opportunity he became
even more enamoured of her, and then wrought upon her so mightily, what
with one thing and another, that he stole her away from the nuns and
took her off on the very day when she was going to see the Girdle of Our
Lady, an honoured relic of that township, being exposed to view.
Whereupon the nuns were greatly disgraced by such an event, and her
father, Francesco, who never smiled again, made every effort to recover
her; but she, either through fear or for some other reason, refused to
come back--nay, she insisted on staying with Filippo, to whom she bore a
male child, who was also called Filippo, and who became, like his
father, a very excellent and famous painter.

In S. Domenico, in the aforesaid Prato, there are two of his panels; and
in the tramezzo[12] of the Church of S. Francesco there is a Madonna, in
the removing of which from the place where it was at first, it was cut
out from the wall on which it was painted, in order not to spoil it, and
bound round with wood, and then transported to that wall of the church
where it is still to be seen to-day. In a courtyard of the Ceppo of
Francesco di Marco, over a well, there is a little panel by the hand of
the same man, containing the portrait of the said Francesco di Marco,
the creator and founder of that holy place. In the Pieve of the said
township, on a little panel over the side-door as one ascends the steps,
he painted the Death of S. Bernard, by the touch of whose bier many
cripples are being restored to health. In this picture are friars
bewailing the death of their master, and it is a marvellous thing to see
the beautiful expression of the sadness of lamentation in the heads,
counterfeited with great art and resemblance to nature. Here there are
draperies in the form of friars' gowns with most beautiful folds, which
deserve infinite praise for their good design, colouring, and
composition; not to mention the grace and proportion that are seen in
the said work, which was executed with the greatest delicacy by the hand
of Fra Filippo. The Wardens of Works for the said Pieve, in order to
have some memorial of him, commissioned him to paint the Chapel of the
High-Altar in that place; and he gave great proof of his worth in that
work, which, besides its general excellence and masterliness, contains
most admirable draperies and heads. He made the figures therein larger
than life, thus introducing to our modern craftsmen the method of giving
gra