of Florence, Italy. Fra Lippo Lippi, a monk and painter, has been detained by a few guardsmen. Agitated, he exclaims “Zooks, what’s to blame!” (Line 3), as they grasp him by the neck. Fra Lippo Lippi identifies himself and irritably insists they needn’t handle him so roughly or put their torches in his face. He admits that he’s been in the area of the city that does employ “sportive ladies” (Line 6), i.e., sex workers. However, he notes, he is a member of the Convent of Carmine, which the guards could look up if they were so inclined. He tells them that they should probably work harder to find the real “rat[s]” (Line 9) in the area who prey on the “wee white [mice]” (Line 10) instead. All of this is intended to make the guards let him go.

To encourage this, he offers the fact that he’s residing with “Cosimo of the Medici” (Line 17), an important politician and benefactor of Florence. He indicates that the guards could be in big trouble for harassing him and begins to appeal to the head guard’s vanity, hoping aloud that these “knaves” (Line 21) won’t “discredit” (Line 22) him. They may have been searching for sinners—which he compares to netting fish called “pilchards” (Line 23)—but they have only landed an innocent monk, a fact that could prove embarrassing to them.

When the head guard apologizes, Fra Lippo Lippi assures him that he’s “not angry” (Line 27). He’ll pay off the other men with a “quarter-florin” (Line 30) and sends them to go drink. Insisting everything is settled, Fra Lippo Lippi still can’t help bitterly suggest that he wants to use one of the men as a model for the murderous slave in his future painting of the biblical figure of John the Baptist. He asks the head guard if he might have “a bit of chalk” (Line 37) because he’d be able to show him how easily he could render the likeness of the man. Fra Lippo Lippi admits he is a painter for the church, which explains why his actions contrast with his monk’s attire. He acts as if the head guard understands, and may even approve of, his questionable behavior: “What, brother Lippo’s doings, up and down / You know them […] / I saw the proper twinkle in your eye” (Lines 40-42). He then invites the head guard to “sit and set things straight now” (Line 44). In this way, Fra Lippo Lippi gets to confess his sin, ask for forgiveness, and make amends for his seemingly scandalous behavior.

Fra Lippo Lippi explains how he came to be where he is, introducing the theme of The Difficulties of Restrictions. He claims that he was lured by the festivities of the carnival, which visits Florence each Spring. He’s been painting for three weeks straight, stuck in his “mew” (Line 47), or cage, imprisoned by Cosimo de Medici in order to finish the work. Fra Lippo Lippi has been painting “saints and saints / And saints again” (Lines 48-49). Exhausted and exasperated by his religious subject matter, he hears the revelers singing a love song, “Flower o’ the broom,” and looking out the window, sees “three slim shapes” (Line 59) pass. When one of them turns her face to him, he reacts with lusty glee. He admits to the guardsman that he’s “flesh and blood / That’s all I’m made of!” (Lines 60-61). His desire spurs him to shred “curtain and counterpane and coverlet” (Line 63) and make a makeshift “ladder” (Line 65). He lowers himself to the street and pursues the revelers, the girl among them.

He reaches the merry band near the church of “Saint Laurence” (Line 67) and enjoys their company. Afterward, he tries to sneak back to de Medici’s, so he can get an early start on working on a painting of “Jerome” (Line 73), a figure who “knock[s] at his poor old breast / [w]ith his great round stone to subdue the flesh” (Lines 73-74). The guardsman seems to note the irony of this with a shake of his head. Fra Lippo Lippi notes the “sting” (Line 77) of his duties as monk. He tells the guard that, while someone like his patron could get away with all sorts of immoral behavior, he cannot, due to his vows of celibacy and obedience to his order. This is the first of many times that Fra Lippo Lippi discusses the discrepancies of morals between those who have power and those who don’t.

To further his sympathy, Fra Lippo Lippi begins telling the guard his life’s story, reflecting upon how Deprivation Creates Desperation. He reveals what he thinks set him up to need earthly stimulus. As a toddler, he was orphaned and left to fend for himself. He subsisted on “fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks” (Line 85) for nourishment. This poor diet, plus the harsh weather, eventually caused his collapse from starvation. His “Aunt Lapaccia” (Line 88) could not manage him—she had been physically abusive in the past—and took him to a nearby convent and left him there. After he was given food by a “good fat father” (Line 94), Fra Lippo Lippi was asked to renounce all his worldly possessions. As he stuffed his mouth with “bread [for the first time] that month” (Line 92), he agreed to give up all that “these poor devils of Medici / [h]ave given their hearts to” (Lines 101-02). He was only “eight years old” (Line 102) at the time of his renunciation.

Being a young monk wasn’t all bad, Fra Lippo Lippi notes: He received daily meals, warm clothes, and free time. However, when the monks tried to educate him, he admits they “taught [him] Latin in pure waste” (Line 109). Singing to the tune of the carnival song, he notes, “All the Latin I construe is, ‘amo’ I love!” (Line 111), which shows where his interests and concerns lie—as well as the fact that he might be intoxicated. This hints at the fact that Fra Lippo Lippi wasn’t comfortable as a religious scholar as he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the sensual aspects of life. Further, he must hide these desires because they are considered inappropriate and unholy. Both the incident with the bread and the interest in love show Fra Lippo Lippi’s desire to receive nourishment that is both physical and emotional rather than spiritual.

Fra Lippo Lippi tells the guard that being on the streets enabled him to understand people’s behavior. By “watching folk’s faces” (Line 114), he learned how to tell who’d be generous and who would “curse or kick him” (Line 116). In this way, he suggests “soul and sense […] [grew] sharp alike / He learn[ed] the look of things” (Lines 124-25). Due to his background of observation, Fra Lippo Lippi turned to drawing and began to doodle everywhere. He even drew faces within the margins of his religious textbooks, hymnals, and “on the wall, the bench, the door” (Line 135). This angered the monks, and some wanted to kick him out of the order or have him publicly whipped. However, the Prior, the head of the order, saw Fra Lippo Lippi’s potential as a church artist. He wanted religious paintings in his church like the Camaldolese and Dominican orders had in theirs.

Fra Lippo Lippi immediately began painting with enthusiasm. He drew all the monks, then the clergy, then the parishioners, from the “good old gossips” (Line 147) to the “breathless fellow […] / [f]resh from his murder” (Lines 149-50) to a young “poor girl” (Line 158) with “intense eyes” (Line 159). Eventually, Fra Lippo Lippi painted the entire “cloister-wall” (Line 165) and the other friars praised it. They were impressed with the realistic portraiture and picked out the models they recognized easily. Nevertheless, Fra Lippo Lippi’s “triumph” (Line 172) was short-lived as the Prior and the other “learned” men did not think Fra Lippo Lippi’s realism worked to better the holiness of the parishioners. They insisted that Fra Lippo Lippi’s “business is not to catch men with show / with homage to the perishable clay” (Lines 179-80). Rather, he should “lift them over it […] / make them forget there’s such a thing as flesh” (Lines 181-82). Once again, Fra Lippo Lippi was asked to renounce an essential part of himself.

The Prior urged Fra Lippo Lippi to follow “Giotto [di Bondone’s]” style and subject matter, an idealized portraiture without emotive expression. However, the Prior might have preferred this style over Fra Lippo Lippi’s realism for a personal rather than aesthetic reason. He seemed a bit panicked over the identifiable rendering of the woman “who comes / To care about his asthma” (Lines 170-71). He even noted, “Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts / She's just my niece” (Lines 195-96). Moments later, he connected her with Salome’s mother, Herodias, who suggested she ask for the head of John the Baptist. These remarks seemed to reveal he was worried about the exposure of his own sin. He ordered Fra Lippo Lippi to “Rub all out, try at it a second time” (Line 194). Once again, Fra Lippo Lippi was asked to deny what he sees and experiences.

Fra Lippo Lippi sarcastically tells the guard that painting bodies in a two-dimensional, emotionally-devoid way is no way to paint the soul. This complaint leads to Fra Lippo Lippi’s Vision of Art’s Holy Purpose: He wonders why a painter can’t “make his flesh liker and his soul more like” (Line 207). He wishes he could have melded the Prior’s niece’s “beauty” (Line 211) with her “hope, fear / sorrow, or joy” (Lines 210-11). If the rendering resulted in “simple beauty and nought else / You get about the best thing God invents” (Lines 217-18), he insists. Fra Lippo Lippi can’t get over the Prior’s instruction to “rub all out” (Line 221) and bitterly feels it is the theme of his life.

He knows he’s “broken bounds” (Line 223) by visiting the sex workers but notes that he should not have been forbidden pleasure against his will, once more invoking his argument that Deprivation Creates Desperation. He contends he was too young to make such a life-altering decision—taking holy orders—that does not suit him. People should “not take a fellow eight years old / and make him swear to never kiss the girls” (Lines 224-25). Under Cosimo’s patronage, he can “paint now as [he] please[s]” (Line 226) but he still hears the religious criticize him in his mind. The Prior tells him if he keeps painting flesh and sensual experience, he’ll never live up to his potential and be as “great” (Line 234) as painters of the previous century, such as “Brother Angelico” (Line 235) or “Brother Lorenzo” (Line 236). Fra Lippo Lippi begins to sing the song of the revelers again, hinting at the Prior’s hypocrisy, by almost saying the word “mistress” (Line 239) before changing it to “manners” (Line 239). He clearly indicates to the guard that if he’s allowed to pursue his romances, he won’t say anything about the Prior’s. Fra Lippo Lippi sarcastically suggests religious men definitely know his worth as an artist because of all “their Latin” (Line 242). He tells the guardsman how he “swallow[s] his rage” (Line 242) as he continues to “paint to please them” (Line 244).

However, he backtracks, admitting that sometimes, the “warm eve finds [him]” (Line 246) and “life’s too big to pass for a dream” (Line 251). He must engage in it, like an “old mill-horse […] / [a]fter hard years, throw[ing] up his stiff heels” (Lines 254-55). This is part of why he’s been participating in the recent “fooleries [the guardsmen] catch [him] at” (Line 253). Still, Fra Lippo Lippi knows that if you “tell too many lies [you] hurt yourself” (Line 261). The truth is he revisits over and over the stories of the genesis of Adam and the creation of Eve and only sees “the value and significance of the flesh” (Line 268). Forced into a religious life dictated by men like the Prior, he doesn’t believe it holds a place for him. However, he does believe that, eventually, changing standards of art will win out. He knows a young artist named Tomasso “Guidi [who’ll] not mind the monks” (Line 276). Guidi, he believes, will go on to revolutionize Florentine art by rendering the body in a more realistic and sensual way.

Fra Lippo Lippi sees the guard as a man of the people, who has “seen the world” (Line 282), including “the shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades / changes, surprises [which] God made” (Lines 284-85). When he asks the guard if the world should be “passed over, despised? Or dwelt upon / Wondered at” (Lines 291-92), he’s not surprised when he chooses the latter. Fra Lippo Lippi’s Vision of Art’s Holy Purpose is detailed again, with Fra Lippo Lippi arguing that things should be painted in the same way. He says one shouldn’t make idealized renderings because nature can’t be bested. Furthermore, he suggests that realistic painting has a moral purpose. While it doesn’t teach us religious lessons, it can make us “love” (Line 300) all the “things we have passed / perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see” (Lines 301-02). Art gives us new appreciation for the world around us. Fra Lippo Lippi believes this action is divine: “God uses us to help each other so / Lending our minds out” (Lines 305-06).

Fra Lippo Lippi then points out that he has realistically drawn the guard’s colleague’s face with the “bit of chalk” (Line 307) he was given earlier. He notes that he could “dr[aw] higher things with the same truth” (Line 309) and take the “Prior’s pulpit-place / [to] [i]nterpret God to all of you” (Lines 310-11). The sense that the Prior and others take away others’ ability to be divine is potent for Fra Lippo Lippi. He feels cheated. Fra Lippo Lippi believes the world “means intensely and means good” (Line 314), but he can’t translate that without thinking about the Prior’s criticism that it fails to remind viewers of their holy duties. If the Prior is right, Fra Lippo Lippi suggests, there’s no “need of art at all” (Line 320). He mentions how he painted a “fresco in fine style” (Line 324) for a church, but the so-called “pious people” (Line 330), to mitigate their own “rage” (Line 331), have defaced it completely within half a year. That isn’t where the value of art lies, and Fra Lippo Lippi angrily exclaims he’d like to “hang the fools” (Line 335).

There’s a pause and Fra Lippo Lippi regrets his “idle word / spoke in a huff” (Lines 336-37). He tells the guard that “this spicy night” (Line 338) has turned his head. He urges him not to “misreport” (Line 340) him and tells him “how [he] plot[s] to make amends” (Line 343). He will paint a “Madonna and her babe” (Line 348) that will be installed at “Sant’Ambrogio” (Line 346). He notes he will put key figures in the painting: Saint John, Saint Ambrose, and the Biblical figure of Job, who represents human suffering. Job will also remind Fra Lippo Lippi of the “painters who need his patience” (Line 359), including himself. This gives him the further idea to put his self-portrait into the painting. He will show himself “mazed, motionless, and moonstruck” (Line 364).

He then imagines being visited by an “angelic slip of a thing” (Line 370), who is perhaps an echo of the girl he chased to Saint Laurence earlier in the evening. The angel of Fra Lippo Lippi’s vision claims that God designed all people for their own purpose. Since Saint John cannot paint, “[we] come to brother Lippo for all that, / Iste perfecit opus” (Lines 376-77). This Latin phrase translates to this man made the work, which may serve as another dig at the Prior’s criticisms as it is rendered in Latin. The angelic figure turns then into flesh and blood, and Fra Lippo Lippi is taken under her wing to “play hot cockles” (Line 382). This may be a reference to a childish game, but it also suggests sexual intimacy. They are soon interrupted when the angel’s “hothead husband” (Line 383) arrives, which may be a symbolic criticism of the church’s view of holy figures symbolically entering Fra Lippo Lippi’s mind.

Fra Lippo Lippi then “scuttle[s] off” (Line 383) and winds up on “some safe bench” (Line 384) thinking of his “Saint Lucy” (Line 387), who is also the patron saint of the blind, and a figure who rescues Dante in Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio. This takes the listener and/or guardsman back to the present, where Fra Lippo Lippi and the guard sit side-by-side. Fra Lippo Lippi insists that he’s escaped, enjoyed the flesh, and now will return to be good. The church will receive its “pretty picture” (Line 389). He shakes the hand of the guard and declines an escort back to Cosimo of the Medici’s. Fra Lippo Lippi insists he knows his “own way back” (Line 391). He hurries away, swearing at the breaking dawn.