A Forbidden Love Story #history #art #painting

Paintings in order all painted by Gabriele Castagnola ????
Filippo Lippi falling in love with Lucrezia Buti (1873)
Filippo Lippi falling in love with Lucrezia Buti (1873)
Seduction (1876)
Love or duty (1873)

Yes the first two are named the same but are different paintings....

Small description and my thoughts on this story ????

This painting tells the story of Lucrezia Buti and Fra Filippo Lippi, which honestly feels more like a historical drama than something you'd expect from a Renaissance altarpiece. Lucrezia was a young novice in a Dominican convent when Lippi, a monk and an established painter, was commissioned to work nearby. At some point, he asked her to model for the Virgin Mary. From there, it turned into a full-on love affair. Some sources say he kidnapped her, but modern historians think it was probably more complicated than that. Either way, she left the convent and lived with him, and they even had children together, their son, Filippino Lippi, in particular later became a famous painter in his own right.

What’s interesting is how much of this story is captured in the way Lippi paints her. You can tell she was his muse because her face shows up in several of his Madonnas. There's something really personal about the way he depicts her, especially considering the relationship was so controversial. It's also wild to think that the Church eventually stepped in, not to punish them, but to consider letting them marry. Whether they actually did is unclear, but the fact that their love story left such a visible mark on Renaissance art makes the whole thing feel weirdly timeless. And at the very least this artist seems to have thought their love was genuine and not a result of kidnapping.

Thanks for learning about this interesting and beautiful painting with me! ❤️