"I could not have heard any message with more satisfaction than that which Count Alessandro della Massa has brought me in your Highness's name, on presenting your affectionate letters, nor could any present have been more gratifying than the picture which you were pleased to send me: both on account of its subject, and as coming from your hands, it will be ever the most valued that I possess. On all accounts, therefore, do I kiss your Highness's hand, recommending myself to your goodness; and I pray the Lord to preserve you ever in all happiness. From Ferrara, 28th of May, 1586.
"Your most loving and obedient consort and servant,
"Lucrezia d’Este."
The Oliveriana MSS. contain many other letters from Lucrezia; but, as usual with such princely documents, they are more rich in mannered phrases of compliment than in those natural sentiments which form the charm of epistolary composition, and afford a correct index of individual character. Most of them are commendatory introductions of priests and friars, a class of acquaintances more congenial to her husband's disposition than her own, the chief foible in her character being an immoderate addiction to those festive and exciting pleasures, which, although the business of her brother's court, met with little encouragement at that of her consort. Her intercourse with Tasso will fall to be noticed in our [fifty-first chapter], when describing the sorrows of that wayward genius. After her return to Ferrara, she interested herself in establishing at San Matteo an asylum for wives, who, like herself, were separated by incompatibility of character. Soon after his separation from the Duchess had been arranged, Francesco Maria paid a visit to the court of Tuscany, where he met with a distinguished reception, and spent fifteen days very agreeably amid the many attractions of Florence, varied by comedies and amusements of the chase. During the ensuing carnival he introduced unwonted gaiety at Pesaro, holding a tournament, at which he entered the lists in person. About this time, too, his finances were recruited by a donative of 10,000 scudi granted to him by that city.
Anderson
FRANCESCO I. DE’ MEDICI
After the picture by Bronzino in the Pitti Gallery, Florence
The Duke's autograph Diary, from which we have recently quoted, and to which we shall frequently refer, having been carried to Florence with his other personal effects in 1631, remains in the Magliabechiana Library (Class xxv., No. 76). It is a narrow folio volume, like an index book, containing about two hundred pages entirely in his own hand. The entries are limited to a bare notice of facts without comment. The topics most frequently registered are the passage of remarkable strangers through Pesaro; the births, marriages, and deaths of persons of rank; his own periodical movements to his various residences, and visits to other parts of the duchy; his frequent hunting parties in autumn and winter, chiefly from Castel Durante; his taking medicine, including regular semestral purgations in spring and autumn. His taste for the physical sciences is illustrated by noting the occurrence of earthquakes, unusual storms, or other phenomena of nature, the recurrence of frost and snow, of the cigala and the nightingale, of mosquitoes, and similar signs of the seasons; also the appearance of any rare animal or monstrous production of nature. The Journal commences in April, 1583, and is continued without interruption until March, 1623, when it terminates abruptly.