FOOTNOTES:

[15] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 111.

[16] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 114.



CHAPTER X

Claims of Charles VIII. to Naples—Of the Duke of Orleans to Milan— Intrigues of the Venetian Senate, of Pope Innocent VIII., and of Ferrante and Alfonso of Naples—Visit of the French ambassadors to Milan —Treasures of the Castello—Jewels of Lodovico Sforza—Isabella of Aragon and her father—An embassy to the French court proposed—Secret instructions of the Count of Caiazzo—Fete at Vigevano—Tournament of Pavia.

1491

The most important event at the court of Milan that winter was the visit of the French ambassadors. The young King of France, Charles VIII., now that he had emancipated himself from his sister's tutelage and felt himself his own master, was beginning to cherish secret dreams of conquest, and already turned envious eyes towards the kingdom of Naples, that ancient heritage of the House of Anjou. His own ardour for military glory was fanned by the presence at the French court of several exiled noblemen, who had fled from Naples to escape the harsh rule of King Ferrante and his hated son Alfonso, and were burning to avenge their wrongs. Chief among these were Antonio, Prince of Salerno, the head of the great Sanseverino family, and his cousin, the Prince of Bisignano, both of whom were in constant communication with their kinsmen at the Milanese court. At the same time, Charles VIII.'s brother-in-law and cousin, Louis, Duke of Orleans, a valiant and ambitious prince just thirty years of age, who had inherited the Lombard town of Asti from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti, and claimed the Duchy of Milan in right of his descent from the Visconti dukes, rejoiced at the prospect of advancing his pretensions against the rival House of Sforza.

Already more than one invitation to cross the Alps had reached the young French king from Italy. In January, 1484, when Venice was waging a desperate war against Milan and Naples, Antonio Loredano was sent to the French court with secret instructions to remind Charles VIII., who had just succeeded his father, Louis XI., that the kingdom of Naples had formerly belonged to his family, and that, besides occupying a throne to which he had no right, Ferrante of Aragon had instigated Lodovico Sforza to usurp the crown of Milan. The Venetian envoy was further desired to inform the Duke of Orleans that Lodovico evidently intended to make himself Duke of Milan in his nephew's stead, and to point out that Louis could not find a better moment than this, to assert his own claim to the duchy of his Visconti ancestors.

"Say all you can to instigate the Duke of Orleans to undertake this enterprise," were the secret instructions of the Ten, "and tell the French that if they wish to dethrone the tyrant Ferrante and seize Naples, they will never have a better opportunity."[17]

A month later the Venetian Government sent another message to Louis of Orleans, urging him to invade Milan, and offering him the help of their forces. The duke was by no means averse to the suggestion, but Anne de Beaujeu, who governed France during her brother's minority, wisely declined to meddle in the quarrels of Italian States, and by August peace had been concluded between Venice and Milan.

Five years afterwards Pope Innocent VIII., having quarrelled with King Ferrante, invited Charles VIII. to invade Naples, and offered him the investiture of this important fief of the Church. But at that time the French monarch had no leisure to think of a foreign expedition. He was already engaged in war with Maximilian, King of the Romans, and in a fierce quarrel with the States of Brittany over the regency of that province during the minority of young Duchess Anne, the betrothed bride of the future Emperor, whose first wife, Mary of Burgundy, had died in 1482. Finding that there was no prospect of help from this quarter, the Pope had been forced to come to terms with Ferrante, whose armies threatened Rome, and made peace with Naples in January, 1492.

Meanwhile Charles VIII. had mortally offended the King of the Romans by sending back his daughter Margaret, to whom while yet Dauphin he had been formally betrothed by his father, Louis XI., and who had been educated in Touraine for the last six years, and taking Maximilian's affianced bride, Anne of Brittany, for his wife. The marriage was solemnized in the Castle of Langeais in December, 1491, and two months afterwards the new queen was crowned at Saint Denis. Maximilian now sought to form a coalition against Charles, to avenge his injured honour; and his ally, Henry VII. of England, sent a letter to Lodovico Sforza, asking him to join the league and invade France from the south.

Under these circumstances Charles VIII. was naturally anxious to strengthen the old alliance which had existed between his father and the House of Sforza. Even before his own marriage, in the summer of 1490, Lodovico had sent Erasmo Brasca on a private mission to the French king, to ask for a renewal of the investiture of the Duchy of Genoa, originally granted to Francesco Sforza by Louis XI. Since those days, Genoa had been lost during the regency of Duchess Bona, and only recovered in 1888, by Lodovico's successful negotiations. Now Charles VIII. gladly granted the regent's request, and proposed to send an embassy to Milan in the course of the next year. Lodovico, on his part, prepared to give the French ambassadors a splendid reception, and in March, 1491, wrote to his chief secretary, Bartolommeo Calco, from Vigevano, giving minute instructions for the preparation of a suite of rooms in the Castello, where the Most Christian King's envoys were to be lodged. Since, at that time, extensive improvements were being made in other parts of the palace, Lodovico gave up his own rooms on the ground floor for the use of these distinguished strangers. The chief ambassador, the Scottish noble, Bernard Stuart d'Aubigny, Chamberlain to King Charles, he wrote word, would occupy the Duchess of Bari's apartment, known as the Sala della Asse, from the raised platform at one end of the room, and would use the duchess's boudoir, with the painted Amorini over the mantelpiece, and the adjoining chambers for his dining and robing room. The second ambassador, Jean Roux de Visque, was to occupy Lodovico's apartments; and the third, King Charles's doctor, the Italian Teodoro Guainiero of Pavia, would be lodged in the rooms of Madonna Beatrice, Niccolo da Correggio's mother, and of the duke's secretary, Jacopo Antiquario. All of these rooms had been decorated and hung with rich tapestries and curtains of velvet and brocade for Lodovico's wedding a year before, but on this occasion he desired that canopies adorned with the fleur-de-lys should be placed over the beds, and that other changes should be made in the hangings and furniture. And since there was not room in the Castello, where the court officials and servants who were daily lodged and fed within its precincts already numbered some two hundred, for the whole of the suite, the remainder were to be entertained at the duke's expense at the different inns of the city, at the sign of the Stella, the Fontana and Campana.

A few weeks later the ambassadors arrived at Milan, and were magnificently received by Lodovico and his nephew, both of whom wore sumptuous vests of white Lyons brocade, presented to them in the French king's name, at the ceremony of investiture which followed. Giangaleazzo was formally invested with the Duchy of Genoa, and did homage to the representative of his suzerain, the French king, in the presence of the whole court. Among the members of the ducal family present on this occasion was the duke's elder sister, Bianca Maria, who still remained unmarried since her affianced husband, the son of Matthias Corvinus, had been driven from the throne of Hungary, after his father's death in 1490. The splendour of the ceremony, and the dazzling white velvet suits worn by her brother and uncle, were long remembered by this princess of seventeen, who spent most of her time with her mother, Bona, at Abbiategrasso. More than seven years afterwards, when poor Giangaleazzo was dead, and the Sforzas' throne was already tottering to its fall, Bianca Maria, then the wife of the Emperor Maximilian, wrote from Fribourg, begging her uncle to try and procure her a robe of the white velvet woven at Lyons, "like the vests worn by yourself and my brother, of blessed memory, on the day when he was invested with the Duchy of Genoa."[18] The young empress, whose mind, as her husband complained, never rose above childish things, and who, in the lonely splendour of her grim castles in the Tyrol, pined for the brightness of her fair Milanese home, had set her heart on a gown of this material, and begged her kind uncle to excuse her if she asked too much, assuring him that nothing else could give her so much pleasure.

The beauty of Milan, with its stately Castello and white marble Duomo, its spacious streets and long rows of armourers' and goldsmiths' shops, its beautiful gardens and frescoed palaces, made a deep impression upon these strangers from the North. Never had they seen so fair a city or so rich a land. Marvellous were the tales they had to tell their countrymen of the splendid court where they had lived like princes, and of this wealthy and magnificent Signor Lodovico, who had entertained them in so royal a manner.

But although the investiture of Genoa had been provisionally granted, and a treaty of alliance agreed upon, several articles of the league still remained to be discussed. Negotiations dragged on all through the year, chiefly with regard to certain castles belonging to Charles's ally, the Marquis of Montferrat, which had been seized by the Milanese. Niccolo da Correggio was sent to France in the summer to endeavour to bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion, but nothing was finally settled until the winter, when Charles decided to send a second embassy to Milan. This time one of the former envoys, Jean Roux de Visque, was selected for the office, and, together with Le Sieur Pierre de Courthardi, left Paris early in December, and arrived at Milan in January, 1492.

Lodovico himself received the ambassadors in the Castello, and entertained them with his wonted magnificence. A treaty was drawn up, by which Charles agreed to recognize all the claims advanced by the Duke of Milan, and admitted the Duke of Bari by name as governor of his nephew into the defensive and offensive league concluded on the 13th of January, and on the 19th the French ambassadors left Milan. Before their departure, however, Lodovico, anxious to do his guests honour and at the same time impress them with his wealth and the vast resources at his command, himself conducted them over the Treasury of the Castello, which was deservedly regarded as one of the principal sights of Milan.

There, in the heart of the Rocchetta, close to his own apartments, was the vaulted room, decorated with frescoes by Leonardo and Bramante, and known as the Sala del Tesoro. Here, piled up in enormous chests, were the vast store of gold ducats which he kept as a reserve fund for the State, and the priceless jewels that were his own private property. Here, too, in oak presses, secured by ingenious contrivances devised expressly for the purpose by Leonardo, were the treasures of gold and silver plate, the salvers and goblets, the dishes and vases of antique shape, in which the Moro took especial pride, and which were only exhibited on festive occasions. Milan was at this time one of the richest states in Italy. The revenue of the duchy, under Lodovico's wise and careful rule, exceeded the sum of 600,000 ducats—that is to say, double the revenue of Naples, and more than six times as much as that of Mantua, and was only surpassed by that of Venice, which amounted to 800,000 ducats; while, according to the same table, the revenue of England in the fifteenth century was calculated at 700,000 ducats, and that of France at 1,000,000 ducats. And here, too, in the Sala del Tesoro, were the jewels belonging to Lodovico, a collection which at this time included some of the most famous gems in the world. A few of these which he pawned to a Venetian merchant in 1495, were valued at 150,000 ducats, and a list, which is still preserved in the Trivulzio library, gives a description of the different jewels which in the troubled times at the close of his reign were pledged to bankers in Rome and Milan.[19] There was the balass ruby, called El Spigo or "the ear of corn," which was valued at the enormous sum of 250,000 ducats; and the jewel of Il Lupo, "the wolf," consisting of one large diamond and three choice pearls, which the goldsmiths priced at 120,000 ducats. There was the famous Puncta, or diamond arrow, given by Duchess Beatrice's grandfather, Niccolo d'Este, to Francesco Sforza; and the Caduceus, a favourite device of the Moro's, wrought in large pearls, each of which was said to be worth 25,000 ducats; while the balass ruby, known as the Marone, often worn as a brooch by Beatrice, was valued at 10,000 ducats. Another balass bore the effigy of Lodovico, and the insignia of the Moraglia, or Mulberry, was composed of emeralds, diamonds, and pearls. This jewel was frequently worn by the Moro himself, at state banquets, as well as the famous Sancy diamond, which had been found on the body of Charles the Bold after the battle of Nancy, and afterwards acquired by Lodovico, whose agents were always in search of precious stones of fine water and rare workmanship.

Such were a few of the treasures which the regent displayed before the dazzled eyes of the French ambassadors. Unfortunately the presents which he gave them on their departure seemed to them poor and insignificant, after the marvels which they had seen in the Castello, and their cupidity was but ill-satisfied.

"The French envoys," wrote the Florentine ambassador, Pandolfini, to his master, Lorenzo de Medici, "are gone away disappointed with Signor Lodovico's gifts, expecting to receive a handsomer present after seeing all the splendours of the Treasury."[20]

Lodovico now determined to send an embassy to the French court to return the king's civilities and congratulate him on his marriage. He was the more anxious to strengthen his alliance with France on account of the growing estrangement between himself and the royal family of Naples. Hitherto, indeed, King Ferrante had maintained cordial relations with the Regent of Milan, whose claims to this position he had been the first to support, and whose marriage with his granddaughter Beatrice formed a new link between the Houses of Aragon and Sforza. But his son Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, who had frequently visited Milan during the long war with Venice, had never forgiven Lodovico for treating with the Venetians independently, and made no secret of his hatred for his brother-in-law. The quarrel between the two princes was naturally embittered by the complaints which Alfonso received from his daughter Isabella, Duchess of Milan. Her miserable husband, Giangaleazzo, showed less inclination than ever to take his proper place at the head of affairs, and abandoned himself to low debauchery. In his drunken fits it was even said that he forgot himself so far as to strike his wife.

"There is no news here," wrote the widowed Marchioness of Montferrat from Milan to her envoy at Mantua, on the 2nd of May, 1492, "saving that the Duke of Milan has beaten his wife."[21]

But the proud and high-spirited duchess began to resent the subordinate position in which she and her husband were placed at their own court, and she tried to instil her keen sense of this injustice into Giangaleazzo's feeble mind. When Lodovico came to Pavia that spring, his nephew began by refusing to see him, but before long he forgot his wrongs, and after behaving for a few days like a sulky child, was on the most affectionate terms with his uncle when they met again. Isabella soon found that no dependence could be placed upon this foolish youth, who cared for nothing but his dogs and horses, and repeated everything that she said to Lodovico. So she devoured her griefs in silence, and only gave utterance to her sorrows in her letters to Naples.

Meanwhile, Alfonso did his utmost to stir up enemies against Lodovico, while, with habitual duplicity, he sent flattering messages to his brother-in-law, and begged for the continuance of his friendship. That February envoys were sent from Naples to France, under pretence of buying horses and dogs for hunting, but with secret instructions to persuade Charles VIII., if possible, to break with Lodovico Sforza, and refuse to acknowledge him as Regent of Milan. Charles, however, was too much intent on his own plans for the conquest of Naples to pay any heed to these proposals, and the only result of Alfonso's intrigues was to strengthen the alliance between France and Milan.

Gianfrancesco, Count of Caiazzo, the eldest of the Sanseverino brothers, was chosen by Lodovico as chief ambassador to the French king, and received secret instructions to show Charles VIII. the proposals which had been made to the Regent of Milan by the King of England and Maximilian, King of the Romans.

"Let him know by this means," runs the letter, still preserved in the Milanese archives, "how unwilling we are to act in any way against his interests, and let him see that we have preferred his alliance to that of the mightiest monarchs in Europe. Take care also to insist on the importance of the Duchy of Milan and on the exalted position that we occupy in the eyes of other Italian States. And assure him that we are his firm and loyal friends, whose constancy neither threats nor promises can ever shake."[22]

Count Carlo Belgiojoso, Galeazzo Visconti and Girolamo Tuttavilla, Count of Sarno, who was himself one of King Ferrante's exiled subjects, were selected to accompany Caiazzo on his mission. On the 23rd of February they left Milan, and reached Paris towards the end of March.

Not only had Lodovico given his envoys minute instructions as to the language they were to hold in treating with the French king, but the clothes they were to wear, the presents which they bore to Charles VIII. and his queen, the very day and hour of their entry into Paris, were all regulated by his orders. His astrologer, Ambrogio di Rosate, had fixed upon the 28th of March as the most propitious moment for Caiazzo to enter Paris, and on that day, accordingly, the Milanese ambassadors, splendidly arrayed in rich brocades and cloth of gold, rode through the streets of the capital, and under the walls of the old Louvre, where the king and queen had their abode. On the following day, Charles himself received the envoys, and Galeazzo Visconti delivered a long Latin discourse prepared by Lodovico. On the 30th they were presented to the queen, and a few days afterwards they accompanied the royal party on a hunting expedition in the forest of Saint-Germain, but found the sport of a rude and fatiguing description, and complained that both men and animals were very savage in their habits. Every detail of the proceedings was faithfully reported to Lodovico by Antonio Calco, the secretary of the mission. For his benefit and that of Beatrice, he not only describes the costumes of the royal pair—the king's gorgeous mantle of Lyons velvet, lined with yellow satin, and the queen's gold brocade robe and cape of lion skin lined with crimson—but gives a minute account of Anne of Brittany's coiffure, a black velvet cap with a gold fringe hanging about a finger's length over her forehead, and a hood studded with big diamonds drawn over her head and ears. So curious were Beatrice and her ladies on these matters, that Lodovico wrote on the 8th of April from Vigevano, desiring Calco to send him a drawing of the French queen's costume, "in order that the same fashion may be adopted here in Milan." At the same time Lodovico desired Caiazzo to show especial civility to the Duke of Orleans, assuring him that the Dukes of Bari and Milan both regarded him as their own kinsman, and hoped that the love and friendship between them would be that of brothers. The ambassador was further empowered to offer the hand of Bianca Sforza, the duke's unmarried sister, to James IV., the young King of Scotland, through Stuart d'Aubigny, the Scottish nobleman whom Charles VIII. had sent as his envoy to Milan. Meanwhile, King Ferrante's emissaries were doing their best to stir up the Duke of Orleans against his Sforza rivals, and had secretly offered his granddaughter Charlotte in marriage to the youthful Scottish monarch.

But for the moment Lodovico's star was in the ascendant, and his influence reigned supreme at the French court. Charles VIII. formally ratified all the conditions of the treaty which had been signed at Milan in January, and wrote to inform Pope Innocent that he had entered into close alliance with the house of Sforza, and would regard any injury done to the Dukes of Milan and Bari as a personal wrong.

The object of the embassy being accomplished, Count Caiazzo, Galeazzo Visconti and Tuttavilla took leave of the French king and returned to Milan on the 5th of May, leaving Count Belgiojoso as permanent envoy at Paris. The triumph of Lodovico's diplomacy was complete, and without shedding a drop of blood, or making any warlike demonstration, he had outwitted all his foes and secured the alliance of his most powerful neighbour.

The good news gave fresh zest to the pleasures of Beatrice's court that summer, and to all the memorable enterprises upon which Lodovico was engaged at home.

Early in March the Duke and Duchess of Bari left Milan to take up their abode at Vigevano, and held a series of brilliant fetes and hunting parties in this newly-finished palace. The works upon which Bramante and his companions had been employed for years past were finished, the great hall with its richly-wrought marble capitals, the noble tower and imposing porticoes, were all complete. The last stone was in its place, and on the great archway that formed the entrance to the stately pile, Lodovico placed this proud Latin inscription, bearing the date, 1492.

"LUDOVICUS MARIA SFORTIA VICECOMES PRINCIPATU JOANNI GALEACIO NEPOTI AB EXTERIS ET INTESTINIS MOTIBUS STABILITO POSTEAQUAM SQUALLENTES AGROS VIGEVANENSES IMMISSIS FLUMINIBUS FERTILES FECIT AD VOLUPTARIOS SECESSUS IN HAC ARCE VETERES PRINCIPUM EDES REFORMAVIT ET NOVIS CIRCUMEDIFICATIS SPECIOSA, ETIAM TURRI MUNIVIT POPULI QUOQUE HABITATIONIS SITU ET SQUALORE OCCUPATAS STRATIS UT EXPEDITIS PER URBEM VIIS AD CIVILEM LAUTICIAM REDEGIT DIRRUTIS ETIAM CIRCA FORUM VETERIBUS EDIFICIIS ARCAM AMPLIANT AC PORTICIBUS CIRCUMDUCTIS IN HANC SPECIEM EXORNAVIT. ANNO A SALUTE CHRISTIANA NONAGESIMOSECUNDO SUPRA MILLESIMUM ET QUADRIGENTESIMUM."

He had given back peace to his nephew's realm and had vanquished external foes and quelled internal dissensions, he had brought rivers of water to make the barren fields of Vigevano fertile, and had rebuilt the ancient Forum and raised fair porticoes and fine houses round the wide square. And now, as a crowning gift to this his native city, he had restored and beautified the ancestral castle of the illustrious house of Sforza and had reared stately halls and a fair tower to make Vigevano a home of perpetual delight.

During the continual round of amusements in which these festive weeks were spent, Beatrice had little time for writing, and the only letter we have from her hand during this visit to Vigevano is one addressed to her sister Isabella, in which she begs for information respecting Father Bernardino da Feltre, a famous revivalist preacher of the Franciscan order, who had travelled through the cities of Central Italy, preaching repentance and founding the charitable institutions known as Monte di Pieta for the relief of the poor.

"A report has reached us here," wrote the young duchess, "that the venerable Father Bernardino da Feltre, who has been preaching in Verona this Lent, was heard to declare from the pulpit that he had received a message from heaven, warning him that he would die in Holy Week, after miraculously opening the eyes of a blind man. Now I am very anxious to know if this report is true, and since at Mantua you are sufficiently near Verona to learn the truth of these tales, I beg you to make inquiries and let me know the result."

A fortnight later, Isabella, who had been absent from Mantua, was able to satisfy her sister's curiosity and at the same time answer a previous note in which Beatrice had given her a bad character of one of the Marchesana's proteges, an archer in Fracassa's service. She writes:—

"MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND HONOURED SISTER,

"Only yesterday I received two letters which you wrote to me on the 16th and 17th of April: the one in answer to my recommendation of Malacarno, Signor Fracassa's archer, the other regarding a report which had reached you as to certain words which Fra Bernardino da Feltre is said to have spoken at Verona. In reply to your first letter, I assure your Highness that if I had ever dreamt Malacarno could be guilty of such detestable crimes, I would never have pleaded his cause, since naturally I hate such conduct. But as I had been told his faults were trifling, I consented to intercede with you on his behalf; and now I hear the bad character he bears, am well satisfied to hear the punishment which he has received, and praise your illustrious consort's prudence, while at the same time I thank you for the very kind expressions in your letter. As to Fra Bernardino's supposed prophecy that he would die this Holy Week after miraculously opening the eyes of a blind man, I find that there is absolutely no truth in the report you mention. Neither at Verona, nor yet at Padua, where he has also been preaching, did he ever use such language, which indeed his humility would forbid, and as I have learnt from a monk who attended his sermons. All the same, in order to satisfy you and make sure of the truth, I have made further inquiries, the result of which I now lay before you, begging you to commend me warmly to your illustrious lord.[23]

"Mantua, May 2nd, 1492."

From Vigevano, Lodovico and his wife moved to Pavia, where the summer months were spent in entertaining a succession of guests, and, as before, Beatrice and Isabella joined together in hunting parties and amusements of every description. Giangaleazzo had totally forgotten his passing vexation, the clouds which darkened Isabella's sad life seemed to lift for the moment, and once more harmony reigned in the ducal family. The fetes in honour of her son's christening, which had been postponed in the previous summer, were now celebrated with increased splendour. Bramante was summoned to arrange a succession of dramatic performances, and a grand tournament was held in the park of the Castello, in which Messer Galeazzo and his brother and all the most skilled jousters at court took part. And the Moro's accomplished friend, Ermolao Barbaro, the young Venetian patriarch, who had been once more sent as envoy to Milan, composed a wonderful Latin epigram in honour of the occasion, praying Pallas not to avert her face in sorrow at the sound and tumult of war, which is after all but a mimic display, and calling upon her, the goddess whose wisdom Lodovico honours above all the thunders of Jove, to bless the great house of Sforza, illustrious alike in the arts of war and peace.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Secret Archives of the Venetian Senate, Reg. 31, fol. 123, 131, etc., and Reg. 32, fol. 87.

[18] F. Calvi, Bianca Maria Sforza.

[19] C. Trivulzio in A. S. L., iii. 530.

[20] V. Delaborde, L'Expedition de Charles VIII. en Italie, p. 228.

[21] G. Uzielli, op. cit., p. 6.

[22] Archivio di Milano, Potenze esterne Francia.

[23] Luzio Renier, op. cit., p. 348.



CHAPTER XI

Intellectual and artistic revival in Lombardy—Lodovico and his secretaries—Building of the new University of Pavia—Reforms and extension of the University—The library of the Castello remodelled—Poliziano and Merula—Lodovico founds new schools at Milan—Equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza—Leonardo's paintings at Milan—Lodovico as a patron of art and learning.

1492

The year 1492 was one of great enterprises. The intellectual and artistic movement which Lodovico Sforza had inaugurated was now in full vigour, and the fruits of his wise and enlightened rule began to appear in every direction.

"Now that the wars were ended," writes Corio, "an era of peace and prosperity began, and everything seemed on a firmer and more stable foundation than it had ever been in times past. The court of our princes was most splendid, full of new fashions, rich clothes, and endless delights. Here Minerva and Venus vied with each other, while beautiful youths and maidens came to learn in the school of Cupid, Minerva held her gentle academy in Milan, and that illustrious prince, Lodovico Sforza, brought men of rare excellence from the furthest ends of Europe at his expense. Here the learning of Greece shone, together with the prose and verse of the Latin race. Here the muses of poetry, and the masters of sculpture reigned supreme; here came the most distinguished painters from distant regions; here night and day were heard sounds of such sweet singing, and such delicious harmonies of music, that they seemed to descend from heaven itself."

Foremost among the "men of singular merit" whom Lodovico attracted to his court and retained in his service, were his two secretaries, Bartolommeo Calco and Jacopo Antiquario of Perugia. Both were men of great learning and discernment, fired with the same passion for arts and letters as their master, and as liberal as he was in assisting poorer scholars. Calco was Lodovico's right hand and chief adviser in his great schemes for beautifying cities and palaces. He delivered his orders to the countless artists in his employment, arranged court festivities and generally conducted the duke's correspondence. Jacopo Antiquario was more purely a scholar, who protected other men of letters, and helped them generously in time of need. His honest nature and kindly actions made him singularly beloved, and a contemporary describes him as the most learned of good men, and the best of learned men; while his intimate friend, the great printer, Aldo Manuzio, has immortalized his memory in the beautiful epistle in which he dedicates the Moralia of Plutarch to this man, whose name, he prays, may go down to future ages linked with his own. Both of these secretaries proved able assistants in the great revival of art and learning which is Lodovico's lasting title to fame. Chief among these was the reform and extension of the University of Pavia. During the troubled times that followed Galeazzo Sforza's death, this ancient University had sunk to a very low ebb. The professors remained unpaid, and in many cases ceased to lecture, the buildings were small and inconvenient and the students lawless and riotous. Lodovico set himself with a stern hand to repress abuses on the one side, while on the other he grudged neither time nor money in promoting the cause of learning. A letter which he addressed to the students from Vigevano in August, 1488, only a few weeks before the dangerous illness which almost ended his life, deserves to be quoted, if only as an example of the attention which he gave to every detail of administration.

"Not a day passes," he writes, "but I hear of some fresh misconduct on your part, some crime committed or some uproar excited in the city, by you who are scholars of the University. Even last Holy Week your behaviour towards certain gentlemen and citizens of Pavia was justly the cause of scandal and complaint. Such things are not to be borne, nor do I intend to bear them any longer. Schools are intended for learning, and the object of all study and learning is that we may know how to live well, and, by our good conduct and fair lives, gain honour and praise both in the eyes of God and man. We do not see that the human and divine laws, in which you are daily instructed, produce any good effect if you can behave as you have done in this case towards peaceable citizens, especially in these holy days when the fear of God should, above all, control your ways and actions. If you thus neglect the laws of good living, nothing but confusion can be the result. And know that, unless you speedily return to better ways, and show more respect for our holy religion, and more honourable treatment of our honest citizens, no love of learning will induce me to countenance such misconduct. For to repress crime, keep Italy in peace, and maintain the honour of our illustrious lord duke, is the first and chief object of our endeavours."

Meanwhile, Lodovico neglected no means of improving the condition of both professors and scholars of the University. In 1489, the magnificent new Ateneo which he had planned was completed, and the different schools of medicine, jurisprudence, fine arts and letters, were brought together under the same roof. The most distinguished foreign scholars were invited to occupy the different professional chairs, their salaries were raised and their numbers increased. Giasone del Maino, who was professor of law at Pavia for fifty-two years, and whose reputation as jurist attracted students from all parts of the world, received the large salary of 2250 florins at this time, while Giorgio Merula of Alessandria, the historian, who for many years was professor of rhetoric at the University, and received only 375 florins in 1486, had his salary raised in 1492 to 1000 florins. Next to the law schools, that of medicine was the most noted for its excellence at Pavia, and among its distinguished professors were Alvise Marliani, who was said to rival Aristotle in philosophy, Hippocrates in medicine, and Ptolemy in astronomy, and who was court-physician in turn to Lodovico Sforza, to his son Maximilian, and to the Emperor Charles V.; and Ambrogio of Varese, who occupied the chair of astrology, and taught the science of Almansor, as it was termed. This favourite servant of the Moro received the title of Count and the castle and lands of Rosate from Gian Galeazzo in 1493, "for his services," so ran the patent, "in saving my illustrious uncle the Duke of Bari's life." Oriental study was another branch of learning that Lodovico especially encouraged. Count Teseo de'Albonesi of Pavia became noted as the first Chaldaic scholar of his age, and in 1490, the Moro established a chair of Hebrew, and appointed the Jew Benedetto Ispano to be the first professor, with express injunctions to study the text of the Bible. This experiment, however, proved a failure, and so few scholars attended his lectures that at the end of a year the chair was abolished. At the same time, new colleges were opened, and scholarships founded for poor students; and in 1496, Lodovico being then reigning Duke of Milan, granted the professors of law, medicine, philosophy and fine arts, an exemption from all taxation. Under his fostering care the University flourished as it had never flourished before. Scholars from all parts of Europe came to attend Giasone di Maino's lectures, the number of professors reached ninety: that of students was said to be three thousand. As the Milanese poet Lancinus Curtius sang in his Latin rhymes, "The fair-skinned Germans with their long hair flowing on their necks, the English and the knights from Gaul, the Iberian from the golden sands of Tagus, all hasten thither from the far North. The rude Pannonian lays aside his military cloak to join the eager throng who crowd into the virgin temple and seek the Helicon of Phoebus under the carved dome of wisdom, which bears Lodovico's name above the stars."

But the Moro patronage of learning was by no means limited to Pavia. He did his utmost to revive the ancient University of Milan, which had long fallen into decay, and founded new and flourishing schools in this city. The best Pavian professors Merula and the Greek Demetrius Calcondila amongst others, were invited to lecture to the Milanese students. Fra Luca Pacioli of Borgo San Sepolcro, the famous mathematician, came to teach them geometry and arithmetic, and Ferrari occupied the first chair of history ever founded in Italy, while the priest Gaffuri became the first public instructor in the new school of music. In short, as a contemporary writes, there was not a science of any description that could not be learnt at Milan in the days of Lodovico Sforza.

The endowment of research was another point in which Lodovico showed himself to be in advance of his age. He granted liberal pensions to Bernardino Corio and Tristano Calco, "the Milanese Livy," who continued the history of the Visconti begun by the Alessandria professor and addressed letters in his own hand to the private owners of valuable manuscripts, requesting the loan of works that would assist these writers of Lombard history, "in order that a perpetual memory of the great deeds done by our ancestors may be preserved for future generations." From his earliest years history had been one of Lodovico's favourite studies, and an illuminated volume of extracts from Greek and Roman history which he compiled under his tutor Filelfo's direction at the age of fifteen may still be seen in the library of Turin. And in riper years, amid all the pressure of State affairs and political anxieties, he never let a day pass without having some passages from ancient and modern history read aloud to him by his secretaries. So wise and enlightened a prince well deserved the high praise bestowed upon him by the Bolognese scholar, Filippo Beroaldo, and the great Florentine, Angelo Poliziano, with whom Lodovico frequently exchanged letters, and who in one of his effusions thus addresses his princely friend: "All the world knows you to be a prince of brilliant genius and singular wisdom, while above all others you cherish the noble arts and show your love for these intellectual studies which we profess." The jealousy of his own subjects was often roused by the favour with which Lodovico regarded scholars of other nationalities, and on one occasion a fierce quarrel arose between Merula and Poliziano, in which the Lombard historian stooped to the vilest personalities. Another Pavian professor with whom he had a controversy over certain commentaries of Martial, had, it appears, ventured to hint that Merula did not really know Greek, an insinuation which provoked the most violent display of anger on his part, and when Poliziano endeavoured to appease both parties, the affronted Lombard flew at him like a small terrier attacking some big mastiff. All Lodovico's tact and courtesy were needed to allay the storm, and when at length Merula died in 1494, the duke ordered the immediate destruction of all the papers relating to this deplorable controversy, of which all parties, he felt, had good reason to be ashamed. The remodelling of the library of the Castello di Pavia was another important work which was carried out in the year 1492, by Tristano Calco the historian and kinsman of the chief secretary, under the eye of Lodovico himself, while he and Beatrice spent the summer at Pavia. All the rare and precious manuscripts which he had been at such pains to collect in France and Italy and Germany, and the ancient books contained in the library were catalogued and arranged for the use of students. For Lodovico was not only bent on enriching the ducal library, but was determined to make its treasures accessible to scholars of all nationalities. He allowed contemporary historians, Corio, Merula, and Tristan Calco himself, to borrow manuscripts freely, and, what was even more admirable in those days of persecution, gave permission under his own hand and seal to a Jewish scholar, named Salomone Ebreo, to live in the Castello with his family, in order that he might translate Hebrew manuscripts into Latin for the promotion of theological studies, and also be enabled to study the text of the Hebrew Bible belonging to the library.

It is melancholy to reflect on the sad fate of this priceless collection, upon which Lodovico and his ancestors had expended so much care and thought. In 1499, the bulk of the library of the Castello was carried off to Blois by Louis XII. and its precious contents were dispersed. Some were taken to Fontainebleau by Francis I. and afterwards by Henry Quatre to Paris, where they are still the glory of the Bibliotheque Nationale. Others again found their way into different public and private collections, and may be seen at Madrid and St. Petersburg, in London and Vienna, still bearing the inscription "De Pavye au roi Louis XII.," which tells us that they once formed part of the Sforza Library. An illuminated manuscript of Aulus Gellius, and another of the "Triumphs" of Petrarch, encircled with miniatures and bearing Lodovico's name, which originally belonged to the same collection, are among the treasures of the Bibliotheque Nationale. Many more no doubt have disappeared, lost in the general anarchy and confusion which prevailed in the Milanese during the century after the Moro's fall.

The newly discovered art of printing was also liberally encouraged by Lodovico, one of whose proteges, Alessandro Minuziano, set up a printing press in Milan before Aldo Manuzio had settled in Venice, and in the course of the year 1494, published twenty-two books, including a Latin dictionary by Dionigi Este and complete editions of Cicero and Tacitus, Pliny and Suetonius, as well as the works of Filelfo and the Sonnets and Triumphs of Petrarch. In 1496, a treatise on music by Franchino Gaffuri was published, with a dedication to the duke, and was followed by the appearance of several works on harmony.

The munificence of Lodovico stirred up others to follow his example. His secretary Bartolommeo Calco founded free schools, where Greek and Latin professors lectured free of charge to poor Milanese students; and two other noblemen, Tommaso Grassi and Tommaso Piatti, endowed similar institutions. The new passion for learning spread from Milan and Pavia to other cities, and even Lombard villages had their public schools and lecturers. Everywhere the same thirst for knowledge was felt and the same respect for scholars was shown. For as Signor Lodovico wrote to his friend Poliziano, at Florence, "Both natural inclination and the example of our ancestors have inspired us with ardent love for learned men and an eager desire to honour and reward them to the best of our power."

If the intellectual movement which took place during the twenty years of Lodovico Moro's rule in Milan commanded general admiration; if learning flourished there as it had never done before, the widespread revival of art in Lombardy was a still more remarkable feature of the period. This indeed was the province in which Lodovico's true genius was most apparent, and in which his own fine taste, vast power of organization and minute attention to detail, all made themselves felt and bore rich fruit. "This," wrote Isabella d'Este—herself no mean judge of these matters—from Lodovico's court, "is the school of the Master and of those who know, the home of art and understanding."

Throughout the Milanese, architects and engineers, painters and sculptors, with a host of minor craftsmen, were carrying out the vast projects that emanated from this one man. The decoration of the capital was naturally among the chief objects of his ambition.

"In the year 1492," writes the chronicler Cagnola, "this glorious and magnanimous prince adorned the Castello di Porta Zobia with many fair and marvellous buildings, enlarged the Piazza in front of the Castello, and removed obstructions in the streets of the city, and caused them to be painted and beautified with frescoes. And he did the same in the city of Pavia, so that both these towns, that were formerly ugly and dirty, are now most beautiful, which things are very laudable and excellent, especially in the eyes of those who remember these cities as they were of old, and who see them as they are to-day."

Chief among Lodovico's most honoured and trusted servants was Bramante of Urbino, whose genius excited so marked an influence on the development of Lombard architecture, and who was to the builders what Leonardo became to the painters of Milan. "Signor Lodovico loved Bramante greatly, and rewarded him richly," writes Fra Gaspare Bugati, a Dominican friar of S. Maria delle Grazie, the Moro's favourite church, which this great architect did so much to beautify. During this year, Bramante, having finished the palace of Vigevano and completed the new buildings at the royal villas of Abbiategrasso, Cuzzago and other places, upon which he had been long engaged, began several important works in Milan itself. The new cloister or Canonica attached to the ancient basilica of S. Ambrogio, with its graceful columns and dark-green marble capitals, and the apse of S. Maria delle Grazie, soon to be crowned with that matchless cupola that remains among Bramante's most perfect works, were both begun in 1492. A few years before, between 1485 and 1490, he had built the Baptistery of San Satiro, which another of Lodovico's chosen artists, the great Como sculptor, Caradosso, was now engaged in modelling the lovely terra-cotta frieze of children and the medallions bearing, it is said, his own portrait and that of Bramante. The noble church of S. Maria presso San Celso, which in Burckhardt's opinion combines magnificence and simplicity better than any building of the Renaissance, was the work of Bramante's assistant, Dolcebuono, and owed its erection to the munificence of Lodovico, who laid the first stone in 1491. Nor were churches and palaces the only buildings upon which Lodovico lavished his gold and employed his most distinguished masters. In those days, the hospitals of Rome, Florence, Venice and Siena were the finest in Europe, and when Luther visited Rome, he is said to have been more impressed by the size and splendour of the hospitals, than by anything else in Italy. The great Moro, determined not to allow Milan to remain behind his age in this respect, employed Bramante to adorn the Gothic buildings of the Ospedale Maggiore with the arched windows and stately porticoes that we still admire, while he encircled the cloisters with marble shafts and terra-cotta mouldings after his own heart. And in 1488, after his own recovery from illness, and that terrible visitation of the plague which had carried off fifty thousand inhabitants of Milan in six months, Lodovico founded the vast Lazzaretto, which still deserves its proud title, and may well be called a "glorious refuge for Christ's poor."

Meanwhile the works of the Duomo of Milan, that other great foundation of the Visconti dukes, were being vigorously carried on. In 1481, Lodovico had nominated his favourite Pavian master, Amadeo, the architect of the Certosa, as Capomaestro in succession to Guiniforte Solari; but the Councillors of the Fabric declined to accept his suggestion, and sent to Strasburg for a German architect, John Nexemperger of Graz, who held the office for some years, but effected little, and was finally dismissed in 1486. After his departure, the ruinous state of the central cupola requiring immediate attention, Lodovico invited Luca Fancelli, the chief architect of the Gonzagas at Mantua, to visit Milan, and by his advice Leonardo, Bramante, and other leading masters were invited in 1487 to design models for a new cupola. On this occasion Leonardo executed a model, which, however, does not seem to have satisfied the Fabbricieri, and after applying in vain to his ambassador in Rome and Florence for a master able and willing to undertake the task, Lodovico returned to his first choice, and appointed Amadeo and Dolcebuono, architects of the Duomo, with powers to alter and perfect the models of the cupola submitted to them for inspection. In order to strengthen their hands and satisfy himself, Lodovico invited Luca Fancelli of Mantua and Francesco Martini of Siena to decide on the respective merits of the models already prepared. Caradosso was sent to conduct Martini from Siena, while Gaffuri, Professor of Music, escorted Fancelli from Mantua by the duke's orders, and both masters were richly rewarded for the pains and presented with silken vests and clothes for their servants over and above the pay to which they were entitled.

On the 27th of June, 1490, a meeting was held in the Castello, at which Lodovico presided, and after much deliberation the final execution of the cupola was entrusted to Amadeo and Dolcebuono. Bramante himself was not present on this occasion, but he approved highly of the model selected, and praised its lightness and elegance.

As for Leonardo, he was absorbed in other studies, and had apparently ceased to take any interest in the subject. After allowing his first model to be spoilt, and receiving payment for a second which he never began, he had, as already mentioned, accompanied the Sienese architect, Martini, to Pavia, to give his opinion on the new Duomo in course of erection. There he lingered, studying anatomy or discussing scientific and philosophical questions with the University professors, until he was recalled to Milan, to assist in the preparations for Beatrice's wedding fetes. Many and varied were the tasks on which Leonardo had been employed since the day, some eight years before, when the Magnificent Medici first sent him to his friend at Milan. In the letter which the young master, proudly conscious of his powers, himself addressed to Lodovico Sforza, offering him his services, he had, first of all, retailed at length his different inventions "for the construction of bridges, cannons, engines, and catapults of fair and useful shape hitherto unknown, but of admirable efficiency in time of war," after which he proceeded to give the following account of his artistic capacities:—

"In time of peace I believe I can equal any man in constructing public buildings and conducting water from one place to another. I can execute sculpture, whether in marble, bronze, or terra-cotta, and in painting I am the equal of any master, be he who he may. Again, I will undertake to execute the bronze horse to the immortal glory and eternal honour of the duke, your father, of blessed memory, and of the illustrious House of Sforza. And if any of the things I have mentioned above should seem to you impossible and impracticable, I will gladly make trial of them in your park, or any other place that may please your Excellency, to whom I commend myself in all humility."

The master had kept his word, and justified the confidence which from the first Lodovico Sforza placed in him. According to Vasari and the biographer of the Magliabecchiana, who wrote about 1540, Leonardo originally attracted the Moro's notice by the surpassing charm with which he played on a silver lyre of his own invention, and afterwards fascinated him by his conversation. But from the moment of his arrival at Milan the Florentine artist was employed by his new master to paint portraits and frescoes, to construct canals, arrange masques and pageants, or invent mechanical contrivances for use on the stage or in the house. A thousand different studies in his sketch-books and manuscripts bear witness to the strange variety of subjects upon which his versatile genius was brought to bear. But the most important work upon which Leonardo was engaged, and that which lay nearest to Lodovico Sforza's heart, was the equestrian statue of Duke Francesco Sforza. This, we learn from the master's own words, was the true reason that brought him to Milan. In a letter to the Fabbricieri of the Duomo of Piacenza, he describes himself as Leonardo the Florentine whom Signor Lodovico brought to Milan to make the bronze horse, and says that he can undertake no other task, for this will fill his whole life, if indeed it is ever finished! Countless were the designs, endless the different forms which the great master made for this model, which was, after all, never to be cast in bronze, and was destined to perish by the hands of French archers. At one time it seemed as if he could neither satisfy himself nor yet his master. In July, 1489, Pietro Alamanni, one of Lorenzo de' Medici's agents, wrote to ask his master if he could send another artist capable of executing the work to the Milanese court.

"Signor Lodovico," he says, "wishes to raise a noble memorial to his father, and has already charged Leonardo da Vinci to prepare a model for a great bronze horse, with a figure of Duke Francesco in armour. But since His Excellency is anxious to have something superlatively fine, he desires me to write and beg you to send him another master, for although he has given the work to Leonardo, he does not feel satisfied that he is equal to the task."

Probably Lodovico's confidence had been shaken by Leonardo's endless delays and hesitation, but a few months later the master was at work again, this time it appears on a completely new model of the great statue. On April, 1490, we find the following memorandum in Leonardo's writing:—

"To-day I commenced this book, and began the horse again."

But soon another interruption came to interfere with the progress of the great work. There was the visit to Pavia, and the decoration of the ball-room in the Castello, and the wedding fetes, and the tournaments in which Messer Galeazzo sought his help. And in this year—1492—we find Leonardo at Vigevano with the Moro in March, making designs for a new staircase for the Sforzesca, and studying vine-culture, and later in the summer drawing plans of a bath-room for Duchess Beatrice, and of a pavilion with a round cupola for the duke's labyrinth in the gardens of the Castello. It was in this same year, according to Amoretti, that he finished the beautiful painting of the Holy Family, upon which he had long been engaged. This may have been the picture ordered by Lodovico as a gift for the art-loving King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, when his niece Bianca Maria was betrothed to that monarch's son.

"Since we hear that His Majesty delights in pictures," wrote Lodovico to Maffeo di Treviglio, the ambassador whom he was sending to Hungary in 1485, "and we have here a most excellent painter, with whose genius we are well acquainted, and who, we are sure, has no equal, we have ordered this master to paint a figure of Our Lady, as beautiful and perfect and holy as he can imagine, without sparing pains or expense. He has already set to work, and will undertake nothing else until this picture is finished, and we are able to send it as a gift to his said Majesty."

The painter who had no equal could be none other than Leonardo; but it would be interesting to know if this picture, originally destined for Matthias Corvinus, was the Nativity eventually given by Lodovico in 1493 to Bianca Maria's future husband, the Emperor Maximilian. All traces of this altar-piece, however, as well as of the Bacchus and other subjects which Leonardo painted for the Moro, have vanished; and the only works that remain to us of his Milanese period are the cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne now in the Royal Academy, and the "Vierge aux Rochers" in the Louvre, which was originally painted between 1490 and 1494 for a chapel in San Francesco of Milan, the church where the great Condottiere Roberto di Sanseverino was piously buried by his sons, after his death in the battle of Trent. The fame which Leonardo had attained, and the high esteem in which he was held by the Moro, is proved by the verses of contemporary poets, and especially by those of his fellow-countryman, Bellincioni, the court-poet who died in 1492.

"To-day," he sings, "Milan is the new Athens! Here Lodovico holds his Parnassus; here rare and excellent artists flock as bees to seek honey from the flowers; here, chief among them all, is the new Apelles whom he has brought from Florence." In the volume of Bellincioni's Sonnets, published soon after his death by the priest Francesco Tanzio, the name Magistro Leonardo da Vinci appears in a marginal note, and in another sonnet inscribed to "Four illustrious men who have grown up under the shadow of the Moro," the editor gives the respective names of these famous individuals as "the painter Maestro Leonardo Florentino, the goldsmith Caradosso, the learned Greek scholar Giorgio Merula, called the sun of Alessandria, and Maestro Giannino, the Ferrarese gun-founder."

"Rejoice, O Milano," sings the poet in these verses—"rejoice above all, that within your walls you hold one who is foremost among excellent artists, Da Vinci, whose drawing and colouring are alike unrivalled by ancient or modern masters."

The fact that Lodovico was able to keep this great master at his court during so long a period is the best proof we have of his knowledge of men and love of art. These sixteen years were the most brilliant and productive of Leonardo's life. Never again was he to enjoy a freedom and independence so complete, never again was he to find a master as generous, as stimulating to his powers of brain and hand as the great Moro. It was not only that Signor Lodovico gave him the large salary of 2000 ducats—about L4000 of our money—"besides many other gifts and rewards," as Leonardo himself told Cardinal de Gurk, but that he was himself so fine a connoisseur and understanding a patron. More than this, he knew how to deal with men of genius, and could make allowance for their wayward fancies, and humour their caprices with infinite tact and kindliness. And from the little that we glean of his intercourse with Leonardo, he seems to have treated him rather as an equal than as a subject, and more like a friend than a servant.

The glimpses that we catch of Leonardo's private life from the writings of contemporaries, whether in Bandello's novelle, or in Bellincioni's rime, all give the same pleasant impression, and show the ease and liberty which he enjoyed at the court of Milan. And in his own "Trattato" (Cap. 36) the painter describes himself as living in a fine house, full of beautiful paintings and choice objects, surrounded by musicians and poets. Here he sits at his work, handling a brush full of lovely colour, never so happy as when he can paint listening to the sound of sweet melodies. The spacious atelier is full of scholars and apprentices employed in carrying out their master's ideas or making chemical experiments, but careless of the noise of tools and hammers, the fair-haired boy Angelo sings his golden song, and Serafino the wondrous improvisatore chants his own verses to the sound of the lyre. Visitors come and go freely—Messer Jacopo of Ferrara, the architect who was "dear to Leonardo as a brother," the courtly poet Gaspare Visconti, and Vincenzo Calmeta, Duchess Beatrice's secretary, or, it may be, the great Messer Galeaz himself, whose big jennet and Sicilian horse the master has been drawing as models for the great equestrian statue standing outside in the Corte Vecchia. There, among them all, the painter bends over his canvas seeking to perfect the glazes and scumbles of his pearly tints, or trying to realize some dream of a face that haunts his fancy with its exquisite smile. He has, it is true, many labours—"a tanta faccenda!" as he wrote to the councillors of Piacenza—and at times he hardly knows which way to turn, but he is his own master, free to work as he will, now at one, now at another. He has no cares or anxiety. He can dress as he pleases, wear rich apparel if he is so minded, or don the plain clothes and sober hues that he prefers. He has gold enough and to spare; he can help a poorer friend and educate a needy apprentice, or save his money for a rainy day; and, above all, he has plenty of books and leisure to meditate on philosophical treatises, or ponder over the scientific problems in which his soul delights. He can find time to jot down his thoughts on many things, to write his great treatise on painting, and to draw the wonderful interlaced patterns inscribed with the strange words which have puzzled so many generations of commentators. And he has friends, too, dear to his heart—Messer Jacopo, and the wise Lorenzo da Pavia, that master of organs whose hands were as deft in fashioning lyres and viols as in drawing out sweet sounds, with whom he loved to commune of musical instruments and eternal harmonies, and the boy Andrea Salai, with the beautiful curling hair, whom he loved to dress up in green velvet mantles, and shoes with rose-coloured ribbons and silver buckles.

"Such," he tells us, "was I, Leonardo the Florentine, at the court of the most Illustrious Prince Signor Lodovic." And what the Moro was to Leonardo that he showed himself to other artists and men of letters. In the poet's words, he was the magnet who drew men of genius (virtuosi) from all parts of the world to Milan. He might be an exacting and critical master, he was certainly never satisfied with any work short of the best—even Leonardo, we have seen, did not always find him easy to please—but once he discovered a man who was excellent in any branch of knowledge, he thought no cost too great to retain him at his court. And so the foremost scholars and the finest artists, Giorgio Merula and Lancinus Curtius, Caradosso and Cristoforo Romano, Bramante and Leonardo, were all drawn to Milan in turn, and, having once entered the Moro's service, remained there until the end.

"We know, O most illustrious Prince!" wrote Tanzio in his preface to Bellincioni's Sonnets—"we know that you, the Chief of the Insubrians, are no less a lover of your country than of your glorious father, in whose honour you have reared that mighty and immortal work, the great Colossus, which, like himself, remains without a rival. We see you equally anxious to glorify both his memory and your own great city. We see Milan, by your care, not only adorned with peace and wealth, with noble churches and edifices, but with rare and admirable intellects, who all turn to you in their hour of need, as the rivers flow into the vast ocean."

Nor was it only in Milan and Pavia that this revival made itself felt. The new impulse spread from city to city. The lovely Renaissance facade of S. Maria dei Miracoli at Brescia was completed in 1487, and the great Church of the Incoronata at Lodi, begun in 1488, was continued during the next twenty years under the superintendence of Dolcebuono and Amadeo. Bramante supplied designs for the new facade and portals that were added to the cathedral of Como in 1491, and for the majestic church of Abbiategrasso, close to this favourite country house of the Sforzas. A number of other churches, both in Milan and the neighbourhood, were designed by him or his scholars, and bear witness to the revolution which he had effected in Lombard architecture. At Piacenza and Cremona, at Saronno and Lugano, new churches and palaces arose, and the famous Sanctuary of Varallo in the Val Sesia was founded in 1491 by that devout personage, Messer Bernardino Caimo, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The same passion for building and decoration prevailed everywhere. On all sides poets and scholars celebrated Lodovico's name as the Pericles of this new Athens, and joined in the chorus of praise which inspired Pistoia's famous line—

"E un Dio in cielo e il Moro in terra."

"There is one God in heaven and the Moro upon earth."



CHAPTER XII

Beatrice d'Este as a patron of learning and poetry—Vincenzo Calmeta, her secretary—Serafino d'Aquila—Rivalry of Lombard and Tuscan poets —Gaspare Visconti's works—Poetic jousts with Bramante—Niccolo di Correggio and other poets—Dramatic art and music at the court of Milan—Gaffuri and Testagrossa—Lorenzo Gusnasco of Pavia.

1492

Lodovico Moro, as we have seen, was justly extolled by his contemporaries as the most illustrious Mecaenas of his age. As Abbe Tiraboschi, the learned historian of Italian literature, wrote ninety years ago, "If we consider the immense number of learned men who flocked to his court from all parts of Italy in the certainty of receiving great honours and rich rewards; if, again, we remember how many famous architects and painters he invited to Milan, and how many noble buildings he raised, how he built and endowed the magnificent University of Pavia, and opened schools of every kind of science in Milan; if besides all this we read the splendid eulogies and dedicatory epistles addressed to him by scholars of every nationality, we feel inclined to pronounce him the best prince that ever lived." And in Beatrice d'Este, Lodovico possessed a wife admirably adapted to share his aims and preside over his court. Both her birth and education fitted her for the position which she now occupied. Her youth and beauty lent a new lustre to the court, her quick intelligence and cultured tastes led her to appreciate the society of poets and scholars. The natural love of splendour, which she shared with the Moro, went hand-in-hand with artistic invention. Her rich clothes and jewels were distinguished by their refinement and rare workmanship. The fashions which she introduced were marked by their elegance and beauty. She took especial delight in music and poetry, and gave signs of a fine and discriminating literary judgment. And like Lodovico, she knew not only how to attract men of genius, but how to retain them in her service. Where, again, asks Castiglione, who had known her in her brightest days at Milan, shall we find a woman of intellect as remarkable as Duchess Beatrice? And her own secretary, the writer known as "l'elegantissimo Calmeta" in the cultured circles of Mantua and Urbino, has told us how much men of letters owed to her sympathy and help. In the life of his friend, Serafino Aquilano, written seven years after Beatrice's death, when the Milanese was a French province and the Moro a captive at Loches, Calmeta recalls the brilliant days of his old life at Lodovico's court, and speaks thus of his lost mistress:—

"This duke had for his most dear wife Beatrice d'Este, daughter of Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, who, coming to Milan in the flower of her opening youth, was endowed with so rare an intellect, so much grace and affability, and was so remarkable for her generosity and goodness that she may justly be compared with the noblest women of antiquity. This duchess devoted her time to the highest objects. Her court was composed of men of talent and distinction, most of whom were poets and musicians, who were expected to compose new eclogues, comedies, or tragedies, and arrange new spectacles and representations every month. In her leisure hours she generally employed a certain Antonio Grifo"—a well-known student and commentator of Dante—"or some equally gifted man, to read the Divina Commedia, or the works of other Italian poets, aloud to her. And it was no small relaxation of mind for Lodovico Sforza, when he was able to escape from the cares and business of state, to come and listen to these readings in his wife's rooms. And among the illustrious men whose presence adorned the court of the duchess there were three high-born cavaliers, renowned for many talents, but above all for their poetic gifts—Niccolo da Correggio, Gaspare Visconti, and Antonio di Campo Fregoso, together with many others, one of whom was myself, Vincenzo Calmeta, who for some years held the post of secretary to that glorious and excellent lady. And besides those I have named there was Benedetto da Cingoli, called Piceno, and many other youths of no small promise, who daily offered her the first fruits of their genius. Nor was Duchess Beatrice content with rewarding and honouring the poets of her own court. On the contrary, she sent to all parts of Italy to inquire for the compositions of elegant poets, and placed their books as sacred and divine things on the shelves of her cabinet of study, and praised and rewarded each writer according to his merit. In this manner, poetry and literature in the vulgar tongue, which had degenerated and sunk into forgetfulness after the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, has been restored to its former dignity, first by the protection of Lorenzo de' Medici, and then by the influence of this rare lady, and others like her, who are still living at the present time. But when Duchess Beatrice died everything fell into ruin. That court, which had been a joyous Paradise, became a dark and gloomy Inferno, and poets and artists were forced to seek another road."

Calmeta himself was a prolific writer both of verse and prose, whose translation of Ovid's Ars amandi, dedicated to Lodovico Moro, was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, and whom Castiglione introduces among the speakers of his Cortigiano. Like his friends Niccolo da Correggio and Gaspare Visconti, Beatrice's secretary was a fervent admirer of Petrarch, and wrote an elaborate commentary on the Canzone, "Mai non vo' piu cantar como io solea," which he dedicated to Isabella d'Este and sent her with a letter expressing his conviction that no one before him had ever fully understood this profound and subtle poem. Another of Beatrice's proteges was Serafino, the famous improvisatore of Aquila in the Abruzzi, a short and ugly little man, whom Cardinal Bibbiena once laughingly compared to a carpet-bag (valigia)! But in spite of his dwarfed stature and elfish appearance, Serafino sang his own strambotti and eclogues so well, and had so fascinating a way of accompanying himself on the lute, that the Este and Gonzaga ladies all entreated him for new verses, and literally wrangled over the man himself! Like Calmeta and many others, however, after spending some time at the courts of Mantua and Urbino, he came to Milan, and devoted his talents to the service of Duchess Beatrice until her death, after which he went his way sadly, and sought shelter in his old haunts. Most of his time after this was spent with the good Duchess Elizabeth at Urbino, where the Milanese refugees found a warm welcome, and where Serafino was caressed and feted by all the great ladies in turn, until a premature death closed his career, and he died in Rome in 1500, lamented in prose and verse by the most cultured spirits of the age.

While Beatrice encouraged these foreign poets to settle at Milan, Lodovico invited the Tuscans Bellincioni and Antonio Cammelli, surnamed Pistoia, to his court, in the hope of refining and polishing the rude Lombard diction. The priest Tanzio, writing after Bellincioni's death in 1492, remarks that this influence had already borne fruit, and that the sonnet, which was practically unknown in Milan before Bellincioni's coming, was now diligently cultivated there. But, not unnaturally, a bitter rivalry sprung up between the Lombard and the Tuscan poets, and a fierce poetic warfare was exchanged between them. Bellincioni's suspicious and quarrelsome nature is revealed in his letters to his patron, in which he is always complaining of the envious detractors whose wicked tongues are employed in backbiting him day and night. His own character was by no means free from the same imputations; and the Ferrarese poet, Tebaldeo, the friend of Raphael and Castiglione, composed a witty epitaph, in which he warns passers-by to avoid the last resting-place of this singer, who had made so many enemies in life, lest he turn in his grave and bite them. Bellincioni's bitterest foe was a certain Bergamasque poet, Guidotto Prestinari, who wrote many odes and songs in honour of Beatrice, and represented the old Lombard school. On one occasion this misguided person even dared to attack Leonardo, and wrote a sonnet in which he jeers at the great painter for spending his time in hunting for curious worms and insects on the hills of Bergamo, when he visited his friends of the Melzi family. Leonardo scorned to take any notice of these petty insults, but in his letter to the councillors of Piacenza we see the contempt which he had for Lombard artists—"those rude and ignorant workmen," as he calls them, "who boast they will get letters of recommendation from Signora Lodovico or his Commissioner of Works, Messer Ambrogio Ferrari, when not one of them is fit to undertake the task." And certain epigrams in the Windsor Sketchbook are plainly directed against the false and venal science of the astrologer Ambrogio da Rosate, whose name is given in the margin, and show how cordial was Leonardo's hatred of the duke's all-powerful favourite.

Fortunately, both Leonardo himself, as well as Calmeta and Pistoia, were on friendly terms with Gaspare Visconti, who, originally a scholar of Prestinari, became the chief representative of the Lombard school of poetry at Milan, and whom Beatrice's secretary places next to Niccolo da Correggio among the best poets of her court. This popular poet and polished cavalier was a great favourite, not only with Beatrice and her husband, but with Galeazzo di Sanseverino, the Marchesino Stanga, and all the chief personages at court. Born in 1461 of noble Milanese parents, he married Cecilia, daughter of Cecco Simonetta, Duchess Bona's ill-fated minister, and was advanced to the dignity of Eques Auratus and ducal councillor. After the death of Bellincioni he succeeded to the post of court poet, and was often employed by Lodovico to address complimentary verses to other princes or to write sonnets on passing events, whether his theme were a royal wedding or the death of a favourite falcon. His most important work was a romance entitled "Paolo e Daria," founded on Bramante's discovery of a tomb containing the ashes of these lovers, when the foundations of his new cloisters at S. Ambrogio were being laid in the year 1492. The incident excited great interest at court, and Gasparo dedicated his poem to Lodovico—"mio Duca"—and introduced an eloquent eulogy in honour of his friend Bramante in the first canto. In the following year he published a volume of rhymes, dedicated to Niccolo da Correggio, who sent the book to the insatiable Isabella d'Este, saying this would please her better than any verses that he could write. Finally, in 1496, he formally presented the duchess with a copy of his poems, written in silver letters and gold on ivory vellum, and enriched with miniatures of rare beauty. This sumptuous volume, bound in silver-gilt boards enamelled with flowers, and containing 143 sonnets as well as epistles on love and other philosophical and theological subjects, was dedicated to Beatrice in the following words:—

"To the Most Illustrious Duchess of Milan, Gaspare Visconti, Having been told by many honourable persons, chief among whom is Messer Galeazzo Sanseverino, that the said duchess graciously pleads my cause with His Excellency the Duke, I beg of her to accept this book, dedicated to her by her humble servant." The same grateful sentiments inspired the lyric which followed, in which the poet implored the duchess to use her well-known influence with her lord, and incline his will to look favourably upon her servant's prayer—

"Donna beata! e Spirito pudico! Deh! fa benigna a questa mia richiesta La voglia del tuo Sposo Lodovico. Io so ben quel che dico! Tanta e la tua virtu che cio che vuoi Dello invitto cuor disponer puoi."[24]

An ardent lover of Petrarch, to whose poems these of the Milanese poet were often compared by his admirers, Gaspare Visconti took the lead in a lively poetic contest with Bramante on the respective merits of Dante and Petrarch, The discussion was carried on during many weeks, in the presence of the duchess and her courtiers in the beautiful gardens of Vigevano, or in those fair pleasure-houses by the running streams in the park at Pavia, where Beatrice and her ladies spent the long summer days. Gaspare found animated supporters in his friends Calmeta and Niccolo da Correggio, who was himself an enthusiastic admirer of Petrarch, and on one occasion journeyed twenty-five miles from Correggio over the worst roads in the world to see the remote village of Rosena, where the Tuscan poet had composed some of his finest canzoni. On the other hand, Bramante had the duke and duchess on his side. We know how, at the end of a long day's work, Lodovico loved to listen to the reading of the "Divina Commedia" in his wife's boudoir, and ponder the meaning of that great vision of heaven and hell. And when the catastrophe of Novara had crushed his last hopes, and he was borne a captive into the strange land, the only favour he asked of his victors was the loan of a volume of Dante, "per studiare"—in order that he might study the divine poet's words. One of Gaspare's sonnets on the subject, which was afterwards printed, bears this inscription: "These verses were not written with any pretence of deciding between the merits of these two great men, but solely to answer Bramante, who is a violent partisan of Dante."

Another poetic tourney, in which both the great architect and his friend Visconti were the chief combatants, turned on Bramante's supposed poverty and the complaints with which he filled the air, calling on all the gods in heaven to help him in his misery. This was in the summer of 1492, and not only Gaspare, but Bellincioni, who was then living, and Mascagni of Turin took up the parable, and charged Bramante with begging for a pair of shoes, when all the while he was receiving five ducats a week from the duke, and was secretly hoarding up a store of gold. To this Bramante replied in a sonnet full of allusions to Calliope, Erato, and all the Muses, begging his friends for pity's sake to give him a crown, if they would not see him left barefoot and naked to battle with rude Boreas. A whole series of curious sonnets from Bramante's pen has been lately discovered by M. Muntz among the Italian manuscripts in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and reveal the burlesque side of the great architect's character, and the biting wit which made his opponents give him the name of Cerberus.[25]

These poetic jousts or encounters of wits were a favourite amusement of the cultured princesses of the Renaissance and their courtiers. Thus it was that Poliziano and Ficino discussed philosophical questions before Lorenzo in the gardens of Careggi or on the terraces of Fiesole; so Castiglione and Bibbiena reasoned of art and love with Duchess Elizabeth and Emilia Pia, in the palace of Urbino, till the short summer night was well-nigh over and the dawn broke over the peaks of Monte Catria. And at Milan, where in Beatrice's days there was less pedantry and more freedom and gaiety than in any court of the day, these lively debates found especial favour. The most brilliant courtiers and bravest knights, the gravest scholars and officers of state alike took part in them. Messer Galeazzo, as we have seen, was an adept at the game, and could wield his pen and challenge fair ladies in defence of Roland as gallantly as he couched his lance to ride in the lists or wielded his sword in the thick of the battle. So, too were the Marchesino Stanga and his friend Girolamo Tuttavilla. Both these noblemen were great sonnet-writers, and are classed by Pistoia among those illustrious lords, who, like Messer Galeazzo and Signor Lodovico himself, were poets and writers as well as statesmen and generals.

Bramante addressed several of his sonnets to Count Tuttavilla, who in his turn had a lively controversy in rhyme with the Marchesino. And when, in the spring of 1492, Tuttavilla accompanied the Count of Caiazzo on his embassy to France, Gaspare Visconti sent him a sonnet asking for the latest news from Paris, which Duchess Beatrice and all her ladies were dying to hear.

"Tell me if the Queen of France is fair, and how the king appears in your eyes—whether he is cruel or clement, inclined to walk in the paths of virtue or of vice. And tell us, too, if the people of Paris seem to fear the English and the Spaniard, and if they are true followers of Mars? Tell us how the crowds who walk the streets are clad, and what customs and manners they have, and how they speak, and what they think. Tell me how many students their University numbers, and in what branches of learning they excel. Tell me the names of their lawgivers and historians, and if any classical antiquities are to be found in Paris. Tell me how the Abbey of S. Denis is built, and what style of architecture prevails in the far North? And tell me, too, if I dare ask, have you perchance in Paris found some fair lady to bend a gracious smile upon you, and console you for all that you have left behind?"

Girolamo Tuttavilla replied in verses of the same light and airy strain, alluding to the fierce contest over Dante that waged between Dottore Bramante and his foes, and laughing at friend Bellincioni's furious rages, but saying that he at least is wiser, and will take the via media and steer warily between the two contending parties.

But the best poet at Lodovico's court, a sweeter singer and a finer scholar than the much-praised Bellincioni or the gay Visconti, was Niccolo, the "gran Correggio" of Gaspare's song. The son of that accomplished princess of Este, Beatrice the Queen of Festivals, reared by her in all the culture of Ferrara, this singularly polished and handsome personage was in the eyes of his contemporaries the model of a perfect courtier. To have known him was in itself a liberal education. Sabba da Castiglione, that fastidious scholar and refined writer of the sixteenth century, counted himself fortunate because as a boy he had seen and known "this most famous, most courteous and gifted cavalier in all Italy." Ariosto saw him in his vision upholding the Fountain of Song, and chanting in his own lofty and noble style—

"Un Signor di Correggio Con alto stil par che cantando scriva."

Niccolo had come to Milan in Beatrice's bridal train, and remained there ever since, highly valued and beloved by Lodovico and all the ducal family, riding in jousts and tournaments, going on foreign missions, and composing songs and eclogues for that young duchess whose death was one day to inspire some of his most touching verses. But the Marchesa Isabella was the true goddess of his adoration, the mistress to whom his heart and lyre alike were pledged, who was for him, not only "la mia patrona e signora," but "la prima donna del mondo," "the first lady in all the world." For her he translated Breton legends and Provencal romances; for her he set Virgil and Petrarch to music; for her fair sake, old and stiff as advancing years have made him, he is ready to break a lance or join once more in the dance. At Christmas-time, in the last days of 1491, the impatient Marchesana had written to remind him that she had never yet received the eclogue which he had promised to send her at her brother Alfonso's wedding, and refused to be put off with any other verses, saying that his poems pleased her more than those of any living bard. When in later years she found that Niccolo was inclined to transfer his allegiance to her sister-in-law, Lucrezia Borgia, she was sorely affronted, and after his death entered into a long contention for the possession of the book of poems which he had left behind.

There were many other poets of Beatrice's court whose names were famous in their day, but have long ago been forgotten, and whose works have passed into oblivion with all that vanished world. There was Lancino di Corte, or, as he preferred to style himself, Lancinus Curtius, the writer of Latin epigrams; and Antonio di Fregoso, the noble Genoese youth who, like Niccolo, won Calmeta and Ariosto's praises, and whose poetic disputes with Lancinus were a feature of Cecilia Gallerani's entertainments; and Baldassare Taccone of Alessandria; and Pietro Lazzarone of the Valtellina. There was Galeotto del Carretto, the Montferrat poet and historian, who left his home at Casale to compose plays and sonnets for Beatrice, and who, like Niccolo da Correggio, was one of Isabella's favourite correspondents, and sent her eclogues and strambotti to sing to the lute. When Beatrice died he had just finished a comedy dedicated to this princess, which he afterwards sent to Isabella, begging her to accept it both for his sake and that of the lamented Madonna Duchessa sorella, who had taken pleasure in reading his effusions. And there was another Tuscan poet, Antonio Cammelli of Pistoia, who composed a whole volume of sonnets dedicated to "that most invincible Prince, the light and splendour of the world, Lodovico Moro." These sonnets are of great interest, less on account of their poetic merit than because of the fidelity with which they commemorate political events. The invasion of the French, the conquest of Naples, the battle of Fornovo, the peace of Vercelli, the proclamation of Lodovico as Duke of Milan, his coronation fetes at Milan and Pavia, are all carefully recorded. Nor does the series end here; in another sonnet the poet takes up the note of warning, and bids Lodovico beware of the new King of France and, ceasing to dally with Fortune, prepare to defend his fair duchy. The next time Pistoia took up his pen, it was to wail over the duke's fall and the ruin of Italy, and to hurl curses on the head of the false servants who had betrayed their trust and yielded up the Castello to their master's foes. This, at least, may be said to Pistoia's credit—he did not forget his generous patron in the days of adversity; and when Pamfilo Sasso, the Modena bard who had basked in the sunshine of the Moro's favour, assailed the fallen duke in his verses, Pistoia rose up in defence of his old master, and fiercely rebuked the cowardly poet.