Cleveland Museum of Art’
November 28, 2025to February 22, 2026
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) newest exhibition, Filippino Lippi and Rome, reveals the artistic processes and iconographic ingenuities of one of the most gifted and accomplished Renaissance painters, Filippino Lippi. The first-of-its-kind exhibition to focus on Lippi’s transformative period in the Eternal City (1488–93) and its lasting impact on his oeuvre, the exhibition juxtaposes Lippi’s Roman artworks with their Florentine precursors and successors. Visitors will encounter 25 paintings, drawings, and antiquities in direct conversation, with important loans from national and international lenders, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; His Majesty King Charles III; the National Gallery, London; the Galleria degli Uffizi; and the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Together, the artworks—some of which will be displayed outside of Europe for the first time—elucidate the evolution of Lippi’s artistic practice before, during, and after his Roman period.
Filippino Lippi (Italian, c. 1457–1504), Madonna and Child, c.1483–84. Tempera, oil, and gold on wood; 81.3 x 59.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Jules Bache Collection, 1949, 49.7.10
On view beginning Friday, November 28, 2025, through Sunday, February 22, 2026, in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery, this free exhibition places the CMA’s seminal Renaissance tondo, The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Margaret, at the center of the exhibition.
“Filippino Lippi and Rome traces the arc of Filippino’s career across time and media, constituting a unique opportunity for scholars and the public alike to discover the inspiration he found in the antiquities of the Eternal City,” said Alexander J. Noelle, Henry and Anne Ott-Hansen Family Associate Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800. “The gallery also features a digital iteration of Filippino’s tondo, revealing new technical imagery captured especially for this exhibition. The full-scale animation allows visitors to peer beneath the surface and see, for the first time, his artistic process as he designed and revised the underdrawing, underpainting, and final painted layers of the Holy Family, one of his most important and impressive commissions.”
Visitors to the exhibition begin by discovering the artist’s Florentine origins, from training in his father Fra Filippo Lippi’s and Sandro Botticelli’s workshops to the establishment of his own independent style and his landmark early commissions, such as the Annunciation tondi.
The central section of the exhibition explores Filippino’s Roman period, with the Cleveland tondo at its heart, reunited with its preparatory drawing for the first time. This monumental tondo was commissioned by cardinal Oliviero Carafa, a leading spiritual and political figure who had engaged Filippino to fresco his chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, one of Rome’s most important holy spaces. Both Carafa commissions illustrate the impact of antiquity on Filippino’s artistic development, as is revealed by his studies for the Carafa chapel, sketches of ancient Roman designs, and drawings of his pictorial inventions inspired by antique sculpture, murals, and architecture. Throughout this part of the exhibition, Filippino’s paintings and drawings are juxtaposed with antique statues to illuminate his study of the ancient world.
The final section of the exhibition reconsiders the enduring influence of Rome on Filippino’s later Florentine works, as evidenced by his continued adaptation of antique designs and compositional elements. The legacy of the CMA’s tondo is also explored; it proved to be an influential masterpiece that other artists, both within and far beyond Filippino’s circle, adapted for their own artworks. These paintings and drawings reveal the reciprocal flow of inspiration between Filippino and other artists, including Raffaellino del Garbo and Leonardo da Vinci.
Thanks to a major gift from the CMA’s Painting and Drawing Society, the exhibition also marks the debut of a magnificent new frame for the tondo, replacing the former frame, which was not original and was unsuitable in scale and design. This new frame was hand carved and gilded in Florence and is based on a prototype made for Botticelli.
Filippino Lippi and Rome is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated scholarly catalogue that shines new light on one of the most iconic and beloved masterpieces from the CMA’s renowned collection as well as this pivotal phase of Filippino’s lauded career.
