The beautiful park and gardens at Pavia lay deep in snow, their lakes and fountains were all frozen over, but there was plenty to interest and amuse the visitors within the walls of this great Castello, of which they had heard so much, and which was said to be the grandest of royal houses in the whole of Europe. Three or four generations of masters had been employed by successive Visconti dukes to rear this glorious fabric, which in its palmy days must have been a noble monument of Lombard architecture. The long colonnades of low round arches went back to Romanesque days and the times of the first Visconti lords of Pavia; the Gothic windows of the banqueting-hall and upper stories had been finished in the reign of the great Giangaleazzo, and were enriched with slender marble shafts and exquisite terra-cotta mouldings similar to those that we admire to-day in the cloisters of the Certosa. The vaulted halls were painted with the finest ultramarine and gold, and the arms of Sforzas and Viscontis, the lilies of France and the red cross of Savoy, appeared on the groined roof between planets and stars of raised gold. The vast Sala della Palla, where the dukes and their courtiers indulged in their favourite pastime of "pall-mall," which Burckhardt calls the classic game of the Renaissance, was decorated with frescoes by the best artists of Pavia or Cremona, representing fishing and hunting scenes. Portraits of the dukes and duchesses were introduced, together with lions and tigers, wild boars and stags flying before the hounds, in the forest shades or on the open moor. The ball-room was adorned with historic subjects from the lives of the earlier Viscontis. The poet Petrarch, who had once filled a chair in the university, was seen delivering an oration before the duke; and Giangaleazzo, the founder of the Duomo of Milan and of the Certosa, was represented seated at a festive board laden with gold and silver plate, entertaining foreign ambassadors, with his armour-bearer standing at his side, and his cupbearer pouring out the wine, while huntsmen and falconers with horses and dogs awaited his pleasure. Of later date were the frescoes in the duchess's rooms, representing the marriage of Galeazzo Sforza at the French court and the reception of Bona of Savoy at Genoa, while the paintings which adorned the chapel had only lately been completed by Vincenzo Foppa and Bonifazio da Cremona.
Signor Lodovico was very proud, as he might well be, of this his ancestral home, and of the famous library which he had done so much to improve. He led his guests from room to room, and showed them all the rare and curious objects—the armoury with its store of ancient coats of mail and hauberks, of swords and helmets of ancient design, and its choice specimens of the engraved and damascened work; the breastplates and greaves that were a specialité of Milanese armourers at this period; the wonderful clock of copper and brass worked by wheels and weights, upon which Giovanni Dondi had spent sixteen years of ceaseless thought and toil, and which not only had a peal of bells, but a complete solar system, showing the movement of sun, moon, and planets as set forth by Ptolemy. After Dondi's death, Duke Galeazzo had to send to Paris for a clockmaker who could regulate the works of this elaborate machine, which was so much admired by Charles V. when he visited Pavia in 1530, that he commissioned a mechanician of Cremona to make a similar one for him to take back to Spain. And Messer Lodovico showed them also what he himself held to be his greatest treasures—the precious books adorned by exquisite miniatures from the hand of Fra Antonio da Monza and other living artists, the Sforziada and the Chant de Roland, and the rare Greek and Latin manuscripts which he had been at such infinite pains to collect; the codici brought from Bobbio by Giorgio Merula, and the manuscripts which Erasmo Brasca had discovered when Il Moro sent him to search for missing texts in the convents of the South of France. For Lodovico himself spared no expense and grudged no time or trouble in order to enrich what he felt to be a great national institution. Two years before he had addressed a letter to the son of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary—the prince who was to have wedded Bianca Sforza—begging him to have a rare manuscript by Festus Pompeius copied for him, and deploring the "decay of the knowledge of the Latin tongue in Italy, and the loss of so many priceless classical works which the barbarians have carried away."
The sight of these precious and varied treasures were fully appreciated by the cultivated Duchess Leonora, who had grown up among the scholars of her royal father's academy at Naples, and by her daughter, the accomplished Marchesana Isabella, ever eager, as she says in one of her letters, to see and learn some new thing, "desiderosa di cosa nova." And Signor Lodovico proved himself the most courteous and pleasant of hosts, conversing with graceful ease on a thousand subjects, and gratifying his new sister-in-law by the marked attention and courtesy with which he treated her.
"I find myself highly honoured and caressed by Signor Lodovico," she wrote to her husband from Pavia; and the discerning eyes of the Ferrarese ambassador, Giacomo Trotti, noticed how much pleasure His Excellency already took in the company of Madonna Beatrice and the Marchesana. On that first day which they spent together at the Castello, Trotti wrote to Duke Ercole, "Signor Lodovico is always at his wife's side, speaking to her and watching her most attentively. And he tells me that it would be impossible for her to give him greater pleasure or satisfaction than she does, and never ceases to praise her."
The first impression which the youthful bride made on her husband was evidently favourable. By all accounts, Beatrice was a singularly lovely and fascinating child. Without the regular features and distinguished air of her sister Isabella, there was a distinct charm in her sparkling dark eyes and jet-black hair, her bright colouring and gay smile. The contemporary chronicler Muralti describes her in his Annals as "of youthful age, beautiful in face, and dark in colouring, fond of inventing new costumes, and of spending day and night in song and dancing and all manner of delights." In these early days at Pavia and Milan there was, indeed, Trotti tells us, a certain shyness and reserve about her that was only natural and might well be ascribed to maiden shyness and timidity, but in the freedom and gaiety of her new life this soon gave way to the irrepressible mirth and joyousness of youthful vivacity. From the first she seems to have become sincerely attached to Lodovico, who, although considerably older than herself, and already thirty-nine years of age, was a very handsome and splendid-looking man, of imposing stature and striking countenance, with courteous manners and gentle ways. And however often he may have excited her jealousy or wounded her feelings, his young wife never wavered in her love for him, but proved, as he himself confessed, the best and most devoted of companions.
On Tuesday, the 17th of January, the long-delayed wedding finally took place, in the Castello of Pavia. A small but very brilliant company was assembled that day in the ancient chapel of the Visconti. The official festivities were to be celebrated at Milan, where the duke and duchess and their court were awaiting the bride's arrival, and the Ferrarese ambassador was the only foreign envoy present at the wedding. But Lodovico's personal friends and retainers mustered in force, as well as those captains and courtiers who could claim kinship with the house of Este. Niccolo da Correggio was there, as one nearly related to both bride and bridegroom, and was universally pronounced to be the handsomest and best dressed of all the cavaliers who were present that day. There, too, was Galeotto Prince of Mirandola, the husband of the gifted Bianca d'Este, and Rodolfo Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua's uncle, and, conspicuous by their lofty stature and martial air, the four Sanseverino brothers.
The bride, arrayed in a white robe sown with pearls and glittering with jewels, was led to the altar by the Duchess of Ferrara and Marchioness of Mantua, supported by the young Don Alfonso, his uncle Sigismondo, and a select retinue of Ferrarese courtiers and ladies. It was rumoured that the Marquis Gianfrancesco Gonzaga had himself been seen in the crowd assembled in the courtyard of the Castello, and, much to Isabella's surprise, Lodovico asked the marchioness, at the banquet which followed, if this report were true. But Isabella could only reply that if her husband were at Pavia, she was unaware of the fact, and it was not until the last day of the tournament at Milan that the marquis appeared in public.
"The nuptial benediction was pronounced, and the act of espousals confirmed by the ring which Signor Lodovico placed on the bride's finger, and that night the marriage was consummated," were the words of the official proclamation that was made in Milan the next day, and duly notified to the magistrates of the different cities in the duchy as well as to the duke's ambassadors at foreign courts.
On the following morning Lodovico left for Milan, to complete the arrangements for the bride's reception early in the following week. Nothing, he was determined, should be left undone to do honour to his nuptials or to make the occasion memorable both in the eyes of the people of Milan and throughout Italy. During the summer and autumn preparations had been actively going on, and a whole army of painters, goldsmiths, and embroiderers were at work, decorating the suite of rooms in the Rocca, or inner citadel of the Castello of the Porta Giovia, adjoining the Corte Ducale, where the Moro and his bride were to take up their abode. "Here all hands are busy," wrote the Ferrarese envoy to his master, "and Lodovico takes care that for the duchess nothing is done by halves." When the date of the wedding had been finally determined, every nerve was strained to complete the works within the Castello, and an imperative summons was issued by Messer Ambrogio Ferrari, the chief ducal commissioner, to the governors of Cremona, Piacenza, and Pavia, commanding the immediate return of the painters who were absent in these cities. Among the masters especially mentioned in these letters, we find the names of Bernardino da Rossi, Zenale and Buttinone di Treviglio, Treso di Monza, and Magistro Leonardo. This was none other than the great Florentine, then absent at Pavia, who was required to give his advice, if not to assist, in the actual decoration of the Sala della palla on the first floor of the Castello. The vaulted roof of this spacious hall, which was to serve as ball-room on this occasion, was painted in azure and gold to imitate the starry sky, while the walls were hung with canvases representing the heroic deeds of the great Condottiere, Francesco Sforza, whose glorious memory his son Lodovico was always eager to celebrate. At the entrance of the hall, an effigy of the hero on horseback was placed under a triumphal arch, with an inscription recalling his greatness, and saying that by virtue of these mighty exploits his children now triumph and hold festival in his honour.
At the same time, orders were sent in the duke's name to the seneschals of the castles and towns between Pavia and Milan to see that the roads and bridges were repaired and widened, in order that the bridal party might be able to travel without hindrance or inconvenience. On the 18th of January, invitations were issued to the chief lords in the state, as well as to those foreign princes who were connected by marriage with the Sforza and Este families, the Marquis of Montferrat, the Marquis of Mantua, Giovanni Bentivoglio of Bologna, and others, requesting them to honour with their presence a three-days' tournament to be held on the great piazza in front of the Castello, during the last week in January.