_Filippino Lippi_ (Florentine: 1457-1504). _See 293._
St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan Order of monks (the
Black Friars), was the great apostle of Works, whilst St.
Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order (White Friars),
was the great apostle of Faith. It was the teaching of these
two orders that gave the impetus to the church building, from
which grew the art revival at Florence in the thirteenth
century. "The gospel of works, according to St. Francis, lay
in three things. You must work without money, and be poor.
You must work without pleasure, and be chaste. You must work
according to orders, and be obedient." And so truly did he in
his own works exemplify the life of Christ, that, according to
the legend of the time, he received also in his own person the
wounds (or "stigmata") of the Crucified One--here visible on
his hands. ("Take my yoke upon you"; or "Take up the cross and
follow me.") "His reception of the 'stigmata' is, perhaps, a
marvellous instance of the power of imagination over physical
conditions; perhaps an equally marvellous instance of the
swift change of metaphor into tradition; but assuredly, and
beyond dispute, one of the most influential, significant, and
instructive traditions possessed by the Church of Christ."
The saint is here represented in glory; choirs of singing angels
encompass him; for now "the wounds of his Master are his inheritance,
the cross--sign not of triumph, but of trial, is his reward" (_Mornings
in Florence_, i. 8, 13; iii. 64). Inscribed on the picture below are
some lines from a Latin hymn to St. Francis, exhorting others to follow
him, and to advance as he did the standards of their king ("Let those
who depart out of Egypt follow him, and be united to him, in whom the
standards of the King come forth for us in clear light").
The floating angels recall those by Botticelli, but the pupil's work
is not here so good: these angels seem after all to be standing,
Botticelli's to be indeed floating in thin air. Lippi, too, learnt
no doubt from him the goldsmith's work, seen here in the indented
background to the picture.