Lelio was then twenty-five years of age, and Lucrezia nineteen.
Her beauty was so distinguished, that in poems written on the ladies of Lucca it received this celebration in a madrigal:-- Like the young maiden rose Which at the opening of the dawn, Still sprinkled with heaven's gracious dew, Her beauty and her bosom on the lawn Doth charmingly disclose, For nymphs and amorous swains with love to view; So delicate, so fair, Lucrezia yields New pearls, new purple to our homely fields, While Cupid plays and Flora laughs in her fresh hue.
Less than a year after her marriage with Lelia Buonvisi, Lucrezia resumed her former intimacy with Massimiliano Arnolfini.

He was scarcely two yeara her elder, and they had already exchanged vows of fidelity in Ferrara.

Massimiliano's temper inclined him to extreme courses; he was quick and fervent in all the disputes of his age, ready to back his quarrels with the sword, and impatient of delay in any matter he had undertaken.

Owing to a feud which then subsisted between the families of Arnolfini and Boccella, he kept certain _bravi_ in his service, upon whose devotion he relied.

This young man soon found means to open a correspondence with Lucrezia, and arranged meetings with her in the house of some poor weavers who lived opposite the palace of the Buonvisi.