The passing cloud that cast a shadow on her bright young life had rolled away, and this letter breathes the serene happiness of the spring airs about her. But her affection for her sister was warmer and stronger than ever, and hardly a day passed without some fresh expression of her impatience for Isabella's return—an impatience which both Lodovico and Galeazzo seem to have shared.
On the 21st of April, after describing a successful wolf-hunt from Vigevano, in which the Duke and Duchess of Milan and their courtiers had all taken part, Lodovico writes—
"The whole distance must have been at least thirty miles, yet on the way home both the duchesses stayed behind the rest of us, to make their horses race one against the other; and if your Highness had been here, I think you would have entered the lists and tried your luck against them. And since you must come soon, and are expected by us impatiently, I will remind your Highness to bring some of those fine Barbary steeds which your illustrious lord the marquis keeps in his stables, and then you will easily be able to beat all the others."
Again, on the 16th of May, Lodovico writes in the same strain—
"I am as sorry as you are that you could not be here for these wolf-hunts, because, as you said in the letter written with your own hand on the 5th instant, I am quite sure you would have given us proofs of your spirit and courage. I must, however, tell you that your sister's boldness is such that I think even you would hardly come off victor in this contest, especially as, since you were here, she has made great progress both in the arts of horsemanship and of hunting. All the same, I am so impatient to see you together and to match your courage one against the other, that it seems to me a thousand years until your arrival!"
Beatrice, it appears, was absolutely fearless in the presence of danger, and faced an angry boar or wounded stag with the same lightness of heart. The greater the risks she ran, the higher her spirits rose. This feature of his young wife's character aroused the Moro's highest admiration. In a letter of the 8th of July, after recounting the various incidents of a long day's hunting, he tells the Marchesa what a narrow escape Beatrice has had from an infuriated stag which gored her horse.
"All at once we heard that the wounded stag had been seen, and had attacked the horse which my wife was riding, and the next moment we saw her lifted up in the air a good lance's height from the ground; but she kept her seat, and sat erect all the while. The duke and duchess and I all rushed to her help, and asked if she were hurt; but she only laughed, and was not in the least frightened."[14]
Isabella herself was burning with eager desire to join Lodovico and Beatrice in these hunting-parties, and have a share in the thrilling adventures which they narrated in their letters, But her husband the marquis was away all the spring and early summer; first at Bologna, where he attended his brother Giovanni Gonzaga's wedding, and afterwards with his sister the Duchess Elizabeth at Urbino. After his return to Mantua he fell ill, and when he recovered it was already late in August, and Isabella was compelled very reluctantly to decline Lodovico Sforza's pressing invitations. Money was scarce at the court of Mantua, and the expenses of a journey to Milan were heavy. So she contented herself with going to see her mother that autumn at Ferrara, and put off her visit to Milan until the following spring, much to the disappointment of Beatrice and her husband. Lodovico wrote her word that he had been arranging a tournament at Pavia in honour of the christening of Gian Galeazzo's son, the little Count of Pavia, but that since she would not come, he had made up his mind to put it off and have no jousting.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] G. Uzielli, op. cit., p. 27.