The name of the novice was Lucrezia Buti, and, struck by the grace
and beauty of this young woman, the artist begged that she might be
allowed to pose for him for the picture, and the request was granted.
It may indeed have been diplomacy on the part of the abbess; for it
is not unlikely that Lucrezia, who had no vocation whatsoever for
conventual life, had proved herself refractory, and that the convent
authorities saw a chance of getting rid of her, which they could not
do by returning her to her family, because she had been consigned to
them against her will by a stepbrother, anxious to get rid of her care
and expense. In any event, the friar Lippi fell in love with her and
she with him. Profiting by the crowd and confusion attendant on the
festival of the Madonna of the Girdle, which is celebrated in Prato
on the first of May, Fra Filippo carried off Lucrezia, appealed to
his patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, and through the latter’s intercession
received from the Pope, Pius II., a special brief, absolving both
himself and the novice from their ecclesiastical vows and granting them
dispensation to marry. He and Lucrezia had two children; their son,
Filippino Lippi, more than rivaling his father’s fame as a painter. The
Madonna that Fra Filippo painted for the convent may still be seen in
Prato, and there are other pictures in which Lucrezia’s lovely face is
discernible.