Fra Diamante (c. 1430 – c. 1498)

• Was an Italian Renaissance painter.

• Diamante was born at Prato.

• He was a Carmelite friar, a member of the Florentine community of that order.

• He was the friend and assistant of Filippo Lippi.

• He was the principal assistant of Lippi in the large frescoes at the east end of the cathedral of Prato.

• He assisted Filippo in the execution of the frescoes in the cathedral of Spoleto, which Fra Diamante completed in 1470 after his master's death in 1469.

• Lippi left a son ten years old (the future artist Filippino Lippi) to the care of Diamante, who, having received 200 ducats from the commune of Spoleto, as the balance due for the work done in the cathedral, returned with the child to Florence.

• Giorgio Vasari says he bought land for himself with the money, giving but a small portion to the child.

• Fra Diamante must have been nearly seventy when he completed the frescoes at Spoleto.

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