A period of renewed peace and prosperity followed upon these disastrous wars. Ercole, although in his early youth he had proved himself a valiant soldier, had in reality far greater taste for the arts of peace than for those of war, and now devoted himself to the more congenial task of adorning Ferrara and cultivating letters. His father Niccolo III. had been the first prince in Northern Italy to take part in the revival of Greek learning that had been set on foot in Naples and Florence. He it was who, in 1402, revived the ancient University of Ferrara, and invited the best scholars of the day to give lectures to its students. At his prayer, the Sicilian Hellenist Aurispa, who had travelled to Greece and Constantinople in search of Greek manuscripts, fixed his residence at Ferrara; while Battista Guarino of Verona became the tutor of Niccolo's own son Leonello, and inspired the young prince with that ardour for learning which made him the most accomplished ruler of his time. It was Niccolo, again, who invited the celebrated Paduan doctor, Michele Savonarola, to fill the chair of medicine at the University of Ferrara. Michele's son became court physician to Ercole, and his grandson, the famous Dominican friar, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who had forsaken the study of medicine to take the vows of a preaching brother, delivered his first course of Lent sermons in Ferrara during that troubled year 1482.

The General Council held at Ferrara in 1438 brought some of the first Greek Oriental scholars together in that city, and Niccolo d'Este himself assisted at many of the discussions held by these learned professors. His son Leonello, besides encouraging students by his own example, devoted great pains and expense to the University library which he founded, while his successor, Duke Borso, pensioned poor students, who were clothed and fed at his cost. Ercole now followed in his father's and brother's steps with so much success that under his reign the University of Ferrara became the foremost in Italy, and boasted no less than forty-five professors, while the number of students reached four hundred and seventy-four. In those days the most renowned scholars of the age flocked from all parts of Italy to hear Guarino lecture; and Aldo Manuzio, the great printer, and his illustrious friend Pico della Mirandola, the phoenix of the Renaissance, came to Ferrara to sit at the feet of this revered teacher. Here Aldo acquired the passion for Greek literature which made him inscribe the word Philhellene after his name on his first printed books. Here, in his own turn, he lectured on Greek and Latin authors to the cultured youth of Ercole's court, and here he would have set up his printing-press, under his friend Duchess Leonora's patronage, if the Venetian war had not forced him to leave Ferrara. Both from the court of Alberto Pio at Carpi, where he found refuge with a kinsman of the Estes, and at Venice, where he founded his famous printing-press, he kept up frequent communications with the duke's family, and dedicated books to young Cardinal Ercole, and bound and printed choice editions of Petrarch and Virgil for his sister Isabella d'Este. But if Duke Ercole emulated the zeal of his predecessors in the encouragement of classical learning, he surpassed them all in his love of travel, of building, and of theatrical representations. During the next twenty years he indulged freely in all of these favourite pursuits.

His opportunities of travel, indeed, were limited by the duties of his position; but whenever he could find leisure, he gratified his roving taste by paying frequent visits to Milan or Venice, where the magnificent palace bestowed upon his ancestor Nicolas II. in the last century, but confiscated during the war with Ferrara, had been restored to him at the peace of Bagnolo. In 1484, he took Duchess Leonora there with a suite of seven hundred persons. On this occasion the palace originally decorated by Duke Borso was sumptuously restored, and the Doge and Senate entertained their guests with princely hospitality. A more distant pilgrimage to the shrine of S. Jago of Compostella in Spain, which Ercole had planned in 1487, had to be abandoned, owing to the opposition of Pope Innocent VIII.; but eight years later the duke paid another visit to Florence, on the pretence of discharging a vow which he had made to Our Lady of the Annunziata. To the last the adventurous disposition of the Estes, the love of seeing and hearing new things, marked his character and governed his actions.

Meanwhile his imagination found plenty of food for activity at home, and nothing interfered with his love of building or with the delight which he took in the stage. Under him, Ferrara became one of the finest cities in Italy. Her broad streets and spacious squares, her noble statues and imposing monuments, the stately symmetry of her well-kept ways, made a deep impression on Lodovico Sforza when he visited his wife's home. At the beginning of his reign Ercole had sent to Florence to borrow Alberti's Treatise on Architecture from Lorenzo de' Medici, and had carried out his improvements on the principles advocated by the Renaissance architect. On every side new churches and palaces rose into being, a lofty Campanile was added to the ancient Lombard Cathedral, an equestrian statue of Niccolo III. and a bronze effigy of Duke Borso adorned the piazza in front of the Castello. Soon Ercole's subjects caught their duke's passion for building, and vied with him in erecting new and sumptuous houses. His brother, Cardinal Sigismondo, raised the Palazzo Diamante, that magnificent Renaissance structure in the Via degli Angeli. The Trotti and the Costabili, the Strozzi and Boschetti, all followed suit and built palatial residences in the neighbourhood.

These fine buildings were surrounded with spacious gardens. One of Ercole's first improvements had been to lay out the noble park outside the town, and to people it with stags and goats, with gazelles and antelopes and the spotted giraffes which Niccolo da Correggio describes in his poems; and on the gates leading from the city were marble busts carved by the hand of Sperandio, the famous medallist who had worked so long for the ducal house, and who has left us portraits of all the chief personages at the Ferrarese court. The courtyard of the ancient Este palace was adorned with wide marble staircases, the villa of Belfiore was enlarged and beautified, while that of Belriguardo, twelve miles from the city, on the banks of the Po, became celebrated as the most sumptuous of all the stately pleasure-houses in which Renaissance princes took delight. No pains or expense were spared in the decoration of these luxurious country houses. The terraced gardens and marble loggias were adorned with fountains and statues, the halls were hung with costly tapestries and gold and silver embroideries. Eastern carpets and carved ivories, cameos and intaglios, precious gems and rare majolica from Urbino and Casteldurante were brought together in the Camerini of the Castello and the halls of the Schifanoia palace, that favourite Sans-Souci of the Este princes close to the court-church of S. Maria in Vado and to the convent of Leonora's friends, the nuns of S. Vito. In this charming retreat, where Borso and Ercole alike loved to escape from the cares of state, we may still see the remnants of these splendid decorations which once adorned these halls: the painted arabesques and stucco frieze of children playing musical instruments, the barrel-vaulted ceilings, and marble doorways with their rows of cherub heads and dolphins. There the unicorn which Borso took for his device, figures side by side with the imperial eagle granted him by Frederic III when he came to visit Ferrara, and the fleur-de-lis of France, which the Estes were privileged to bear on their coat-of-arms. There we still see fragments of the frescoes on the months and seasons of the year which Cossa and his scholars painted at the bidding of successive dukes. Borso is there on his white horse as he rides out hunting, attended by falconers and pages leading his favourite greyhounds in the leash; or looking on at the races of St. George's Day, surrounded by scholars and courtiers, dwarfs and jesters, and fair ladies clad in glittering robes of cloth of silver and gold. All the pageant of court-life in old Ferrara, as it was in the days when Duke Ercole reigned and Isabella and Beatrice d'Este grew up under the good Duchess Leonora's care, passes again before our eyes, as we linger in these low halls of the little red-brick palace among the fruit trees of this deserted quarter.

Niccolo III. and his elder sons had all been liberal patrons of art, and had invited the best artists they could find from other parts of Italy. Vittore Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini had both of them visited Ferrara and painted portraits of the Este princes—that of Leonello, with his long hooked nose and low forehead, is still preserved at Bergamo, and Piero de' Franceschi, the mighty Umbrian, is said to have supplied a design for Duke Borso's tomb. But it was in later years, under Ercole's reign, that this little group of native artists arose, and that Cosimo Tura and his followers founded the school which gradually spread to Bologna and Modena and boasted such masters as Lorenzo Costa and Francia, or helped to mould the genius of a Raphael and a Correggio. Tura himself remained at Ferrara all his life, painting altar-pieces for Duchess Leonora's favourite churches, as well as frescoes in the duke's villas and portraits of the different members of the ducal family in turn. In 1472, before the Duke's marriage, he painted the portrait of Ercole—strange to say—together with his illegitimate daughter Lucrezia d'Este, to be sent as a present to his bride, Leonora of Aragon, at her father's court of Naples. Again, in the summer of 1485, he was called upon in his capacity of court painter to paint the likeness of the youthful Isabella for her affianced husband, Francesco Gonzaga; and before the year was out he had to perform the same task for the other little bride, who had just returned from Naples. The following paper in the Ferrarese archives fixes the exact date of the portrait, which was evidently sent as a Christmas gift to Lodovico Sforza at Milan. "On the 24th of December, 1485, Cosimo Tura received four gold florins from the duke, for painting from life the face and bust of the Illustrissima Madonna Beatrice, to be sent to Messer Lodovico Maria Sforza, Duca di Bari, consort of the said Beatrice—Carlo Continga taking it to him." Unfortunately, both of these portraits have perished, and the only representation of Beatrice as a girl that we have is the sculptor Cristoforo Romano's well-known bust in the Louvre.

While the native schools of painting became active and prosperous under Ercole's auspices, a flourishing school of arts and crafts arose in Ferrara under the immediate patronage of the duchess. From the day of her marriage, Leonora not only showed that intelligent love of art and learning which might have been expected in a princess of the house of Aragon, but a warm interest in the well-being of her subjects, together with excellent sense and a strong practical bent. At her invitation, tapestry-workers from Milan and Florence came to settle at Ferrara, and skilled embroiderers were brought over from Spain. The duchess herself superintended these workers, selected the colours and patterns, and became an authority in the choice of hangings and decoration of rooms. While Ercole had an insatiable passion for gems and cameos, antique marbles and ivories, Leonora showed an especial taste for gold and silver metal-work. Silver boxes and girdles curiously chased and engraved were constantly sent to the duchess by Milanese goldsmiths, and among the workers in this line whom she frequently employed was Francesco Francia, the goldsmith painter of Bologna. In 1488, this artist sent her an exquisite chain of gold hearts linked together, which excited general admiration, and may perhaps have been intended as a bridal gift for Elizabeth Gonzaga, the sister of Isabella's betrothed husband, who visited Ferrara that spring, on her way to Urbino. Leonora's own jewels were said to be the finest and most artistic owned by any princess of her day, and, as in the case of other Renaissance ladies, formed no inconsiderable portion of her fortune; and, in consequence, they were frequently pawned to raise money for her husband's wars. The duchess's famous necklace of pearls, we learn, was repeatedly lent by the duke to bankers or goldsmiths in Rome and Florence as pledges for the repayment of loans advanced during the war with Venice.

Music was another of Ercole's favourite pastimes, and the choir of his court chapel at one time rivalled that of Milan, which was held to be the best in Italy. Violinists and lute-players were brought from Naples to Ferrara, French and Spanish tenors were included among the singers who accompanied the duke on his journeys. A still more distinctive feature of his court were the theatrical representations, which became a prominent part of all the palace festivities, and which undoubtedly owed much to the duke's taste for dramatic art. Under his directions, a spacious theatre was fitted up in the old Gothic Palazzo della Ragione on the cathedral square. Here Latin comedies were performed before an audience which included the most learned classical scholars of the day, and Italian dramas were seen for the first time upon the stage. In 1486, an Italian version of the Menaechimi, translated by Ercole himself, was acted here, with interludes of masques and morris dances, violin music, and recitations. This was followed, a year later, by a performance of Cefalo, one of the oldest of Italian dramas, a pastoral play composed by Niccolo da Correggio, chiefly taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and which is said to have suggested the subjects of Correggio's famous frescoes in the Abbess of San Paolo's parlour at Parma. Each Christmas and carnival these theatrical representations were repeated, and many were the distinguished visitors who came to Ferrara to witness these celebrated performances. The Amphitryon and Cassina of Plautus were frequently given. On one occasion, a play adapted from a dialogue of Lucian's by Matteo Boiardo was acted. Another time, at the wedding of a Marchese Strozzi, a Latin comedy written by the bridegroom's brother, Ercole Strozzi, was performed before the whole court. Sometimes, by way of variety, sacred subjects were placed upon the stages. Tableaux of the Annunciation and the history of Joseph were introduced, accompanied with recitations and music. While the duke was known to have a strong preference for classical plays, the duchess and her daughters took pleasure in lighter forms of literature, and encouraged the songs and romances which courtly poets wrote for their benefit in the lingua vulgare. A new school of Italian poets sprang up at Ferrara in the last years of the century. Antonio Tebaldeo, the friend of Castiglione and Raphael—"our Tebaldeo," whom Pietro Bembo declared Raphael had painted in so lifelike a manner that he was not so exactly himself in actual life as in this portrait—had his home at Ferrara in these early days, and enjoyed the favour of the Marchioness Isabella in his later years. While the elder Strozzi, Tito, had the reputation of being the best Latin poet of the day, his son Ercole belonged to the circle of younger scholars, and, like his friends Bembo and Ariosto, wrote elegant Italian verses as well as Latin epistles and orations. Then there was the blind poet Francesco Bello, the author of the "Mambriano," that heroic poem on the favourite Carlovingian legend; Andrea Cossa of Naples, who sang his own rime and strambotti to the music of the lute; Niccolo da Correggio, called by Isabella d'Este and Sabba da Castiglione "the most accomplished gentleman of the age, the foremost man in all Italy, in the art of poetry and in courtesy," who devoted his muse to the service of gentle ladies, and composed canzoni and capitoli or set Petrarch's sonnets to music for Isabella and Beatrice's pleasure. And among Ercole's courtiers at Ferrara there was one still greater, Matteo Boiardo, Count of Scandiano, who was intimate with both duke and duchess, and held many high posts at court. He was a member of the splendid suite sent in 1473 to escort Leonora from Naples to Ferrara, and afterwards held the important post of Governor of Modena during many years. But in the midst of official labours and court duties, Matteo was all the while engaged in writing his great work of the "Orlando Innamorato," that wonderful epic in which classic and romantic ideas are mingled together as strangely as in Piero di Cosimo or Sandro Botticelli's paintings. The first cantos of his poem, begun in 1472, were published at Venice in 1486, with a dedication to Duke Ercole, and the work was continued at intervals throughout his life, and was only interrupted by the death of the poet. This took place in 1494, when the first French armies were first seen descending upon Italy, and the sweet singer of high romance broke off abruptly with a prophetic note of warning in his last accents—"While I am singing, I see all Italy set on fire by these Gauls, coming to ravage I know not how many fresh lands, alas!"

In this city which was at once the home of Italian epic and Italian drama, at this court where the boy Ariosto was to take up the song that dropped from the lips of Boiardo, and to wear the laurel in his turn, the young princesses of Este grew up. There were three of them, for Lucrezia, the duke's illegitimate daughter, had found a kind mother in the duchess, and was brought up with her young step-sisters Isabella and Beatrice, until in 1487, she became the wife of Annibale Bentivoglio, and went to live in Bologna. Under Leonora's careful and vigilant eyes, these maidens were trained in all the culture of the day. Their classical studies were directed by Battista Guarino, the son of the learned Verona humanist, the same who begged the Marquis of Mantua for a grant of wheat that he might the better be able to teach his betrothed bride Madonna Isabella during the famine at Ferrara. With him they learnt sufficient Latin to read Cicero and Virgil, as well as Greek and Roman history. Music and dancing were taught them almost from infancy. They learnt to play the viol and lute, and sang canzoni and sonnets to the accompaniment of these instruments. Beatrice, we know, was passionately fond of music. She employed the great Pavian Lorenzo Gusnasco to make her clavichords and viols of the finest order, and like her father, she never travelled without her favourite singers. Isabella herself had a beautiful voice, and sang with a sweetness and grace which charmed all hearers. The most accomplished poets of the Renaissance, Pietro Bembo and Niccolo da Correggio, Girolamo Casio and Antonio Tebaldeo, were proud to hear her sing their verses, and the Vicenza scholar Trissino, forestalling Waller in this, wrote a canzone addressed to "My Lady Isabella playing the lute."

Messer Ambrogio da Urbino began to give Isabella dancing lessons almost as soon as she could walk. Later on a certain Messer Lorenzo Lavagnolo, who had taught Elizabeth and Maddalena Gonzaga, the young sisters of the Marquis of Mantua, and had afterwards been sent to the court of Milan to teach Duchess Bona's daughters, came to Ferrara. This master, who was commended to the Duchess of Milan by the Marchioness Barbara of Mantua as superior to all other professors of the art of dancing, gave lessons to Isabella and her sisters, as we learn from a letter which she wrote to her affianced husband, thanking him in her sister's name and her own for having sent so excellent a teacher to undertake the task, and recommending this faithful and devoted servant to His Excellency's notice. A bill for making dresses and scenery that were employed in a "festa" composed by Messer Lorenzo for the duke's daughters is preserved in the Gonzaga archives, and at Lucrezia's wedding, in 1487, this renowned master travelled to Bologna to direct the fetes given in honour of her marriage.

Some knowledge of French seems to have formed part of an Italian lady's education at this period, but even Isabella, with all her quickness and talent, was never able to speak French fluently, and Beatrice had recourse to interpreters when she received the visit of King Charles VIII. at Asti, and was required to make civil speeches in reply to his compliments. But they read Provencal poetry and translations of Spanish romances from the rare volumes, sumptuously bound in crimson velvet with enamelled and jewelled clasps and corners, that were among the most precious treasures of Duchess Leonora's cabinet. Above all, they took delight in French romances, such as "I reali di Francia"—that book which was so popular with Italian ladies, and became familiar with the exploits of Roland and the paladins of Charlemagne's court. As they bent over their embroidery-frames at their lady mother's side, in the painted camerini of the Castello, or under the acacias and lemon-trees of the Schifanoia villa, they listened to the wonderful fairy tales which Matteo Boiardo recited, and heard him tell how Rinaldo of Montalbano was pelted with roses and lilies and made captive by Cupid's dames. Now and then, on summer evenings, they were allowed to join in the water-parties at Belriguardo, and float down the stream in the ducal bucentaur to the sound of the court violins, or else take part in those hunting expeditions for which Beatrice developed a passionate taste in after-years. As the frescoes of Schifanoia show, hunting was always a favourite pastime at the court of Ferrara. The duke kept many hundred horses in his stables, and the greatest care was bestowed upon his breed of dogs and falcons. When Borso went to Rome in 1471, he took in his retinue eighty pages, each leading four greyhounds in a leash; and when he entertained the Emperor Frederic III. at Ferrara, he presented him with fifty of his best horses. Ercole often received gifts of Barbary horses from the Sultan of Tunis or the famous Gonzaga stables that were reckoned the best in Italy, and bought Spanish jennets and steeds of Irish race to improve his own breed. And Duchess Leonora owned a special breed of greyhounds which were held in high esteem, and a pair of which she sent to Caterina Sforza, Madonna of Forli, at the humble request of this adventurous lady.

But it was only on very rare occasions that the young princesses of Este were allowed to leave their studies, which occupied their whole days, and, as we learn from their different preceptors' letters, absorbed their whole attention. Nor, we may be quite sure, was their religious education neglected under the eye of their mother, a sincerely devout and pious woman, who took pleasure in the converse of learned Dominicans and Carmelites, and paid frequent visits to S. Vito, close to the Schifanoia villa, and to the Convent of Corpus Domini, in which church she was buried. Her many charitable works, the liberality with which she helped her poorer subjects, relieved their wants, and gave dowries to virtuous maidens, as well as her munificence in adorning altars and churches with rich ornaments, are recorded by every Ferrarese historian. Sabadino degli Arienti places her high among the illustrious women of the age, and says her deeds cannot fail to have opened the adamant doors of Paradise, while Castiglione speaks of her excellent virtues as known to the whole world, and pronounces her worthy to have reigned over a far larger state. With the pattern of this admirable mother before their eyes, with all that was choicest in art and fairest in nature around them, Leonora's daughters grew up to womanhood, and insensibly acquired that enthusiasm for beauty in all its varied forms, that fine taste and perception which distinguished them above their contemporaries, which made Isabella at the end of her long life still the most attractive woman of her day, and which caused the bravest soldiers and the wisest scholars to lament the untimely death of the youthful Duchess Beatrice. In all the difficult and tangled ways which they were separately called upon to tread, the breath of scandal, the slander of idle tongues, never sullied their fair names. Both princesses held fast to the ideal of their girlhood, and, leading the same pure and spotless life, left the same gracious memory behind them, alike in the old Mantuan city on the banks of the classic Mincio, where Isabella's presence lingers like some delicate perfume about the Camerini of the ancient Castello, and in that grander and more splendid court where Beatrice reigned for a few brief years by the Moro's side at Milan.



CHAPTER IV

Isabella d'Este—Lodovico Sforza delays his wedding—Plot against his life—Submission of Genoa—Duke Gian Galeazzo—The Sanseverini brothers —Messer Galeazzo made Captain-General of the Milanese armies—His marriage to Bianca Sforza—Marriage of Gian Galeazzo to Isabella of Aragon—Wedding festivities at Milan—Lodovico draws up his marriage contract with Beatrice d'Este.

1485-1490

Isabella d'Este, the eldest of Ercole's and Leonora's two daughters, early displayed the striking beauty and great qualities that distinguished her in after-years. Her regular features and delicate colouring, her ready wit and gracious manners, charmed all the visitors to Ferrara. The letters of princes and ambassadors were full of her praises. The Mantuan envoy who was sent to Ferrara in 1480, to arrange the terms of the marriage contract, was amazed at the little bride's precocity. The six-year-old child not only danced charmingly before him, but conversed with a grace and intelligence which seemed to him little short of miraculous. All her teachers told the same story. Whatever Madonna Isabella did was well done. Her quickness in learning, her marvellous memory, and application to her studies were the theme of every one at court. She was the apple of her father's eye, her mother's most sweet and cherished companion—"la mia carissima e dolce figliuola sopra altre." When she married and left home for Mantua, her poor old tutor shed tears at the loss of his favourite pupil, and wandered through the castle recalling her every word and movement; while for weeks the good duchess could not bear to enter the room or open the windows of the room which her darling child had occupied, and which was now left empty and desolate.

By the side of this brilliant creature, her younger sister, the little Beatrice, passed comparatively unnoticed. Her name is scarcely ever mentioned in the records of the period. Yet she was only a year younger than Isabella, and if all had gone well, the double wedding of the two sisters was to have been celebrated at the same time in February, 1490. But Lodovico Sforza had shown no inclination to press the matter. He professed the most cordial friendship for the Duke of Ferrara, who had every reason to be grateful for his help in the Venetian wars, and entertained Ercole magnificently when, in 1487, he paid a visit to Milan. But when the question of her marriage was mooted, he made excuses and suggested further delay. The extreme youth of the bride, the urgency of affairs of state, were all brought forward as excellent reasons for putting off the marriage until a more convenient season. During the ten years after his return to Milan, Lodovico's time and thoughts had been fully occupied. The internal as well as the external affairs of his state, the attacks of public enemies and private foes, alike demanded his whole energies. But so far Fortune had favoured him in a wonderful way. An attempt was made by Duchess Bona's confessor to assassinate him on the steps of Saint Ambrogio at Christmas, 1485, but fortunately failed, because that day Lodovico entered the church by a side door to avoid the crowd. The sympathy excited by this cowardly attempt on his life, and by his recovery from a dangerous illness which brought him to the point of death, helped to strengthen his position at home, while complete success attended his arms and diplomacy. On the one hand, Venice was forced to accept his terms of peace; on the other, Genoa, sorely pressed by her old rival Florence, appealed to the Regent of Milan for assistance, and once more recognized the supremacy of Gian Galeazzo Sforza. A cardinal's hat was obtained for Ascanio Sforza, in whom Lodovico found an able and loyal supporter both in Rome and Milan. And when, in 1488, Lodovico's niece, Caterina Sforza, turned to him for help against the conspirators who had murdered her husband and seized the Rocca of Forli, a Milanese army under young Galeazzo di Sanseverino was promptly sent to her assistance. The citadel was besieged and captured, and the rights of Caterina and her son Ottaviano were triumphantly vindicated. Thus on every side the house of Sforza was restored to its former dignity, and the great Condottiere's name was respected and honoured. The Milanese once more enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity, and Lodovico was able to devote himself to his favourite pursuits, the encouragement of learning and of the fine arts. Even at the most anxious and busiest times, in the midst of the war with Venice and the negotiations for the league against her, Lodovico had found time to carry on his brother's schemes for the decoration of the Castello of Milan, and to help forward the works of the Duomo and the Certosa of Pavia. He had begun to rebuild the palace of Vigevano on a splendid scale, and had set on foot a vast system of irrigation for the improvement of the ducal estates. Besides encouraging the rising school of native artists, he had invited the best foreign architects and painters, sculptors and poets, to his court. Already Bramante of Urbino was the chief architect at the ducal court, and now Lorenzo de' Medici sent a young Florentine master to Milan who played the lute divinely, and whose varied talents might prove serviceable to his friend Lodovico. So Leonardo da Vinci came to the court of the Moro, and found in him so genial and understanding a patron, so generous and kindly a friend, that he settled at Milan, and remained in the duke's service for the next sixteen years. Thus Lodovico Sforza had shown himself a wise and excellent regent, and had earned the gratitude of both prince and people, while the young duke in whose name he governed was growing up to man's estate. From his birth Gian Galeazzo had been a frail and sickly child, subject to constant feverish attacks, and in the year 1483 was so dangerously ill that at one moment his doctors despaired of his recovery. As he grew older, it became plain that his mind was as feeble as his body. He was utterly incapable of applying himself to serious business, far less of administering state affairs. His whole days were spent in idleness and pleasure, in hunting and drinking. Horses and dogs were the only objects in which he took any interest. Under these circumstances, it became plain that Lodovico would remain the actual ruler of Milan even though his nephew bore the title of duke. All outward respect was paid to Gian Galeazzo; he lived in great state, with a household and officers of his own, and was surrounded by regal pomp on public occasions. Clad in ducal robes, he appeared seated on a throne erected in front of the Duomo when the Genoese patricians arrived at Milan, and received their homage as duke of the principality of Genoa. His brother Ermes, his sisters Bianca and Anna, shared his state, and when Bianca's betrothed husband the young prince of Savoy died, she was formally affianced in the Duomo to the eldest son of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. But the real sovereign of Milan was Lodovico Duke of Bari. Here and there a jealous or discontented Milanese nobleman might grumble, but the majority of the duke's subjects felt that in these troublous days a strong hand was needed at the helm, and knew that they had this strong man in the Moro.

By degrees Lodovico removed those governors of cities and fortresses whose loyalty he had reason to suspect, and replaced them by confidential servants. Filippo Eustachio, captain of the Castello of Milan, a brave and honest man, Corio tells us, who had refused to yield up the keys of the Rocca to Bona's minion, but whose brothers had been implicated in the plot against Lodovico's life, was one day arrested by the duke's orders, and imprisoned at Abbiategrasso; he was afterwards released, no evidence of his guilt being produced, but his post was filled by one of the Moro's servants. Chief among the trusted captains in whom Lodovico placed his confidence were the Sanseverini brothers, "i gran Sanseverini," as they were called in the court poet's verses, as much on account of their great strength and stature as of the exalted position which they held at the Milanese court. Their father, that turbulent soldier Roberto, after making three desperate attempts to unseat the prince whose return to power he had effected, and being three times proclaimed a rebel and outlaw at Milan, had taken service under Pope Innocent VIII. and led the campaign against Alfonso of Calabria, as Captain-general of the Church. But before long he quarrelled with the Pope and returned to the service of the Venetian Republic, until in August, 1486, at the age of seventy, he fell fighting with heroic valour against the Imperialists in the battle of Trent. Of his twelve sons, four entered the service of their kinsman, Lodovico Sforza, and rose to high honour and dignity. All of them were mighty men of valour like their father before them, while a fifth, Cardinal Federigo, was to prove a staunch adherent of the Sforzas in days to come. He inherited the giant stature as well as the martial tastes of his family, and at the consecration of Pope Alexander VI. is said to have lifted Borgia in his arms and placed him on the high altar. The eldest of the brothers, Giovanni Francesco, Count of Caiazzo, succeeded to his father's estates in Calabria, but lived at Milan, and became one of Lodovico's chief captains. Both Gaspare—the gallant soldier known by his surname of Captain Fracassa—and Antonio Maria, the husband of the fair and learned Margherita Pia of Carpi, a beloved friend and cousin of the Este princesses, were prominent figures at the Milanese court. But the most famous and popular of all the brothers was Galeazzo. This brilliant and accomplished cavalier, who was to play so great a part at the Milanese court, early attracted the notice of Lodovico by his personal charm and rare skill in knightly exercises. As a rider and jouster, he was without a rival. Wherever he entered the lists, at Milan or Venice, at Ferrara or Urbino, he invariably carried off the prize, and was proclaimed victor in the games. And to this prowess in courtly exercises he joined a love of art and learning which especially commended him to the Moro. Unlike his brother Captain Fracassa, who refused Caterina Sforza's invitation to join in dance and song, saying that war was his trade and he sought no other, Galeazzo was a model of courtesy and grace. All fair ladies had a smile for him. Isabella d'Este and Elisabetta Gonzaga honoured him with their friendship, and Beatrice d'Este found in him the truest of friends and best of servants. Three kings of France, Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., singled him out for special distinction, and after enjoying the highest honour at Lodovico Sforza's court, he lived to become Grand Ecuyer of France in the next century. French Italian chroniclers alike own the fascination of his handsome presence and extol the gentilezza of this very perfect knight. Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli the mathematician had in him a noble, generous patron, and Baldassare Castiglione, who knew him in his youth at Milan, has enshrined his memory in the pages of his "Cortigiano." It was this rare union of qualities which endeared the young Sanseverino to the Moro, who chose him for his intimate friend and companion. On his return from his successful campaign against the Forli rebels, Lodovico appointed him Captain-general of the Milanese armies, a step which naturally excited great jealousy among his rivals, and mortally wounded the pride of Messer Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, an older captain in the same service. Short of stature and rude of speech, with the big nose and rugged features that are familiar to us in Caradosso's medal, this able soldier presented a curious contrast to the brilliant and courtly Messer Galeazzo, whose rival he remained to the end of his life. Yet he knew how to appreciate genius, and after his triumphant return to Milan in 1499, employed Leonardo to paint his portrait and design his tomb. Although a Guelph by birth, Trivulzio, up to this time, had been one of Lodovico's most active supporters. But when he saw a younger rival preferred to him, he left Milan in disgust and retired to Naples, where he entered King Ferrante's service, and became from that time a bitter enemy of the Sforza's. Meanwhile the Moro loaded his favourite Galeazzo with honours and rewards. He gave him the fine estate of Castelnuovo in the Tortonese, which had once belonged to his father, the great Condottiere Roberto, as well as a house in Pavia near the church of San Francesco and a palace in Milan, near the Porta Vercellina, and allowed him to build a villa and extensive stables in the park of the Castello. As a last and crowning honour, he bestowed upon this fortunate youth the hand of his illegitimate daughter Bianca, a beautiful and attractive child to whom he was fondly attached. Of her mother we have no certain knowledge, but she is generally supposed to have been some mistress of low origin, and Bianca herself is described by a contemporary writer as "figlia ex pellice nata." The wedding was solemnized with great splendour in the chapel of the Castello di Pavia, on the last day of the year 1489, but the young princess was still a child, and Galeazzo had to wait five years before he took home his bride. After his marriage he adopted the name of Sforza Visconti, and was treated by Lodovico as a member of his family.

Another wedding which took place about this time was that of the young duke, Gian Galeazzo. He had already entered his twentieth year, and the Princess Isabella of Aragon, to whom he had been betrothed in his father's lifetime, was turned eighteen, so that the marriage could no longer be delayed. In November, 1488, his brother Ermes was sent to Naples with a suite of four hundred persons, who entered King Ferrante's capital sumptuously arrayed in silk brocade, and amazed even his luxurious courtiers by the splendour of their gold chains and jewelled plumes. At least Isabella's father, Alfonso, who had little love for his brother-in-law, and had already found Lodovico more than a match for his own cunning, could not complain that his daughter had not been honourably treated. After a rough passage in the depth of winter, which sorely tried the patience of the court poet Bellincioni, who was a member of the Milanese suite, the bride landed on the 7th of February, and travelled by land to Genoa and Tortona. There her bridegroom, the young Duke of Milan, was awaiting her, with his uncle Lodovico, and a banquet as memorable for ingenuity as for splendour was given in her honour. Each course was introduced by some mythological personage. Jason appeared with the golden fleece, Phoebus Apollo brought in a calf stolen from the herds of Admetus, Diana led Actaeon in the form of a stag, Atalanta followed with the wild boar of Calydon, Iris came with a peacock from the car of Juno, and Orpheus carried in the birds whom he had charmed with his lute. Hebe poured out the wines, Vertumnus and Pomona handed round apples and grapes, Thetis and her sea-nymphs brought every variety of fish, and shepherds crowned with chaplets of ivy arrived from the hills of Arcady, bearing jars of milk and honey to the festive board. At Milan fresh wonders were awaiting the bridal pair. The court of the Castello was hung with blue drapery and wreaths of laurel and ivy, above which the ducal arms, designed in antique style, were seen, supported by figures of Centaurs. Under a seven-columned portico adorned with crimson-and-gold hangings, the duke's sister, Bianca Maria Sforza, received the bride, and led her to a richly decorated chamber in the Camera della Torre. On the following day the wedding was solemnized with great pomp in the Duomo. The duke and duchess, clad in white, walked hand-in-hand up the great aisles of the church, and finally, were escorted to the rooms prepared for them in the Rocca, and after the Milanese fashion, hung with pure white satin. But the most memorable part of the wedding festivities, and that to which Lodovico himself devoted especial attention, was the performance of an operetta composed by the court poet Bellincioni for the occasion. "It was called Il Paradiso" adds the chronicler to whom we owe these details, "because Maestro Leonardo Vinci, the Florentine, had with great art and ingenuity fabricated a paradise or celestial sphere, in which the seven planets were represented by actors in costumes similar to those described by those poets of old, who each in turn spoke the praise of Duchess Isabella."

The festivities were interrupted by the illness of the young duke, who was so much exhausted by the fatigues of these successive entertainments, that he was unable to leave his bed for some weeks. But in the following summer two splendid tournaments were held at Pavia, at which Messer Galeazzo, as Sanseverino is always styled in Milanese annals, appeared with twenty followers in golden armour, mounted on chargers with gold trappings and harness, and, having unhorsed no less than nineteen of his opponents, bore off the first prize, a length of costly silver brocade. The duke and duchess were present with their whole court, but the Ferrarese ambassador remarked that the crowd all shouted, "Moro! Moro!" and that Signor Lodovico was by far the most popular personage with the citizens of Pavia.

"He is a great man, and intends to be what he is in fact already—everything!" he wrote in his despatches to Ferrara. "And yet who knows? In a short time he may be nobody."

Gian Galeazzo, however, showed no signs of interfering with his uncle in the management of public affairs. On the contrary, he gave full rein to his pleasure-loving tastes, seldom came to Milan, and spent his days at Pavia or Vigevano in the company of his young wife and a few favourites. Duchess Isabella, as time showed, was a woman of strong character and deep feeling, but she never seemed to have acquired any influence over her feeble husband, and found herself powerless to arouse him to any sense of his position, "La dicte fille" says Commines, "etoit fort courageuse et eut volontier donne credit a son mary, si elle eut pu, mais il n'etoit guere saige et revelait ce qu'elle lui disait." Lodovico treated both his nephew and niece with the utmost respect, and discussed the situation freely with the Florentine ambassador Pandolfini, saying that King Ferrante's envoy had lately gone so far as to suggest that, since this young man could never rule for himself, his uncle might as well assume the title, as well as the cares, of the head of the state. But this, Lodovico declared, was a crime of which he would never be guilty. "If I were to attempt such a thing," he exclaimed, "I should be infamous in the eyes of the whole world!"

For the present the sense of power, the knowledge that he was the actual ruler, sufficed him, and, as the King of Naples himself recognized, no one could have governed Milan more wisely or well than Lodovico did in his nephew's name. The birth of Duchess Isabella's son, in December, 1490, may have been a blow to his hopes. But the happy event was celebrated with due rejoicings, the costly presents from the city of Milan and court officials were displayed in the Castello, and the infant heir of the house of Sforza received the name of his renowned great-grandfather, Francesco, together with the title of Count of Pavia.

Meanwhile Lodovico felt that it was time to think of his own marriage, and to keep the troth which he had pledged to the child-princess of Este. His actions, as he well knew, were narrowly watched at the court of Ferrara. Duchess Leonora was beginning to feel anxious about her daughter's future, and the marriage of Anna Sforza with young Alfonso d'Este had also to be arranged. Accordingly in May, 1489, when the Duke of Milan's wedding was safely over, the Ferrarese envoy Giacomo Trotti was sent back to his master duly acquainted with Signor Lodovico's wishes and intentions respecting these important matters.

On the 10th of May, the articles of the marriage contract were finally drawn up and signed at the Castello of Ferrara. They were on the same basis as the marriage treaties which had lately been drawn up between the Marquis Mantua and Isabella d'Este and the Duke and Duchess of Milan. Lodovico was to receive 40,000 gold crowns and 2000 more in jewels as Beatrice's portion. A sum equal to three-parts of the bride's dower was to be chargeable on the goods and lands of Signor Lodovico. If the most illustrious Madonna were to die without children, this dowry was to be returned, as was stipulated in the case of the Duchess of Milan. With regard to the choice and arrangement of the bride's household, and the number of her women, Lodovico was content to leave all particulars to the Duke and Duchess of Ferrara, trusting to their goodness and prudence to settle all these matters on a scale suitable to the birth and rank of a princess of this illustrious house. But he especially begged Duke Ercole to see that Madonna Beatrice was well supplied with clothes and other necessary articles of toilet fitting the position which she would occupy at Milan as wife of the Duke of Bari and Regent of the State. Last of all, the date of the marriage was positively fixed for the month of May, 1490, Lodovico promising to defray all the expenses of the wedding festivities. At the same time it was also decided that Madonna Anna's marriage should take place in July, 1490, by which time Signor Alfonso would have completed his fourteenth year, and the sum due to Messer Lodovico for Beatrice's dowry was to be deducted from that of his niece, who, as a princess of Milan, was to receive a portion of 100,000 crowns.

So Beatrice d'Este's wedding-day was at length fixed, and Duchess Leonora rejoiced in the happy prospect of seeing both her daughters married in the course of the following year.



CHAPTER V

Marriage of Isabella d'Este—Lodovico puts off his wedding—Cecilia Gallerani—Her portrait by Leonardo da Vinci—Mission of Galeazzo Visconti to Ferrara—Preparations for Beatrice's wedding—Cristoforo Romano's bust—Duchess Leonora and her daughters travel to Piacenza and Pavia—Their reception at Pavia by Lodovico.

1490-1491

The young Marquis of Mantua, Gian Francesco Gonzaga, had proved himself a more ardent lover than Lodovico Sforza. He frequently exchanged letters and compliments with his youthful bride, or sent Isabella presents and verses written in her honour by Mantuan poets. After his father's death in 1484, he visited Mantua, and brought Duchess Leonora a Madonna painted by the hand of the great Paduan master, Andrea Mantegna, the court painter of the Gonzagas. In the autumn of the same year, Leonora took her daughter to Mantua for a short visit, where she first met Gian Francesco's sister, Elizabeth Duchess of Urbino, who was to become her dearest friend and constant companion in the early days of her married life. Four years afterwards, the same Elizabeth, the peerless Duchess of Castiglione and Bembo's adoration, stopped at Ferrara on her wedding journey to her new home of Urbino, and received an affectionate welcome from Leonora and her daughters. The duchess, she wrote, treated her as a mother, while in the Marchesana she had already found a loving sister and friend. On the 11th of February, 1490, Isabella's own wedding was celebrated at Ferrara, and the following morning the bride rode through the streets of the city, with the Duke of Urbino on her right and the Ambassador of Naples on her left hand. On the 12th, the bride set out for Mantua, travelling by water up the river Po in a stately bucentaur presented to Isabella by Duke Ercole, adorned with rich carving and gilding. Her parents and three brothers, Alfonso, Ferrante, and the boy Ippolito, afterwards well known as Ariosto's patron, Cardinal d'Este, with a large suite, accompanied her to the gates of Mantua, where a magnificent reception awaited her. The young marquis had made great preparations to welcome his bride, and, after the fashion of the days, had borrowed gold and silver plate, carpets, and hangings from all his friends and relations, including the famous tapestries of the Trojan war, which were the chief ornaments of the palace of Urbino. The fetes passed off brilliantly, the crowds which assembled in the streets of Mantua were enormous, and the utmost enthusiasm was excited by the youth and loveliness of the bride. The only drawback was the absence of Mantegna, whom Pope Innocent had detained in Rome, in spite of his master's urgent request that the painter might return in time to arrange the wedding festivities.

The void which Isabella left in her old home was keenly felt alike by her mother and sister. The duchess could not console herself for her daughter's absence, and after spending a delightful week with her sister-in-law Elizabeth on the lake of Garda, among the lemon-groves and gardens of those sunny shores, Isabella and her husband returned to Ferrara in April. Here she found that Beatrice's marriage had been again put off by Signor Lodovico's wish until the summer, and Isabella agreed to return to Ferrara early in July, and accompany her mother and sister to Milan. But when July came and the young marchioness reached Ferrara, she found to her surprise that all these plans had been suddenly changed. Lodovico had once more found it impossible to keep his engagement, and pleaded urgent public affairs and unavoidable pressure of business to excuse his apparent apathy. This time the duke and duchess were seriously annoyed, and began to doubt if Lodovico ever intended to wed their daughter. The question was gravely discussed during Isabella's visit, and a messenger from Milan suddenly reached Ferrara late one evening. It was no other than Messer Galeazzo Visconti, one of Lodovico's most trusted envoys, who had ridden from Milan in great haste, with letters from his lord. The contents of these letters remained unknown. One thing only was clear: they gave the duke great dissatisfaction. And Messer Galeazzo departed the next day, as quickly as he came. "I have tried in vain," wrote Benedetto Capilupi, the Marquis of Mantua's agent at Ferrara, "to discover the reason of all these disturbances. Every one is out of temper, and the duke seems to be very much displeased. M. Galeazzo has left suddenly."

Isabella returned to join her husband at Mantua, leaving affairs in this unsatisfactory state. Beatrice's wedding seemed further off than ever, and doubts as to her union with Signor Lodovico began to be openly expressed. It was well known at Ferrara, where everything that happened at the court of Milan was minutely reported to Duke Ercole by his faithful envoy, Giacomo Trotti, that Lodovico Sforza had a mistress to whom he was fondly attached, and whom he had for many years past treated with the respect and honour due to a wife. This was Cecilia Gallerani, afterwards the wife of Count Lodovico Bergamini, a young Milanese lady of noble birth, as distinguished for her learning as for her beauty. She spoke and wrote Latin fluently, composed sonnets in Italian, and delivered Latin orations to the theologians and philosophers who met at her house. Contemporary writings abound in allusions to the rare virtues and learning of "la bella Gallerani," the Sappho of modern times. Scaligero wrote epigrams in her honour, Ortensio Lando classes her with Isabella d'Este and Vittoria Colonna among the most cultured women of the age. The novelist Matteo Bandello, himself a friar of the Dominican convent of S. Maria delle Grazie at Milan, is never tired of singing Cecilia's praises, and of describing the pleasant company who met at the countess's palace in Milan or at her villa near Cremona. There, he tells us, all the finest wits, all the most distinguished strangers in Milan assemble, and you may hear valiant captains reasoning with doctors and philosophers, or look at paintings and designs by living artists and architects, and listen to the playing and singing of the best musicians. As a young girl, Cecilia's charms captured the heart of the Moro, who, as early as 1481, bestowed the estate of Saronno, which he had inherited from his brother Sforza, upon her by a deed of gift, in which he extolled her learning and excellence, and at the same time recalled the merits and services of her ancestors. Soon after Leonardo da Vinci's arrival in Milan, Lodovico employed him to paint the portrait of his fair young mistress, and we have more than one proof of the admiration which the Florentine master's work excited among his contemporaries. In the Rime of the court-poet, Bellincioni, we find the following sonnet evidently inspired by this picture and bearing the inscription: "On the portrait of Madonna Cecilia, painted by Maestro Leonardo." The poet seeks to appease Dame Nature's wrath at the sight of this portrait, in which the painter has represented the lovely maiden "listening, not speaking," but so full of life and radiance, that the sun's beams grow dim before the brightness of her eyes. And instead of envying art, he bids her rejoice that this living image of so beautiful a form will be handed down to future ages, and give thanks to Lodovico's wisdom and Leonardo's genius for having preserved this fair face to be the joy and wonder of posterity. "Thine, O Nature," he cries, "is the honour! the more living and beautiful Cecilia shall appear in the eyes of generations to come, the greater will be thy glory! For long as the world endures, all who see her face will recognize in Leonardo's work the close union of Art and Nature."

"Che lei vedra, cosi ben che sia tardo, Vederla viva, dira: basti ad noi Comprender or quel che e natura et arte."

On the 26th of April, 1498, a year after Beatrice d'Este's death, her sister the Marchioness Isabella herself wrote to the Countess Bergamini from Mantua, begging her for the loan of the portrait which Leonardo had painted of her and which she had formerly seen in Milan. "Having to-day seen some fine portraits by the hand of Giovanni Bellini, we began to discuss the works of Leonardo, and wished we could compare them with these paintings. And since we remember that he painted your likeness; we beg you to be so good as to send us your portrait by this messenger whom we have despatched on horseback, so that we may not only be able to compare the works of the two masters, but may also have the pleasure of seeing your face again. The picture shall be returned to you afterwards, with our most grateful thanks for your kindness, and assuring you of our own readiness to oblige you to the utmost of our power, etc.

"ISABELLA D'ESTE.

From Mantua."

Cecilia sent the precious picture by the courier to Mantua, with the following note in reply:—

"MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND EXCELLENT MADONNA AND VERY DEAR LADY,

"I have read your Highness's letter, and since you wish to see my portrait I send it without delay, and would send it with even greater pleasure if it were more like me. But your Highness must not think this proceeds from any defect in the Maestro himself, for indeed I do not believe there is another painter equal to him in the world, but merely because the portrait was painted when I was still at so young and imperfect an age. Since then I have changed altogether, so much so that if you saw the picture and myself together, you would never dream it could be meant for me! All the same, your Highness will, I hope, accept this proof of my good-will, and believe that I am ready and anxious to gratify your wishes, not only in respect to the portrait, but in any other way that I can, since I am ever Your Highness's most devoted slave and commend myself to you a thousand times.

"Your Highness's servant, CECILIA VISCONTA BERGAMINA,[3]

From Milan, the 29th of April, 1498."

Since that day when the great Florentine first painted her, Cecilia Gallerani had developed into a handsome matron, and as Lodovico Sforza's recognized mistress she enjoyed a position of great honour at court. For some years she occupied a suite of rooms in the Castello of Milan, where her lover constantly visited her and took the greatest delight in her company. His passion for this beautiful and intellectual woman only seemed to increase 108 with years. She had already borne him one son, the Leone, whom he was known to love so well that his courtiers did not dare tell him the sad news when the child died suddenly in 1487. The Duke of Bari, it was even said, intended ere long to make her his lawful wife, and thus to render her future issue legitimate.

Under these circumstances, it can hardly be wondered if Lodovico Sforza showed some reluctance in keeping the troth which he had plighted to the young princess of Este, while Duke Ercole's vexation was the more pardonable. For a time it seemed as if a rupture between the two houses was inevitable, and all thought of a union between them must be abandoned. But soon a change came over Il Moro's dream. The difficulties in the way of a closer union with Cecilia Gallerani were great, and must invariably lead to jealousies and quarrels of a serious order. His own position in Milan would be endangered, and fresh hindrances placed in the way of his future designs. At the same time, the alliances with Ferrara and Mantua were both of great importance to the state, and could not be lightly thrown away. So he determined to sacrifice his inclinations to political exigencies, and make Beatrice d'Este his wife.

Accordingly, at the end of August he sent another ambassador, Francesco da Casate, to Ferrara with a magnificent gift for his bride, in the shape of a necklace of large pearls set in gold flowers, with a very fine pear-shaped pendant of rubies, pearls, and emeralds. This costly jewel was duly presented to Beatrice in the name of her affianced husband, and Duchess Leonora wrote forthwith to give her daughter Isabella the good news, informing her that Signor Lodovico hoped she would accompany her mother and sister to Milan that autumn for the wedding. The young marchioness was delighted to accept this invitation, and in the course of a few days she paid another visit to Ferrara, to assist in the preparations for her sister's marriage. Messer Galeazzo Visconti was sent there again to learn the duke and duchess's pleasure as to their daughter's journey, and, after making the final arrangements, left Ferrara on the 26th of November. The bride's departure was fixed for the last day of the year, and the wedding, it was decided, should take place in the chapel of the Castello of Pavia on the 16th of January.

Isabella hurried to Mantua to buy horses and clothes, jewels and plate for her journey, and announced her intention of taking upwards of one hundred persons in her suite, with ninety horses and trumpeters. Afterwards, however, she reduced the number to fifty persons and thirty horses at the request of Lodovico, who begged her to bring as few attendants as possible, owing to the large number of guests who were expected at Milan. Her husband, the Marquis Gianfrancesco, had naturally been included in the invitation, but as a close ally of the Venetians he did not think it politic to appear at the wedding of Lodovico Sforza. The Signory of Venice were known to look coldly on this alliance between Ferrara and Milan, and entertained the deepest distrust of Lodovico's policy. So Isabella decided to join her mother and sister on their journey up the river, and proceed with them to Pavia and ultimately to Milan. Meanwhile another emissary from Milan had arrived at Ferrara. This was the young sculptor, Cristoforo Romano, who was sent to Signor Lodovico to carve a bust-portrait of his bride before she left her father's home. The son of a Pisan sculptor who had settled in Rome, Cristoforo's genius had attracted attention when he was quite a boy, and he had been sent to Milan by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. The young Roman master was one of those brilliant and versatile artists who especially commended themselves to Lodovico. He sang and played the lute admirably, while his literary tastes made him the intimate friend of Bembo and Castiglione, and a great favourite with the cultured princesses of Mantua and Urbino. He takes a leading part in the dialogues of the Cortigiano, and is frequently mentioned as worthy to rank with Michael Angelo, whose fame he might have rivalled had he not suffered from continual ill health. As it is, the few works which he left behind him are marked with singular grace and refinement. His bust of Beatrice, now in the Louvre, where for many years it passed as the work of Leonardo, is at once remarkable for its truth and charm. The somewhat irregular features of the maiden of fifteen years are admirably given, the roundness of her cheeks, the pouting lips and slightly retrousse nose, and the curling locks are faithfully represented; yet we realize the force of character that lies under this soft, child-like face, and the frank joyousness which made her so attractive. Each stray lock of hair is rendered with delicate accuracy, the brocaded bodice of her gown and the scarf lightly thrown over her shoulders are elaborately adorned with the triangular diamond and other favourite devices of the house of Este. The quaint figure of the two hands holding a veil, from which fertilizing dust falls on the open flower, is supposed to be an emblem of marriage, and is said to signify that Beatrice was already an affianced bride. But since the words "Herculis filiae" are cut in the marble, it is plain that Cristoforo carved the bust while the young duchess was still in her father's home, and probably took it home with him that autumn to Milan.

That year the winter set in with unusual severity. The bitter frost and cold which man and beast endured that January were long remembered, both in Mantua and Ferrara. On Christmas night it began to snow, and so heavy and continuous was the fall, that by noon on the next day the snow lay three feet deep in front of the Vescovado, or Bishop's house, opposite the Este palace. The Po was frozen over, and the ice on the river never thawed until the first week in February, while the snow lasted till the 12th of March, and some patches might still be seen in the streets of Ferrara on the 20th of that month.

In the midst of these unwonted rigours, the wedding-party set out on their long journey. The royal brides of these days seem to have been singularly unlucky in the matter of weather. For one thing, they always travelled in the depths of winter. Elizabeth Gonzaga almost died of exhaustion after the sufferings of her journey from Mantua to Urbino in a violent tempest, which kept her ship tossing on the waves of the Po for several days and nights. The fleet which conveyed Isabella and her escort from Naples to Leghorn, narrowly escaped shipwreck off the coast of Tuscany. Bianca Sforza had to ride in December over the roughest roads across the Alps of the Valtellina, to join her Imperial lord at Innsbruck. And now Leonora and her daughters were called upon to brave the terrors of an Arctic winter on their way to Milan.

"On the 29th of December, 1490," writes the diarist of Ferrara, "Madonna Beatrice, daughter of Duke Ercole, went to Milan to marry Signor Lodovico Sforza, accompanied by her mother, Leonora Duchess of Ferrara; and also by Messer Sigismondo, her uncle"—the duke's younger brother, Cardinal d'Este—"and her brother, Don Alfonso, who went to bring home his bride, Madonna Anna, sister of the Duke of Milan and daughter of Galeazzo, and he rode in a sledge because the Po was frozen."[4]

The ladies of the party travelled in rude country carts—"carrette"—as far as Brescello, where the Po was navigable, and they were able to continue their journey by water to Pavia. Here Messer Galeazzo Visconti was awaiting them with a fleet of boats and three bucentaurs, by which pompous name the rude barges in which these high-born personages travelled were glorified. The many discomforts and the actual cold and hunger which the Este ladies endured during the five days which they spent on board these vessels are graphically described in a letter addressed to Isabella's husband by her Ferrarese lady-in-waiting, Beatrice de' Contrari, after the travellers had reached Pavia. The boat which bore the provisions for the party was delayed by stress of weather, so that the travellers were left with but scanty breakfast and no dinner. When at length they anchored near the shore of Toresella at three o'clock at night, the Marchesana and her ladies were in a starving condition. "If it had not been for the timely help of Madonna Camilla, who sent us part of her supper from her barge, I for one," writes the lively lady-in-waiting, "should have certainly been by this time a saint in Paradise." As for going to bed, all wish for sleep was put out of their heads by the rocking of the ship and the uncomfortable berths, and the poor Marchesana was so cold and wretched without a fire that she wished herself dead, and her lady-in-waiting could not keep back her tears. However, at length these miseries were ended, Piacenza was safely reached, on the 12th of January, and the royal ladies and their companions were hospitably entertained by Count Bartolommeo Scotti, and enjoyed the luxury of warm fires and comfortable beds!

"And now that we have arrived," wrote Beatrice de' Contrari to her lord, the marquis, "and are beginning to enjoy these weddings for the sake of which we have suffered so many discomforts, I am thinking seriously of making my last will and testament."[5]

After a day's rest at Piacenza, the bridal party continued their journey up the river, and reached Pavia at half-past four on Sunday afternoon. Here Signor Lodovico was awaiting them on the banks of the river Ticino, which joins the Po a few hundred yards below the city, with a gallant company of Milanese lords and gentlemen, and himself conducted first Beatrice and then her mother and sister to the shore. Together they rode on horseback over the covered bridge which spans the river, and passed through the long streets until they reached the goal of their journey, and entered the gates of the far-famed Castello of Pavia.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] G. Uzielli, Leonardo da Vinci e Tre Gentil donne Milanesi, p. 23.

[4] A Muratori, R. I. S., xxiv. 282.

[5] Luzio-Renier in A. S. L., xvii. 85.



CHAPTER VI

City and University of Pavia—Duomo and Castello—The library of the Castello—Wedding of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Bari, and Beatrice d'Este, in the chapel of the Castello of Pavia—Galeazzo di San Severino and Orlando—Reception of the bride in Milan—Tournaments and festivities at the Castello—Visit of Duchess Leonora to the Certosa of Pavia.

1491

The ancient city of Pavia, the capital of the Lombard kings before the conquest of Charlemagne, still presents a picturesque and imposing appearance to the traveller, who sees the red-brick walls and gates of the old fortifications and the slender bell-towers of its Romanesque churches rising out of the green plains on the banks of the broad and swift Ticino. But it was a far grander and more beautiful sight in the days when Lodovico Sforza's bride landed near the chapel on the bridge, and in the fading light of the short winter afternoon rode at his side through the chief streets of the old Lombard capital, or, as it was proudly called, the city of a hundred towers. On the princely cavalcade wound, amid a dense crowd of people shouting, "Moro! Moro!" up the long Strada Nova, with its marble palaces, and newly painted loggias adorned with busts and frescoes, in front of the stately Ateneo with its halls and porticoes for the different schools, which had the reputation of being the finest university in all Italy, and past the rising walls of the new Duomo which Lodovico was building on the site of the ruined basilica of Charlemagne's time. A few months before, the renowned Sienese architect, Francesco Martini, had arrived at Pavia on horseback to give his advice as to the cupola of the new cathedral, accompanied by His Excellency's servant, Magistro Leonardo, the Florentine, and a vast train of servants, and had been entertained at the public expense. Martini had soon left again for Milan, after giving the architect of the Duomo, Bramante's pupil Cristoforo Rocchi, the benefit of his advice, and promising to send him a model of the cupola; but Leonardo had remained at Pavia all the summer and autumn, turning over old manuscripts in the library of the Castello, and discussing anatomical problems with the professors and surgeons of the university, until a peremptory summons had reached him from the governor of the Castello at Milan, desiring him to return immediately and assist in decorating the ball-room for the wedding fetes. Another visitor, a citizen of Beatrice's own city of Ferrara, had also been at Pavia a few months before—the Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola, who had visited the Certosa and Castello of Pavia on his way from Brescia to preach at Genoa, before he was summoned at Pico della Mirandola's request to begin his famous course of Lent sermons in St. Mark's of Florence. But now the duke's painter and the humble friar had both gone their separate ways, Fra Girolamo to startle the scholars of the Medici circle with his thunders, and Leonardo to paint cupids in the halls of the Castello at Milan, and to resume his labours at the great equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, which Signor Lodovico was longing to see finished. All unconscious of their existence, the young bride of the powerful regent rode at her lord's side and entered the wide courtyard through the great gateway, under the lofty towers of the famous Castello which for over a hundred and fifty years had been the home of Viscontis and Sforzas.

After the cold and fatigue of the long journey in this snowy winter season, the bridal party were thankful to reach the end of their journey and to enjoy a day's rest before the wedding ceremony, which, after consultation with Messer Ambrogio da Rosate, the chief court physician and astrologer, had been fixed for Tuesday, the 17th of January, this being the day of Mars, and therefore especially propitious for the marriage of a lord, who above all things desired the birth of a son. Throughout his life Il Moro, like many of his contemporaries, had a blind belief in the stars, and placed the most implicit confidence in Messer Ambrogio, who was said to have saved his life during his dangerous illness at Vigevano three years before, and who had been lately called upon to cast the horoscope of Pope Innocent VIII. at the earnest entreaty of His Holiness. "Maestro Ambrogio has been suddenly called to fly to Vigevano," wrote Giacomo Trotti to Ferrara one day in 1489, "because he is a professor of astrology, by which this excellent Signor orders all his actions." The date of Lodovico's journeys, the hour of all important court ceremonies, and even the movements of his armies in time of war, were regulated by the course of the stars. Messer Ambrogio, consequently, became a most important personage at the court of Milan. "Without him," wrote Beatrice's maid of honour to the Marchioness Isabella, "nothing can be done here."

The beautiful park and gardens at Pavia lay deep in snow, their lakes and fountains were all frozen over, but there was plenty to interest and amuse the visitors within the walls of this great Castello, of which they had heard so much, and which was said to be the grandest of royal houses in the whole of Europe. Three or four generations of masters had been employed by successive Visconti dukes to rear this glorious fabric, which in its palmy days must have been a noble monument of Lombard architecture. The long colonnades of low round arches went back to Romanesque days and the times of the first Visconti lords of Pavia; the Gothic windows of the banqueting-hall and upper stories had been finished in the reign of the great Giangaleazzo, and were enriched with slender marble shafts and exquisite terra-cotta mouldings similar to those that we admire to-day in the cloisters of the Certosa. The vaulted halls were painted with the finest ultramarine and gold, and the arms of Sforzas and Viscontis, the lilies of France and the red cross of Savoy, appeared on the groined roof between planets and stars of raised gold. The vast Sala della Palla, where the dukes and their courtiers indulged in their favourite pastime of "pall-mall," which Burckhardt calls the classic game of the Renaissance, was decorated with frescoes by the best artists of Pavia or Cremona, representing fishing and hunting scenes. Portraits of the dukes and duchesses were introduced, together with lions and tigers, wild boars and stags flying before the hounds, in the forest shades or on the open moor. The ball-room was adorned with historic subjects from the lives of the earlier Viscontis. The poet Petrarch, who had once filled a chair in the university, was seen delivering an oration before the duke; and Giangaleazzo, the founder of the Duomo of Milan and of the Certosa, was represented seated at a festive board laden with gold and silver plate, entertaining foreign ambassadors, with his armour-bearer standing at his side, and his cupbearer pouring out the wine, while huntsmen and falconers with horses and dogs awaited his pleasure. Of later date were the frescoes in the duchess's rooms, representing the marriage of Galeazzo Sforza at the French court and the reception of Bona of Savoy at Genoa, while the paintings which adorned the chapel had only lately been completed by Vincenzo Foppa and Bonifazio da Cremona.

Signor Lodovico was very proud, as he might well be, of this his ancestral home, and of the famous library which he had done so much to improve. He led his guests from room to room, and showed them all the rare and curious objects—the armoury with its store of ancient coats of mail and hauberks, of swords and helmets of ancient design, and its choice specimens of the engraved and damascened work; the breastplates and greaves that were a specialite of Milanese armourers at this period; the wonderful clock of copper and brass worked by wheels and weights, upon which Giovanni Dondi had spent sixteen years of ceaseless thought and toil, and which not only had a peal of bells, but a complete solar system, showing the movement of sun, moon, and planets as set forth by Ptolemy. After Dondi's death, Duke Galeazzo had to send to Paris for a clockmaker who could regulate the works of this elaborate machine, which was so much admired by Charles V. when he visited Pavia in 1530, that he commissioned a mechanician of Cremona to make a similar one for him to take back to Spain. And Messer Lodovico showed them also what he himself held to be his greatest treasures—the precious books adorned by exquisite miniatures from the hand of Fra Antonio da Monza and other living artists, the Sforziada and the Chant de Roland, and the rare Greek and Latin manuscripts which he had been at such infinite pains to collect; the codici brought from Bobbio by Giorgio Merula, and the manuscripts which Erasmo Brasca had discovered when Il Moro sent him to search for missing texts in the convents of the South of France. For Lodovico himself spared no expense and grudged no time or trouble in order to enrich what he felt to be a great national institution. Two years before he had addressed a letter to the son of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary—the prince who was to have wedded Bianca Sforza—begging him to have a rare manuscript by Festus Pompeius copied for him, and deploring the "decay of the knowledge of the Latin tongue in Italy, and the loss of so many priceless classical works which the barbarians have carried away."

The sight of these precious and varied treasures were fully appreciated by the cultivated Duchess Leonora, who had grown up among the scholars of her royal father's academy at Naples, and by her daughter, the accomplished Marchesana Isabella, ever eager, as she says in one of her letters, to see and learn some new thing, "desiderosa di cosa nova." And Signor Lodovico proved himself the most courteous and pleasant of hosts, conversing with graceful ease on a thousand subjects, and gratifying his new sister-in-law by the marked attention and courtesy with which he treated her.

"I find myself highly honoured and caressed by Signor Lodovico," she wrote to her husband from Pavia; and the discerning eyes of the Ferrarese ambassador, Giacomo Trotti, noticed how much pleasure His Excellency already took in the company of Madonna Beatrice and the Marchesana. On that first day which they spent together at the Castello, Trotti wrote to Duke Ercole, "Signor Lodovico is always at his wife's side, speaking to her and watching her most attentively. And he tells me that it would be impossible for her to give him greater pleasure or satisfaction than she does, and never ceases to praise her."

The first impression which the youthful bride made on her husband was evidently favourable. By all accounts, Beatrice was a singularly lovely and fascinating child. Without the regular features and distinguished air of her sister Isabella, there was a distinct charm in her sparkling dark eyes and jet-black hair, her bright colouring and gay smile. The contemporary chronicler Muralti describes her in his Annals as "of youthful age, beautiful in face, and dark in colouring, fond of inventing new costumes, and of spending day and night in song and dancing and all manner of delights." In these early days at Pavia and Milan there was, indeed, Trotti tells us, a certain shyness and reserve about her that was only natural and might well be ascribed to maiden shyness and timidity, but in the freedom and gaiety of her new life this soon gave way to the irrepressible mirth and joyousness of youthful vivacity. From the first she seems to have become sincerely attached to Lodovico, who, although considerably older than herself, and already thirty-nine years of age, was a very handsome and splendid-looking man, of imposing stature and striking countenance, with courteous manners and gentle ways. And however often he may have excited her jealousy or wounded her feelings, his young wife never wavered in her love for him, but proved, as he himself confessed, the best and most devoted of companions.

On Tuesday, the 17th of January, the long-delayed wedding finally took place, in the Castello of Pavia. A small but very brilliant company was assembled that day in the ancient chapel of the Visconti. The official festivities were to be celebrated at Milan, where the duke and duchess and their court were awaiting the bride's arrival, and the Ferrarese ambassador was the only foreign envoy present at the wedding. But Lodovico's personal friends and retainers mustered in force, as well as those captains and courtiers who could claim kinship with the house of Este. Niccolo da Correggio was there, as one nearly related to both bride and bridegroom, and was universally pronounced to be the handsomest and best dressed of all the cavaliers who were present that day. There, too, was Galeotto Prince of Mirandola, the husband of the gifted Bianca d'Este, and Rodolfo Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua's uncle, and, conspicuous by their lofty stature and martial air, the four Sanseverino brothers.

The bride, arrayed in a white robe sown with pearls and glittering with jewels, was led to the altar by the Duchess of Ferrara and Marchioness of Mantua, supported by the young Don Alfonso, his uncle Sigismondo, and a select retinue of Ferrarese courtiers and ladies. It was rumoured that the Marquis Gianfrancesco Gonzaga had himself been seen in the crowd assembled in the courtyard of the Castello, and, much to Isabella's surprise, Lodovico asked the marchioness, at the banquet which followed, if this report were true. But Isabella could only reply that if her husband were at Pavia, she was unaware of the fact, and it was not until the last day of the tournament at Milan that the marquis appeared in public.

"The nuptial benediction was pronounced, and the act of espousals confirmed by the ring which Signor Lodovico placed on the bride's finger, and that night the marriage was consummated," were the words of the official proclamation that was made in Milan the next day, and duly notified to the magistrates of the different cities in the duchy as well as to the duke's ambassadors at foreign courts.

On the following morning Lodovico left for Milan, to complete the arrangements for the bride's reception early in the following week. Nothing, he was determined, should be left undone to do honour to his nuptials or to make the occasion memorable both in the eyes of the people of Milan and throughout Italy. During the summer and autumn preparations had been actively going on, and a whole army of painters, goldsmiths, and embroiderers were at work, decorating the suite of rooms in the Rocca, or inner citadel of the Castello of the Porta Giovia, adjoining the Corte Ducale, where the Moro and his bride were to take up their abode. "Here all hands are busy," wrote the Ferrarese envoy to his master, "and Lodovico takes care that for the duchess nothing is done by halves." When the date of the wedding had been finally determined, every nerve was strained to complete the works within the Castello, and an imperative summons was issued by Messer Ambrogio Ferrari, the chief ducal commissioner, to the governors of Cremona, Piacenza, and Pavia, commanding the immediate return of the painters who were absent in these cities. Among the masters especially mentioned in these letters, we find the names of Bernardino da Rossi, Zenale and Buttinone di Treviglio, Treso di Monza, and Magistro Leonardo. This was none other than the great Florentine, then absent at Pavia, who was required to give his advice, if not to assist, in the actual decoration of the Sala della palla on the first floor of the Castello. The vaulted roof of this spacious hall, which was to serve as ball-room on this occasion, was painted in azure and gold to imitate the starry sky, while the walls were hung with canvases representing the heroic deeds of the great Condottiere, Francesco Sforza, whose glorious memory his son Lodovico was always eager to celebrate. At the entrance of the hall, an effigy of the hero on horseback was placed under a triumphal arch, with an inscription recalling his greatness, and saying that by virtue of these mighty exploits his children now triumph and hold festival in his honour.

At the same time, orders were sent in the duke's name to the seneschals of the castles and towns between Pavia and Milan to see that the roads and bridges were repaired and widened, in order that the bridal party might be able to travel without hindrance or inconvenience. On the 18th of January, invitations were issued to the chief lords in the state, as well as to those foreign princes who were connected by marriage with the Sforza and Este families, the Marquis of Montferrat, the Marquis of Mantua, Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna, and others, requesting them to honour with their presence a three-days' tournament to be held on the great piazza in front of the Castello, during the last week in January.

While Lodovico was personally superintending the final arrangements, seeing that the last touches were given to the frescoes in the duchess's Camerino, or discussing to the masques and comedies that were to be performed, with Bramante and Leonardo, his bride remained at Pavia with her family and friends. The princesses of Este were well content, for not only were all the treasures of the Castello and library at their disposal, but they had the best of company in the person of Messer Galeazzo di Sanseverino, who had been charged by his father-in-law, Signor Lodovico, to supply his place during the interval of his enforced absence. And certainly no better squire of dames could have been found than this courteous and brilliant cavalier. He took Isabella and Beatrice out riding in the park, and showed them some of the beauties of that wide domain, which in the French chronicler's eyes seemed more like the garden of Eden than any earthly spot. They could not, it is true, admire those flowery lawns watered by crystal streams, and groves of plane and cypress and myrtle, which charmed the travellers from the north, and made Commines exclaim there was no other region in the world as divinely beautiful as the Milanese land. But they could visit the pleasure-houses and pavilions in the gardens, and hunt the stags and red deer that ran wild in the park. For their amusement Messer Galeazzo let fly some of those good falcons of his, with their jewelled hoods and silver bells, and chased the herons and water-fowl along the lake, while the ducal huntsmen followed in their suits of green velvet embroidered with gold, and blew their golden bugles. Indoors they laughed and sang together, and turned over the leaves of the illuminated missals or the rare folios of the library. And as they talked of Messer Matteo Boiardo's famous new poem and of the old French romances, a lively discussion over the respective merits of the paladins, Roland and Rinaldo di Montalbano arose between the two princesses on the one hand, and Messer Galeazzo on the other. Isabella and Beatrice were all in favour of the knight of Montalbano as the type of Italian chivalry, while Sanseverino, who had kinsmen at the court of France and took delight in French costumes and French literature, was as much at home in France as he was at Milan, and defended the matchless glory of his hero, Orlando. The quarrel waxed warm between them in those idle days, and in the fulness of their youth and high spirits they amused themselves, crying out, "Rolando! Rolando!" on the one side, and a "Rinaldo!" on the other, until one afternoon Messer Galeazzo was acknowledged victor, and even Isabella took up his cry of Roland, but soon returned to her old allegiance, and declared boldly that she would allow no rival to the wronged knight of Montalbano. The controversy was to be prolonged for many a day, and was to become the theme of more than one merry letter and gay challenge between the Marchesana Isabella and the handsome Sanseverino, who soon won over Duchess Beatrice to his side. So the days flew by until the week was almost over, and the time came to start for Milan. Every hour fresh news reached Pavia of the new wonders and marvellous entertainments that were awaiting them at the Milanese capital, and Isabella's spirits rose high with eager expectation and delight.

"You ought to be here," this lively princess wrote to her youngest brother-in-law, Giovanni Gonzaga, who had stayed behind at Mantua, and was absent from the wedding fetes. And she told him of all the jousts and banquets and balls that were to succeed each other at Milan, this wonderful city which she was longing to see for herself. "And among other fetes," she added, "there will be three of the finest theatrical representations that have ever been seen. But one thing which will make you still more envious is that from Milan we mean to go and visit that glorious city of Genoa, where you have never been! Only think how many new places and lands we shall have seen by the time of our return! We wish you all good things, but fear our wishes will profit you little, and are sure my letter will make your mouth water."

On Saturday the 21st the bridal party set out from Pavia, and, leaving the Certosa on the right, travelled across the Lombard plain to Binasco, where they spent the night at the feudal castle of the Visconti, the ruins of which may still be seen on the heights above the little town. On Sunday morning the procession entered Milan, and the bride was received by her cousin, Isabella of Aragon, wife of the reigning duke, who had ridden out to meet her at the suburban church of S. Eustorgio, where the bones of the martyred friar, S. Pietro Martire, repose in their shrine of sculptured marble. At the gates Duke Gian Galeazzo and his uncle met them, followed by a brilliant company of Milanese nobles, and Lodovico, clad in a gorgeous mantle of gold brocade, rode through the streets at the side of his youthful bride. A hundred trumpeters marched before them, filling the air with strains of martial music, and the crowds, who had assembled from all parts of Lombardy, thronged around to gaze on the duchess and her daughters, and more especially on the Moro's bride.

The street decorations that day were on the grandest scale. Lodovico had given orders that no expense should be spared, and the magnificence of the pageant amazed the foreign ambassadors and visitors from Mantua and Ferrara. Not only were the walls and balconies hung with red and blue satin or brocades, while wreaths of ivy were twined round the columns and doorways, but one whole street where the armourers had their shops was lined with effigies of armed warriors on horseback, entirely clad with chain-armour and plates of damascened steel. "Every one took these mailed figures to be alive," says Tristan Calco, the admiring chronicler to whom we owe these details. The procession halted on the piazza in front of the Castello, and the heralds gave a loud blast of music as the bride was lifted from her horse, and received under the grand portal by the duchess-mother, Bona of Savoy, and her two daughters, Bianca Maria and Anna Sforza. Bona herself had returned to Milan at the French king's request soon after her son's marriage, and had consented to an outward reconciliation with her brother-in-law, Lodovico. Her daughter Anna's marriage with the heir of the house of Este had always been one of the objects of her fondest wishes, and now she gave Duchess Leonora and her daughters a cordial welcome to her son's court.

On the following day the marriage of Alfonso d'Este and the princess Anna was privately solemnized in the ducal chapel, but the final nuptial benediction was deferred until their return to Ferrara, a month later. Meanwhile the bride's sumptuous trousseau and jewels, as well as the splendid presents received by her, were displayed during the next week in the Castello, before the courtiers who came to pay their homage to the newly wedded Duke and Duchess of Bari. Of Anna Sforza herself we hear little, but her beauty and gentleness are praised by more than one contemporary chronicler, and endeared her especially to her uncle Lodovico, who was sincerely grieved by her early death. She and her husband paid frequent visits to Milan after her marriage, and were very happy in the society of Beatrice, whom she only survived a few months, dying at the birth of her first babe, to the great sorrow of her father-in-law, Duke Ercole. "She was very beautiful and very charming," writes the Ferrarese diarist, "and there is little to tell about her, because she lived so short a time."

The most splendid fetes were yet to come. On the 24th of January, the day after Alfonso and Anna's wedding, three tribunals were erected on the piazza, the one occupied by a group of heralds and trumpeters, the other loaded with precious bowls and dishes of gold and silver plate, the gifts of the magistrates of Milan and other cities to Signor Lodovico and his bride. The new duchess, accompanied by the other princes and princesses, arrayed in their richest robes and literally blazing with precious jewels, writes an eye-witness, ascended the third tribunal erected in the centre, and received the homage of the deputies of the city; after which two cavaliers, a Visconti and a Suardi, bending on one knee before the bride, took from her hand two lengths of cloth of gold, which were hung in the courtyard, as prizes to be given to the victor in the tournament. That evening two hundred Milanese ladies of high rank were invited to the great ball, or festa per le donne, given in the Sala della palla. On this occasion peasant girls from all parts of Italy, clad in the red, white, and blue of the Sforza colours, danced before the court, and "the palm of Terpsichore," we are told, was awarded to a Tuscan maiden.