COURTESY OF THE DOGE 221 pray you to give a hundred kisses to my darling boy, so that when I am there he will not think it strange to be kissed." Since the Doge had invited the Marchesa to visit the Collegio, as she had done before, Isabella sent Capilupi and Baesso to make her excuses and those of the Duchess to the Prince and Signory, and explain that they were travelling incognito, and had no clothes in which they could appear. The Doge returned a courteous answer, and gave orders that the Treasury of S. Marco and the Arsenal should both be shown to the distinguished visitors. "Meanwhile," writes Isabella, "we went to hear mass at Ca' Grande, and afterwards landed at the Rialto and walked through the Fish-market and the Merceria to the columns of S. Marco. There were such crowds of people that it was difficult to make our way, but we enjoyed it so much that we did not mind the walk, and Monsignore was the most tired of the party. The Duchess is as well as possible. At the columns we took a boat and came home, where we found a secretary from the Signoria waiting to tell us that four gentlemen were coming to visit us on the part of the Doge and Senate. We begged him to dispense with this ceremony, but we had hardly finished dinner before they were here. The Duchess and Monsignore and I met them on the stairs and led them into the room, and I replied to their compliments, laying stress on the love and devotion of Your Excellency for this illustrious Signory. When they were gone M. Alvise Marcello appeared, having cleverly delayed his visit till theirs was over, and spent some time in friendly conversation. He seems as much devoted to you as ever. 222 GIFTS FROM THE SIGNORY M. Filippo Capello also called and talked in the same familiar way with Monsignore and me. Then we went to the 'Vergine,' where we enjoyed seeing the nuns' rooms and hearing two of them sing, but owing to the new regulations lately introduced by Frate Raphael da Varese, who is preaching in S. Marco this Lent, no men are allowed to enter the convent. On our return home we found Alvise Marcello, who told Monsignore that he had got the order to view the Treasury to-morrow morning and the Arsenal after dinner. We commend ourselves to you, and so does M. Alvise a thousand times. I enclose the names of the gentlemen, begging you to kiss our little son for me: M. Alvise Moncenigo, M. Zoanne Gabriele, M. Pietro Justiniano, M. Alvise Molino." Venice, March 16. The next day Messer Alvise called early with a present of fish and confectionery from the Signory,1 valued, Sanuto tells us, at twenty-five ducats. This gift included four large chests of fish of different kinds, eight large gilt marzipane cakes, twenty-nine boxes of sweetmeats, four pots of ginger and four of syrup of violets, as well as twenty pounds of wax candles. Isabella sent these presents by messenger to Mantua that evening, begging the Marquis to accept them for her sake. She added a postscript to the effect that the Pope's ambassador had informed the Duchess how warmly the Doge had spoken of their august visitors in the College, saying that the Duke and Marquis could give no better proof of their confidence in the Signory than by sending those persons who were dearest to them to Venice. "And all our friends here say the same thing." 1 Sanuto, Diarii, iv. 234. After this the Marchesa proceeded to give her husband the following account of their day : "We went to mass at the Carità, and on to S. Marco, where the Pala and Treasury were shown us by Messer Paolo Barbo, the procurator. Then we were taken to the Great Hall of the Council, and to the Armoury of the Doge's Palace, after which we went on foot by the Merceria, which were prepared for us, as far as the Rialto, where we took boat and came home to dinner. Afterwards we went to the Arsenal, which our friend Messer Alvise Marcello showed us with the greatest care and kindness, and Messer Carlo Valerio and Paolo Capello came to shake hands. When we had seen all, M. Alvise took us into the house which he occupies close by, as Treasurer, and entertained us in the usual manner. M. Alvise and M. Paolo Capello came with us in the boat to S. Antonio, where we saw the Sepulchre, and on our way home we called on our neighbour, the Queen of Cyprus, who had invited us to visit her. These gentlemen escorted us home, and so the day ends, and if Your Excellency considers the length of the journey, and all we have seen and done, you will count us to be the most gallant ladies in the world!" Venice, March 17, 1502. The two princesses had certainly made good use of their short visit, and Isabella was delighted with all that she had seen and done. We do not hear if she saw her friends Lorenzo da Pavia and Aldo Manuzio, or the painter Giovanni Bellini, who had excited her displeasure by his long delays in executing the picture for her Grotta. But it was Alvise Marcello to whom she applied two years later to help her in the matter, and the other patricians are fre 224 RETURN TO MANTUA quently mentioned in her correspondence. Queen Caterina Cornaro was an old friend of the Este princesses, whom Isabella had already visited in her mountain home of Asolo, and to whom she wrote after her return to Mantua, thanking her for the affection and kindness which she had shown her. On the morning of the 21st, the ladies left Venice, and by evening reached Padua, where they were entertained by Count Achilles Borromeo, and Isabella found time to inform her husband that the French ambassadors were expected at Padua on their way to Venice, having been abruptly dismissed by the Emperor. Maximilian had refused to grant Louis XII. the investiture of Milan and the incorporation of the duchy in the kingdom of France, while the French monarch on his part declined either to release Lodovico Sforza or to allow the exiled partisans of the Sforzas to return to Milan. "Until the present time," she adds, "the King of France has taken little count of the Venetians, but now he is most anxious to secure their friendship." And she ends with expressing her delight in the good news which her husband gives her of Federico, whose company she longs to share, but hopes to make up for lost time on her return. After spending the last days of Holy Week in the house of Count Canossa at Verona, and receiving a gift of fish from the cavalier Giorgio Cornaro, in the name of the Signory of Venice, Isabella and her sister-in-law reached Mantua on Easter Eve, and the happy mother once more clasped her precious boy in her arms. A week afterwards, Francesco left home to attend some races in the neighbourhood, and Isabella's letters as usual were full of fond allusions to the child's FEDERICO'S INFANT CHARMS 225 cleverness and charms. "The boy always seemed intelligent," she writes on the 4th April, "but since Your Excellency's departure, he surprises me every hour with his pretty ways, and seems determined to keep me amused in your absence. He sits in your place at meals, and plays a thousand other tricks, which I do not tell Your Excellency lest I should excite your envy." Again, two days later, she wrote: "Yesterday, when I was saying my office, he came in and said he wanted to find his papa, and turned over all the cards till he found a figure with a beard, upon which he was delighted, and kissed it six times over, saying, 'Papa bello!' with the greatest joy possible." 1 Another and less pleasant task to which Isabella now turned her attention was the settlement of her accounts. The expenses of her visit to Ferrara had been heavy; besides the cost of her own sumptuous toilette, and those of her ladies, presents of costly brocade and chains had to be given to the actors and buffoons, the trumpeters and musicians. Marino Sanuto tells us that on this occasion the Marchesa had shown remarkable liberality to all of these, but especially to the Spanish jesters in the bride's train.' At Venice, as we have seen, she had been engaged in raising fresh loans to pay the Albani and redeem her jewels; and soon after her return to Mantua she addressed a letter to her father, Duke Ercole, to whom she had more than once applied for help in her difficulties. This time, however, she gave him a full statement of her income and expenditure, which is of great interest, and shows that if this brilliant lady occasionally VOL. I. 1 Luzio, Precettori, p. 38. 2 Diarii, iv. 230. P |