A SILVER LYRE 85 without flattery I may say that your verses please me better than any other poems of the present day."1 But Isabella did not only turn to Niccolo da Correggio for verses and eclogues. She consulted him on many subjects and asked him to gratify many different fancies. When they met at Milan in the autumn of 1492, he invented a new design of cunningly interlaced links with which she proposed to adorn her next camora. This was the famous fantasia dei vinci, which her sister Beatrice borrowed with her permission, and wore, worked in massive gold, on a purple robe, at the wedding of Bianca Sforza and the Emperor Maximilian.2 And when the Duchess of Urbino was spending the following summer at Mantua, and the two young princesses constantly sang and played together, Isabella, seized with a wish to learn some new instrument, wrote to beg Niccolo for the loan of a wonderful silver lyre which had been lately made for him by the renowned Florentine, Atalante Migliorotti. As usual, this courteous gentleman expressed his eagerness to comply with her request, and wrote, from Correggio, saying that his silver lyre should be sent to her as soon as he returned to Ferrara. "If you had not asked for Atalante's lyre," he remarks, "I would have sent you a smaller one, better fitted for a beginner, but since you wish for this one, I hope the name of Atalante and the memory of the giver will dispose you to learn the art with the greater readiness and affection." He goes on to explain the meaning of 66 1 Davari, Riv. St. Mant., i. p. 54. 86 ATALANTE MIGLIOROTTI 66 a new cantata entitled Mopsa and Daphne," which had been performed at Milan last carnival, and which he is now sending her, but if she does not like it, promises to let her have another and a more attractive one, adding that she has only to ask, for he will be never weary of doing her service.1 The lute, as we know, was Isabella's favourite instrument, on which she accompanied herself with rare skill and charm. A few months after her marriage her father allowed his favourite musician, the Constance organist Giovanni Martini, to pay a visit to Mantua and give her singing lessons. After his return to Ferrara the German priest sent his pupil a book of songs, begging her to remember his directions and practise them daily. At the same time Duke Ercole sent Isabella his own book of songs, in order that she might transcribe her favourite melodies, begging her not to keep it too long, but return it as soon as possible. In 1491, another Ferrarese musician, Girolamo da Sestola, came to Mantua to give her singing lessons, and after his return to Ferrara, remained one of her most constant correspondents. Now, however, a sudden fancy to learn other instruments seems to have seized her, and this same summer she wrote to the great musician Atalante himself, begging him to send her a silver citarra or lute, with as many strings as he chooses, but which shall be a "fair and gallant thing to see." Atalante, it appears, had visited Mantua in 1491, at the pressing entreaty of the Marquis, to take the leading part in a performance of Polizianio's "Orfeo," which took 1 Luzio, op. cit., p. 243. ISABELLA'S ROOMS 87 place at Marmirolo. In 1494, the Marchesa gave the Florentine musician a special token of favour by standing sponsor to his new-born child, who was held at the font by the Ferrarese envoy Manfredi, and named after her.1 The decoration of her rooms in the Castello was another subject which occupied much of the young Marchesa's thoughts at this time. Since the death of the Marchesa Barbara, ten years before, there had been no lady to reign over the court of Mantua, and Isabella may well have longed to bring some of the grace and beauty of her mother's camerini to brighten her new home in the grim old Castello di Corte. The apartments which she occupied during the greater part of her married life, were on the Piano Nobile of the Tower, close to the Camera Dipinta, as the nuptial chamber decorated with Andrea's frescoes was commonly called. These rooms looked over the waters of the lake and the long bridge of San Giorgio, and a staircase in the corner close to the Sala degli Sposi, led to her husband's apartments on the ground floor. Unfortunately these camerini, which Isabella occupied for more than thirty years, have undergone many alterations, and were mostly stripped of their decorations under the Austrian rule, when the Castello was inhabited by soldiers for a hundred and fifty years. But one little room looking towards the lake, in the corner of the Castello, near the Palazzina or annexe added on by Isabella's son, Federico, at the time of his own marriage, still retains traces of the original 1 D'Ancona, Origini del Teatro Italiano, vol. ii.; and Davari, op. cit. 88 DECORATION OF HER STUDIO decorations planned by the young Marchesa. Here we still find remains of gilding and ultramarine on the barrel-vaulted ceiling, and recognise the Gonzaga devices carved on the frieze of delicately inlaid woodwork. Here too, finely wrought in gold on an azure ground, are the musical notes and rests which were Isabella's favourite emblem, the impresa or device which she loved to wear on her embroidered robes, and the playing cards tied in packs together with the mystic numbers to which Paolo Giovio and other contemporaries allude. This charmingly decorated little room was, there can be little doubt, the studiolo which is so often mentioned in Isabella's letters, the peaceful retreat where she and Elisabetta Gonzaga spent their happiest days, surrounded by the books and pictures, the cameos and musical instruments which they loved. At her first coming to Mantua, Isabella brought a whole train of artists, but most of these soon returned to Ferrara, and the court-painter, Ercole Roberti, suffered so much from sea-sickness on the journey up the Po, and was so much exhausted with his labours before the wedding, that he left suddenly, without even bidding the Marchesa farewell.1 A Mantuan painter, Luca Liombeni, was the artist whom she entrusted with the decoration of her studiolo, as we learn from an imperious letter which she addressed to him from Ferrara, on the 6th November 1491. "Since we have learnt, by experience," wrote the impatient young princess, "that you are as slow in finishing your work as you are in everything else, we send this to remind you that for once you Gruyer, op. cit., ii. 154. 1 THE PAINTER LIOMBENI 89 must change your nature, and that if our studiolo is not finished on our return, we intend to put you into the dungeon of the Castello. And this, we assure you, is no jest on our part.” Upon this the terrified painter offered the humblest apologies to his mistress, who replied on the 12th of November : "In answer to your letter, we are glad to hear that you are doing your utmost to finish our studiolo, so as not to be sent to prison. We enclose a list of the devices which we wish to have painted on the frieze, and hope that you will arrange them as you think best, and make them appear as beautiful and elegant as possible. You can paint whatever you like inside the cupboards, as long as it is not anything ugly, because if it is, you will have to paint it all over again at your own expense, and be sent to pass the winter in the dungeon, where you can, if you like, spend a night for your pleasure now, to see if the accommodation there is to your taste! Perhaps this may make you more anxious to please us in future. On our part, we will not let you want for money, and have told Cusatro to give you all the gold that you require." 1 1 Meanwhile Mantegna had returned from Rome in September 1491, after two years' absence from Mantua. He brought with him a letter from Isabella's old tutor, Battista Guarino, whom he had formerly known at Verona, begging the Marchesa to look graciously on this master, whose excellent genius was indeed too well known to need any recommendation, and assuring her that he was as charming by nature as he was gifted in his art, 1 Luzio, I Precettori, &c., pp. 18, 19. |