"To-day," she wrote on the 27th of August, "we went out hunting in a beautiful valley which seemed as if it were expressly created for the spectacle. All the stags were driven into the wooded valley of the Ticino, and closed in on every side by the hunters, so that they were forced to swim the river and ascend the mountains, where the ladies watched them from under the pergola and green tents set up on the hillside. We could see every movement of the animals along the valley and up the mountain-side, where the dogs chased them across the river; but only two climbed the hillside and ran far out of sight, so that we did not see them killed, but Don Alfonso and Messer Galeazzo both gave them chase, and succeeded in wounding them. Afterwards came a doe with its young one, which the dogs were not allowed to follow. Many wild boars and goats were found, but only one boar was killed before our eyes, and one wild goat, which fell to my share. Last of all came a wolf, which made fine somersaults in the air as it ran past us, and amused the whole company; but none of its arts availed the poor beast, which soon followed its comrades to the slaughter. And so, with much laughter and merriment, we returned home, to end the day at supper, and give the body a share in the recreations of the mind."[29]
Four venison pasties were despatched to Mantua the next day as a present to the marquis, whose absence from these expeditions his wife never ceased to regret, and for whom, at least in these early years of her married life, she had a genuine affection.
"All of these days," she writes on the 22nd, "I have been trying to write to Your Highness, but have never been able to find time, as I am always in my sister's and Signor Lodovico's company. Now I have at length snatched a moment, and hasten to pay you a visit in mind, since I cannot do so in person. For greater even than all the pleasures which I am enjoying here, is the satisfaction I receive when I hear that you are well and happy." A week later she wrote again: "It really seems an age since I saw Your Highness, and, pleasant and delightful as it is here, I begin to get a little tired of these scenes, but rejoice at the prospect of paying a visit to Genoa before long." And in an affectionate letter to her mother, she says that sometimes in the middle of the finest hunt she remembers with a pang how long it is since she has seen her, and how far away she is from Ferrara, and the thought throws a shadow over the brightest sunshine and the gayest pastimes.
After a succession of boar hunts at Novara and Mortara, Lodovico and Beatrice took their guests to Milan on the 15th of September, and Isabella entered the capital on horseback between the two young duchesses, while "the old Duchess Bona," she tells her husband, "and her daughter Madonna Bianca, with many other ladies, were awaiting me in my rooms in the Castello, the same suite which Signor Lodovico occupied at the time of his wedding."
The duke's mother still remained at court, and occupied rooms in the Castello, although she made no secret of her aversion for her powerful brother-in-law, and was secretly intriguing against him with her nephew, Charles VIII. At her request the French king wrote a letter to Lodovico, desiring him to give the duchess's mother leave to come to France for his wife Anne of Brittany's confinement. But the Moro, fearing the effect of Bona's presence at the French court, courteously declined Charles's invitation, alleging as an excuse the fact that both Bona's daughter-in-law, the Duchess Isabella, and her young sister-in-law, his own wife Beatrice, were expecting similar events early in the next year, while her daughter Bianca was of marriageable age and needed her mother's protection. At Milan new pleasures awaited Isabella. Theatrical representations in honour of Duke Ercole, were given by the Delle Torre family and other noble houses, and Isabella spent long days with her sister in the park and beautiful gardens of the Castello, among the roses and fountains which Lodovico loved. He was never tired of beautifying and enlarging the grounds, which now extended three miles round the Castello, and sent to Mantua for a pair of swans to adorn the lake, saying how much he liked to watch the movements of these white-plumed birds upon the water. To his sister-in-law, as Isabella always repeated in her letters, the Moro showed himself the kindest and most generous of hosts, and was unwearied in providing for her amusements and gratification.
"To-day," she writes on the evening after her arrival at Milan, "Signor Lodovico showed me the treasure, which Your Highness saw when you were last here, but which has lately received the addition of two large chests full of ducats, and another full of gold quartz about two and a half feet square. Would to God that we, who are so fond of spending money, possessed as much!"[30]
After which characteristic expression, the Marchesana proceeds to tell her lord that the date of her departure for Genoa has been fixed for the last day of September, and to describe her brother-in-law's preparations for the visit. Before her departure, he made a splendid present, which she describes in a letter written on the 20th of September. "Yesterday Signor Lodovico sent me, with the Duchess of Milan and Bari, to look at some sumptuous brocades which he had seen in the house of one of the richest merchants here. When we came home, he asked me which I considered the finest. I replied that what I had most admired was a certain gold and silver tissue embroidered with the twin towers of the lighthouse in the port of Genoa, bearing the Spanish motto, Tal trabalio mes plases par tal thesauros non perder."
The Moro praised her good taste, saying that he had already had a camora, or robe, made for his wife of this material, and begged her to accept fifteen yards of the same stuff, and wear it for his sake.
"This brocade," wrote Isabella joyfully to her husband, "is worth at least forty ducats a yard!" And without delay she sent for a tailor to cut out the gown, in order that she might wear it once before she left Milan.
The Marchesino Stanga and Count Girolamo Tuttavilla were chosen to escort Isabella to Genoa, where she was received in state by the governor Adorno, and splendidly entertained at the Casa Spinola by the chief citizens. Beatrice's delicate state of health had prevented her from accompanying her sister on this journey, but she still persisted in taking long hunting expeditions, and one day when she and the Moro were staying at Cuzzago, encountered a savage boar which had already wounded several greyhounds.