Wars of Venice and Ferrara--Invasion of Ferrara--Lodovico Sforza and
Alfonso of Calabria come to the help of Ercole d'Este--Peace of Bagnolo
--Prosperity of Ferrara, and cultivation of art and learning at Ercole's
court--Guarino and Aldo Manuzio--Strozzi and Boiardo--Architecture and
painting--The frescoes of the Schifanoia--Music and the drama--Education
of Isabella and Beatrice d'Este.
1482-1490
Such was the prince to whom Duke Ercole had betrothed his younger
daughter, and who had suddenly become one of the chief personages in
North Italy. But more than ten years were to elapse before the
child-bride even saw her affianced husband. During that time both Milan
and Ferrara passed through many vicissitudes, and at one moment
Beatrice's father and his state were reduced to the utmost extremity.
The Venetians availed themselves of the troubled state of Lombardy and
the civil strife that divided the house of Sforza, to attack their old
enemy the Duke of Ferrara. In 1482 Roberto di Sanseverino, the valiant
captain who had been one of the chief instruments in restoring his
kinsman Lodovico Sforza to his country, left Milan in a rage, because he
did not consider his salary sufficient, and offered his services to the
Republic of Venice. With his gallant sons to help him, he invaded the
territory of Ferrara at the head of an army of seventeen thousand men,
and carried all before him. The Pope as usual took up the quarrel of the
Venetians, in the hope of sharing the spoil, and while Ercole's ally,
King Ferrante of Naples, was engaged in resisting the papal forces, the
Genoese, who had revolted against Duchess Bona in 1478, and elected a
doge of their own, occupied Lodovico Sforza's attention. The Ferrarese
troops were completely defeated in a battle under the citadel of
Argenta, many of the Ferrarese leaders were slain, and the duke's
nephew, Niccolo da Correggio, and three hundred men were taken prisoners
to Venice. Sanseverino made good use of his advantage, and his son
Gaspare, better known by his nickname of Fracassa, marched to the very
gates of Ferrara, and planted the Lion of St. Mark on the peacocks'
house in the ducal park. Meanwhile the plague had broken out in Ferrara,
and so great was the scarcity of wheat in the beleaguered city, that
Battista Guarino, the tutor of the young Princess Isabella, applied to
her betrothed husband Francesco Gonzaga for a grant of corn to save him
from starvation. Worse than all, Duke Ercole himself lay dangerously ill
within the Castello, and a report of his death was circulated through
the city. At this critical moment Duchess Leonora once more showed her
courage and presence of mind. Seeing the greatness of the danger, she
sent her children with a safe escort to Modena, and calling the
magistrates together, she harangued them from the garden loggia, and
bade them be true to their old lords of the house of Este. The citizens,
moved to tears at the sight of Leonora's majesty and courage, shouted
with one voice, "Diamante!"--the watchword of the house of Este, and
vowed to die for their duke. In their enthusiasm, the people broke open
the palace doors, and rushing into the chamber where Ercole lay on his
sick-bed, covered his hands with kisses, and would not be satisfied
until they had heard his voice again and knew him to be alive. After
this outburst of loyalty, they rallied bravely to the defence of the
city. Every man who could bear arms in Ferrara helped to man the walls,
and the country-folk, rising in thousands, harassed the invading army
and cut off their supplies. Fortunately, help was at hand. On the one
hand, Lodovico Sforza's troops checked the advance of the Venetians on
the side of Modena; on the other, Ercole's brother-in-law, Alfonso, Duke
of Calabria, himself rode at the head of fifty horsemen and a troop of
infantry to the help of the beleaguered city.
Throughout the long struggle that followed, Lodovico Sforza proved
himself a wise and faithful friend of the house of Este, and it was
chiefly owing to him that Ferrara preserved her independence. But the
duke and his people had to make great sacrifices on their part, and at
the peace of Bagnolo, which was finally concluded in 1484, seven towns
were ceded to Venice, and the fertile district of Rovigo in the
Polesina, "_un petit pays_," in the words of Commines, "_tout environné
d'eau et abondant a merveille en tous biens_."
A period of renewed peace and prosperity followed upon these disastrous
wars. Ercole, although in his early youth he had proved himself a
valiant soldier, had in reality far greater taste for the arts of peace
than for those of war, and now devoted himself to the more congenial
task of adorning Ferrara and cultivating letters. His father Niccolo
III. had been the first prince in Northern Italy to take part in the
revival of Greek learning that had been set on foot in Naples and
Florence. He it was who, in 1402, revived the ancient University of
Ferrara, and invited the best scholars of the day to give lectures to
its students. At his prayer, the Sicilian Hellenist Aurispa, who had
travelled to Greece and Constantinople in search of Greek manuscripts,
fixed his residence at Ferrara; while Battista Guarino of Verona became
the tutor of Niccolo's own son Leonello, and inspired the young prince
with that ardour for learning which made him the most accomplished ruler
of his time. It was Niccolo, again, who invited the celebrated Paduan
doctor, Michele Savonarola, to fill the chair of medicine at the
University of Ferrara. Michele's son became court physician to Ercole,
and his grandson, the famous Dominican friar, Fra Girolamo Savonarola,
who had forsaken the study of medicine to take the vows of a preaching
brother, delivered his first course of Lent sermons in Ferrara during
that troubled year 1482.
The General Council held at Ferrara in 1438 brought some of the first
Greek Oriental scholars together in that city, and Niccolo d'Este
himself assisted at many of the discussions held by these learned
professors. His son Leonello, besides encouraging students by his own
example, devoted great pains and expense to the University library which
he founded, while his successor, Duke Borso, pensioned poor students,
who were clothed and fed at his cost. Ercole now followed in his
father's and brother's steps with so much success that under his reign
the University of Ferrara became the foremost in Italy, and boasted no
less than forty-five professors, while the number of students reached
four hundred and seventy-four. In those days the most renowned scholars
of the age flocked from all parts of Italy to hear Guarino lecture; and
Aldo Manuzio, the great printer, and his illustrious friend Pico della
Mirandola, the phoenix of the Renaissance, came to Ferrara to sit at the
feet of this revered teacher. Here Aldo acquired the passion for Greek
literature which made him inscribe the word Philhellene after his name
on his first printed books. Here, in his own turn, he lectured on Greek
and Latin authors to the cultured youth of Ercole's court, and here he
would have set up his printing-press, under his friend Duchess Leonora's
patronage, if the Venetian war had not forced him to leave Ferrara. Both
from the court of Alberto Pio at Carpi, where he found refuge with a
kinsman of the Estes, and at Venice, where he founded his famous
printing-press, he kept up frequent communications with the duke's
family, and dedicated books to young Cardinal Ercole, and bound and
printed choice editions of Petrarch and Virgil for his sister Isabella
d'Este. But if Duke Ercole emulated the zeal of his predecessors in the
encouragement of classical learning, he surpassed them all in his love
of travel, of building, and of theatrical representations. During the
next twenty years he indulged freely in all of these favourite pursuits.
His opportunities of travel, indeed, were limited by the duties of his
position; but whenever he could find leisure, he gratified his roving
taste by paying frequent visits to Milan or Venice, where the
magnificent palace bestowed upon his ancestor Nicolas II. in the last
century, but confiscated during the war with Ferrara, had been restored
to him at the peace of Bagnolo. In 1484, he took Duchess Leonora there
with a suite of seven hundred persons. On this occasion the palace
originally decorated by Duke Borso was sumptuously restored, and the
Doge and Senate entertained their guests with princely hospitality. A
more distant pilgrimage to the shrine of S. Jago of Compostella in
Spain, which Ercole had planned in 1487, had to be abandoned, owing to
the opposition of Pope Innocent VIII.; but eight years later the duke
paid another visit to Florence, on the pretence of discharging a vow
which he had made to Our Lady of the Annunziata. To the last the
adventurous disposition of the Estes, the love of seeing and hearing new
things, marked his character and governed his actions.
Meanwhile his imagination found plenty of food for activity at home, and
nothing interfered with his love of building or with the delight which
he took in the stage. Under him, Ferrara became one of the finest cities
in Italy. Her broad streets and spacious squares, her noble statues and
imposing monuments, the stately symmetry of her well-kept ways, made a
deep impression on Lodovico Sforza when he visited his wife's home. At
the beginning of his reign Ercole had sent to Florence to borrow
Alberti's Treatise on Architecture from Lorenzo de' Medici, and had
carried out his improvements on the principles advocated by the
Renaissance architect. On every side new churches and palaces rose into
being, a lofty Campanile was added to the ancient Lombard Cathedral, an
equestrian statue of Niccolo III. and a bronze effigy of Duke Borso
adorned the piazza in front of the Castello. Soon Ercole's subjects
caught their duke's passion for building, and vied with him in erecting
new and sumptuous houses. His brother, Cardinal Sigismondo, raised the
Palazzo Diamante, that magnificent Renaissance structure in the Via
degli Angeli. The Trotti and the Costabili, the Strozzi and Boschetti,
all followed suit and built palatial residences in the neighbourhood.
These fine buildings were surrounded with spacious gardens. One of
Ercole's first improvements had been to lay out the noble park outside
the town, and to people it with stags and goats, with gazelles and
antelopes and the spotted giraffes which Niccolo da Correggio describes
in his poems; and on the gates leading from the city were marble busts
carved by the hand of Sperandio, the famous medallist who had worked so
long for the ducal house, and who has left us portraits of all the chief
personages at the Ferrarese court. The courtyard of the ancient Este
palace was adorned with wide marble staircases, the villa of Belfiore
was enlarged and beautified, while that of Belriguardo, twelve miles
from the city, on the banks of the Po, became celebrated as the most
sumptuous of all the stately pleasure-houses in which Renaissance
princes took delight. No pains or expense were spared in the decoration
of these luxurious country houses. The terraced gardens and marble
loggias were adorned with fountains and statues, the halls were hung
with costly tapestries and gold and silver embroideries. Eastern carpets
and carved ivories, cameos and intaglios, precious gems and rare
majolica from Urbino and Casteldurante were brought together in the
Camerini of the Castello and the halls of the Schifanoia palace, that
favourite Sans-Souci of the Este princes close to the court-church of S.
Maria in Vado and to the convent of Leonora's friends, the nuns of S.
Vito. In this charming retreat, where Borso and Ercole alike loved to
escape from the cares of state, we may still see the remnants of these
splendid decorations which once adorned these halls: the painted
arabesques and stucco frieze of children playing musical instruments,
the barrel-vaulted ceilings, and marble doorways with their rows of
cherub heads and dolphins. There the unicorn which Borso took for his
device, figures side by side with the imperial eagle granted him by
Frederic III when he came to visit Ferrara, and the fleur-de-lis of
France, which the Estes were privileged to bear on their coat-of-arms.
There we still see fragments of the frescoes on the months and seasons
of the year which Cossa and his scholars painted at the bidding of
successive dukes. Borso is there on his white horse as he rides out
hunting, attended by falconers and pages leading his favourite
greyhounds in the leash; or looking on at the races of St. George's Day,
surrounded by scholars and courtiers, dwarfs and jesters, and fair
ladies clad in glittering robes of cloth of silver and gold. All the
pageant of court-life in old Ferrara, as it was in the days when Duke
Ercole reigned and Isabella and Beatrice d'Este grew up under the good
Duchess Leonora's care, passes again before our eyes, as we linger in
these low halls of the little red-brick palace among the fruit trees of
this deserted quarter.
Niccolo III. and his elder sons had all been liberal patrons of art, and
had invited the best artists they could find from other parts of Italy.
Vittore Pisanello and Jacopo Bellini had both of them visited Ferrara
and painted portraits of the Este princes--that of Leonello, with his
long hooked nose and low forehead, is still preserved at Bergamo, and
Piero de' Franceschi, the mighty Umbrian, is said to have supplied a
design for Duke Borso's tomb. But it was in later years, under Ercole's
reign, that this little group of native artists arose, and that Cosimo
Tura and his followers founded the school which gradually spread to
Bologna and Modena and boasted such masters as Lorenzo Costa and
Francia, or helped to mould the genius of a Raphael and a Correggio.
Tura himself remained at Ferrara all his life, painting altar-pieces for
Duchess Leonora's favourite churches, as well as frescoes in the duke's
villas and portraits of the different members of the ducal family in
turn. In 1472, before the Duke's marriage, he painted the portrait of
Ercole--strange to say--together with his illegitimate daughter Lucrezia
d'Este, to be sent as a present to his bride, Leonora of Aragon, at her
father's court of Naples. Again, in the summer of 1485, he was called
upon in his capacity of court painter to paint the likeness of the
youthful Isabella for her affianced husband, Francesco Gonzaga; and
before the year was out he had to perform the same task for the other
little bride, who had just returned from Naples. The following paper in
the Ferrarese archives fixes the exact date of the portrait, which was
evidently sent as a Christmas gift to Lodovico Sforza at Milan. "On the
24th of December, 1485, Cosimo Tura received four gold florins from the
duke, for painting from life the face and bust of the Illustrissima
Madonna Beatrice, to be sent to Messer Lodovico Maria Sforza, Duca di
Bari, consort of the said Beatrice--Carlo Continga taking it to him."
Unfortunately, both of these portraits have perished, and the only
representation of Beatrice as a girl that we have is the sculptor
Cristoforo Romano's well-known bust in the Louvre.
While the native schools of painting became active and prosperous under
Ercole's auspices, a flourishing school of arts and crafts arose in
Ferrara under the immediate patronage of the duchess. From the day of
her marriage, Leonora not only showed that intelligent love of art and
learning which might have been expected in a princess of the house of
Aragon, but a warm interest in the well-being of her subjects, together
with excellent sense and a strong practical bent. At her invitation,
tapestry-workers from Milan and Florence came to settle at Ferrara, and
skilled embroiderers were brought over from Spain. The duchess herself
superintended these workers, selected the colours and patterns, and
became an authority in the choice of hangings and decoration of rooms.
While Ercole had an insatiable passion for gems and cameos, antique
marbles and ivories, Leonora showed an especial taste for gold and
silver metal-work. Silver boxes and girdles curiously chased and
engraved were constantly sent to the duchess by Milanese goldsmiths, and
among the workers in this line whom she frequently employed was
Francesco Francia, the goldsmith painter of Bologna. In 1488, this
artist sent her an exquisite chain of gold hearts linked together, which
excited general admiration, and may perhaps have been intended as a
bridal gift for Elizabeth Gonzaga, the sister of Isabella's betrothed
husband, who visited Ferrara that spring, on her way to Urbino.
Leonora's own jewels were said to be the finest and most artistic owned
by any princess of her day, and, as in the case of other Renaissance
ladies, formed no inconsiderable portion of her fortune; and, in
consequence, they were frequently pawned to raise money for her
husband's wars. The duchess's famous necklace of pearls, we learn, was
repeatedly lent by the duke to bankers or goldsmiths in Rome and
Florence as pledges for the repayment of loans advanced during the war
with Venice.
Music was another of Ercole's favourite pastimes, and the choir of his
court chapel at one time rivalled that of Milan, which was held to be
the best in Italy. Violinists and lute-players were brought from Naples
to Ferrara, French and Spanish tenors were included among the singers
who accompanied the duke on his journeys. A still more distinctive
feature of his court were the theatrical representations, which became a
prominent part of all the palace festivities, and which undoubtedly owed
much to the duke's taste for dramatic art. Under his directions, a
spacious theatre was fitted up in the old Gothic Palazzo della Ragione
on the cathedral square. Here Latin comedies were performed before an
audience which included the most learned classical scholars of the day,
and Italian dramas were seen for the first time upon the stage. In 1486,
an Italian version of the _Menæchimi_, translated by Ercole himself,
was acted here, with interludes of masques and morris dances, violin
music, and recitations. This was followed, a year later, by a
performance of _Cefalo_, one of the oldest of Italian dramas, a pastoral
play composed by Niccolo da Correggio, chiefly taken from Ovid's
"Metamorphoses," and which is said to have suggested the subjects of
Correggio's famous frescoes in the Abbess of San Paolo's parlour at
Parma. Each Christmas and carnival these theatrical representations were
repeated, and many were the distinguished visitors who came to Ferrara
to witness these celebrated performances. The _Amphitryon_ and _Cassina_
of Plautus were frequently given. On one occasion, a play adapted from a
dialogue of Lucian's by Matteo Boiardo was acted. Another time, at the
wedding of a Marchese Strozzi, a Latin comedy written by the
bridegroom's brother, Ercole Strozzi, was performed before the whole
court. Sometimes, by way of variety, sacred subjects were placed upon
the stages. Tableaux of the Annunciation and the history of Joseph were
introduced, accompanied with recitations and music. While the duke was
known to have a strong preference for classical plays, the duchess and
her daughters took pleasure in lighter forms of literature, and
encouraged the songs and romances which courtly poets wrote for their
benefit in the _lingua vulgare_. A new school of Italian poets sprang up
at Ferrara in the last years of the century. Antonio Tebaldeo, the
friend of Castiglione and Raphael--"our Tebaldeo," whom Pietro Bembo
declared Raphael had painted in so lifelike a manner that he was not so
exactly himself in actual life as in this portrait--had his home at
Ferrara in these early days, and enjoyed the favour of the Marchioness
Isabella in his later years. While the elder Strozzi, Tito, had the
reputation of being the best Latin poet of the day, his son Ercole
belonged to the circle of younger scholars, and, like his friends Bembo
and Ariosto, wrote elegant Italian verses as well as Latin epistles and
orations. Then there was the blind poet Francesco Bello, the author of
the "Mambriano," that heroic poem on the favourite Carlovingian legend;
Andrea Cossa of Naples, who sang his own _rime_ and _strambotti_ to the
music of the lute; Niccolo da Correggio, called by Isabella d'Este and
Sabba da Castiglione "the most accomplished gentleman of the age, the
foremost man in all Italy, in the art of poetry and in courtesy," who
devoted his muse to the service of gentle ladies, and composed _canzoni_
and _capitoli_ or set Petrarch's sonnets to music for Isabella and
Beatrice's pleasure. And among Ercole's courtiers at Ferrara there was
one still greater, Matteo Boiardo, Count of Scandiano, who was intimate
with both duke and duchess, and held many high posts at court. He was a
member of the splendid suite sent in 1473 to escort Leonora from Naples
to Ferrara, and afterwards held the important post of Governor of Modena
during many years. But in the midst of official labours and court
duties, Matteo was all the while engaged in writing his great work
of the "Orlando Innamorato," that wonderful epic in which classic and
romantic ideas are mingled together as strangely as in Piero di Cosimo
or Sandro Botticelli's paintings. The first cantos of his poem, begun in
1472, were published at Venice in 1486, with a dedication to Duke
Ercole, and the work was continued at intervals throughout his life, and
was only interrupted by the death of the poet. This took place in 1494,
when the first French armies were first seen descending upon Italy, and
the sweet singer of high romance broke off abruptly with a prophetic
note of warning in his last accents--"While I am singing, I see all
Italy set on fire by these Gauls, coming to ravage I know not how many
fresh lands, alas!"
In this city which was at once the home of Italian epic and Italian
drama, at this court where the boy Ariosto was to take up the song that
dropped from the lips of Boiardo, and to wear the laurel in his turn,
the young princesses of Este grew up. There were three of them, for
Lucrezia, the duke's illegitimate daughter, had found a kind mother in
the duchess, and was brought up with her young step-sisters Isabella and
Beatrice, until in 1487, she became the wife of Annibale Bentivoglio,
and went to live in Bologna. Under Leonora's careful and vigilant eyes,
these maidens were trained in all the culture of the day. Their
classical studies were directed by Battista Guarino, the son of the
learned Verona humanist, the same who begged the Marquis of Mantua for a
grant of wheat that he might the better be able to teach his betrothed
bride Madonna Isabella during the famine at Ferrara. With him they
learnt sufficient Latin to read Cicero and Virgil, as well as Greek and
Roman history. Music and dancing were taught them almost from infancy.
They learnt to play the viol and lute, and sang _canzoni_ and sonnets to
the accompaniment of these instruments. Beatrice, we know, was
passionately fond of music. She employed the great Pavian Lorenzo
Gusnasco to make her clavichords and viols of the finest order, and like
her father, she never travelled without her favourite singers. Isabella
herself had a beautiful voice, and sang with a sweetness and grace which
charmed all hearers. The most accomplished poets of the Renaissance,
Pietro Bembo and Niccolo da Correggio, Girolamo Casio and Antonio
Tebaldeo, were proud to hear her sing their verses, and the Vicenza
scholar Trissino, forestalling Waller in this, wrote a _canzone_
addressed to "My Lady Isabella playing the lute."
Messer Ambrogio da Urbino began to give Isabella dancing lessons almost
as soon as she could walk. Later on a certain Messer Lorenzo Lavagnolo,
who had taught Elizabeth and Maddalena Gonzaga, the young sisters of the
Marquis of Mantua, and had afterwards been sent to the court of Milan to
teach Duchess Bona's daughters, came to Ferrara. This master, who was
commended to the Duchess of Milan by the Marchioness Barbara of Mantua
as superior to all other professors of the art of dancing, gave lessons
to Isabella and her sisters, as we learn from a letter which she wrote
to her affianced husband, thanking him in her sister's name and her own
for having sent so excellent a teacher to undertake the task, and
recommending this faithful and devoted servant to His Excellency's
notice. A bill for making dresses and scenery that were employed in a
"_festa_" composed by Messer Lorenzo for the duke's daughters is
preserved in the Gonzaga archives, and at Lucrezia's wedding, in 1487,
this renowned master travelled to Bologna to direct the _fêtes_ given in
honour of her marriage.
Some knowledge of French seems to have formed part of an Italian lady's
education at this period, but even Isabella, with all her quickness and
talent, was never able to speak French fluently, and Beatrice had
recourse to interpreters when she received the visit of King Charles
VIII. at Asti, and was required to make civil speeches in reply to his
compliments. But they read Provençal poetry and translations of Spanish
romances from the rare volumes, sumptuously bound in crimson velvet with
enamelled and jewelled clasps and corners, that were among the most
precious treasures of Duchess Leonora's cabinet. Above all, they took
delight in French romances, such as "_I reali di Francia_"--that book
which was so popular with Italian ladies, and became familiar with the
exploits of Roland and the paladins of Charlemagne's court. As they bent
over their embroidery-frames at their lady mother's side, in the painted
camerini of the Castello, or under the acacias and lemon-trees of the
Schifanoia villa, they listened to the wonderful fairy tales which
Matteo Boiardo recited, and heard him tell how Rinaldo of Montalbano was
pelted with roses and lilies and made captive by Cupid's dames. Now and
then, on summer evenings, they were allowed to join in the water-parties
at Belriguardo, and float down the stream in the ducal bucentaur to the
sound of the court violins, or else take part in those hunting
expeditions for which Beatrice developed a passionate taste in
after-years. As the frescoes of Schifanoia show, hunting was always a
favourite pastime at the court of Ferrara. The duke kept many hundred
horses in his stables, and the greatest care was bestowed upon his breed
of dogs and falcons. When Borso went to Rome in 1471, he took in his
retinue eighty pages, each leading four greyhounds in a leash; and when
he entertained the Emperor Frederic III. at Ferrara, he presented him
with fifty of his best horses. Ercole often received gifts of Barbary
horses from the Sultan of Tunis or the famous Gonzaga stables that were
reckoned the best in Italy, and bought Spanish jennets and steeds of
Irish race to improve his own breed. And Duchess Leonora owned a special
breed of greyhounds which were held in high esteem, and a pair of which
she sent to Caterina Sforza, Madonna of Forli, at the humble request of
this adventurous lady.
But it was only on very rare occasions that the young princesses of Este
were allowed to leave their studies, which occupied their whole days,
and, as we learn from their different preceptors' letters, absorbed
their whole attention. Nor, we may be quite sure, was their religious
education neglected under the eye of their mother, a sincerely devout
and pious woman, who took pleasure in the converse of learned Dominicans
and Carmelites, and paid frequent visits to S. Vito, close to the
Schifanoia villa, and to the Convent of Corpus Domini, in which church
she was buried. Her many charitable works, the liberality with which she
helped her poorer subjects, relieved their wants, and gave dowries to
virtuous maidens, as well as her munificence in adorning altars and
churches with rich ornaments, are recorded by every Ferrarese historian.
Sabadino degli Arienti places her high among the illustrious women of
the age, and says her deeds cannot fail to have opened the adamant doors
of Paradise, while Castiglione speaks of her excellent virtues as known
to the whole world, and pronounces her worthy to have reigned over a far
larger state. With the pattern of this admirable mother before their
eyes, with all that was choicest in art and fairest in nature around
them, Leonora's daughters grew up to womanhood, and insensibly acquired
that enthusiasm for beauty in all its varied forms, that fine taste and
perception which distinguished them above their contemporaries, which
made Isabella at the end of her long life still the most attractive
woman of her day, and which caused the bravest soldiers and the wisest
scholars to lament the untimely death of the youthful Duchess Beatrice.
In all the difficult and tangled ways which they were separately called
upon to tread, the breath of scandal, the slander of idle tongues, never
sullied their fair names. Both princesses held fast to the ideal of
their girlhood, and, leading the same pure and spotless life, left the
same gracious memory behind them, alike in the old Mantuan city on the
banks of the classic Mincio, where Isabella's presence lingers like some
delicate perfume about the _Camerini_ of the ancient Castello, and in
that grander and more splendid court where Beatrice reigned for a few
brief years by the Moro's side at Milan.