The other letter was written to the duke on the 5th of January, from Mantua, by Chiara Gonzaga, the widowed Duchess of Montpensier, who had so lately enjoyed the pleasure of Beatrice's company at Milan, and who now poured out the fulness of her grief and sympathy with the bereaved husband.
"The piteous and lamentable news of your wife's sudden death, which, my dear lord, I have just received, has so bitterly revived my own sorrows, that I am unable to write to your Excellency as I ought, or speak a single word of comfort, 'Chè medico morbeso mal sana li malatti'—for a sick doctor cures sick folks badly.—All I can do is to join my tears with your own in lamenting this cruel and grievous misfortune and our mutual sorrow, which I only wish I could bear in your stead. Had fortune only better understood your need and mine, she would have left that blessed soul to enjoy all the prosperity in store for her, and would have allowed death to relieve me from the burden of my tearful and wretched existence. May that Divine Providence, Who orders all things for some good end, give your Excellency comfort and lead this toilsome life to a safe haven."[70]
Maximilian's allusion to the duke's prolonged mourning for his wife agrees with the remarks of the Ferrarese and Venetian chroniclers. To these men of the Renaissance, accustomed as they were to pass quickly from one phase of life to another and to witness swift and sudden changes of fortune, this inconsolable grief seemed beyond understanding. For a whole fortnight Lodovico remained in a darkened room, refusing to see his children, and taking no pleasure even in their company. No ambassadors were admitted into his presence; even Borso da Correggio, who came from Ferrara, was referred to the Marchesino Stanga and the Conte di Caiazzo, as deputies appointed by the duke to receive condolences. And when Lodovico saw his ministers, they were strictly charged only to speak of business matters, and never to mention the name of the duchess or allude to the duke's recent bereavement. So complete was his seclusion and so profound his melancholy, that those about him began to tremble for his reason. "The duke," wrote Sanuto, "has ceased to care for his children or his state or anything on earth, and can hardly bear to live." But fears of his old enemy Louis of Orleans before long roused him from the apathy and despair, and showed his foes that they had still to reckon with him. Rumours of a French invasion were once more heard; Trivulzio was at Asti with a strong force, and the Duke of Orleans was shortly expected to lead an expedition into Lombardy and assert his claim to Milan.
On the 17th of January, Lodovico shaved his head, came out of his room, and publicly gave the standard and bâton of command to Galeazzo di Sanseverino, who was sent to defend Alessandria at the head of a considerable Milanese and German army. But the French king's health was failing, and the Duke of Orleans, who, since the death of the little dauphin twelve months before, had become the next heir to the crown, suddenly refused to leave France. Trivulzio was repulsed in an attack on Novi; while an attempt to seize Genoa, which was set on foot by the Cardinal della Rovere and Battista Fregoso, was frustrated by the prompt measures of defence taken by the Duke of Milan and the Venetians.
Meanwhile every possible honour was paid to the memory of Duchess Beatrice. All through the duchy, during the month of January, solemn funeral services were held, and one hundred requiem masses were said daily in S. Maria delle Grazie for the repose of her soul, while a hundred tapers were kept burning day and night round the stone sarcophagus supported by lions in which her remains were interred. The duke himself, clad in a suit of black fustian and wrapt in a long black cloak, which all his courtiers wore as a badge of mourning, attended two or three masses daily, as well as many offices to Our Lady, and sent a hundred gold ducats to the Santa Casa at Loreto, in discharge of a vow which poor Beatrice had made to take a pilgrimage to that famous shrine after the birth of her child.
Marino Sanuto, writing in August, seven months after Beatrice's death, remarks that since his wife's death the duke has become an altered man. "He is very religious, recites offices daily, observes fasts, and lives chastely and devoutly. His rooms are still hung with black, and he takes all his meals standing, and wears a long black cloak. He goes every day to visit the church where his wife is buried, and never leaves this undone, and much of his time is spent with the friars of the convent." And a Dominican historian, Padre Rovegnatino, then living, records how during the whole of the next year Lodovico visited the convent regularly twice a week—on Tuesday, which, being the day of the week on which Beatrice died, he always kept as a fast, and on Saturday, and on these occasions dined with the prior Giovanni da Tortona and his successor Vincenzo Baldelli.
The decoration and improvement of this church and convent now became the chief object of Lodovico's thoughts. The beautiful shrine which he had already adorned with Bramante's cupola and portico, was now doubly dear to him for the sake of Beatrice and his dead children. The annals of the convent record the multitude of his benefactions to both church and convent, and the cordial relations which he maintained with the Dominican friars to the end of his reign. First of all, he applied himself to raise a monument to the memory of Beatrice immediately in front of the high altar, where her remains were buried. The sculptor whom he chose for this work was Cristoforo Solari, called Il Gobbo, or the hunchback, a surname which he had inherited from his father, who seems to have been deformed. The Solari were a race of sculptors, many of whom had been employed at the Certosa, while Cristoforo, who had settled in Venice about 1490, was recalled to Milan about this time and appointed ducal sculptor, on the recommendation of the Marchesino Stanga. It was the duke's pleasure that a recumbent effigy of Beatrice, wearing the rich brocades and jewels in which she had been borne to her rest, should be placed on her tomb, so that future ages should have a perpetual memorial of the young duchess as she had last appeared in the eyes of the servants and people who had loved her so well. And as it was Lodovico's own wish to be buried in the same tomb, the sculptor was to carve an effigy of himself in ducal crown and mantle, lying at his wife's side in the last slumber. So, at the duke's bidding, the Milanese ambassador, Battista Sfondrati, bought the finest blocks of Carrara marble that he could find in Venice, and the brothers of the Certosa sent seven loads more from their vast stores to Solari's house in Milan. Out of these marbles the sculptor carved a noble bas-relief of the Dead Christ and the two admirable effigies of the duke and duchess, which now adorn the Certosa of Pavia. His task was probably finished before the close of the following year, and the tomb was set up in the Cappella maggiore of S. Maria delle Grazie, at a cost of upwards of 15,000 ducats. At the same time Lodovico placed a slab of black marble on the walls of the same chapel, in memory of the dead child whose birth had cost his mother her life, with the following proud inscription:—
"Infelix partus: amisi ante vitam quam in
Lucem ederer; infelicior quod matri
Moriens vitam ademi et parentem con
-sorte sua orbavi in tam adverso fato.
Hoc solum mihi potest jocundium esse
Quod divi parentes me, Ludovicus et
Beatrix Mediolanenses duces genuere,
M.C.C.C.C.LXXXXVII. Tertio Nonas Januarii."
The ill-fated child had died before he had ever seen the light of day, and, still more unfortunate in this, he had deprived his mother of life, and left his father widowed and alone; but this at least he could proudly say, "Lodovico and Beatrice, Duke and Duchess of Milan, were my parents."
The walls of the chapel were decorated with rich marbles and gilding, and new altars were set up in honour of Saint Louis and Santa Beatrice, the patron saints of the duke and duchess. Cristoforo was employed to carve reliefs for the high altar, and the duke gave the friars a jewelled crucifix and marvellously wrought set of chalices, patens, candelabra, paci of niello, engraved with Beatrice's name and arms. Among other costly gifts, he also presented them with a magnificent pallium and richly embroidered hangings for the altar, and a set of illuminated choir-books with enamelled and jewelled bindings, while the Marchesino Stanga gave an organ to the church. Bramante was ordered to complete the cupola as soon as possible, and was employed later to add a new sacristy to the church.