Lippo di Dalmasio, formerly believed to be a Carmelite friar, until the Turin edition of Baldinucci proved that he had died married, sprung from the school of Vitale, and was named Lippo dalle Madonne. It is not true, as reported, that he instructed the Beata Caterina Vigri in the art, by whom there remain some miniatures, and an infant Christ painted on panel. Lippo's manner scarcely varies from the ancient, except perhaps in better harmony of tints and flow of drapery; to which last, however, he adds fringes of gold lace tolerably wide, a practice very generally prevalent in the early part of the fifteenth century. His heads are beautiful and novel, more particularly in several Madonnas, which Guido Reni never ceased to admire, being in the habit of declaring that Lippo must have been indebted to some supernatural power for his exhibition in one countenance of all the majesty, the sanctity, and the sweetness of the holy mother, and that in this view he had not been equalled by any modern. Such is the account given by Malvasia, who relates it, he adds, as he heard it. He moreover assures us, on the authority of Guido, that Lippo painted several histories of Elias in fresco, with great spirit; while, on the experience of Tiarini, he would persuade us that he painted in oil at S. Procolo in via S. Stefano, and in private houses; on which point he impugns the commonly received opinion respecting Antonello, examined by us more than once. Contemporary with Lippo must have flourished Maso da Bologna, painter of the ancient cupola of the cathedral.
Subsequent to 1409, the latest epoch of the paintings of Lippo, the Bolognese School began to decline; nor could it well be otherwise. Dalmatio, an instructor of youth, was not by profession a painter of history; and, as portrait painters never particularly promoted the progress of any school, so on his part he conferred little benefit on his own. This decline has been attributed to some specimens of art brought from Constantinople, overcharged with dark lines in the contours and folds, and in the remaining parts resembling rather the dryness and inelegance of the Greek mosaic-workers, than the softness and grace then sought to be introduced by the most eminent Italians in the art. Copies of these were eagerly inquired for in Bologna, and in all adjacent cities, which produced that abundance of them, still to be seen in the sale shops and private houses throughout those districts, besides several in the city and state of Venice.[5] But, in these instances, they were only copied; in Bologna they were imitated likewise by several pupils of Lippo, who, either in part or altogether, adopted that style in their own compositions. One Lianori, usually inscribing his name _Petrus Joannis_, and known by some works interspersed in different churches and collections, is most accused of this extravagance; an Orazio di Jacopo, (perhaps dell'Avanzi) of whom there remains a portrait of S. Bernardino, at the church of the Osservanza; a Severo da Bologna, to whom is ascribed a rude altar-piece, in the Malvezzi Museum; with several others, either little known or unmentioned, whose names I am not surprised should be omitted by Vasari, who, in the same way, passes over the least distinguished of his own country. It is true, he makes mention of one Galante da Bologna, who, he avers, designed better than Lippo, his master; but in this he is still taken to task by Malvasia, who includes Galante among the inferior pupils of Dalmasio.