Filippino Lippi

Works in wood, terracotta, and marble are on show, and include Leonardo del Tasso and Filippino Lippi's Tabernacle of St Sebastian, from Florence's church of Sant'Ambrogio.

Other notable Renaissance artists highlighted in the exhibition included Albrecht Durer, Sandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, Raphael, and Giorgio Vasari.

The Italian Interior Ministry's Fund for Buildings of Worship oversees the protection and patrimony of the church and 750 other churches across the Italian peninsula, including artistic marvels such as Santa Maria del Popolo with its famed Caravaggios in Rome and Santa Maria Novella in Florence, with frescoes by Giotto, Masaccio and Filippino Lippi. But with government budgets tight, the fund welcomes private sponsorship for restoration efforts.

Indeed, Filippino Lippi's portrait of Piero del Pugliesi, painted in the middle of the Raising of the Son of Theophilus and Saint Peter Enthroned scene during the latter part of the fifteenth century, itself seems to have been defaced, judging by the severe scratching that mars his face but no other adjacent area.

It is also said of Sandro that he was extraordinarily fond of any serious student of painting." One of Botticelli's most accomplished students was Filippino Lippi, the son of his own teacher.

The most spectacular of Woodner's holdings is an astonishing two-sided page from Giorgio Vasari's legendary Libro de' Disegni, assembled sometime after 1524, purchased from the Woodner Collection by the National Gallery in 1991 The page is an arrangement of ten drawings by the quattrocento masters Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, and a younger painter named Raffaellino del Garbo, framed by Vasari's own elaborate architectural embellishments.

If you wish to venture away a little from the bustling centre of the city, a hidden gem lies in the delightful, unassuming little church of Santa Maria del Carmine, with the Brancacci Chapel, where Masolino, his young protege Masaccio and Filippino Lippi painted the Life of Saint Peter, combining Gothic, Humanist and Renaissance influences to produce perhaps the most beautiful fresco in the city.

Masaccio's masterpiece in the Brancati Chapel is the focus of Diane Cole Ahls's essay, "Masaccio in the Brancati Chapel." Ahl situates the chapel within the devotional, artistic, and patronal ambience of Santa Maria del Carmine, discussing the church's history and the commission of the frescoes, probably completed by Filippino Lippi. Masaccio's Trinity, painted in Santa Maria Novella in 1424, is the subject of the theological study, "Masaccio's Trinity: Theological, Social and Civic Meanings," by Timothy Verdon, who, after tracing the iconography and interpretive history of the theme, illustrates the meanings of the Trinity in Catholic thought.

In a small work on paper, she puts a spin on a 1504 Filippino Lippi drawing by situating Christ and St.John the Baptist in a fantasy garden; their devotional love is reflected in giant flowers that sprout around them.

650 works of art will be on view, among them rare Old Master paintings by Francesco Francia, Filippino Lippi, Hans Memling and Gabriel Metsu as well as the largest private collection of renaissance jewellery in the country.