DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42861#0207
TO ISABELLA
169
when, in 1506, his son Galeazzo married the fair and
accomplished Ginevra Rangoni she presented the
bride with a splendid clavichord. “ Your Excel-
lency,” wrote Niccolo from Correggio, “ has sent a
most beautiful clavichord to my daughter-in-law, and
has very kindly ordered Domino Philippi to put it in
order. Besides the thanks which my daughter her-
self is sending you, I felt that I must thank you
personally for these favours, for which we cannot be
too grateful. As for the song which you ask me to
select from Petrarch, I have chosen one of those
which I like best, beginning: Si e debole il filo a cui
satiene, which seems to me well suited for your
purpose, containing verses which must be sung by
turn crescendo and diminuendo. With it I send
one of my own songs, composed in a similar metre,
which you can sing to the same tune as the Petrarca
canzone, and also a poem in imitation of Petrarch’s
Chiare, clolci e fresche acque. Once more I com-
mend myself to your good graces, and am keeping
Domino Philippi till to-morrow.”1
But Isabella was never satisfied, and a few months
later wrote in great distress because her favourite
maid of honour had lately died, and no one could
find the last capitoli and sonnets which Niccolo had
sent her. Fortunately Niccolo, who, as a rule, never
transcribed his verses, was able to supply another copy
of the poem beginning with the words : Non si e
arclito il cor, which the Marchesa especially wished
to read, and with his old gallantry wrote that, old as
he was growing, he was still young enough to dance
with her, and to ride at the ring, and break a lance,
for her sake, in the coming jousts.
1 Luzio e Renier, op. cit., p. 244.
169
when, in 1506, his son Galeazzo married the fair and
accomplished Ginevra Rangoni she presented the
bride with a splendid clavichord. “ Your Excel-
lency,” wrote Niccolo from Correggio, “ has sent a
most beautiful clavichord to my daughter-in-law, and
has very kindly ordered Domino Philippi to put it in
order. Besides the thanks which my daughter her-
self is sending you, I felt that I must thank you
personally for these favours, for which we cannot be
too grateful. As for the song which you ask me to
select from Petrarch, I have chosen one of those
which I like best, beginning: Si e debole il filo a cui
satiene, which seems to me well suited for your
purpose, containing verses which must be sung by
turn crescendo and diminuendo. With it I send
one of my own songs, composed in a similar metre,
which you can sing to the same tune as the Petrarca
canzone, and also a poem in imitation of Petrarch’s
Chiare, clolci e fresche acque. Once more I com-
mend myself to your good graces, and am keeping
Domino Philippi till to-morrow.”1
But Isabella was never satisfied, and a few months
later wrote in great distress because her favourite
maid of honour had lately died, and no one could
find the last capitoli and sonnets which Niccolo had
sent her. Fortunately Niccolo, who, as a rule, never
transcribed his verses, was able to supply another copy
of the poem beginning with the words : Non si e
arclito il cor, which the Marchesa especially wished
to read, and with his old gallantry wrote that, old as
he was growing, he was still young enough to dance
with her, and to ride at the ring, and break a lance,
for her sake, in the coming jousts.
1 Luzio e Renier, op. cit., p. 244.