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"She too, whose pensive aspect speaks a heart By grievous cares molested and surcharged, An anxious lot shall live; Elizabeth, Of maiden worth, in whom no blandishment Or foolish passion ere with virtue strives; Spouse of our first Duke's son, whose span cut short By cruel death, his scornful mate bereft No after tie shall bind." |
The circumstances of her wedded life had not been such as to render new ties distasteful to a lady of thirty-seven, described by Bembo as still elegant in figure and dress, beautifully regular in features, and with eyes and countenance of singularly winning expression. The compliment paid to her character, in that author's sketch of the Urbino sovereigns, bears upon it a stamp of truthful earnestness rarely found in his rhetorical periods.[62]
An anonymous and now lost complimentary poem, written about 1512, and formerly in the library of S. Salvadore at Bologna, celebrated Elisabetta's charitable aid in the establishment of a monte di pietà,[63] at Fabriano, and alluded to her prudent government of the state in the Duke's absence. The terms of affection with which she regarded her husband's adopted heir underwent no change after her bereavement; and his marriage to her niece Leonora Gonzaga strengthened the tie. We shall find her making great personal exertions to modify the measures of Leo X. against Francesco Maria; and she shared his confiscation and exile, which she could not avert. She lived, however, to return with him to the house she had twice been compelled to relinquish, and saw his dynasty securely established in the state which had owned her as its mistress.
Her trials were closed on the 28th of January, 1526, by an easy death. She left the residue of her property to Duchess Leonora, after payment of numerous pious bequests to various churches, with liberal legacies to her household; and she was interred by the side of her beloved husband in the church of S. Bernardino.