DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42861#0015
PREFACE
xi
Venice and Milan in their most triumphant hour,
when the glowing hues of Titian and Giorgione’s
frescoes, of Leonardo and Gian Bellini’s paintings,
were fresh upon the walls. She visited the famous
palace of Urbino in the days of the good Duke
Guidobaldo, when young Raphael was painting his
first pictures, and Bembo and Castiglione sat at the
feet of the gentle Duchess Elisabetta. She came
to Florence when Leonardo and Michelangelo were
working side by side at their cartoons in the
Council Hall, and she was the guest of Leo X., and
saw the wonders of the Sistina and of Raphael’s
Stanze, before the fair halls of the Vatican had been
defaced by barbarian invaders.
Many and sad were the changes that she witnessed
in the course of her long life. She saw the first
“ invasion of the stranger, and all Italy in flame and
fire,” as her own Ferrara poet sang in words of
passionate lament. She saw Naples torn from the
house of Aragon, the fair Milanese, where the Moro
and Beatrice had reigned in their pride, lost in a
single day. She saw Urbino conquered twice over
and her own kith and kin driven into exile, first by
the treacherous Borgia, then by a Medici Pope,
who was bound to the reigning house by the closest
ties of friendship and gratitude. And in 1527, she
was herself an unwilling witness of the nameless
horrors that attended the siege and sack of Rome.
Three years later, she was present at the Emperor
Charles V.’s coronation at Bologna, and took an
active part in the splendid ceremonies that marked
the loss of Italian independence and the close of
this great period. But to the last Isabella retained
the same delight in beauty, the same keen sense of
xi
Venice and Milan in their most triumphant hour,
when the glowing hues of Titian and Giorgione’s
frescoes, of Leonardo and Gian Bellini’s paintings,
were fresh upon the walls. She visited the famous
palace of Urbino in the days of the good Duke
Guidobaldo, when young Raphael was painting his
first pictures, and Bembo and Castiglione sat at the
feet of the gentle Duchess Elisabetta. She came
to Florence when Leonardo and Michelangelo were
working side by side at their cartoons in the
Council Hall, and she was the guest of Leo X., and
saw the wonders of the Sistina and of Raphael’s
Stanze, before the fair halls of the Vatican had been
defaced by barbarian invaders.
Many and sad were the changes that she witnessed
in the course of her long life. She saw the first
“ invasion of the stranger, and all Italy in flame and
fire,” as her own Ferrara poet sang in words of
passionate lament. She saw Naples torn from the
house of Aragon, the fair Milanese, where the Moro
and Beatrice had reigned in their pride, lost in a
single day. She saw Urbino conquered twice over
and her own kith and kin driven into exile, first by
the treacherous Borgia, then by a Medici Pope,
who was bound to the reigning house by the closest
ties of friendship and gratitude. And in 1527, she
was herself an unwilling witness of the nameless
horrors that attended the siege and sack of Rome.
Three years later, she was present at the Emperor
Charles V.’s coronation at Bologna, and took an
active part in the splendid ceremonies that marked
the loss of Italian independence and the close of
this great period. But to the last Isabella retained
the same delight in beauty, the same keen sense of