Margarita Luti was the mistress and model of Raphael. The story of their love has become "the archetypal artist–model relationship of Western tradition", yet little is known of her life. Of her, Flaub
La donna velata (c. 1516); the pearl (Latin: margarita) adorning her hair may allude to the name of Raphael's mistress and model; her stray curl exemplifies the "studied carelessness" or sprezzatura celebrated in The Book of the Courtier by his friend Baldassare Castiglione; height 82 centimetres (32 in), width 60.5 centimetres (23.8 in); at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence