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Lucrezia Buti (born 1435) was an Italian nun who later became the lover of the painter Filippo Lippi and the mother of his children. She is believed to be the model for several Madonnas portrayed in Lippi's paintings.
Lippi fell in love with Buti during her sittings and caused a great scandal by kidnapping her from a procession of the Girdle of Thomas in the city and taking her to his nearby home in the piazza del Duomo. Despite attempts to force her to return to the monastery, Buti remained at Lippi's house.
In 1457, Buti bore their son, Filippino Lippi, and in 1465 their daughter, Alessandra. Through the intervention of Cosimo de' Medici, the couple received a dispensation to marry from Pius II. In his biography of Fra Filippo Lippi that was written in the next century, Vasari states that they never married.
Their son became a talented artist and was among the students of Fra Filippo Lippi along with Sandro Botticelli and Pesellino, who were among his most distinguished pupils.Rossetti, William Michael, Lippi s.v Fra Filippo Lippi, volume 16, 1911, pages 741–742
Lucrezia is thought to be the model for Lippi's Madonna and Child, and for Salome in his fresco series of the Stories of St. Stephen and St. John the Baptist in the Prato Cathedral.
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