XI
Beatrice Sforza d'Este died on Tuesday, the 2nd of January 1497, at six in the morning. The Duke remained by her corpse for twenty-four hours, refusing food and sleep. It was feared his reason would give way. On Thursday morning he called for writing materials and wrote to Isabella d'Este, sister of the dead Duchess, a long letter breathing bitterest grief.
'It had been easier for me to have died myself,' he wrote; 'I pray you send me no condolence nor messenger.'
After writing he was induced to eat a little, not presenting himself at table but being served in solitude by Ricciardetto.
He had proposed to leave the disposing of the funeral to Bartolomeo Calco, his secretary; arranging himself merely the order of the procession. But his interest became aroused, and presently he was planning details of the ceremonial with the same zeal he had shown in ordering the magnificent festival of the Golden Age. He fixed the precise weight of the funeral tapers; the number of braccia of gold brocade and of black cramoisie for the altar cloths; the largess of small coin, pease, and tallow to be distributed among the poor in the name of the deceased. Choosing the cloth for the mourning of the court functionaries, he did not omit to feel its weight with his fingers, and to make sure of its quality by holding it to the light. For himself he ordered a special mourning garb (abito solenne di lutto profondo) having holes torn in it to simulate the rendings of despairing frenzy.
A few days later Il Moro caused the tomb of the still-born child to be inscribed with a pompous epitaph composed by himself and translated into Latin by Merula.
'I, unhappy child, have perished before I have seen the light; more unhappy in that, dying, I have ravished life from my mother—from my father his consort. In this adverse fate but one consolation remains to me; that I was born of parents equal unto gods. In the year 1497, the third of the Nones of January.'
Il Moro stood a long time contemplating this inscription, cut in gold letters upon a slab of black marble covering the infant's grave. It was in the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Beatrice also slept her last sleep. The Duke shared the naïve enthusiasm of the stone-mason, who having finished his work drew back and admired it from a distance, putting his head on one side, closing one eye, clucking his tongue, and murmuring in an ecstasy of satisfaction:—
'This is no tomb, but a jewel.'
One morning when the snow on the housetops shone white against the rich blue of the sky, and in the crystal air was that freshness like the fragrance of lilies which seems to be the perfume of snow, Leonardo da Vinci passed from the sunlit frost into a dark close chamber hung with black taffeta, where the shutters were rigorously closed, and funeral tapers were still alight—the chamber of Ludovico, who for many days had refused to leave it.
The Duke spoke of the Cenacolo which was to glorify the place where Beatrice was laid. Then he said:—
'Leonardo, they tell me you have taken under your wing that urchin who played the Golden Age at our ill-omened feast. What of him?'
'He is dead, Most Illustrious. He died on the day of Her Grace's funeral.'
'Died!' echoed the Duke. 'Nay, but that is strange!' And he dropped his head on his hands, sighing heavily. Then he stretched his hand to Leonardo.
'Yes! yes!' he cried; ''twas destined to fall out thus. Truly our Golden Age is dead; dead together with my incomparable one, for it could not, it should not, survive her. Is it not a truth, amico mio, that here we have a strange coincidence—theme for a tremendous allegory?'