1496
The records we have of Beatrice's private life during this busy year are very meagre and disappointing. Scarcely one of her letters, belonging to this period, has been preserved, while those which her sister Isabella addressed to Milan are almost as rare. The marchesa's time and thoughts had been much engaged in public affairs during the absence of her husband with the Venetian forces at Naples, and she had little leisure for correspondence. On the 13th of July she gave birth to a second child, which, to her great disappointment, proved to be another girl, who received the name of Margherita, but only lived a few weeks. Of this event the duchess was duly informed, and, in sending her congratulations, was able to tell her sister that she was hoping to become the mother of a third child early in the following year. In September the marquis fell dangerously ill of fever, and his wife hurried to join him in Calabria, and, as soon as he was able to move, brought him back by slow stages to Mantua. During that summer, the only letter of interest which Isabella wrote to the Milanese court was a note to her friend, the jester Barone, begging him to find out for her how Messer Galeazzo and others who like him are the glass of fashion, manage to dye their hair black on certain occasions, and afterwards resume the natural colour of their locks, adding that she remembers distinctly to have seen Count Francesco Sforza with black locks one day, and the next with brown.
On the 9th of November, Lodovico wrote an imperative note from Vigevano to the Castellan of the Rocchetta, Bernardino del Corte, desiring him to see that the walls of the new rooms are dry and ready for habitation by the end of the month, since the duchess must have the use of the apartments adjoining the ball-room during her approaching confinement, and telling him to ask Bergonzio, the treasurer, for money, if more should be required. Bernardino replied that the rooms were finished, and that good fires had been lighted to dry the walls, and that the whole suite would be furnished by the following week and ready to receive the duchess. He also informed the duke that the new rooms on the side of the garden would be completed by Christmas, and told him that Bramante, after finishing the arcades of the new gallery between the ball-room and Rocchetta, had begun the design of the new tower. Both Leonardo and Bramante were employed on extensive works in the Castello during the duke's absence that summer, although the Florentine master, we know, was chiefly engaged in finishing his great fresco in the refectory of the Dominican convent outside the Porta Vercellina. Often during the summer heats, Matteo Bandello, then a young novice of the Order, saw the Florentine master at noonday, "when the sun was in the sign of the Lion," leave the Corte Vecchia, where he was finishing his great horse, and, hurrying through the streets to the Grazie, mount the scaffold, brush in hand, and put a few touches to some of the figures in the Cenacolo, after which he would hurry away as quickly as he came. Often too the young friar watched him at his work; "for this excellent painter," Matteo tells us, "always liked to hear other people give their opinions freely on his pictures." Many a time the young Dominican saw Messer Leonardo ascend the scaffold in the early morning, and remain there from sunrise till the hour of twilight, forgetting to eat and drink, and painting all the while without a moment's pause. Sometimes again he would not paint a single stroke for several days, but just stand before the picture during one or two hours, contemplating his work, and considering and examining the different figures. And the friars were very much annoyed because of the master's delays, and complained to the duke, who paid him so large a sum for the work, that he had not yet begun the head of the traitor Judas. When the duke asked Leonardo why he left this head undone, he replied that during the last year he had been vainly seeking in all the worst streets of Milan to find a type of criminal who would suit the character of Judas, but that if desired he would introduce the prior's own likeness, which he thought would answer the purpose excellently! This answer is said to have amused the duke highly, and Lodovico and his painter had a good laugh together at the expense of the prior.
But since Leonardo was otherwise engaged, and another painter who had been employed in the Castello suddenly disappeared, owing, we are told, to some scandal in which he was concerned, the duke determined to send to Florence for another artist to complete the decorations of his new rooms. There was evidently no Lombard master whom he considered equal to the task, and since Lorenzo de' Medici had sent him Leonardo, there might be some other artists of rare excellence among his fellow-citizens. So Lodovico wrote to his envoy at Florence, and desired him to let him have a full description of the best painters then living there. In reply, he received the following list, which is still preserved in the archives of Milan, and which is of great interest, both as a monument of the Moro's untiring perseverance in seeking out the best masters, and as a record of the different degrees of estimation in which living artists were held by their contemporaries:—
"Sandro de Botticelli—a most excellent master, both in panel and wall-painting. His figures have a manly air, and are admirable in conception and proportion.
"Filippino di Frati Filippo—an excellent disciple of the above-named, and a son of the rarest master of our times. His heads have a gentler and more suave air; but, we are inclined to think, less art.
"Il Perugino—a rare and singular artist, most excellent in wall-painting. His faces have an air of the most angelic sweetness.
"Domenico de Grillandaio—a good master in panels and a better one in wall-painting. His figures are good, and he is an industrious and active master, who produces much work.
"All of these masters have given proof of their excellence in the Chapel of Pope Sixtus, excepting Filippino, and also in the Spedaletto of the Magnifico Laurentio, and their merit is almost equal."[63]
This intimation seems to have decided Lodovico to apply to Perugino, whom Leonardo had known as his fellow-pupil in Verrocchio's atelier at Florence, and who was supposed to be in Venice at the time. So his secretary wrote to desire Guido Arcimboldo, the Archbishop of Milan, who was then in Venice, to inquire for the Umbrian master, and see if he could be induced to visit Milan. The archbishop, writing on the 14th of June, replied that Maestro Pietro of Perugia had left Venice six months ago and was back at Florence. Lodovico, however, did not lose sight of the master, and in the following October, by his desire, the monks of the Certosa of Pavia engaged this popular artist to paint an altar-piece for one of their chapels. In the following year the duke returned to the charge, and hearing that Perugino had returned to his native city, wrote two pressing letters to one of the Baglioni, who was the chief magistrate of Perugia, begging him, as a personal favour, to induce Messer Pietro to come to Milan, and offering to pay the artist whatever price he may ask, and to retain him permanently in his service or keep him only for a fixed time, as he may think best. Perugino, however, was then engaged in decorating the Sala del Cambio in his native town, and had already more commissions than he could execute. He declined the Duke of Milan's repeated invitations, and the Moro was obliged to fall back upon Bramante and Leonardo to finish the works in the Castello.