386

ISABELLA'S GRANDCHILDREN

illustrious guests who visited their father's court. When, a few years later, Pope Paul III. came to Ferrara, they acted a Latin comedy, the Adelphi of Terence, for the amusement of His Holiness, Anna taking the lover's part on this occasion, and her youngest brother Luigi, a child of four, appearing in the part of a slave.1

Soon after this festive evening, which had given her guests so much pleasure, Isabella returned to Mantua and spent the summer quietly at home. We catch one pleasant glimpse of her in a letter addressed to Duke Federico, in which she dwells with all a grandmother's delight on the charms and cleverness of his children.

"I have just returned," she wrote, "from my villa at Belfiore, where I spent some days, with the greatest benefit to my health. I may say, indeed, that having gone there seriously indisposed, I have returned by the grace of God in good health. Yesterday I went to the Castello, and visited the Illustrious Duchess, your wife, and my daughter, whom I found together with the Marchese and the other princes in the best of health. All I saw there gave me the greatest pleasure and amusement. The Marchese, who is growing up beautiful as a flower, recited thirty or forty lines from Virgil, in the presence of his mother the Duchess, with a grace and clearness which were simply amazing! I saw Signor Guglielmo, with his fat baby-face looking as innocent and as merry as possible, and both he and his sweet sister Donna Isabella are in my eyes a picture of all the joys the world can give."2 Two years later, the 1 Frizzi, op. cit.

2 Luzio e Renier, Giorn. Stor., 1899, p. 36.

VISIT TO VENICE

387

little Marchese, Francesco, who could repeat Virgil at the age of five, succeeded his father as Duke of Mantua. In 1549 he married the Archduchess Catherine of Austria, a niece of Charles V., but died a few months afterwards, from a fever brought on by falling into the lake when he was shooting wild-fowl from a boat." Isabella, who was born in April, 1537, became the wife of Francesco d'Avalos, while her brother Guglielmo, then an infant of a few months, grew up to manhood, and reigned long and gloriously over the realm of the Gonzagas.

Already Isabella d'Este watched her eldest son's failing health with anxiety, and in a letter to her old friend Trissino, who had begged her intercession on behalf of two gentlemen of Verona, she speaks of the Duke as seriously indisposed and unable to attend to business. A month later she persuaded him to accompany her to Venice for change of air, and gladly accepted Ercole d'Este's offer of his palace on the Grand Canal, which he placed at her disposal during the next two months. This fine old house, where Beatrice d'Este once spent a joyous May-time, had been thoroughly restored and sumptuously decorated for the reception of Duchess Renée when she went to Venice in 1534, and Isabella was delighted with the prospect of occupying this magnificent palazzo. "We are coming to Venice," she wrote to Benedetto Agnello on the 23rd of September, "to spend all October there for our amusement, and our nephew the Illustrious Duke of Ferrara has kindly placed his house at our disposal until November.'

"2

The Marchesa, indeed, was so happy at Venice,

1 Litta, Famiglie, iii. tav. 5.

8 V. Cian, op. cit.

888

ISABELLA RETURNS HOME

and was so warmly welcomed and honourably entertained by her friends in this city, that she prolonged her stay there until the end of November. But the weather broke up before she left, and the journey back to Mantua proved too much for her failing strength. On the 29th, she wrote to her widowed daughter Leonora: "My return from Venice took place in very rough weather, and has caused some disturbance in my system, so that until now I have not ventured to leave my room, and am still in some pain." That Advent, Vittoria Colonna's friend, Fra Bernardino Ochino, preached a course of stirring sermons at Mantua, but Isabella was unable to be present. These gastric pains, which had been the cause of her mother's death, continued to trouble the Marchesa throughout the winter, and in January she found herself still too unwell to pay her yearly visit to Ferrara. But she longed for news of her dear ones in the old home, and listened eagerly to the letters which told her of the Duke and Duchess and their little daughter Anna. On the 18th of January, Stabellino wrote to ask after her health, and told her of the latest Carnival fêtes: "Here we are enjoying tournaments and masquerades and banquets. Last night the Cardinal of Ravenna entertained the Duke and most of the Court at the Schifanoia Palace. A very amusing farce by Strascino was performed, after which there was dancing up till ten o'clock."1

So Isabella drew slowly to her end, retaining full possession of all her faculties, and hearing with delight of pleasures which she could no longer share. She followed the parting injunctions of her old favourite,

1 Fontana, op. cit., p. 89.

DIES AT MANTUA

389

Matteo Bandello, the Dominican story-teller, and lived joyously to the last. Four years before, she had made her last will, in which not only her children and ladies-in-waiting, but all her servants and dependants were thoughtfully remembered. Even her pet dwarfs, Morgantino and Delia, were affectionately commended to the care of the Duke and Duchess, and provided with a yearly allowance of fifty ducats if they would not or could not remain in her son's service. Now she took a tender farewell of the children she had loved so well, and on the night of the 13th of February her great soul passed away.

"On the 13th of February, 1539," writes the chronicler of the Franciscan convent, "there died in Mantua, Madama Isabella d'Este, or rather, it should be said, her soul took flight to its eternal rest. She had always been devout and humble in her lifetime, and on her deathbed she begged that she might be buried privately, and without any pomp, in the grave of her husband in Santa Paola. This was done, with the tears and lamentations of all the people."1

The great Marchesa was buried by her husband's side in the Cappella dei Signori, in the Church of S. Francesco, sometimes called Santa Paola, from the neighbouring convent founded by the Marchesa Paola, where Isabella's own daughter had taken the veil. Duke Federico ordered a noble tomb to be raised to his mother's memory in the sepulchral chapel of the Gonzaga princes. Before it was completed, the Duke himself died, at his favourite villa of Marmirolo, on the 28th of June, 1540, leaving his little son Francesco to the guardianship of his 1 Donesmondi, Storia Ecclesiastica di Mantova.

f

390

DESTRUCTION OF HER TOMB

brother, Cardinal Ercole, and his wife Margherita. He was buried, according to his last wishes, by his mother's side, in S. Francesco. But when, in 1797, the French took Mantua after a long siege, the church, which contained more than 300 monuments of the Gonzagas and other noble families, was pillaged. Then the frescoes and paintings which adorned its walls were ruined, the tombs were broken in pieces, and the ashes which they contained were scattered to the winds. To-day this once stately shrine, so rich in historic memories and treasures of art, has been converted into a barrack school, and no trace of Isabella d'Este's last resting-place can now be seen.

The Castello suffered terribly at the hands of the German soldiers who were sent against Duke Carlo I. by the Emperor Ferdinand II. in 1630, and who sacked Mantua during three whole days. A short time before, Vincenzo II. had sold the bulk of his splendid gallery to our King Charles I., while the paintings by Mantegna, Perugino, and Costa, which adorned Isabella's Grotta, were bought soon after the siege by Cardinal Richelieu. The beautiful apartments which Isabella planned and adorned with so much taste were stripped of their decorations, and the priceless works of art which they contained were all scattered abroad. The small number which escaped destruction passed into foreign galleries, and a few scanty fragments of painting and carving, with here and there a device or inscription bearing her name, are the only traces of Isabella's presence that now remain in Mantua.

Fortunately, the greater part of her correspondence has survived the general wreck, and forms a record of more than common value. These pre