What: Virgin Adoring the Christ Child with Infant John the Baptist, circa 1475-1500\nLippi-Pesellino Follower
Where to find it: IU Art Museum
Why you should care: This exceptionally well-preserved painting offers viewers both a window into devotional practices of fifteenth century Florentines and a glimpse of the power and influence commanded by the Medici family. The model for this image was a painting commissioned from Fra Filippo Lippi by Lucrezia Tornabuoni for the altar in the private chapel of the Palazzo Medici in Florence. Based on devotional practices advocated and popularized by St. Anotine, who had written a moral treatise on the art of living well for Lucrezia’s sister that encouraged the believer to cultivate a little “garden of the soul,” Lippi’s painting was a pictorial aid to that practice. \n The Madonna, adoring angels and John the Baptist, together with the trees, beasts and flowers in this painting, are all parts of St. Anotine’s little garden, each providing the onlooker with meditative clues and aids with which to practice his or her devotions. Given the Medici family’s importance among the Florentines – they were that city’s leading family for centuries – this practice clearly gained popularity, a fact indicated by the numerous extant variants of the Lippi original that were created by the unknown follower of Lippi and Pesellino. Ours is among the largest and finest example to have survived. The purity of its forms and its glorious colors, as well as its simple yet decorative elements, transcend its complex subject matter and remain to modern eyes simply beautiful.
