mit him to make
a likeness of her for the figure of their Virgin." The picture, now in
Paris, was finished, not before Filippo had fallen in love with Lucrezia
and she with him, so that he led her away from the nuns; and on a
certain day, when she had gone forth to do honour to the Cintola, he
bore her from their keeping. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that
spoil the vineyards; for our vineyards have tender grapes."

Vasari tells us that Lucrezia never returned, but remained with Filippo,
bearing him a son,--that Filippino "who eventually became a most
excellent and very famous painter like his father."

And it is said that not Lucrezia alone was involved in that adventure,
for she had a sister not less lovely than herself, called Spinetta; she
also fled away, and this again brought disgrace on the nuns, so that the
Pope himself was compelled to interfere, for they were all living in
Prato, not in disgrace but happily, children in a city of children.
Cosimo, however, befriended them, and would laugh till the tears came in
telling the tale, till Pius II, not altogether himself guiltless of the
love of women, at his request unfrocked Filippo and authorised his union
with Lucrezia. However this may be, and however strange it may seem,
this wolf, who had stolen the lamb from the fold of Holy Church, was
engaged by the Duomo authorities in this very city of the theft to
paint in fresco there in the choir the story of St. John Baptist and of
St. Stephen. It is a masterpiece. As we look to-day on the faded beauty
of his work, it is with surprise we ask ourselves why he has signed the
fresco of the death of St. Stephen, for instance, Frater Filippus;
surely he was frater no longer, but Sponsus. He worked for four years at
those frescoes, Fra Diamante coming from Florence to help him. He was a
child, and the children of Prato understood him--the Medici too; for
when the work in Prato was finished, Piero de' Medici roused himself to
find him work, again in a church, the Duomo of Spoleto, where he has
painted very sweetly the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Shepherds,
the Coronation of the Virgin. Could these things have happened in any
other city save Prato, or to any other than a child in the days not so
long before Savonarola was burned? No; Fra Lippo played among the
children of Italy, and has told us of them with simplicity and
sweetness,--little stumbling fellows of the house doors, the laughing
children about the