Relations between Lodovico and Beatrice—Cecilia Gallerani—Birth of her son Cesare—Her marriage to Count Bergamini—Beatrice at Villa Nova and Vigevano—The Sforzesca and Pecorara—Lodovico's system of irrigation in the Lomellina—Leonardo at Vigevano—Hunting-parties and country life—Letters to Isabella d'Este.
1491
All these caresses and adulation, all the expeditions and hunting-parties and fêtes in her honour, were naturally very delightful to this young princess of fifteen summers, who had till now hardly left home, and who flung herself with such boundless enjoyment into every new form of amusement. Life for her was full of mirth and rapture; a long prospect of endless pleasures seemed to open before her as the first breath of spring passed over the green Lombard plains, and the delicious gardens of the Castello of Milan and the long avenues on the sunny terraces of Vigevano burst into leaf. The world seemed waking into new bliss, and Duchess Beatrice was the gayest and gladdest of its creatures. So at least she appeared to those who saw her in the full enjoyment of chase or dance. But there was a darker side to the picture. Lodovico looked on his young wife as a joyous and fascinating child, as he told Giacomo Trotti, "lieta di natura et molto piacevolina," and thought that as long as he treated her with consideration and respect, and at the same time allowed her every possible indulgence, he might continue to go on his own way and take his pleasure in whatever form he chose. But he soon found out his mistake. This young wife of his, full of mirth and high spirits as she was, had a deeper nature and a stronger will than he suspected. If a constant round of amusements could have satisfied her, she might have accepted the playful caresses of her indulgent husband, and been content with the share of affection which he bestowed upon her. But Beatrice asked for more than this. She was bent on having sole possession of her lord's heart—of reigning there at least without a rival. And when she discovered that Lodovico had a mistress actually living in the Castello, whom he visited constantly and loved passionately, her whole being rose up in arms. Her proud spirit would not brook a rival, and she vowed the duke must choose between his mistress and his wife. When the Ferrarese envoy saw the newly wedded duke on his way to Cecilia Gallerani's rooms within a month after his marriage, he was full of gloomy forebodings. But Lodovico was perfectly frank with him, and did not attempt to conceal his actions or the motives of his conduct. For a while Beatrice spent her time riding or hunting about the country with Messer Galeazzo and her ladies, and remained in happy ignorance of the true state of affairs. But this could not last long. Soon a rumour of Cecilia's presence in the Rocca reached her ears; she heard how often the duke was seen in her company, and was told that before many weeks were over his mistress was likely to bear him a child. The first intimation which we have of this rude awakening which had come to the young duchess is in a letter addressed by Trotti to Duke Ercole, which he sends in the strictest confidence, begging his master to allow no one but our illustrious Madonna to read it, and then to burn it without delay.[12] In this letter he says that Beatrice has absolutely refused to wear a certain vest of woven gold which her husband had given her, if Madonna Cecilia ever appeared in a similar one, which it seems was also Lodovico's present. The duke himself, he adds, had been to see him that day, and had promised faithfully that he would put an end to his liaison with Cecilia, and would either marry her to one of his courtiers or desire her to become a nun. Lodovico, it is plain, had realized that the situation had become impossible, and that he could not keep up his relations with his old mistress without causing open scandal. He was true to his promise, and that carnival he broke off the connection which gave Beatrice so much pain, and wrote to Giacomo Trotti from Vigevano on the 27th of March, informing him that he had decided not to see Madonna Cecilia again, and that after her child's birth she had agreed to become the wife of Count Lodovico Bergamini. This strange compact was duly carried out.
On the 3rd of May, the duke's discarded mistress gave birth to a son, who received the name of Cesare; and in the following July, Cecilia Gallerani was married to Count Lodovico Bergamini of Cremona, one of the Moro's most loyal servants and subjects. Her trousseau on this occasion was of the most sumptuous description, and it was noticed that the corbeille which held her gowns bore the ducal arms. At the same time the Duke of Bari presented her with the stately Palazzo del Verme, originally built by his ancestor, Filippo Maria Visconti, for the great Captain Carmagnola, on the piazza of the Duomo, as a token of his regard and a heritage for her infant son. Court painters and sculptors were employed to decorate the halls and porticoes with frescoes and medallions of the finest marble, and at the time of the French invasion, eight years later, Countess Bergamini's palace was described as the finest private house in Milan. Cecilia devoted herself to the classical studies in which she had taken delight from her earliest youth, and entertained her learned friends in her town house or at her villa near Cremona until she died in advanced old age, some years after the last of Lodovico's sons had ceased to reign over Milan. Lodovico seems to have kept his promise loyally, but always treated Cecilia and her husband with marked favour, and acknowledged the boy Cesare as his own son.
A curious letter addressed to him by the poet Bellincioni, in February, 1492, when the duke was absent from Milan for a few days, begins by informing Lodovico that he has given Duchess Beatrice a pastoral which she wishes to send her husband, and goes on to say that he was dining yesterday with Madonna Cecilia. He tells Lodovico how he had seen her son Cesare, who had grown into a very fine child—"quale è grasso, dico grasso!"—and how he had made the little fellow laugh. In the same letter he complains of all that he has to suffer at the hands of envious detractors, and by way of ingratiating himself with the duke, reminds his Highness that he had always prophesied Madonna Cecilia's child would prove to be a boy. Bellincioni himself composed several sonnets in honour of Cesare's birth and of his accomplished mother. And among the exquisite miniatures of the little Maximilian Sforza's Libro del Gesù in the Trivulzian library, we find a picture of Lodovico and Beatrice's child sitting at dinner with his mother and a lady bearing the name of Cecilia, in whom tradition sees the duke's old mistress, Countess Bergamini.
But although Cecilia remained at court, and even maintained friendly relations with her famous lover, she never seems to have given Beatrice cause for jealousy again, and her name is never again mentioned in Giacomo Trotti's confidential despatches to his master. Only the singular fact that Beatrice d'Este's portrait was never, so far as we know, painted by Leonardo, the supreme master at her husband's court, may well be owing to the remembrance that he had formerly painted Cecilia Gallerani. The proud young duchess who would not wear a robe similar to that bestowed upon his mistress by her husband, may naturally enough have declined to have her portrait painted by the same artist, however excellent a master he might be. But whether or no this was the true reason of this strange omission, there was certainly no portrait of Beatrice d'Este by Leonardo's hand in Milan a year after her death, or her own sister Isabella would not have applied to Cecilia Gallerani for the loan of her picture as an example of Leonardo's art. From this time, however, the young duchess succeeded in winning her husband's heart, and for many years to come retained undivided possession of his roving affections. On the 20th of April, Trotti wrote to Ferrara that Signor Lodovico had been to see him on the second or third day in Easter week, and had spoken with the greatest warmth and affection of his wife, with whom he spent his whole time, and whose charming ways and manners gave him the greatest pleasure. Madonna Beatrice is, as he says, not only of a joyous nature, but of noble and elevated mind, and at the same time very pleasing and no less modest. And in May, when Cecilia's son was born, the duke himself told his wife the news, repeating his determination never again to renew the old connection. His letters to Isabella d'Este abound in the same expressions of genuine love and admiration for his young wife. He is never tired of dwelling on her perfections, on her courage and fine horsemanship, and looks on with an indulgent smile at her wildest freaks and escapades.
Early in March he and Beatrice went to Vigevano, accompanied as usual by Messer Galeazzo and a few courtiers and ladies. All his life Lodovico retained especial affection for this old Lombard town, where he had been born, and which he had greatly improved and beautified during the last few years. By his care the streets were paved, and new houses erected; the buildings of the ancient Forum, which dated back to Roman times, were restored; and the church repaired and adorned with pictures, and decorated by the hand of the sculptor Cristoforo Romano.
"At Vigevano," writes the contemporary Milanese chronicler Cagnola, "a place very dear to the house of Sforza, Lodovico made a fair and large piazza, and adorned it with many noble buildings and a fine park, which he filled with beasts of prey for the pleasure of the ducal family. He also laid out some most beautiful gardens, and since all this country was very dry and arid, he constructed aqueducts with great artifice and ingenuity, and brought water into the place in such abundance that these lands, which had hitherto been sterile and barren, bore fruit in great quantities. And so entirely did he improve and alter the whole place that, instead of Vigevano, it might well be called Citta nova."
At the same time Lodovico rebuilt on a magnificent scale the old castle which crowns the heights above the valley of the Ticino, and employed Bramante to design the lofty tower and the arcaded courts with delicate traceries and terra-cotta mouldings in the finest Lombard style. This favourite palace of the Moro's has been turned into a barrack, and little remains of its former splendour; but Bramante's tower is still standing, and on the north gate of the keep we may read a significant inscription placed there by the citizens of Vigevano, recording the many benefactions of this most illustrious duke, who loved his native city so well, and was never tired of heaping benefactions on her people. "By his care not only was this splendid house raised from the ground, and the square of the old Forum restored to its pristine shape, but the course of rivers was turned, and flowing streams of water were brought into this dry and barren land. The desert waste became a green and fertile meadow, "the wilderness rejoiced and blossomed as the rose."
The same sentiments inspired the verses in which Galeotto del Carretto, one of the most accomplished poets of Beatrice's court, celebrated Lodovico's improvements in this his favourite country house: