DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0271
210 COUNT BAUDASSARE CASTIGLIONE
a secret until it is settled. Directly Sig. Ercole
has arranged his affairs, we will proceed with the
business, because I have quite made up my mind to
effect this exchange, and hope you will be content
for the various reasons which I have already explained,
all the more that we shall not have to leave Mantua
entirely, but can live there again some day,please God!'
Here, however, the matter seems to have ended,
probably owing to the sudden death of Ercole Benti-
voglio a few weeks later. That it was a relief to
Madonna Luigia we can hardly doubt; but her son
groaned under the load of debts and difficulties from
which he saw no hope of escape. There is hardly a
letter in which we do not find some allusion to this
increasing burden. He sold several of his horses
because of the dearness of corn at Urhino, pledged
his family jewels, and found himself compelled, much
to his distress, to pawn the gold collar and pendant
which the Ring of England had given him. In his
anxiety to redeem this precious jewel, he sent his
mother the richly embroidered mantle which he had
worn at the English court, begging her to take it to
pieces and have the gold ornaments melted down and
sold. But he was still in dire need of money, and was
obliged to defer the execution of a scheme which he
and his mother had long planned—the erection of a
monument to his father and brother in the family
chapel of S. Agnese at Mantua. At Madonna Luigia's
prayer, however, Baldassare sent her the following
Latin inscription in memory of his deceased relatives :
BALTESSARI . CASTILIONO . AVO .
CHRISTOPHORO . PATRI . HIERONYMO .
FRATRI . BALTE8SAR . PIENTISS .
OPERA . ALOVISI^ . GONZAG^E .
MATRI8 . P. NEC. TOTI8 . QUIDEM .
QUORUM . FAMA . INTER .
HOMINES . SPIRITUS . IN . 8UPERIS .
YIGET . ANNO . MDVII . XX . OCTOBRIS .
a secret until it is settled. Directly Sig. Ercole
has arranged his affairs, we will proceed with the
business, because I have quite made up my mind to
effect this exchange, and hope you will be content
for the various reasons which I have already explained,
all the more that we shall not have to leave Mantua
entirely, but can live there again some day,please God!'
Here, however, the matter seems to have ended,
probably owing to the sudden death of Ercole Benti-
voglio a few weeks later. That it was a relief to
Madonna Luigia we can hardly doubt; but her son
groaned under the load of debts and difficulties from
which he saw no hope of escape. There is hardly a
letter in which we do not find some allusion to this
increasing burden. He sold several of his horses
because of the dearness of corn at Urhino, pledged
his family jewels, and found himself compelled, much
to his distress, to pawn the gold collar and pendant
which the Ring of England had given him. In his
anxiety to redeem this precious jewel, he sent his
mother the richly embroidered mantle which he had
worn at the English court, begging her to take it to
pieces and have the gold ornaments melted down and
sold. But he was still in dire need of money, and was
obliged to defer the execution of a scheme which he
and his mother had long planned—the erection of a
monument to his father and brother in the family
chapel of S. Agnese at Mantua. At Madonna Luigia's
prayer, however, Baldassare sent her the following
Latin inscription in memory of his deceased relatives :
BALTESSARI . CASTILIONO . AVO .
CHRISTOPHORO . PATRI . HIERONYMO .
FRATRI . BALTE8SAR . PIENTISS .
OPERA . ALOVISI^ . GONZAG^E .
MATRI8 . P. NEC. TOTI8 . QUIDEM .
QUORUM . FAMA . INTER .
HOMINES . SPIRITUS . IN . 8UPERIS .
YIGET . ANNO . MDVII . XX . OCTOBRIS .