DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42861#0147
CHARLES VIII. IN ITALY
113
secretly invited him to enter Charles the Eighth’s
service, offering him the title of Captain-General
and Grand Chamberlain. These proposals, how-
ever, Francesco felt compelled to refuse, since he
was already pledged to the Signory of Venice. In
the same letter he informed Isabella that he had
sent an envoy to visit the Grand Turk’s ambassador
at Venice, and had heard from him that the Sultan
would gladly give him the relic of the Holy Shirt,
worn by Our Lord Christ, as well as forty good
horses, for which he was about to send to Con-
stantinople.1
In September, the French king entered Italy,
and was met at Asti by Lodovico Sforza and Duke
Ercole of Ferrara, and sumptuously entertained at
Vigevano by Duchess Beatrice. Isabella herself,
whose sympathies, like those of all her family, were
strongly on the side of France, went to Parma at
her brother-in-law’s request to see the first French
cavalry pass through the town, and afterwards wrote
to her brother Ferrante, congratulating him on his
triumphal entry into Florence with the king, and
expressing her regret that she had not witnessed
this splendid sight. The presence of her sister-in-
law, Chiara Gonzaga, who came to Mantua in
December, while her husband, Gilbert, Duke of
Montpensier, was leading the French armies against
Naples, helped to enlist Isabella’s sympathies on
the same side. But before long her feelings, in
common with those of all true Italians, underwent
a complete revulsion.
The stirring events which succeeded each other
that autumn at Milan and Pavia—the death of the
1 Luzio e Renier in Arch. St. Lomb., xvii. p. 391.
VOL. I. H
113
secretly invited him to enter Charles the Eighth’s
service, offering him the title of Captain-General
and Grand Chamberlain. These proposals, how-
ever, Francesco felt compelled to refuse, since he
was already pledged to the Signory of Venice. In
the same letter he informed Isabella that he had
sent an envoy to visit the Grand Turk’s ambassador
at Venice, and had heard from him that the Sultan
would gladly give him the relic of the Holy Shirt,
worn by Our Lord Christ, as well as forty good
horses, for which he was about to send to Con-
stantinople.1
In September, the French king entered Italy,
and was met at Asti by Lodovico Sforza and Duke
Ercole of Ferrara, and sumptuously entertained at
Vigevano by Duchess Beatrice. Isabella herself,
whose sympathies, like those of all her family, were
strongly on the side of France, went to Parma at
her brother-in-law’s request to see the first French
cavalry pass through the town, and afterwards wrote
to her brother Ferrante, congratulating him on his
triumphal entry into Florence with the king, and
expressing her regret that she had not witnessed
this splendid sight. The presence of her sister-in-
law, Chiara Gonzaga, who came to Mantua in
December, while her husband, Gilbert, Duke of
Montpensier, was leading the French armies against
Naples, helped to enlist Isabella’s sympathies on
the same side. But before long her feelings, in
common with those of all true Italians, underwent
a complete revulsion.
The stirring events which succeeded each other
that autumn at Milan and Pavia—the death of the
1 Luzio e Renier in Arch. St. Lomb., xvii. p. 391.
VOL. I. H