Fra Filippo Lippi, 'Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin', 1447

Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin

Fra Filippo Lippi

Not on display

About the work

Overview

This panel shows a twelfth-century monk, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, having a vision of the Virgin Mary. It is shaped like an ‘overdoor’ – a picture designed to hang above a doorway – and was probably made to decorate the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall) in Florence; Saint Bernard was patron saint of the building.

Bernard is depicted wearing a simple hooded cloak, seated in a rocky wooded setting. He has retreated there to read, write and immerse himself in spiritual contemplation; craggy rocks serve as a seat and desk. The paint surface is very worn but very faint traces of a pen in his right hand are still visible and his ink stand sits on top of his writing box.

Lippi’s son Filippino made a painting of this subject in which the Virgin is clearly dictating to the saint – our picture probably tells the same story.

In-depth

The subject of this large, six-sided panel is rare, and so not easy to identify with certainty. The most likely explanation is that it shows Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s vision of the Virgin Mary. Saint Bernard was a twelfth-century Cistercian monk who founded an important centre for the religious order in the French town of Clairvaux. The Cistercians lived by very strict rules – they only wore undyed wool, for example – and their monasteries were usually set in remote areas.

Bernard is depicted wearing a simple hooded cloak, seated in a rocky wooded setting. He has retreated to read, write and immerse himself in spiritual contemplation; craggy rocks serve as a seat and desk. The paint surface is very worn but very faint traces of a pen in his right hand are still visible and his ink stand sits on top of his writing box. His isolation and meditation were so intense that the Virgin Mary has appeared to him.

A painting by Lippi’s son, Filippino, also shows Saint Bernard being visited by the Virgin Mary while writing at his desk in the wilderness (it’s now in the Badia, Florence). The Virgin appears to be dictating to the saint, and his writing is legible – the words refer to a homily to the Virgin. These are followed by his own words that one ought to call upon Mary in order to be liberated from the chain of sin. Filippino includes a visual reference to this: a small chained devil.

It is likely that our painting shows the same subject. Traces of a devil’s tail can be seen on the seat just behind Saint Bernard, but the rest of the beast disappeared when the picture was cut down on all sides. This interpretation might explain the interaction between the Virgin and saint. He looks intently at her, as though listening, while she concentrates on the words on the page. Two Cistercian monks cower behind the rocks in the distance, one covering his eyes, perhaps blinded by the heavenly light of the vision which seems to be illuminating Saint Bernard’s desk.

The panel may have been made as a pair to an image in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence; Vasari records that Lippi made two ‘overdoors’ – paintings that hung above interior doorways – for that building. One showed Saint Bernard and another the Annunciation (now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.). The patron saint of the Palazzo Vecchio was indeed Saint Bernard and the subject of the Virgin’s dictation to him was appropriate as it reinforced her vigilance over the city’s administration.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin
Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi
Artist dates: born about 1406; died 1469
Date made: 1447
Medium and support: egg tempera on wood
Dimensions: 94.3 × 106 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1854
Inventory number: NG248
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection

Provenance

Probably Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, 1447 and 1553(?), recorded by Vasari 1550; first securely mentioned in the E. Joly de Bammeville Collection, Paris, 1850; purchased at the Bammeville sale, London, 12 June 1854 (lot 53).

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Dillian Gordon, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings’, vol. 1, London 2003; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Bibliography

1845

F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, ed. F. Ranalli, 5 vols, Florence 1845
1850

Mrs Jameson, Legends of the Monastic Orders, London 1850
1854

Christie & Manson, Catalogue of the Very Choice Collection of Pictures of E. J. de Bammeville, Esq., London, 12 June 1854
1878

G. Vasari, Le vite de'più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori: Con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, ed. G. Milanesi, 8 vols, Florence 1878
1902

I.B. Supino, Fra Filippo Lippi, Florence 1902
1903

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, Umbria, Florence and Siena, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century, ed. R.L. Douglas, 2nd edn, 6 vols, London 1903
1909

H. Mendelsohn, Fra Filippo Lippi, Florence 1909
1923

R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, 19 vols, The Hague 1923
1932

B. Berenson, 'Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo e la cronologia', Bollettino d'arte, XXVI, 1932, pp. 1-22, 49-66
1942

R. Oertel, Fra Filippo Lippi, Vienna 1942
1949

M. Pittaluga, Filippo Lippi, Florence 1949
1951

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, London 1951
1961

M. Davies, The Earlier Italian Schools, 2nd edn, London 1961
1975

G. Marchini, Filippo Lippi, Milan 1975
1978

J. Mills and R. White, 'Organic Analysis in the Arts: Some Further Paint Medium Analyses', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, II, 1978, pp. 71-6
1979

M. Lesher, The Vision of Saint Bernard and the Cult of the Priors: Private and Public Images of Bernard of Clairvaux in Renaissance Florence, Phd Thesis, Columbia University 1979
1981

D.L. Clark, 'Filippino Lippi's The Virgin Inspiring Saint Bernard's Homilies and Florentine Humanism', Studies in Iconography, VII-VIII, 1981, pp. 175-87
1984

A. Luchs, 'Saint Bernard in the Wilderness', in B. Chauvin (ed.), Mélanges à la mémoire du Père Anselme Didier, Pupillin 1984, vol. 2.3, pp. 348-54
1986

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools, revised edn, London 1986
1990

L. Dal Prà, Bernardo di Chiaravalle nell'arte italiana dal XIV al XVIII Secolo (exh. cat. Certosa di Firenze, Pinacoteca, 9 June - 9 September 1990), Milan 1990
1992

M.B. Hall, Colour and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting, Cambridge 1992
1993

J. Ruda, Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and Work with a Complete Catalogue, London 1993
1993

F. Ames-Lewis, 'Art in the Service of the Family: The Taste and Patronage of Piero de Cosimo de' Medici', in A. Beyer and B. Boucher (eds), Piero de'Medici 'il Gottoso' (1416-1469), Kunst im Dienste der Mediceer: Acts of a Conference held in Bad Homburg, 1991, Berlin 1993, pp. 207-20
1995

M. Boskovits, 'Attorno al tondo Cook: Precisiazione sul Beato Angelico su Filippo Lippi e altri', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, I, 1995, pp. 32-67
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2003

Gordon, Dillian, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings, 1, London 2003

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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You've viewed 6 of 14 works

Fra Filippo Lippi, 'Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin', 1447

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Fra Filippo Lippi