206 CASTIGLIONE IN ROME too we may still find Isabella's name, repeated at intervals upon the panelled frieze, and remember that the peaceful days of her declining years were spent in these sunny little rooms looking over the bright waters to Virgil's birthplace, and the green meadows through which the Mincio flows to join the Po.1 The decoration of these new apartments occupied a large share of Isabella's time and thoughts in these years. We find her writing to Rome and Venice for marbles, asking her agents to send her antique busts and bas-reliefs, and collecting works of art with all her old energy. Castiglione, as usual, was one of her chief assistants, and his letters from Rome were by no means exclusively devoted to State affairs. One day he sends her a full account of the carnival fêtes and comedies at the Vatican, cold and lifeless as he confesses them to have seemed to him this year; another, he collects the latest and most scurrilous verses of Pasquino for her benefit, or tells her how Bandello's friend, the witty story-teller, Strascino, has been amusing His Holiness with his comic recitations, and is promptly desired to send him to Mantua for the next carnival. At one time he tells her of a relief which Caradosso, questo mala 1 Five years ago, a model of Isabella d'Este's Studio in this apartment of the Paradiso, designed by the well-known French writer M. Charles Yriarte, was placed in the Italian Court in the South Kensington Museum. The decorations of the walls and ceiling are carefully reproduced, but M. Yriarte was mistaken in supposing that the fine tempera paintings by Mantegna, Costa and Perugino ever adorned these Camerini. These pictures were originally executed for Isabella's Studio of the Grotta on the ground floor of the Corte Vecchia, and remained there, as we know from inventories and documents published by D'Arco (Arte e Artefici, ii.), until after the sack of Mantua in 1630. AN ALABASTER ORGAN 207 detto vecchio, promised him long ago, but has not yet finished. "I go to see him every day, and he works at the design all the while, and says he wishes to make it as beautiful as possible, because it is the last that he will ever do in his life, and he is so old, this may well be the case." Another day he describes a wonderful alabaster organ, a most excellent work, which he has succeeded in buying for 600 ducats, and hopes to send her if it is possible to find a sufficient number of mules to convey the precious instrument to Mantua. But he must take care to elude the custom-house officers of Rome, who are the greatest rogues in the world, and ask no less than 200 ducats! "If I can manage this," he remarks, "I think I shall have worked a miracle!" But the Count was indefatigable where his mistress's pleasure was concerned, and by the end of August 1522, the different portions of the organ were loaded on the backs of ten mules, and sent to Mantua, in the charge of the "master of organs" who had made the instruWe do not hear if the papal officials exacted the whole of their 200 ducats, or if Castiglione was able to obtain an exemption in the Marchesa's favour, but the alabaster organ reached Mantua safely, and was placed in the Studio of the Grotta." ment. All through that year the works in the Castello were in progress, and while the Marquis was absent in Lombardy, Mario Equicola wrote daily reports of the latest improvements that had been effected. "These splendid rooms with all their pictures make me feel," he writes in February 1522," as if I were living in the days when the Romans raised those monu 1 Luzio, Nuova Antologia, 1896, p. 308 2 Bertolotti, Artisti, &c. 208 FEDERICO'S STABLES ments which are the wonders of the world! In Your Excellency's bedroom are four tondi, and one large panel where Fame might be represented between War, Victory, Virtue, and Hope. In the Camera della Fede your portrait might be hung with representations of ancient heroes who have kept faith.. ." As for the stables (always an important part of the Mantuan palace), they are so fine that he wishes he were a horse to live there! and suggests that Virgil's line should be written over the doors: "Hinc bellator equus campo sese arduus infert.”1 1 Luzio, Giorn. St. d. Lett., 1900, p. 15. |