Rogue Angel: A Novel of Fra Lippo Lippi (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The stomp of an angry man's boots, and a boy's protesting whine echoed up the stairwell of Monna Lapaccia's tenement house..." (more)
Key Phrases: Fra Filippo, Frate Jacopo, Monna Lapaccia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The celestial harmonies of Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469), a leading Florentine painter of the early Renaissance, make a stark contrast to his dissipated, licentious life as re-created in this robust fictionalized portrait. An unruly orphan (his mother died when he was born, his father two years later), Lippi discovered his artistic gift in a Carmelite monastery, which he left for the pleasures of women and liquor. Damioli, a Chicago journalist, ably charts impetuous, art-obsessed Lippi's growing maturity under the guidance of his collaborator, the painter Masaccio; his strained relationship with the indulgent patron Cosimo de' Medici; and his reluctant marriage, at age 50, to the 23-year-old nun he seduced. Handsomely illustrated with black-and-white reproductions of Lippi's works, Damioli's straightforward, well-researched narrative plunges readers into the vortex of Medici politics, Papal intrigue, artistic rivalries, creativity and lust. She also paints a startlingly vivid picture of violent, disease-ridden Florence, taking us inside its guilds, taverns, bordellos, slums, prisons and elaborate pageants, which ``helped distract the masses from their powerlessness.''

Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Dante University of America Press; 1st Edition. edition (April 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0937832332
• ISBN-13: 978-0937832332
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,920,571 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)