Even more strange it sounds in our ears to find Isabella d'Este, only a year after Beatrice's death, writing to the duke's former mistress, Cecilia Gallerani, to ask for the loan of her portrait by Leonardo's hand, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The fact that a princess of the proud house of Este, and one who, in the eyes of her generation, was the model of all virtues, should seek a favour from one who had wronged her sister so deeply, affords fresh proof how lightly such liaisons were regarded in those days, and may incline us to be more lenient in our judgments of the men and women of the Renaissance.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 639.
[66] C. Magenta, op. cit.
[67] This valuable and interesting letter is preserved in the State archives of the House of Este at Modena, and was first published by Signor Gustavo Uzielli, in his Leonardo da Vinci e Tre donne Milanesi, p. 43.
[68] Muratori, xxiv. 342.
[69] M. Sanuto, Diarii, i. 489.
[70] L. Pélissier, Les Amies de L. Sforza.
[71] Cantù in A. S. L., 1874, p. 183.