68 THE DUCHESS OF URBINO do not know how to spend their time profitably, allow their lives to slip away with much sorrow and little praise. I have said all this, not because Your Highness, being most wise yourself, does not know all this far better than I do, but only in the hope that, being aware of my practice, you may the more willingly consent to live and take recreation as I do, and as the Castellan will be able to inform you. And my husband is well content that he should remain with Your Highness until you leave the baths and as long afterwards as you choose, always on the understanding that you will soon come to Mantua, since otherwise he will not only recall the Castellan, but will, if possible, renounce all his love and connection with you!" Calandra himself was given a letter couched in the same terms, giving him leave to remain with the Duchess as long as she persevered in her intention of coming to Mantua. "If, however, the Duchess changes her mind," wrote the imperious young Marchesa, "not only are you to return at once, but you are also to assure her that neither you, nor any one else, will be sent to her from us, and that the tender love we bear her will undergo a complete change." But, although Elisabetta returned from Viterbo in somewhat better health, fresh causes arose to delay her visit to Mantua. First Guidobaldo fell ill, then he took his wife with him to Rome, after which she had a fresh attack of her old gastric complaint. When, in January 1493, Isabella heard that, instead of coming to Mantua, the Duchess had been sent to take the baths of Porretta, she began to despair of ever seeing her again, and wrote saying that nothing COMES TO MANTUA 69 could give her pleasure this carnival, since all the fine plans which she had made for their mutual amusement were blown to the winds! "And the time which I hoped to spend in joyful intercourse together I will now pass in dreary solitude, sitting alone in my studio lamenting your illness and praying God soon to restore you to health, so that if our desires may not be granted this carnival, they may at least be satisfied before the end of Lent." This last wish was happily fulfilled. On the 9th of March the Duchess started for Mantua, and Isabella sent the poet Picenardi with his lyre, in the bucentaur which went out to meet her, in order that he might beguile the journey with music and song. The Marchesa herself and the chief citizens went to meet Elisabetta at Revere, and brought her back to Mantua amidst universal rejoicing. "And I really think," wrote Isabella to her mother a few days later, "that she is already beginning to feel the good effects of her native air and of the caresses with which I load her all day." 1 1 Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino, pp. 58-62. CHAPTER V 1491-1493 Correspondence of Isabella with her family and friends; with merchants and jewellers-Her intellectual interests-Love of French romances and classical authors-Greek and Hebrew translations and devotional works Fra Mariano and Savonarola Antonio Tebaldeo - Isabella's friendships Niccolo da Correggio-Sonnets and eclogues composed for her-Her love of music--Songs and favourite instruments -Atalante Migliorotti's lyre Isabella's camerino in the Castello Liombeni decorates her studiolo Mantegna Paints Isabella's portrait - Giovanni - returns from Rome NOTHING is more remarkable in the history of Isabella than the vast correspondence which she carried on with the most different personages on the greatest variety of subjects. Her appetite for news was insatiable, her curiosity boundless. There was nothing which did not excite her interest, from the most important affairs of state down to the newest fashion in dress or jewellery, from the most recent discoveries in the New World or the last cantos of Ariosto's "Orlando" to the purchase of a carved turquoise or a Persian kitten. And she entered into the smallest details on these subjects with the same keen zest, and gave her orders with the same clearness and minuteness, whether the defence of the State or the painting of an illuminated missal were in question. The correspondence which she kept up with her relatives alone during these first years after her marriage must have occupied many hours. She wrote CORRESPONDENCE OF ISABELLA 71 weekly letters to her mother at Ferrara, to her sister Beatrice and Lodovico Sforza at Milan, to Elisabetta Gonzaga at Urbino, and corresponded frequently with her half-sister Lucrezia Bentivoglio and her husband, as well as with her own brothers. Alfonso d'Este, her eldest brother, was deeply attached to this sister, who was only two years older than himself, and who shared his literary and artistic tastes. One day in the autumn of 1490, after paying Isabella a visit at Mantua, he sent her a long description of a tournament at Bologna, in which his brother-in-law Annibale Bentivoglio appeared in the guise of Fortune and Count Niccolo Rangone figured as Wisdom. Both princes were attended by pages in French, German, Hungarian and Moorish costumes, and recited allegorical verses and broke lances after the approved fashion of the day. "I cannot tell you," writes the enthusiastic boy, "how gallantly Messer Annibale bore himself, but I felt sorry for Count Niccolo when his horse stumbled and fell." A few months later he wrote to tell his sister that a new island had been discovered on the coast of Guinea, and sent her drawings of the strange race of men who dwelt there and of their horses and clothes, as well as of the trees and products of the country. The choice of new robes and jewels, of furs and camoras naturally took up a large part of Isabella's time and thoughts in these early days. She was in constant communication with merchants and goldsmiths, with embroiderers and engravers of gems. Countless were the orders for rings, seals, diamond rosettes and arrows, rubies, emeralds, and enamels which she sent to her agents at Ferrara and Venice. 72 ORDERS FOR JEWELS turquoises. One day she must have a cross of diamonds and pearls as a gift for her favourite maid-of-honour Brogna, the next she sends to Genoa for a choice selection of corals and turquoises. When she hears that her father has a rosary of black amber beads and gold and enamelled roses, she desires a Ferrara jeweller to make her one like it without delay, and when her sister Beatrice wears a jewelled belt brought from France, made in imitation of a cordone di S. Francesco, she writes to ask for the pattern in order that she may copy it. The following letter to her father's agent, Ziliolo, who was starting on a journey to France in April 1491, is a characteristic specimen of the commissions which she gave her servants and of her eagerness to see her wishes gratified. 66 "I send you a hundred ducats," she says, "and wish you to understand that you are not to return the money if any of it is left, after buying the things which I want, but are to spend it in buying some gold chain or anything else that is new and elegant. And if more is required, spend that too, for I had rather be in your debt so long as you bring me the latest novelties. But these are the kind of things that I wish to have-engraved amethysts, rosaries of black amber and gold, blue cloth for a camora, black cloth for a mantle, such as shall be without a rival in the world, even if it costs ten ducats a yard; as long as it is of real excellence, never mind! If it is only as good as those which I see other people wear, I had rather be without it!" goes on to ask Ziliolo not to forget to bring back some of the finest tela di Rensa-the linen made at Rheims, which was in great request at Italian courts, and ends by begging him to lose no chance She |