378 TREASURES OF THE GROTTA glowing colours, with the same exquisite landscapes, bounded by the far blue peaks of Cadore. Here, side by side with Mantegna's beloved Faustina, and the Greek marbles which Fra Sabba had collected on his distant cruises among the isles of the Ionian seas, were the antiques which Isabella herself had rescued from the wreck of Rome, and the sleeping Cupid which had come to take its place by that other famous putto which Michelangelo's hands had fashioned, and Cæsar Borgia had sent to Mantua. Here, too, among the thousands of gold and silver medals, of Greek and Roman coins, and engraved gems which were arranged in cases and cabinets along the walls of the Grotta, Bembo saw Cristoforo Romano's medal of Isabella herself, as he remembered the Marchesa in the flower of youth and beauty. This admirable work is still preserved in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, with the same rich setting of enamel and precious gems that is described in the Inventory of 1542, where it is mentioned among the goods contained "in the middle cabinet in the Grotta of Madama, in the Corte Vecchia," as follows: "A gold medal with Her Highness's effigy when she was young, bearing the word Isabella in letters of diamonds, with rosettes of red enamel, and a border of blue and white enamelled rosettes, and on the reverse a figure of Victory in relief." 1 Somewhere too, among the pictures hung on the walls of the Castello, Bembo found his own portrait set in a small frame of carved walnut, side by side with those of his old master, Pope Leo X., and the German reformers, Martin Luther and Erasmus of 1 V. Cian in Giorn. Stor., 1887. See vol. i. p. 170. PORTRAITS AND BRONZES 379 Rotterdam.1 This curiously assorted group of portraits is mentioned in an Inventory of Duke Federico's pictures found at Casale after his death, and probably belonged to his mother, who had been intimate with at least two of the group, and had heard much of Luther and Erasmus from her friend Chiericati. But paintings and sculpture were not the only treasures which Isabella's Grotta contained. There was the alabaster organ which Castiglione had sent from Rome with so much toil and trouble. There were Lorenzo da Pavia's viols and lutes of inlaid ivory and ebony, and her sister Beatrice's sweet-toned organ, and Caradosso's wonderful ebony inkstand, adorned with silver statuettes and reliefs. There were antique bronzes, figures of alabaster and jasper, cabinets of porphyry and lapislazuli, Murano glass of delicate tints and rare workmanship, precious vases, such as these which Isabella asked Leonardo to choose from Lorenzo dei Medici's collection, and crystal mirrors set in rubies and diamonds and pearls, one of which was valued at the enormous sum of 100,000 ducats.2 Of still greater interest in the Venetian scholar's eyes were the rare books and manuscripts in the Marchesa's library of the Grotta. Her own love for these had never changed, and only a year before, she had succeeded in obtaining a copy of the history of Josephus in the original from Venice. How eagerly Bembo's eyes must have scanned the shelves where his own Asolani stood among the presentation copies of works by living poets, the Orlandos of Ariosto and 1 V. Cian, op. cit. 2 D'Arco, Arte e Artefici, vol. ii. 161. 380 ISABELLA'S LIBRARY Boiardo, the sonnets and canzoni of Pistoja and Niccolo da Correggio! With what keen delight he must have turned over the pages of illuminated manuscripts of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and examined these curious Books of Fortune and Dreams on which the cultured ladies of those days set so much store! He must have looked with even greater reverence on the rare copy of Eustathius which Pope Clement VII. sent to borrow in 1525, because the Greek scholar Lascaris had told Alberto Pio that Isabella's manuscript was the most correct version in existence.1 The Revelations of St. Bridget and Prayers of St. Catherine were probably less to the scholar's taste, but we wonder if he paused to glance at Savonarola's Sermons, or at the Commentary on the Fifty-first Psalm which the great Dominican had written in prison. More familiar to Bembo's eyes were the Aldine classics, which had been mostly produced under his own direction, and of which the Marchesa we know possessed a complete set. Here too was her choice collection of French and Spanish romances, and of Latin translations from Greek authors. Among these Bembo found the famous Icones of Philostratus which had supplied the greatest Venetian painters with subjects for some of their finest works, and which Isabella lent to her brother Alfonso, when Titian was painting his Bacchanals in the Castello of Ferrara. In the same hall Bembo saw the terrestrial and celestial globes which had been made after the pattern of those in the Vatican library, and the Mappamondo which condiscoveries of Columbus and tained the latest 1 Bibliofilo, i. 26. |