DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42863#0058
36
JOURNEY TO URBINO
departure,” remarked Isabella in a letter to Rome,
“ certainly made a false calculation! But we must
hope the rest of their journey will prove more
prosperous.” This was hardly the case. After being
entertained with banquets and dances at Modena and
Bologna, where the Duchesses lodged in the palace
of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Alidosi, they rode on
to Faenza, and were nearly drowned in crossing a
mountain torrent. So sudden was the rise of the
water and so strong the stream that Picenardi had
to swim for his life. In a lively letter to the
Marchesa he describes how, looking round, he saw
the chariot containing two of Leonora’s ladies and
their luggage floating down the stream, both the oxen
harnessed to the car being lifted off their feet by the
force of the current! “ If you could have seen the
faces of Madonna Ginevra and Pasina,” he adds, “ you
would have died of laughing ! ” At length, after long
days of weary travelling over bad roads in torrents of
rain, Urbino was safely reached. The young Duke
himself rode out to meet them, and kissed his beau-
tiful Duchess, and embraced his “poor lame aunt,”
as Elisabetta called herself. She was suffering from
an acute attack of gout, and after embracing her
nephew, gladly returned to her litter. “ Then the
Duke and his bride,” continues Picenardi, “ rode
through the fine streets of Urbino, and we all
escorted the new Duchess to her rooms in the
palace. . . . The Duchess has, indeed, made a
beautiful entry. All the same, nothing would please
the Duke but she must make another to-day. This
the Duchess, your sister, would not allow, upon
which the Duke flew into a rage, and said he
would go away; but our Madonna told him to be
JOURNEY TO URBINO
departure,” remarked Isabella in a letter to Rome,
“ certainly made a false calculation! But we must
hope the rest of their journey will prove more
prosperous.” This was hardly the case. After being
entertained with banquets and dances at Modena and
Bologna, where the Duchesses lodged in the palace
of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Alidosi, they rode on
to Faenza, and were nearly drowned in crossing a
mountain torrent. So sudden was the rise of the
water and so strong the stream that Picenardi had
to swim for his life. In a lively letter to the
Marchesa he describes how, looking round, he saw
the chariot containing two of Leonora’s ladies and
their luggage floating down the stream, both the oxen
harnessed to the car being lifted off their feet by the
force of the current! “ If you could have seen the
faces of Madonna Ginevra and Pasina,” he adds, “ you
would have died of laughing ! ” At length, after long
days of weary travelling over bad roads in torrents of
rain, Urbino was safely reached. The young Duke
himself rode out to meet them, and kissed his beau-
tiful Duchess, and embraced his “poor lame aunt,”
as Elisabetta called herself. She was suffering from
an acute attack of gout, and after embracing her
nephew, gladly returned to her litter. “ Then the
Duke and his bride,” continues Picenardi, “ rode
through the fine streets of Urbino, and we all
escorted the new Duchess to her rooms in the
palace. . . . The Duchess has, indeed, made a
beautiful entry. All the same, nothing would please
the Duke but she must make another to-day. This
the Duchess, your sister, would not allow, upon
which the Duke flew into a rage, and said he
would go away; but our Madonna told him to be