# Pair of Panels from a Triptych: The Archangel Michael and St. Anthony Abbot

- By: Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, c. 1406–1469)
- Date: 1458
- Medium: tempera on wood panel
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Framed: 94 x 40 x 6.5 cm (37 x 15 3/4 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 81.3 x 29.8 x 3 cm (32 x 11 3/4 x 1 3/16 in.)
- Culture: Italy, Florence
- Credit line: Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1964.150)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1964.150/1964.150_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

These panels depicting Saints Anthony the Abbot and Michael originally flanked a central scene of the Madonna and Child with Angels, now lost, to form a triptych. Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici of Florence commissioned the ensemble in 1457 as a diplomatic gift to Alfonso V of Aragon. Fra Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite friar and one of the great masters of early Renaissance Florence, depicted realistic, weighty figures in a three-dimensional space using a system of linear perspective, inspired partly by Masaccio’s Brancacci Chapel, and reflected in the background architecture. Saint Anthony the Abbot rejected all earthly possessions in pursuit of a contemplative life in the desert. He is generally regarded as the founder of monasticism and is depicted wearing a monk’s habit. Saint Michael’s sword, shield, and exquisitely bejeweled armor celebrate his role as heaven’s defender against evil.