DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42861#0189
AT MILAN
153
was in attendance on his master Francesco Gonzaga,
wrote home to tell his friends at Mantua how the
Marquis and the king had attended mass at San Am-
brogio, and had afterwards been out hunting together,
and laid stress on the great friendliness and evident
conformity of tastes between His Most Christian
Majesty and the Marquis. “So I hope,” he adds, not
without significance, “ that all will go well now.”1
Yet Isabella’s heart must have ached when she
heard of the havoc which the French invaders had
wrought in the fair halls of the Castello; of the
foulness and dirt, the confusion and disorder which
reigned in that once beautiful palace. She must have
thought with a pang of the gorgeous tapestries and
priceless gems, antique marbles and cameos, the
pictures by Leonardo and the instruments by Lorenzo
da Pavia, of the rare manuscripts which Lodovico
had collected at infinite pains and cost, and of poor
Beatrice’s rich embroideries and jewelled cainoras,
which were now the spoil of the treacherous subjects
who had betrayed their prince. But she hid her grief
from other eyes, and showed a smiling face to the
world. And, with characteristic alacrity, she wrote
on the 13th of December 1499 to Antonio Palla-
vicino, who had been one of the chief traitors, begging
him to let her have the wonderful clavichord which
Lorenzo da Pavia had made for Beatrice four years
before. Antonio wrote back from Lodi, that he
would gladly execute her errand on his return to Milan,
and inquire what had become of the precious instru-
ment. More than a year elapsed before he was able
to gratify the Marchesa’s desire, but Isabella’s perse-
verance eventually triumphed over all difficulties, and
1 Serassi, Lettere di B. Castiglione.
153
was in attendance on his master Francesco Gonzaga,
wrote home to tell his friends at Mantua how the
Marquis and the king had attended mass at San Am-
brogio, and had afterwards been out hunting together,
and laid stress on the great friendliness and evident
conformity of tastes between His Most Christian
Majesty and the Marquis. “So I hope,” he adds, not
without significance, “ that all will go well now.”1
Yet Isabella’s heart must have ached when she
heard of the havoc which the French invaders had
wrought in the fair halls of the Castello; of the
foulness and dirt, the confusion and disorder which
reigned in that once beautiful palace. She must have
thought with a pang of the gorgeous tapestries and
priceless gems, antique marbles and cameos, the
pictures by Leonardo and the instruments by Lorenzo
da Pavia, of the rare manuscripts which Lodovico
had collected at infinite pains and cost, and of poor
Beatrice’s rich embroideries and jewelled cainoras,
which were now the spoil of the treacherous subjects
who had betrayed their prince. But she hid her grief
from other eyes, and showed a smiling face to the
world. And, with characteristic alacrity, she wrote
on the 13th of December 1499 to Antonio Palla-
vicino, who had been one of the chief traitors, begging
him to let her have the wonderful clavichord which
Lorenzo da Pavia had made for Beatrice four years
before. Antonio wrote back from Lodi, that he
would gladly execute her errand on his return to Milan,
and inquire what had become of the precious instru-
ment. More than a year elapsed before he was able
to gratify the Marchesa’s desire, but Isabella’s perse-
verance eventually triumphed over all difficulties, and
1 Serassi, Lettere di B. Castiglione.