1492
That summer Isabella d'Este at length accomplished her long-intended visit to her sister, whom she had not seen since the wedding fêtes. Early in July she received a pressing invitation from Lodovico himself, urging her to accompany her father, Duke Ercole, who was expected at Milan towards the end of the month. But, as she wrote to her husband, who was then in Venice, it was quite impossible for her to start on her journey at this early date. In the first place, half of her household was in bed, ladies and servants alike were suffering from a feverish epidemic which had attacked the whole court; and in the second place, many preparations were necessary if she were to appear at Milan in state worthy of the Marquis of Mantua's wife. "Of course, if you wish it," she adds proudly, "I will set off alone, in my chemise, but this I think you will hardly desire."
Signor Lodovico's invitation, however, was gladly accepted, and Isabella made every preparation to start by the middle of August. She sent to Ferrara, urging her favourite goldsmith, as he loved her, to finish a necklace of a hundred links by next week, and begging him to lend her some more jewelled chains for the use of her courtiers and maids-of-honour. And the same day she wrote to the Venetian merchant Taddeo Contarini, excusing herself for her delay in paying for some jewels which she had lately bought, since her visit to Milan necessarily entailed heavy expenses. By the 10th of August she was able to start on her journey, and spent a night on the way at Canneto with her kinswoman, Antonia del Balzo, wife of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga of Bozzolo, who came to meet her with two beautiful daughters. "Messer Andrea Mantegna himself," exclaimed the marchioness, "could not paint fairer maidens!" On the 12th, she reached Cremona, where Lodovico's cousin, Francesco Sforza, was awaiting her, and a crowd of people hailed her arrival with enthusiasm. After spending a night in the Episcopal palace, she went on to Pizzighettone, where she discovered that her best hat had been forgotten, and sent a messenger back to Mantua with the key of her black chest, desiring one of her servants to look out her hat with the jewelled feather and send it after her by a flying courier. On the 15th, the Marchesana reached Pavia, where both the Duchesses of Milan and Bari rode out to meet her, and placing her between them, after many embraces, conducted her through the city. Here the two dukes and all the ambassadors were awaiting her, and a troop of trumpeters and outriders escorted the party up to the castle gates. That evening she supped alone with Beatrice, and the hours flew by in delightful intercourse. Both sisters were in the highest spirits, and Isabella anticipated the greatest pleasure from her visit, only regretting that her husband had not been able to accompany her.
"The only news here," she wrote next day to the marquis, "is the election of this new Pope, which fills every one with great joy, and is said to be entirely due to Monsignore Ascanio, who will, they say, be the new Vice-Chancellor."
On the 25th of July, Innocent VIII. had breathed his last, and on the 6th of August, the conclave met to elect a new Pope. Among the twenty-three Cardinals of which the Sacred College then consisted, three were prominent candidates for the papal tiara. First of all there was Cardinal Roderigo Borgia, the oldest and wealthiest of the group, who held the three most important archbishoprics in Spain, as well as innumerable benefices in the rest of Christendom, and whose scandalous vices amid the general corruption of morals in Rome offered no bar to his advancement to the chair of St. Peter. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the rich and powerful brother of Lodovico Moro, was the second candidate for the tiara; while the third was Giuliano della Rovere, Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vincula, whose well-known French sympathies, as well as the influential position which he had occupied in Rome under his uncle, Sixtus IV., made him unpopular with most of his colleagues. When Ascanio Sforza saw that he could not ensure his own election, he threw his whole influence on the side of Borgia, who lavished his gold and promises freely among the other members of the Sacred College, with the result that he was elected on the 11th of August, and proclaimed Pope under the title of Alexander VI. The secret Archives of the Vatican[28] give full particulars of this election, which was obtained by the most flagrant simony, and proved a prelude to the days of confusion and misery which Fra Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican of Florence, daily prophesied were in store for the Church. Ascanio Sforza was the first to reap the reward of his base compliance. The new Pope loaded him with favours, and openly acknowledged his indebtedness both to him and Lodovico, while at Milan the event was hailed with public rejoicings, and joy-bells and solemn processions celebrated the accession of this pontiff, who was destined to prove the most bitter enemy of the House of Sforza.
"Signor Lodovico," wrote the Ferrarese envoy, our old friend Giacomo Trotti, to his master, "is in the highest spirits at the success of his brother's efforts. Cardinal Ascanio is likely, people say, to administer all the papal estates, and will be every bit as much pope as if he sat in Alexander's chair."
Isabella's letters to her husband give the same impression. On the 19th of August she wrote from Pavia—
"To-day I dined with Signor Lodovico and my sister in their rooms, according to our usual habit of taking our meals together, sometimes in my rooms, sometimes in theirs. After dinner he dismissed all the company, excepting the Duke and Duchess of Milan, myself, and my companions, whom Signor Lodovico invited to remain, and with his own lips he read aloud a letter from his ambassador in Rome, saying that His Highness had sent for him, and addressed him in the following terms: 'Take note of my words. I acknowledge that I have been made pope by the action of Monsignore Ascanio, contrary to all expectations, and in a truly miraculous manner. I mean to show myself the most grateful of popes. It is my pleasure that he should sit in my chair, and dispose of my spiritual and temporal estate as if I were myself,' with many other affectionate words. Cardinal Ascanio has already received the first proofs of his gratitude, since, besides the vice-chancellorship, the Pope has given him his own furnished house in Rome, as well as the city of Nepi, and many other things. And His Highness has already dined with him in private.
"Besides this, Signor Lodovico read us a letter which the Pope had written with his own hand to Monsignore Ascanio, complaining that he had not seen him for half a day, a period which seemed to him more like a thousand years, and begging him to come to him at once, since he had many things of the utmost importance to settle with him. After describing this interview, the said Monsignore went on to tell how warmly His Holiness spoke of Signor Lodovico, saying that he was determined to maintain the most cordial relations with His Highness, and profit in all cases by his advice, and only wished that he were seated in his chair. All of this, my dear lord, affords the court here reason for the greatest rejoicings, and I have expressed both in word and gesture the pleasure which your Highness and I take in these things, because of our close union with Signor Lodovico."
The marchioness goes on to describe a hunting-party, in which the whole court had taken part.
"Yesterday, about four o'clock, all of these lords and ladies rode out with me to a place called S. Pirono, some four miles from Pavia, and had fine sport. White tents were erected in the meadows on the edge of the forest, and in the midst a pergola of green boughs, under which the duchess and I took our places, the duke and others, whether on horseback or on foot, occupying other tents. One stag of the eight which were found there, ran out of the wood, followed by eight of the Duke of Bari's dogs. Messer Galeazzo galloped after it with a long spear, and killed it before our eyes. To-morrow we dine at Belriguardo, and go on to supper at Vigevano, where we expect my father, who is to arrive on Thursday."
Duke Ercole had reached Pavia on the 4th of August, and had paid a visit to the Certosa with his son-in-law, after which he returned to Ferrara, where his presence was required, owing to urgent affairs of State connected with the Pope's death. Now he once more joined his daughters, accompanied by his son Alfonso and a troop of actors and pages skilled in singing and reciting poetry. Among them was young Ariosto, the bard of the Orlando Furioso, who was to celebrate the praises of all the princely personages present at Pavia and Vigevano, in his great poem, and who on this occasion probably met Leonardo for the first time. Fêtes and hunting-parties now succeeded each other every day. Even the King of Naples' ambassadors went out hunting, and one of them succeeded in wounding a wild boar. Isabella sent her husband wonderful accounts of the thrilling adventures and splendid sport which afforded the two sisters such unfeigned delight.
"To-day," she wrote on the 27th of August, "we went out hunting in a beautiful valley which seemed as if it were expressly created for the spectacle. All the stags were driven into the wooded valley of the Ticino, and closed in on every side by the hunters, so that they were forced to swim the river and ascend the mountains, where the ladies watched them from under the pergola and green tents set up on the hillside. We could see every movement of the animals along the valley and up the mountain-side, where the dogs chased them across the river; but only two climbed the hillside and ran far out of sight, so that we did not see them killed, but Don Alfonso and Messer Galeazzo both gave them chase, and succeeded in wounding them. Afterwards came a doe with its young one, which the dogs were not allowed to follow. Many wild boars and goats were found, but only one boar was killed before our eyes, and one wild goat, which fell to my share. Last of all came a wolf, which made fine somersaults in the air as it ran past us, and amused the whole company; but none of its arts availed the poor beast, which soon followed its comrades to the slaughter. And so, with much laughter and merriment, we returned home, to end the day at supper, and give the body a share in the recreations of the mind."[29]
Four venison pasties were despatched to Mantua the next day as a present to the marquis, whose absence from these expeditions his wife never ceased to regret, and for whom, at least in these early years of her married life, she had a genuine affection.
"All of these days," she writes on the 22nd, "I have been trying to write to Your Highness, but have never been able to find time, as I am always in my sister's and Signor Lodovico's company. Now I have at length snatched a moment, and hasten to pay you a visit in mind, since I cannot do so in person. For greater even than all the pleasures which I am enjoying here, is the satisfaction I receive when I hear that you are well and happy." A week later she wrote again: "It really seems an age since I saw Your Highness, and, pleasant and delightful as it is here, I begin to get a little tired of these scenes, but rejoice at the prospect of paying a visit to Genoa before long." And in an affectionate letter to her mother, she says that sometimes in the middle of the finest hunt she remembers with a pang how long it is since she has seen her, and how far away she is from Ferrara, and the thought throws a shadow over the brightest sunshine and the gayest pastimes.
After a succession of boar hunts at Novara and Mortara, Lodovico and Beatrice took their guests to Milan on the 15th of September, and Isabella entered the capital on horseback between the two young duchesses, while "the old Duchess Bona," she tells her husband, "and her daughter Madonna Bianca, with many other ladies, were awaiting me in my rooms in the Castello, the same suite which Signor Lodovico occupied at the time of his wedding."
The duke's mother still remained at court, and occupied rooms in the Castello, although she made no secret of her aversion for her powerful brother-in-law, and was secretly intriguing against him with her nephew, Charles VIII. At her request the French king wrote a letter to Lodovico, desiring him to give the duchess's mother leave to come to France for his wife Anne of Brittany's confinement. But the Moro, fearing the effect of Bona's presence at the French court, courteously declined Charles's invitation, alleging as an excuse the fact that both Bona's daughter-in-law, the Duchess Isabella, and her young sister-in-law, his own wife Beatrice, were expecting similar events early in the next year, while her daughter Bianca was of marriageable age and needed her mother's protection. At Milan new pleasures awaited Isabella. Theatrical representations in honour of Duke Ercole, were given by the Delle Torre family and other noble houses, and Isabella spent long days with her sister in the park and beautiful gardens of the Castello, among the roses and fountains which Lodovico loved. He was never tired of beautifying and enlarging the grounds, which now extended three miles round the Castello, and sent to Mantua for a pair of swans to adorn the lake, saying how much he liked to watch the movements of these white-plumed birds upon the water. To his sister-in-law, as Isabella always repeated in her letters, the Moro showed himself the kindest and most generous of hosts, and was unwearied in providing for her amusements and gratification.
"To-day," she writes on the evening after her arrival at Milan, "Signor Lodovico showed me the treasure, which Your Highness saw when you were last here, but which has lately received the addition of two large chests full of ducats, and another full of gold quartz about two and a half feet square. Would to God that we, who are so fond of spending money, possessed as much!"[30]
After which characteristic expression, the Marchesana proceeds to tell her lord that the date of her departure for Genoa has been fixed for the last day of September, and to describe her brother-in-law's preparations for the visit. Before her departure, he made a splendid present, which she describes in a letter written on the 20th of September. "Yesterday Signor Lodovico sent me, with the Duchess of Milan and Bari, to look at some sumptuous brocades which he had seen in the house of one of the richest merchants here. When we came home, he asked me which I considered the finest. I replied that what I had most admired was a certain gold and silver tissue embroidered with the twin towers of the lighthouse in the port of Genoa, bearing the Spanish motto, Tal trabalio mes plases par tal thesauros non perder."
The Moro praised her good taste, saying that he had already had a camora, or robe, made for his wife of this material, and begged her to accept fifteen yards of the same stuff, and wear it for his sake.
"This brocade," wrote Isabella joyfully to her husband, "is worth at least forty ducats a yard!" And without delay she sent for a tailor to cut out the gown, in order that she might wear it once before she left Milan.
The Marchesino Stanga and Count Girolamo Tuttavilla were chosen to escort Isabella to Genoa, where she was received in state by the governor Adorno, and splendidly entertained at the Casa Spinola by the chief citizens. Beatrice's delicate state of health had prevented her from accompanying her sister on this journey, but she still persisted in taking long hunting expeditions, and one day when she and the Moro were staying at Cuzzago, encountered a savage boar which had already wounded several greyhounds.
"My wife," wrote the Moro to his sister-in-law, "came suddenly face to face with this furious beast, and herself gave it the first wound, after which Messer Galeazzo and I followed suit, so that the boar must have had great pleasure in feeling how much trouble it had given us and to what dangers its hunters had been exposed."
The result of this long and fatiguing hunting expedition was that Beatrice fell seriously ill. Lodovico was much alarmed, and sent daily bulletins both to his sister-in-law and to her mother at Ferrara. "There is no fresh news to give you here," he wrote on the 6th of October. "My whole days are spent at the bedside of my dear wife, endeavouring to distract her thoughts and amuse her mind as best I can during her illness."
Isabella, who had intended to return home from Genoa, hurried back to Milan at the news of her sister's illness, and did not leave her until she was convalescent. During these weeks Lodovico showed himself the most devoted and attentive of husbands, and his letters to Isabella are full of the practical jokes and witty dialogues and repartees with which he and Messer Galeazzo amused the duchess. The following letter affords a characteristic specimen of the kind of fooling which these great Renaissance lords and ladies carried on at the expense of the half-witted jesters and buffoons who were attached to their different households:—
"Dear Sister and most illustrious and excellent Lady,
"You know what good sport we had in the wild boar-hunts at which you were present this last summer. Poor Mariolo, you remember, could not be there, first because he was ill at Milan, and afterwards because he was required to keep my wife company during her illness, and was much distressed to have been absent from these expeditions, when he heard that even the king's ambassadors had wounded a wild boar. And he told us all what great things he would have done, had he only been present. Now that my dearest wife is better, and begins to be able to go out-of-doors again, I thought we would have a little fun at his expense. Some wolves and wild goats having been driven into a wood near La Pecorara, which, as you know, is about a mile from here, on the way to La Sforzesca, Cardinal Sanseverino had a common farm pig shut up in the same enclosure, and the next day we went out hunting, and took Mariolo with us. While we hunted the wolves and wild goats, we left the pig to him, and he, taking it for a wild boar, chased it with a great hue and cry along the woods. If your Highness could only have seen him running after this pig, you would have died of laughter, the more so that he gallantly tried to spear it three times over, and only succeeded in touching its side once. And seeing how proud he was of his prowess, we said to him, 'Don't you know, Mariolo, that you have been hunting a tame pig?' He stood dumb with astonishment, and stared as if he did not know what we could mean, and so we all came home infinitely amused, and every one asked Mariolo if he did not know the difference between a wild boar and a tame pig!
"Your brother,
Lodovico Maria Sfortia.[31]
Vigevano, December 6, 1492."
The most remarkable thing about these letters is that a prince who was engaged in so much and varied business, who himself conducted a vast correspondence in which the most intricate diplomatic questions of the day were involved with his envoys at the different European courts, and personally superintended every detail of administration, while at the same time he gave minute instructions to the hundreds of architects, sculptors, and painters in his service, should have found time to write these bantering epistles to his sister-in-law. One of these letters, for instance, is devoted to a long account of the jokes that passed between Messer Galeazzo and the duchess at table, how Messer Galeazzo begged to be allowed a taste of the duchess's soup, and complained that he was forgotten now that the Marchesana was no longer there, and how Beatrice told him she would write and tell her sister, to which he replied, "Tell her whatever you like, as long as I get my soup!"
Yet at this very moment, when he penned these joking letters to Isabella, Lodovico was engaged in some of the most difficult and anxious negotiations with other States.
During Ercole d'Este's visit, the question of sending the customary congratulations to the new Pope had been discussed, and Lodovico had suggested that the ambassadors of the four allied powers—Milan, Naples, Florence, and Ferrara—should send a joint deputation, both as a mark of special honour to His Holiness, and as a public manifesto to foreign powers of the strength of these united States. The step, he was confident, would produce a good effect both on the King of the Romans and Charles VIII. of France, whose designs on Italy were already exciting alarm. Both the Duke of Ferrara and King Ferrante, who had been consulted through his ambassadors, when they came to hunt at Vigevano, agreed readily to Lodovico's proposal, and the only person to raise objections was Piero de' Medici, who had lately succeeded his father as chief magistrate of Florence, and pretended to the same power. The death of his friend Lorenzo had been sincerely deplored by Lodovico, who, before many months had passed, began to discover how weak and contemptible a character his son possessed, and had already consulted his astrologer as to the influence which this young man would have upon his own fortunes. Now the vain and foolish youth refused to join in the proposed embassy to the Vatican, because he wished to appear alone before Alexander VI. and impress that new Pope by the magnificence of his apparel and retinue. Not content with frustrating the Moro's plan, Piero induced King Ferrante to withdraw his consent to the joint deputation, a step which did not tend to improve the strained relations that had existed for some time past between Naples and Milan. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere had retired to Ostia in disgust at the election of the Borgia Pope, leaving Ascanio Sforza all powerful at the Vatican, and the Pope availed himself of every occasion to show his friendship for Lodovico. Already a marriage had been proposed between Alexander's daughter Lucrezia Borgia and Giovanni Sforza, Prince of Pesaro, and the King of Naples looked with alarm on the friendly relations that existed between the Holy See and Milan. "Alexander VI.," said Ferrante, bitterly, "has no respect for the Holy Church, and cares for nothing but the aggrandisement of his own family. Rome will soon become a Milanese camp."
But while Lodovico Sforza looked with suspicion on the intrigues of Ferrante's son Alfonso, and was anxious to strengthen his alliance with other powers, he had as yet no thought of inviting the French to invade Italy. On the contrary, the whole tenor of his private letters and public despatches was marked by the same anxiety to maintain cordial relations with the different Italian states, in order that they might present a united front to foreign enemies. However friendly were his advances to the King of France, he had never by word or hint given him the slightest encouragement to invade Italy or assert his claim to the crown of Naples. It was only when he saw peace restored between Charles and Maximilian, on the one hand, and on the other a treaty of alliance concluded between the Pope and the King of Naples, that he began to tremble for his own safety, and suddenly changed his policy. But for the moment counsels of peace prevailed, and the ambitious Moro could look forward with hope and confidence to the coming year, that promised to bring him new joys, and perchance the fulfilment of his long-cherished desire, in the birth of a son and heir.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Pastor's "History of the Popes," vol. v. p. 383, etc.
[29] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 350, etc.
[30] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 356.
[31] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 361.
CHAPTER XIV
Birth of Beatrice's first-born son—The Duchess of Ferrara at Milan—Fêtes and rejoicings at court and in the Castello—The court moves to Vigevano—Beatrice's wardrobe—Her son's portrait—Letters to her mother and sister—Lodovico's plans for a visit to Ferrara and Venice.