Isabella was still more disturbed when she heard that Lodovico intended to send his wife to Venice. Her pride shrank from the bare notion of appearing before the Doge and Senate at the same time as her sister, whose sumptuous apparel and numerous suite she felt herself unable to rival. "Nothing in the world," she wrote to Gianfrancesco, who was then at Venice as captain-general of the Republic's forces, "will induce me to go to Venice at the same time as my sister the duchess."
And she insisted on her desire to appear before the Doge, not as a guest and foreign visitor, but as a daughter and servant, begging that she might be treated without any pomp or ceremony.
Fortunately, whether from political motives, or from his usual attention to his astrologer's advice, Lodovico deferred his visit to Ferrara until the middle of May, and himself wrote a courteous letter to Isabella, expressing his regret that he would after all be unable to accept her invitation to Mantua, since he found himself obliged to visit Parma. The marchioness, thus happily relieved from her fears, set off for Ferrara on the 4th of May, and proceeded to Venice a week later, having doubled the number of her retinue, and strained every nerve to present an appearance which should not offer too marked a contrast with Beatrice's regal splendours.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] L. Porrò in A. S. L., ix. 327.
[33] Porrò, op. cit., p. 330.
[34] A. Venturi in A. S. L., xii. 227.
[35] Archivio Storico Lombardo, xvii. 368.
[36] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 365.