Fra Carnevale in Lippi's Workshop

Of those who worked on the Coronation of the Virgin—some as apprentices, some as associates, and some as hired-out specialists—only Fra Carnevale's name occurs with any frequency. Although his role in Lippi's shop is not specified, he must have had a hand in the painting of the altarpiece. Some years back Alessandro Conti attempted to identify an angel in the background of the Coronation of the Virgin as Fra Carnevale's contribution.63 It is a plausible idea, but one that must remain hypothetical. The sole work in which Fra Carnevale's hand can be identified with some confidence is, oddly enough, another Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 1). It was commissioned by Carlo Marsuppini (1398–1453), a native of Arezzo and the chancellor of Florence, and painted for the Olivetan monastery of San Bernardo in Arezzo (fig. 18). The date of the commission is not known, but on the basis of the ages and biographies of the donors depicted, it is reasonably thought to have been about 1444, when Carlo Marsuppini's father (included in the altarpiece) died and Carlo was appointed chancellor.64 An angel in the right-hand panel of the triptych resembles Fra Carnevale's later figures so closely that it must have been painted by him.65 The attribution is of more than academic interest, for although the figure type is very close to Lippi's, there is a sharper delineation of details. Even more importantly, the figure is not painted in terms of chiaroscuro, but is shown as though bathed in a diffused light. In other words, the angel reveals an artist associated with Lippi but already looking beyond him for inspiration: in this case to that supreme pittore di luce, Domenico Veneziano, who during these very years was working on the Saint Lucy Altarpiece (fig. 21; cat. 22a, b) for the Florentine church of Santa Lucia de' Magnoli.66 It is an indication of Fra Carnevale's independence that his artistic horizons were not limited to the style of the artist whose disciple he had become. With what rapt attention he studied the refined figures and inventive architectural settings of Veneziano's altarpiece—complex and rich in their expressive impact! Veneziano's frescoes in the church of Sant'Egidio of scenes from the Life of the Virgin have not survived, but it is clear from Vasari's description of them that they were a primary source for Fra Carnevale's genre-like approach to his treatment of the birth and marriage of the Virgin. Vasari particularly admired a youth beating on the door of the bedroom chamber with a hammer and a lively dwarf breaking a club in another scene.

The architecture in the Marsuppini Coronation of the Virgin is in certain respects unusual for Lippi. Instead of organizing the figures into compartments, it articulates a shallow space, with steps, a bench, and a wall with inlaid marble panels extending continuously across the three panels.67 The figures are carefully positioned within this outdoor architectural setting. Only two other works by Lippi include comparable architecture: the altarpiece commissioned, as we have seen, by Cosimo de'Medici, for the novitiate chapel in Santa Croce, and the Annunciation for Le Murate, commissioned by the Medici associate, Giovanni Benci;68 both are virtually contemporary with the Marsuppini Coronation.69 The novitiate chapel was designed by Michelozzo, and the architecture in Lippi's altarpiece was self-evidently conceived to complement that of the chapel. The appearance of the Medici emblematic device, the palle, in the entablature is typical of Michelozzo's ability to incorporate heraldic devices into his work—it occurs in his church of Bosco ai Frati (a Medici foundation near San Piero a Sieve, north of Florence)—and so also are the Corinthian capitals. The architecture of the Murate Annunciation is more idiosyncratic, but the capitals of the columns and pilasters are once again Michelozzan, as is the lozenge-shaped decoration of the green arches of the rood screen (they occur on the architrave of Michelozzo's tabernacle in the Santissima Annunziata [see fig. 5]). An attempt has been made to explain the striking differences between the Sant'Ambrogio Coronation of the Virgin and the Marsuppini altarpiece by acknowledging the austerity of the Olivetans, for whom the latter work was painted.70 It is true that the Marsuppini composition is simpler and superficially more conservative in appearance—certainly its form as a triptych seems a throwback to Gothic practice—but it is also the case that the architecture rationalizes the division between the panels. Apart from creating a remarkably coherent space for the figures, it also incorporates veined-marble insets and elegantly carved capitals and could only be considered austere to a viewer unresponsive to the cost of these materials. When we recall the way in which the carefully planned settings in Fra Angelico's San Marco Altarpiece complement Michelozzo's work in the convent, it is difficult to avoid the impression that in Lippi's three altarpieces we are dealing with a similar phenomenon: an architectural style associated with Cosimo de'Medici that was consciously adapted for commissions from his close associates. As already noted, Giovanni Benci, the patron of the Annunciation, was the general manager of the Medici bank, while Carlo Marsuppini was a close friend of Cosimo.