Religious Art in Italy Set (Siena and the Virgin / fra Filippo Lippi: the Carmelite Painter)

These two complementary volumes, Fra Filippo Lippi the Carmelite Painter and Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State, are available for the first time as a set. The beautiful and compelling book, Fra Filippo Lippi the Carmelite Painter, shines new light on Fra Filippo Lippi's life and career, from his first paintings as a friar to later works painted outside the monastery for the Medicis and other patrons. Focusing on the fascinating conjunction of Lippi's work as a painter and his experiences as a Carmelite friar, Megan Holmes transforms our understanding of the artist and of art in fifteenth-century Florence. Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State is a richly illustrated book that explores late medieval Sienese art and its celebration of the Virgin Mary as both an object of religious affection and a focus of civic pride. The author examines how art was created, commissioned, and understood by the citizens of Siena and the surrounding contado, and she offers a new understanding of Marian art and its political function as an expression of civic ideology.

173 B&W + 270 color illustrations