Beatrice d'Este as a patron of learning and poetry--Vincenzo Calmeta,
her secretary--Serafino d'Aquila--Rivalry of Lombard and Tuscan poets
--Gaspare Visconti's works--Poetic jousts with Bramante--Niccolo di
Correggio and other poets--Dramatic art and music at the court of
Milan--Gaffuri and Testagrossa--Lorenzo Gusnasco of Pavia.
1492
Lodovico Moro, as we have seen, was justly extolled by his
contemporaries as the most illustrious Mecænas of his age. As Abbé
Tiraboschi, the learned historian of Italian literature, wrote ninety
years ago, "If we consider the immense number of learned men who flocked
to his court from all parts of Italy in the certainty of receiving great
honours and rich rewards; if, again, we remember how many famous
architects and painters he invited to Milan, and how many noble
buildings he raised, how he built and endowed the magnificent University
of Pavia, and opened schools of every kind of science in Milan; if
besides all this we read the splendid eulogies and dedicatory epistles
addressed to him by scholars of every nationality, we feel inclined to
pronounce him the best prince that ever lived." And in Beatrice d'Este,
Lodovico possessed a wife admirably adapted to share his aims and
preside over his court. Both her birth and education fitted her for the
position which she now occupied. Her youth and beauty lent a new lustre
to the court, her quick intelligence and cultured tastes led her to
appreciate the society of poets and scholars. The natural love of
splendour, which she shared with the Moro, went hand-in-hand with
artistic invention. Her rich clothes and jewels were distinguished by
their refinement and rare workmanship. The fashions which she
introduced were marked by their elegance and beauty. She took especial
delight in music and poetry, and gave signs of a fine and discriminating
literary judgment. And like Lodovico, she knew not only how to attract
men of genius, but how to retain them in her service. Where, again, asks
Castiglione, who had known her in her brightest days at Milan, shall we
find a woman of intellect as remarkable as Duchess Beatrice? And her own
secretary, the writer known as "_l'elegantissimo_ Calmeta" in the
cultured circles of Mantua and Urbino, has told us how much men of
letters owed to her sympathy and help. In the life of his friend,
Serafino Aquilano, written seven years after Beatrice's death, when the
Milanese was a French province and the Moro a captive at Loches, Calmeta
recalls the brilliant days of his old life at Lodovico's court, and
speaks thus of his lost mistress:--
"This duke had for his most dear wife Beatrice d'Este, daughter of
Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, who, coming to Milan in the flower of her
opening youth, was endowed with so rare an intellect, so much grace and
affability, and was so remarkable for her generosity and goodness that
she may justly be compared with the noblest women of antiquity. This
duchess devoted her time to the highest objects. Her court was composed
of men of talent and distinction, most of whom were poets and musicians,
who were expected to compose new eclogues, comedies, or tragedies, and
arrange new spectacles and representations every month. In her leisure
hours she generally employed a certain Antonio Grifo"--a well-known
student and commentator of Dante--"or some equally gifted man, to read
the Divina Commedia, or the works of other Italian poets, aloud to her.
And it was no small relaxation of mind for Lodovico Sforza, when he was
able to escape from the cares and business of state, to come and listen
to these readings in his wife's rooms. And among the illustrious men
whose presence adorned the court of the duchess there were three
high-born cavaliers, renowned for many talents, but above all for their
poetic gifts--Niccolo da Correggio, Gaspare Visconti, and Antonio di
Campo Fregoso, together with many others, one of whom was myself,
Vincenzo Calmeta, who for some years held the post of secretary to that
glorious and excellent lady. And besides those I have named there was
Benedetto da Cingoli, called Piceno, and many other youths of no small
promise, who daily offered her the first fruits of their genius. Nor was
Duchess Beatrice content with rewarding and honouring the poets of her
own court. On the contrary, she sent to all parts of Italy to inquire
for the compositions of elegant poets, and placed their books as sacred
and divine things on the shelves of her cabinet of study, and praised
and rewarded each writer according to his merit. In this manner, poetry
and literature in the vulgar tongue, which had degenerated and sunk into
forgetfulness after the days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, has been
restored to its former dignity, first by the protection of Lorenzo de'
Medici, and then by the influence of this rare lady, and others like
her, who are still living at the present time. But when Duchess Beatrice
died everything fell into ruin. That court, which had been a joyous
Paradise, became a dark and gloomy Inferno, and poets and artists were
forced to seek another road."
Calmeta himself was a prolific writer both of verse and prose, whose
translation of Ovid's _Ars amandi_, dedicated to Lodovico Moro, was
highly esteemed by his contemporaries, and whom Castiglione introduces
among the speakers of his _Cortigiano_. Like his friends Niccolo da
Correggio and Gaspare Visconti, Beatrice's secretary was a fervent
admirer of Petrarch, and wrote an elaborate commentary on the _Canzone_,
"_Mai non vo' più cantar como io solea_," which he dedicated to Isabella
d'Este and sent her with a letter expressing his conviction that no one
before him had ever fully understood this profound and subtle poem.
Another of Beatrice's _protégés_ was Serafino, the famous improvisatore
of Aquila in the Abruzzi, a short and ugly little man, whom Cardinal
Bibbiena once laughingly compared to a carpet-bag (_valigia_)! But in
spite of his dwarfed stature and elfish appearance, Serafino sang his
own _strambotti_ and eclogues so well, and had so fascinating a way of
accompanying himself on the lute, that the Este and Gonzaga ladies all
entreated him for new verses, and literally wrangled over the man
himself! Like Calmeta and many others, however, after spending some time
at the courts of Mantua and Urbino, he came to Milan, and devoted his
talents to the service of Duchess Beatrice until her death, after which
he went his way sadly, and sought shelter in his old haunts. Most of his
time after this was spent with the good Duchess Elizabeth at Urbino,
where the Milanese refugees found a warm welcome, and where Serafino was
caressed and _fêted_ by all the great ladies in turn, until a premature
death closed his career, and he died in Rome in 1500, lamented in prose
and verse by the most cultured spirits of the age.
While Beatrice encouraged these foreign poets to settle at Milan,
Lodovico invited the Tuscans Bellincioni and Antonio Cammelli, surnamed
Pistoia, to his court, in the hope of refining and polishing the rude
Lombard diction. The priest Tanzio, writing after Bellincioni's death in
1492, remarks that this influence had already borne fruit, and that the
sonnet, which was practically unknown in Milan before Bellincioni's
coming, was now diligently cultivated there. But, not unnaturally, a
bitter rivalry sprung up between the Lombard and the Tuscan poets, and a
fierce poetic warfare was exchanged between them. Bellincioni's
suspicious and quarrelsome nature is revealed in his letters to his
patron, in which he is always complaining of the envious detractors
whose wicked tongues are employed in backbiting him day and night. His
own character was by no means free from the same imputations; and the
Ferrarese poet, Tebaldeo, the friend of Raphael and Castiglione,
composed a witty epitaph, in which he warns passers-by to avoid the last
resting-place of this singer, who had made so many enemies in life, lest
he turn in his grave and bite them. Bellincioni's bitterest foe was a
certain Bergamasque poet, Guidotto Prestinari, who wrote many odes and
songs in honour of Beatrice, and represented the old Lombard school. On
one occasion this misguided person even dared to attack Leonardo, and
wrote a sonnet in which he jeers at the great painter for spending his
time in hunting for curious worms and insects on the hills of Bergamo,
when he visited his friends of the Melzi family. Leonardo scorned to
take any notice of these petty insults, but in his letter to the
councillors of Piacenza we see the contempt which he had for Lombard
artists--"those rude and ignorant workmen," as he calls them, "who boast
they will get letters of recommendation from Signora Lodovico or his
Commissioner of Works, Messer Ambrogio Ferrari, when not one of them is
fit to undertake the task." And certain epigrams in the Windsor
Sketchbook are plainly directed against the false and venal science of
the astrologer Ambrogio da Rosate, whose name is given in the margin,
and show how cordial was Leonardo's hatred of the duke's all-powerful
favourite.
Fortunately, both Leonardo himself, as well as Calmeta and Pistoia, were
on friendly terms with Gaspare Visconti, who, originally a scholar of
Prestinari, became the chief representative of the Lombard school of
poetry at Milan, and whom Beatrice's secretary places next to Niccolo da
Correggio among the best poets of her court. This popular poet and
polished cavalier was a great favourite, not only with Beatrice and her
husband, but with Galeazzo di Sanseverino, the Marchesino Stanga, and
all the chief personages at court. Born in 1461 of noble Milanese
parents, he married Cecilia, daughter of Cecco Simonetta, Duchess Bona's
ill-fated minister, and was advanced to the dignity of _Eques Auratus_
and ducal councillor. After the death of Bellincioni he succeeded to the
post of court poet, and was often employed by Lodovico to address
complimentary verses to other princes or to write sonnets on passing
events, whether his theme were a royal wedding or the death of a
favourite falcon. His most important work was a romance entitled "Paolo
e Daria," founded on Bramante's discovery of a tomb containing the ashes
of these lovers, when the foundations of his new cloisters at S.
Ambrogio were being laid in the year 1492. The incident excited great
interest at court, and Gasparo dedicated his poem to Lodovico--"_mio
Duca_"--and introduced an eloquent eulogy in honour of his friend
Bramante in the first canto. In the following year he published a volume
of rhymes, dedicated to Niccolo da Correggio, who sent the book to the
insatiable Isabella d'Este, saying this would please her better than any
verses that he could write. Finally, in 1496, he formally presented the
duchess with a copy of his poems, written in silver letters and gold on
ivory vellum, and enriched with miniatures of rare beauty. This
sumptuous volume, bound in silver-gilt boards enamelled with flowers,
and containing 143 sonnets as well as epistles on love and other
philosophical and theological subjects, was dedicated to Beatrice in the
following words:--
"To the Most Illustrious Duchess of Milan, Gaspare Visconti, Having
been told by many honourable persons, chief among whom is Messer
Galeazzo Sanseverino, that the said duchess graciously pleads my cause
with His Excellency the Duke, I beg of her to accept this book,
dedicated to her by her humble servant." The same grateful sentiments
inspired the lyric which followed, in which the poet implored the
duchess to use her well-known influence with her lord, and incline his
will to look favourably upon her servant's prayer--
"Donna beata! e Spirito pudico!
Deh! fa benigna a questa mia richiesta
La voglia del tuo Sposo Lodovico.
Io so ben quel che dico!
Tanta è la tua virtu che ció che vuoi
Dello invitto cuor disponer puoi."[24]
An ardent lover of Petrarch, to whose poems these of the Milanese poet
were often compared by his admirers, Gaspare Visconti took the lead in a
lively poetic contest with Bramante on the respective merits of Dante
and Petrarch, The discussion was carried on during many weeks, in the
presence of the duchess and her courtiers in the beautiful gardens of
Vigevano, or in those fair pleasure-houses by the running streams in the
park at Pavia, where Beatrice and her ladies spent the long summer days.
Gaspare found animated supporters in his friends Calmeta and Niccolo da
Correggio, who was himself an enthusiastic admirer of Petrarch, and on
one occasion journeyed twenty-five miles from Correggio over the worst
roads in the world to see the remote village of Rosena, where the Tuscan
poet had composed some of his finest _canzoni_. On the other hand,
Bramante had the duke and duchess on his side. We know how, at the end
of a long day's work, Lodovico loved to listen to the reading of the
"Divina Commedia" in his wife's boudoir, and ponder the meaning of that
great vision of heaven and hell. And when the catastrophe of Novara had
crushed his last hopes, and he was borne a captive into the strange
land, the only favour he asked of his victors was the loan of a volume
of Dante, "_per studiare_"--in order that he might study the divine
poet's words. One of Gaspare's sonnets on the subject, which was
afterwards printed, bears this inscription: "These verses were not
written with any pretence of deciding between the merits of these two
great men, but solely to answer Bramante, who is a violent partisan of
Dante."
Another poetic tourney, in which both the great architect and his friend
Visconti were the chief combatants, turned on Bramante's supposed
poverty and the complaints with which he filled the air, calling on all
the gods in heaven to help him in his misery. This was in the summer of
1492, and not only Gaspare, but Bellincioni, who was then living, and
Mascagni of Turin took up the parable, and charged Bramante with begging
for a pair of shoes, when all the while he was receiving five ducats a
week from the duke, and was secretly hoarding up a store of gold. To
this Bramante replied in a sonnet full of allusions to Calliope, Erato,
and all the Muses, begging his friends for pity's sake to give him a
crown, if they would not see him left barefoot and naked to battle with
rude Boreas. A whole series of curious sonnets from Bramante's pen has
been lately discovered by M. Müntz among the Italian manuscripts in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, and reveal the burlesque side of the great
architect's character, and the biting wit which made his opponents give
him the name of Cerberus.[25]
These poetic jousts or encounters of wits were a favourite amusement of
the cultured princesses of the Renaissance and their courtiers. Thus it
was that Poliziano and Ficino discussed philosophical questions before
Lorenzo in the gardens of Careggi or on the terraces of Fiesole; so
Castiglione and Bibbiena reasoned of art and love with Duchess Elizabeth
and Emilia Pia, in the palace of Urbino, till the short summer night was
well-nigh over and the dawn broke over the peaks of Monte Catria. And at
Milan, where in Beatrice's days there was less pedantry and more freedom
and gaiety than in any court of the day, these lively debates found
especial favour. The most brilliant courtiers and bravest knights, the
gravest scholars and officers of state alike took part in them. Messer
Galeazzo, as we have seen, was an adept at the game, and could wield his
pen and challenge fair ladies in defence of Roland as gallantly as he
couched his lance to ride in the lists or wielded his sword in the thick
of the battle. So, too were the Marchesino Stanga and his friend
Girolamo Tuttavilla. Both these noblemen were great sonnet-writers, and
are classed by Pistoia among those illustrious lords, who, like Messer
Galeazzo and Signor Lodovico himself, were poets and writers as well as
statesmen and generals.
Bramante addressed several of his sonnets to Count Tuttavilla, who in
his turn had a lively controversy in rhyme with the Marchesino. And
when, in the spring of 1492, Tuttavilla accompanied the Count of Caiazzo
on his embassy to France, Gaspare Visconti sent him a sonnet asking for
the latest news from Paris, which Duchess Beatrice and all her ladies
were dying to hear.
"Tell me if the Queen of France is fair, and how the king appears in
your eyes--whether he is cruel or clement, inclined to walk in the paths
of virtue or of vice. And tell us, too, if the people of Paris seem to
fear the English and the Spaniard, and if they are true followers of
Mars? Tell us how the crowds who walk the streets are clad, and what
customs and manners they have, and how they speak, and what they think.
Tell me how many students their University numbers, and in what branches
of learning they excel. Tell me the names of their lawgivers and
historians, and if any classical antiquities are to be found in Paris.
Tell me how the Abbey of S. Denis is built, and what style of
architecture prevails in the far North? And tell me, too, if I dare ask,
have you perchance in Paris found some fair lady to bend a gracious
smile upon you, and console you for all that you have left behind?"
Girolamo Tuttavilla replied in verses of the same light and airy strain,
alluding to the fierce contest over Dante that waged between Dottore
Bramante and his foes, and laughing at friend Bellincioni's furious
rages, but saying that he at least is wiser, and will take the _viâ
media_ and steer warily between the two contending parties.
But the best poet at Lodovico's court, a sweeter singer and a finer
scholar than the much-praised Bellincioni or the gay Visconti, was
Niccolo, the "gran Correggio" of Gaspare's song. The son of that
accomplished princess of Este, Beatrice the Queen of Festivals, reared
by her in all the culture of Ferrara, this singularly polished and
handsome personage was in the eyes of his contemporaries the model of a
perfect courtier. To have known him was in itself a liberal education.
Sabba da Castiglione, that fastidious scholar and refined writer of the
sixteenth century, counted himself fortunate because as a boy he had
seen and known "this most famous, most courteous and gifted cavalier in
all Italy." Ariosto saw him in his vision upholding the Fountain of
Song, and chanting in his own lofty and noble style--
"Un Signor di Correggio
Con alto stil par che cantando scriva."
Niccolo had come to Milan in Beatrice's bridal train, and remained there
ever since, highly valued and beloved by Lodovico and all the ducal
family, riding in jousts and tournaments, going on foreign missions, and
composing songs and eclogues for that young duchess whose death was one
day to inspire some of his most touching verses. But the Marchesa
Isabella was the true goddess of his adoration, the mistress to whom his
heart and lyre alike were pledged, who was for him, not only "_la mia
patrona e signora_," but "_la prima donna del mondo_," "the first lady
in all the world." For her he translated Breton legends and Provençal
romances; for her he set Virgil and Petrarch to music; for her fair
sake, old and stiff as advancing years have made him, he is ready to
break a lance or join once more in the dance. At Christmas-time, in the
last days of 1491, the impatient Marchesana had written to remind him
that she had never yet received the eclogue which he had promised to
send her at her brother Alfonso's wedding, and refused to be put off
with any other verses, saying that his poems pleased her more than those
of any living bard. When in later years she found that Niccolo was
inclined to transfer his allegiance to her sister-in-law, Lucrezia
Borgia, she was sorely affronted, and after his death entered into a
long contention for the possession of the book of poems which he had
left behind.
There were many other poets of Beatrice's court whose names were famous
in their day, but have long ago been forgotten, and whose works have
passed into oblivion with all that vanished world. There was Lancino di
Corte, or, as he preferred to style himself, Lancinus Curtius, the
writer of Latin epigrams; and Antonio di Fregoso, the noble Genoese
youth who, like Niccolo, won Calmeta and Ariosto's praises, and whose
poetic disputes with Lancinus were a feature of Cecilia Gallerani's
entertainments; and Baldassare Taccone of Alessandria; and Pietro
Lazzarone of the Valtellina. There was Galeotto del Carretto, the
Montferrat poet and historian, who left his home at Casale to compose
plays and sonnets for Beatrice, and who, like Niccolo da Correggio, was
one of Isabella's favourite correspondents, and sent her eclogues and
strambotti to sing to the lute. When Beatrice died he had just finished
a comedy dedicated to this princess, which he afterwards sent to
Isabella, begging her to accept it both for his sake and that of the
lamented _Madonna Duchessa sorella_, who had taken pleasure in reading
his effusions. And there was another Tuscan poet, Antonio Cammelli of
Pistoia, who composed a whole volume of sonnets dedicated to "that most
invincible Prince, the light and splendour of the world, Lodovico Moro."
These sonnets are of great interest, less on account of their poetic
merit than because of the fidelity with which they commemorate political
events. The invasion of the French, the conquest of Naples, the battle
of Fornovo, the peace of Vercelli, the proclamation of Lodovico as Duke
of Milan, his coronation _fêtes_ at Milan and Pavia, are all carefully
recorded. Nor does the series end here; in another sonnet the poet takes
up the note of warning, and bids Lodovico beware of the new King of
France and, ceasing to dally with Fortune, prepare to defend his fair
duchy. The next time Pistoia took up his pen, it was to wail over the
duke's fall and the ruin of Italy, and to hurl curses on the head of the
false servants who had betrayed their trust and yielded up the Castello
to their master's foes. This, at least, may be said to Pistoia's
credit--he did not forget his generous patron in the days of adversity;
and when Pamfilo Sasso, the Modena bard who had basked in the sunshine
of the Moro's favour, assailed the fallen duke in his verses, Pistoia
rose up in defence of his old master, and fiercely rebuked the cowardly
poet.
"I send you," wrote Calmeta to the Marchioness of Mantua in 1502, in a
letter enclosing Pistoia's verses, "an invective against Sasso for
certain sonnets and epigrams which he printed at Bologna against our
Duke Lodovico Sforza, and which some people say that I wrote. It was
never my habit to attack others, but if I had wasted a little ink in
defending so illustrious a prince, I hardly think I should deserve much
blame."[26]
Before the coming of Beatrice there had been no theatre in Milan, but
Lodovico had done his best to encourage dramatic art. As early as 1484,
he had written to the Duke of Ferrara, asking him to lend him a
Bolognese actor, Albergati by name, who was also a skilled mechanic, to
give sacred representations during Holy Week in Milan. The presence of
Duke Ercole's daughter naturally gave a fresh impulse to the growth of
dramatic art, and after Lodovico's visit to Ferrara in 1493, a theatre
was erected in Milan. Courtiers and poets vied with each other in the
production of plays and masques at each successive Christmas or
Carnival. In 1493, Niccolo da Correggio wrote a pastoral entitled _Mopsa
e Daphne_, which was performed at court that Carnival, and which he
afterwards sent to Isabella, promising to explain its allegorical
meaning at their next meeting. Another time, Gaspare Visconti composed
the masque with the chorus of Turks, to which we have already alluded,
for representation before the duke and duchess. On one occasion a piece
called _La Fatica_ was acted at the house of Antonio Maria Sanseverino,
whose wife, Margherita of Carpi, was the sister of Elizabeth Gonzaga's
beloved companion, Emilia Pia, and herself a learned and cultivated
princess. On another a representation described as _La Pazienza_ was
given before the court, in honour of a visit which Cardinal Federigo
Sanseverino paid to Milan.
Music, as Calmeta tells us, was another art that flourished in an
especial manner at the Milanese court. Both Lodovico and his wife were
passionately fond of music, and the delicious melodies that daily
resounded through their palace halls were the theme alike of chronicler
and poet. When first Lorenzo de Medici had sent Leonardo to his friend's
court to charm the Moro's ears with the surpassing sweetness of his
playing, he had brought with him a well-known musician and maker of
instruments, Atalante Migliorotti, who stood high in Lodovico's favour,
and spent much of his time at Milan. We find Isabella d'Este writing to
her friend, Niccolo da Correggio, in 1493, begging him to procure her
the loan of a silver lyre, given him by Atalante, that she may learn to
play this instrument; and in the following year the marchioness herself
stood godmother to the Florentine musician's infant daughter, who was
called Isabella after her illustrious sponsor. And in 1492 we find
Lodovico writing to thank Francesco Gonzaga for allowing a certain
Narcisso, who was in the Marquis of Mantua's service, to visit Milan,
and saying what exquisite pleasure this singer's voice has afforded him.
The following summer, Isabella, in her turn, begged her sister to allow
her favourite violinist, Jacopo di San Secondo, to spend a few weeks at
Mantua; and on the 7th of July Beatrice wrote to desire his return.
"Since you are back at Mantua, I think you will not want Jacopo di San
Secondo much longer, and beg you to send him back to Pavia as soon as
possible, since his music will be a pleasure to my husband, who is
suffering from a slight attack of fever." This Jacopo was a famous
violin-player of his day, who had settled at the Moro's court, and who
after Lodovico's fall left Milan for Rome, where he became the friend of
Raphael and Castiglione, and is said to have served as model for the
laurel-crowned Apollo of the Parnassus, in the Vatican Stanze. Another
of Beatrice's favourite singers was Angelo Testagrossa, a beautiful
youth who sang, we are told, like a seraph, and who, after the death of
this princess, accepted Isabella's pressing invitation to Mantua, where
he composed songs and gave her lessons on the lute. Testagrossa is said
to have sung in the Spanish style, which was much in vogue at Milan,
where a Spaniard named Pedro Maria was director of the palace concerts,
and is frequently mentioned in Bellincioni's poems. The priest Franchino
Gaffuri, as already stated, occupied the first chair of music ever
founded in Italy. Besides this master's works on music, another treatise
on harmony, composed by a priest named Florentio, and dedicated to
Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, is preserved in the Trivulzian Library, with a
fine miniature of Leonardo playing the lyre as frontispiece.
Both the Flemish priest Cordier, with the wonderful tenor voice, and the
accomplished master Cristoforo Romano were, as we know, among the
chosen singers who accompanied Beatrice on her travels. And there was
one more gifted artist, who, like Atalante Migliorotti, was both a
skilled musician and a mechanic, and whose whole life was devoted to the
construction of musical instruments of the choicest quality, Lorenzo
Gusnasco of Pavia. It was Lodovico Moro who first discovered the rare
talents of this "master of organs," as he was styled by his
contemporaries, and it was for Beatrice's use that he began to make
those wonderful clavichords and lutes and viols that made his name
famous throughout Italy. In his hands the manufacture of musical
instruments was carried to the highest pitch of excellence. He grudged
no labour and spared no pains to make his work perfect. The choicest
ebony and ivory, the most precious woods and delicate strings were
sought out by him; the best scholars supplied him with Greek and Latin
epigrams to be inscribed upon his organs and clavichords. In his opinion
both material and shape were of the utmost importance, because, as he
wrote to Isabella d'Este, "beauty of form is everything," "_perche ne la
forma sta il tuto_." The work of this gifted maker naturally acquired a
rare value in the eyes of his contemporaries. Sabba da Castiglione and
Teseo Albonese praise him as the man who, above all others, has learnt
the secret of combining lovely melodies with beauteous form, just as a
divine soul is enshrined in a fair body. Painters and scholars alike
took delight in Lorenzo's company. He was the intimate friend of
Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna, of Pietro Bembo and Aldo Manuzio,
of Leonardo and Isabella d'Este. It was in these festive days, in the
Castello of Pavia, that Lorenzo da Pavia first met both the great
Florentine and the accomplished princess who set so high a store on his
friendship. For more than twenty years Isabella corresponded regularly
with this gifted artist, and employed him not only to make organs and
lutes for her, but to buy antiques and cameos, Murano glass and
tapestry, choice pictures and rare books. Whether she wished for a
_fantasia_, or Holy Family from the hand of Gian Bellini, or a choice
edition of Dante or Petrarch from the press of Aldo Manuzio, it was to
Messer Lorenzo that the request was addressed. In 1494, the Pavian
master moved to Venice, where he found it easier to procure materials
for his trade, and was able to carry on his work on a larger scale. By
this time his fame had spread far and wide through Italy. He made an
organ for Matthias Corvinus, the King of Hungary, and another which he
himself took to Rome for Pope Leo X. But his relations with Duchess
Beatrice were not interrupted by this change of abode. In that same year
he made her that clavichord which Isabella describes as the best and
most beautiful which she had ever seen, and which she never ceased to
covet until, after her sister's death and Lodovico's fall, she obtained
possession of the precious instrument.
It was at Venice, in the early spring of 1500, that Leonardo da Vinci
once more met this master, whom he had formerly known so well at Pavia
and Milan. There the two artists who had lived together for many years
in the Moro's service conversed sadly of the terrible catastrophe which
had overwhelmed their old master in sudden and inevitable ruin, and
mourned over the disastrous fate which had plunged the fair Milanese
into confusion and misery. Then, as they looked back on the happy days
of their former life, and talked of their old companions, the painter
brought out a drawing which Lorenzo immediately recognized as the
portrait of Isabella d'Este, the illustrious princess, who was proud to
call herself their friend.
"Leonardo," he wrote the next day to the Marchesana, "is here in Venice,
and has shown me a portrait of your Highness, which is as natural and
lifelike as possible."[27] This drawing, which the princess describes in
a letter to the painter as being _ni carbone_ and not in colours, is now
one of the treasures of the Louvre, and has an inestimable value, both
as the work of Leonardo and as a genuine portrait of the most brilliant
lady of the Renaissance.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Uzielli, _Ricerche_, i.: Renier, _Gaspare Visconti_.
[25] _Gazette des B. Arts_, 1879, p. 514.
[26] Renier, _Sonetti di Pistoia_ p. 35.
[27] A. Baschet, _Aldo Manuzio_, pp. 70-75.