The ups and downs of Filippo Lippi's career in the fifties of the fourteen-hundreds are more than a little confusing. Of commissions there was no lack. And certain emoluments must have come to him from his ecclesiastic appointments. His disgraceful conduct towards Giovanni da Rovezzano, and the notorious looseness of his morals--one need only recall the well-known anecdote of his escape through a window of the Medici Palace in search of amorous adventure--did not stand in the way of his being made chaplain to the nuns of S. Niccolò de' Fieri, in 1450,[2] and of Santa Margherita in Prato, in 1456. He bought a little house at Prato in 1452, and another in 1454. During this whole period he had so much work on hand that he was unable to fulfil his contracts, which led to further unpleasant litigations. Yet in 1454, as we learn from Neri di Lorenzo di Bicci's diaries, he found it advisable to deposit some gold-leaf with the said Neri, in order to save it from seizure by his creditors. On July 20, 1457, he writes to Giovanni de' Medici to ask for an advance payment for work in hand--the same work, presumably, over the execution of which he was so tardy that Francesco Cantamanti had to visit his studio daily to urge its completion on behalf of his patron. In his report to Giovanni de' Medici, dated August 31, 1457, Cantamanti states that on the preceding day Fra Filippo's studio was seized by his landlord for arrears of rent. [Illustration: PLATE V.--THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN (In the Accademia, Florence) The crowning achievement of Filippo Lippi's second Florentine period, the great "Coronation of the Virgin," was commissioned by Francesco de Maringhi, chaplain to the nuns of Sant' Ambrogio, who died long before the completion of the picture, having provided in his will of July 28, 1441, for the manner in which settlement should be effected. Thus, in 1441, Filippo was already engaged upon this altarpiece, which he did not complete before 1447. On June 9 of that year he was paid the stipulated fee of 1200 lire. Although the picture has suffered considerably, it is even in its present condition one of the most entrancing creations of Florentine art. That the painter himself was proud of the result of his labours, may be gathered from the fact that he introduced his own portrait in a prominent position. In Borghini's _Riposo_, published in 1797, it is stated that the painter's name, "Frater Filippus," was then to be seen somewhere near the centre of the picture.]