Alinari
THE BRIDGE AT PAVIA
It would be interesting to know what lay in the minds of both. In the case of Ludovico one surmise has as much likelihood as another. He was a man much experienced in women, and to a person whose mistresses were always beautiful and interesting, Beatrice, at first sight, could have offered very small attractions. She had not the features to possess beauty of the finest quality. At the same time she was compensated by almost all the minor enticements. The smooth and delicate freshness of youth was fragrant in her, and, like Isabella, she was extremely graceful in body. But the chief attraction of her face sprang from its oddity, and the inner rogue it suggested. According to rigid canons she was plain, but her plainness was so near to prettiness that it was as often as not over the border.
The first impression given by her portrait in the Altar-piece, said to be Lemale’s, is disappointing. From her personality the expectation is of something different—a little more distinguished, a little more wanton, and a little more incontestably seductive. But a mild fascination comes with familiarity. Waywardness and intelligence are both in the face; the gift of humour is clear as day. Her expression radiates a mixture of sauciness and wisdom. In certain clothes and in certain moods she must have looked adorable, more especially before she was actually dressed, when her curls hung upon her shoulders.
What Beatrice thought of Ludovico is more easily hazarded. The man was handsome, and bore every sign of a personal force of character. His profile formed too straight a line, but in the general effect his features were impressive and masterful. Beatrice was fifteen, and as Isabella’s plain sister had never yet been incensed with too much flattery. Ludovico had in fact reached at her childlike heart with unequal advantages; confronted by this suave and dignified person a girl’s imagination had everything to feed upon.
They were married next morning, and a few days later Beatrice made her state entry into Milan—Ludovico, Giangaleazzo, the real duke, his wife Isabella, and every Milanese person of importance, meeting her at the gates. She and Ludovico then rode side by side in a procession through the town, the horses being decorated and the streets lined with people to cheer them as they passed.
But the really interesting incident of the day was the meeting of the two girls, the reigning duchess and the duchess of the Regent. The situation pushed them into antagonism, and into mean and agitated rivalries. Isabella’s was the position of easier righteousness, Beatrice’s the one of more colossal temptations. Everything moreover in the future was to help them into unfairness. The wife of the futile duke was cringed to by nobody. All Milan cossetted and flattered the wife of the Regent who held the power, and suggested still greater power in the future. To have been meek and secondary would have required a temperament of great spiritual vitality. Beatrice came of a worldly family, and the reasons for not tethering ambition grew to be very specious. Giangaleazzo, as head of the State, was too clearly incapable. Il Moro did all the work, bore all the responsibility, and when necessary, all the execration. Why should an idle, dull-witted boy, who did nothing, enjoy the benefit of public precedence? Why should Beatrice and her husband walk humbly behind these two, whose importance was as a balloon inflated for the occasion?
Corio says that from the first days of her arrival in Milan, Beatrice chafed at yielding place to Isabella. But Corio, who wrote many years after the death of Beatrice and Ludovico, was bent upon making the worst of them. And to contradict him there is a good deal of correspondence which goes to show that at the beginning the girls were glad enough to have each other for companionship. Some writers of the struggle between Beatrice and Isabella also urge that it was Beatrice who drove Ludovico to schemes of usurpation. This is one of the statements that are introduced in the heat of advocacy. Ludovico had made his mark as a dangerous personality years before he married Ercole’s second daughter. The Ferrarese ambassador had written of him long before his marriage that he was a great man, who intended later on to make himself universally recognized as such.
The day before her state entry into Milan, Beatrice’s brother Alphonso was married to the gentle Anna, who, after her death, was to be succeeded by the enigmatic Lucrezia Borgia. A week of public rejoicing followed, after which Leonora returned to Ferrara, and Beatrice commenced the routine of her new existence. But the reports of Ludovico, sent shortly afterwards, were pleasant reading for the girl’s father.