DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42863#0102
CHAPTER XXVI
1512—1513
Isabella spends the carnival at Milan—Duke Maximilian Sforza
—His weakness and extravagance—The Viceroy of Naples
and Cardinal Gurk at Milan—Isabella and her ladies—Her
letter to the Marquis in self-defence—Brognina and Alda
Boiarda dismissed from her service—Tebaldeo attacks Mario
Equicola and Isabella—Indignation of the Marchesa—Her
letter to Cardinal d’Este—Duchess Elisabetta’s reply.
While Julius the Second’s life was slowly drawing
to its close, and Federico Gonzaga was sharing the
orgies of Cardinals and monkish buffoons in Rome,
his mother was spending a gay carnival at the
court of her nephew, Maximilian, Duke of Milan.
The Pope lost no time in inviting the young
prince to take possession of his father’s duchy, and,
early in the autumn, Maximilian crossed the Alps
and came to Lombardy. But his formal restoration
was deferred until after the Bishop of Gurk’s visit to
Rome. In November he paid a visit to Mantua,
where the Marchesa welcomed him with the greatest
affection, and a series of brilliant fetes were held in
his honour. From the first moment of their meeting,
Beatrice’s son seems to have become genuinely
attached to his aunt, and she on her part exerted
herself to rouse the weak and indolent youth to a
sense of his high position and great opportunities.
But Maximilian’s education had been sadly neg-
lected, and the poverty and dreariness of his long
80
1512—1513
Isabella spends the carnival at Milan—Duke Maximilian Sforza
—His weakness and extravagance—The Viceroy of Naples
and Cardinal Gurk at Milan—Isabella and her ladies—Her
letter to the Marquis in self-defence—Brognina and Alda
Boiarda dismissed from her service—Tebaldeo attacks Mario
Equicola and Isabella—Indignation of the Marchesa—Her
letter to Cardinal d’Este—Duchess Elisabetta’s reply.
While Julius the Second’s life was slowly drawing
to its close, and Federico Gonzaga was sharing the
orgies of Cardinals and monkish buffoons in Rome,
his mother was spending a gay carnival at the
court of her nephew, Maximilian, Duke of Milan.
The Pope lost no time in inviting the young
prince to take possession of his father’s duchy, and,
early in the autumn, Maximilian crossed the Alps
and came to Lombardy. But his formal restoration
was deferred until after the Bishop of Gurk’s visit to
Rome. In November he paid a visit to Mantua,
where the Marchesa welcomed him with the greatest
affection, and a series of brilliant fetes were held in
his honour. From the first moment of their meeting,
Beatrice’s son seems to have become genuinely
attached to his aunt, and she on her part exerted
herself to rouse the weak and indolent youth to a
sense of his high position and great opportunities.
But Maximilian’s education had been sadly neg-
lected, and the poverty and dreariness of his long
80