Author of "Madame," "Sacharissa," "J. F. Millet"
1910
LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
First Edition, November, 1899
Second Edition, June, 1903
Third Edition, November, 1903
Fourth Edition February, 1905
Fifth Edition, July, 1908
Sixth Edition, May, 1910
All rights reserved
PREFACE
During the last twenty years the patient researches of successive students in the archives of North Italian cities have been richly rewarded. The State papers of Milan and Venice, of Ferrara and Modena, have yielded up their treasures; the correspondence of Isabella d'Este, in the Gonzaga archives at Mantua, has proved a source of inexhaustible wealth and knowledge. A flood of light has been thrown on the history of Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; public events and personages have been placed in a new aspect; the judgments of posterity have been modified and, in some instances, reversed.