[13] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 112.
[14] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 113.
CHAPTER IX
Isabella of Aragon and Beatrice d'Este—Ambrogio Borgognone and Giovanni Antonio Amadeo—Cristoforo Romano and his works at Pavia and Cremona—The Certosa of Pavia—Illness of Beatrice—Her journey to Genoa —Correspondence between Isabella and Lodovico Sforza—Visit of the Marquis of Mantua to Milan.
1491-1492
In the frequent letters which Lodovico and Beatrice both of them addressed to the Marchioness of Mantua, as well as in those of Giacomo Trotti to the Duke of Ferrara, we find many allusions to the Duke of Milan's wife, Isabella of Aragon. This princess, who was Beatrice's first cousin and only five years older than Lodovico's wife, is mentioned not only as present with her husband at all court festivities and hunting-parties, but as her constant companion in all her occupations and amusements, both at Vigevano and Pavia. In after-days, when Lodovico had a son of his own and was suspected of designs on the ducal crown, Duchess Isabella bitterly resented his conduct and that of his wife. But there is absolutely no foundation for Corio's statement that this rivalry between the two duchesses began at the time of Beatrice's wedding, and that from the moment of her arrival at Milan, Lodovico's wife objected to yield precedence to the Duchess of Milan. The Milanese chronicler wrote after Lodovico's fall, and always assumed the truth of the worst charges brought against the Moro and his wife. Unfortunately, his hasty and inaccurate statements have been repeated by Guicciardini and other contemporaries, and accepted as literally true by later writers. In this case Corio probably looked back on the past through the medium of the present, and judged the actors in the drama by the light of their later conduct. In any case, there is absolutely no trace of any jealousy or rivalry between the two young duchesses in the private letters and court records of the period. On the contrary, Isabella seems to have welcomed her cousin's presence joyfully, and to have found that the dull life which she led by the side of her feeble husband was sensibly brightened by Beatrice's company.
Bellincioni, whose verses certainly mirror the court life of the day, if they also breathe the incense of flattery, wrote several sonnets in which he descants on the close friendship and companionship of the two duchesses, and the love that bound them together in the tender bonds of sisterly affection. He is never tired of praising the concord that reigned in the ducal family, and the pleasure that Beatrice took in Isabella's little son, who was constantly seen in her arms.
"And when the ladies ask if she does not wish for a son of her own, she replies in sweet accents, 'This one child is enough for me;' and straightway all her courtiers repeat and extol her answer."