42

THE TRIUMPHS

with the help of his clever wife he raised Mantua to the foremost rank among the smaller Italian states, and although he inherited little of his grandfather's and uncle's taste for letters, he was fully alive to the lustre and renown which his court and person derived from great artistic achievements, and became a liberal patron of scholars and painters. He was naturally fond of luxurious and splendid surroundings, and employed Mantegna soon after his accession to paint his great series of Triumphs for a hall in the Castello. As a child he had learnt to revere the genius of the great master who had worked for three successive generations of his house, and when he sent him to Rome in 1488, told Innocent VIII. that Andrea was "a most excellent painter, who had no equal in the present age.' His own letters to Mantegna during this prolonged absence show the most friendly regard, and are a proof of the familiar and intimate relations that existed between the painter and the members of the Gonzaga family.

Another pleasant feature of Francesco's character was his affection for his little sisters. In August 1486, he arranged two excellent marriages for these young princesses. Elisabetta was betrothed to Guidobaldo, the son and successor of Duke Federico of Urbino, while Maddalena became the affianced bride of Giovanni Sforza, lord of Pesaro and cousin of the reigning Duke of Milan. The young Duke of Urbino visited Mantua on this occasion, and Silvestro Calandra, the court chamberlain, wrote on the 26th of August to the absent Marquis: "To-day this illustrious Duke went in a boat for his pleasure after dinner on the lake, but, being little used to the water, felt unwell and landed at the gate of the

ELISABETTA'S WEDDING

43

Corte to see the Triumphs of Cæsar, which Mantegna is painting, which pleased him greatly, and then passed by the Via Coperta into the Castello."1 That Christmas Chiara Gonzaga, the young Duchess of Montpensier, came to visit Mantua for the first time since her marriage five years before, and the three sisters prepared a "beautiful festà" for their brother's entertainment, and were sorely disappointed when three days before the feast they heard that he had been obliged to put off his visit. "Illustrious Prince and dearest brother," they wrote in a joint epistle, "we three sisters, with some other gentle ladies, had prepared a most beautiful entertainment for Your Excellency, since we made sure that we should enjoy your presence at this solemn festival. But now that we hear our hopes were vain we are grievously disappointed, and feel very unhappy, and can enjoy no mirth or pleasure without you, and indeed it seems to be a thousand years since we have seen you. So now we pray you earnestly, by that gentle and brotherly love you bear us, to come and console us in the New Year and taste the pleasures that we have prepared for you in our festà, which will certainly gratify you and give us the greatest possible delight.-Your sisters and servants, CHIARA, ELISABETTA and MADDALENA GONZAGA." 2

In February 1488, Elisabetta set out on her journey to Urbino, and after experiencing terrible weather on the Po, enjoyed a brief rest at Ferrara, as the guest of the hospitable Duke and Duchess. But hardly had the wedding party left Ferrara than the tempest began again. At Ravenna, where the 1 Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino, p. 9.

2 Ibid., p. 8.

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COURT OF URBINO

Podestà gave them lodgings, the rain came through the roof in such torrents that it was almost impossible for the princess to find a dry place in her bed, and as they rode on through the Apennines, the roads were so bad and the rivers so much swollen that the attendants often had to carry Elisabetta and her horse bodily in their arms. "If it had not been for their devotion," she wrote to her brother, "I should certainly not have reached Urbino alive."1 After this perilous journey, in what Francesco's secretary Capilupo calls "the most detestable weather ever known for weddings," Elisabetta found a splendid reception awaiting her at Urbino. The Duke's loyal subjects poured out of the city gates, troops of white-robed children waving laurel boughs came down the hillside to welcome her with shouts of joy, and the splendours of the wonderful palace on the heights, with its gorgeous tapestries and treasures of gold and silver, consoled the Mantuan courtiers for the perils and sufferings of the way. The young Duke Guidobaldo was a very handsome and courteous prince, exactly the same age as his wife and skilled in all knightly exercises, although even at this early age he suffered cruelly from gout. From the first he showed himself a devoted husband, while Elisabetta's charm and goodness soon won all hearts in her new home. But the happiness and splendour of her present surroundings could not make her forget the old home to which she was so fondly attached, and she wept bitterly when her brother Giovanni and the Mantuan escort took their departure. "I was very unhappy at parting from Messer Giovanni," she wrote to the Marquis, " and feel that I am abandoned 1 Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino, p. 27.

ELISABETTA'S ILL-HEALTH

45

by all my own family." But in August she had the joy of seeing Francesco, who paid his sister a flying visit, and showed his affection for her by frequent presents of fish, fruit, and game, as well as antiques and horses for his brother-in-law's acceptance. In 1489, the young Marquis was appointed captaingeneral of the Venetian armies, a post which he held with distinction during the next nine years, and which occupied his time fully. A few months later, in October, Elisabetta and her husband were present at her sister Maddalena's marriage to Giovanni Sforza at Pesaro. But her health, which was never strong, gave way under the strain of these prolonged festivities, and she fell seriously ill in November.

"We found Madonna, your sister," wrote Francesco's secretary Capilupo, who accompanied the Mantuan doctor sent by the Marquis to Urbino, "looking very thin and pale, with none of the bright and healthy colour that she used to have in her cheeks. . . . It is true there is a grace and gentleness about her which is that of a creature angelic rather than human, and although she will not allow us to say she is thin, and keeps up bravely, her limbs betray her weakness. She is up and dressed all day, but confesses that she is obliged to sit down when she has walked once or twice across the room." "1 The air of Urbino was pronounced to be too keen for the delicate young Duchess in winter, and as soon as she was fit to travel she came to Mantua for change, and remained there for her brother's wedding. She it was, we have already seen, who greeted the youthful bride on the threshold of the Castello di Corte, and whose gentle face and winning smile was the first 1 Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino, p. 50.

46

THE MARQUIS FRANCESCO

sight that met Isabella's eyes as she passed into her new home. A Mantuan chronicler, quoted by Amedei,' who was present at the Marquis Francesco's wedding, describes Isabella as the most fascinating child in the world, and the bridegroom as a youth of majestic bearing, with broad forehead, keen eyes, and thick locks. To judge from contemporary portraits, Francesco's appearance could hardly have been called prepossessing. The terra-cotta bust preserved in the Museum at Mantua, and the two portraits by Mantegna, the one painted when he was a boy of eight in the Camera degli Sposi, the other representing him twenty years later kneeling before the Virgin of Victory, all show us the same swarthy complexion, irregular features, and dark bushy locks. He had 'neither the good looks of his uncles nor the dignity of his father, and his short, stunted figure gives the impression that he had narrowly escaped inheriting the deformity which afflicted the former generation of Gonzagas. But he was young and vigorous, full of courage and activity, and as impetuous in love as he was in war. And he was naturally enough deeply enamoured of his fair young wife. Isabella on her part was fondly attached to her husband, and proud of his valour and unrivalled skill as a bold rider and fearless jouster. Both in character and intellect he was greatly her inferior, but even when in later years estrangements arose between the husband and wife, Isabella resolutely shut her eyes to his open acts of unfaithfulness, while Francesco placed the most absolute confidence in his wife and to the last retained the deepest admiration for her great qualities.

1 D'Arco, Notizie d'Isabella d'Este.