82

Diario Ferrarese, in Murat. xxiv. col. 336, 367, 369. The people believed he was forming a treasure.

83

Corio, fol. 448. The after effects of this state of things are clearly recognisable in those of the novels and introductions of Bandello which relate to Milan.

84

Amoretti, Memorie Storiche sulla Vita Ecc. di Lionardo da Vinci, pp. 35 sqq., pp. 83 sqq. Here we may also mention the Moor’s efforts for the improvement of the university of Pavia.

85

See his sonnets in Trucchi, Poesie inedite.

86

Prato, in the Arch. Stor. iii. 298. Comp. 302.

87

Born 1466, betrothed to Isabella, herself six years of age, in 1480, suc. 1484; m. 1490, d. 1519. Isabella’s death, 1539. Her sons, Federigo (1519-1540), made Duke in 1530, and the famous Ferrante Gonzaga. What follows is taken from the correspondence of Isabella, with Appendices, Archiv. Stor., append., tom. ii. communicated by d’Arco. See the same writer, Delle Arti e degli Artifici di Mantova, Mant. 1857-59, 2 vols. The catalogue of the collection has been repeatedly printed. Portrait and biography of Isabella in Didot, Alde Manuce, Paris, 1875, pp. lxi-lxviii. See also below, part ii. chapter 2.

88

Franc. Vettori, in the Arch. Stor. Append., tom. vi. p. 321. For Federigo, see Vespas. Fiorent. pp. 132 sqq. and Prendilacqua, Vita di Vittorino da Feltre, pp. 48-52. V. endeavoured to calm the ambitious youth Federigo, then his scholar, with the words: ‘Tu quoque Cæsar eris.’ There is much literary information respecting him in, e.g., Favre, Mélanges d’Hist. Lit. i. p. 125, note 1.

89

See below, part iii. chapter 3.

90

Castiglione, Cortigiano, l. i.

91

Petr. Bembus, De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio deque Elizabetha Gonzaga Urbini ducibus, Venetis, 1530. Also in Bembo’s Works, Basel, 1566, i. pp. 529-624. In the form of a dialogue; contains among other things, the letter of Frid. Fregosus and the speech of Odaxius on Guido’s life and death.

92

What follows is chiefly taken from the Annales Estenses, in Murat. xx. and the Diario Ferrarese, Murat. xxiv

93

See Bandello, i. nov. 32.

94

Diario Ferrar. l. c. col. 347.

95

Paul. Jov. Vita Alfonsi ducis, ed. Flor. 1550, also an Italian by Giovanbattista Gelli, Flor. 1553.

96

Paulus Jovius, l. c.

97

The journey of Leo X. when Cardinal, may be also mentioned here. Comp. Paul. Jov. Vita Leonis X. lib. i. His purpose was less serious, and directed rather to amusement and knowledge of the world; but the spirit is wholly modern. No Northerner then travelled with such objects.

98

Diar. Ferr. in Murat. xxiv. col. 232 and 240.

99

Jovian. Pontan. De Liberalitate, cap. 28.

100

Giraldi, Hecatomithi, vi. nov. 1 (ed. 1565, fol. 223 a).

101

Vasari, xii. 166, Vita di Michelangelo.

102

As early as 1446 the members of the House of Gonzaga followed the corpse of Vittorino da Feltre.

103

Capitolo 19, and in the Opere Minore, ed. Lemonnier, vol. i. p. 425, entitled Elegia 17. Doubtless the cause of this death (above, p. 46) was unknown to the young poet, then 19 years old.

104

The novels in the Hecatomithi of Giraldi relating to the House of Este are to be found, with one exception (i. nov. 8), in the 6th book, dedicated to Francesco of Este, Marchese della Massa, at the beginning of the second part of the whole work, which is inscribed to Alfonso II. ‘the fifth Duke of Ferrara.’ The 10th book, too, is specially dedicated to him, but none of the novels refer to him personally, and only one to his predecessor Hercules I.; the rest to Hercules I. ‘the second Duke,’ and Alfonso I. ‘the third Duke of Ferrara.’ But the stories told of these princes are for the most part not love tales. One of them (i. nov. 8) tells of the failure of an attempt made by the King of Naples to induce Hercules of Este to deprive Borso of the government of Ferrara; another (vi. nov. 10) describes Ercole’s high-spirited treatment of conspirators. The two novels that treat of Alfonso I. (vi. nov. 2, 4), in the latter of which he only plays a subordinate part, are also, as the title of the book shows and as the dedication to the above-named Francesco explains more fully, accounts of ‘atti di cortesía’ towards knights and prisoners, but not towards women, and only the two remaining tales are love-stories. They are of such a kind as can be told during the lifetime of the prince; they set forth his nobleness and generosity, his virtue and self-restraint. Only one of them (vi. nov. 1) refers to Hercules I., who was dead long before the novels were compiled, and only one to the Hercules II. then alive (b. 1508, d. 1568) son of Lucrezia Borgia, husband of Renata, of whom the poet says: ‘Il giovane, che non meno ha benigno l’animo, che cortese l’aspetto, come già il vedemmo in Roma, nel tempo, ch’egli, in vece del padre, venne à Papa Hadriano.’ The tale about him is briefly as follows:—Lucilla, the beautiful daughter of a poor but noble widow, loves Nicandro, but cannot marry him, as the lover’s father forbids him to wed a portionless maiden. Hercules, who sees the girl and is captivated by her beauty, finds his way, through the connivance of her mother, into her bedchamber, but is so touched by her beseeching appeal that he respects her innocence, and, giving her a dowry, enables her to marry Nicandro.

In Bandello, ii. nov. 8 and 9 refer to Alessandro Medici, 26 to Mary of Aragon, iii. 26, iv. 13 to Galeazzo Sforza, iii. 36, 37 to Henry VIII. of England, ii. 27 to the German Emperor Maximilian. The emperor, ‘whose natural goodness and more than imperial generosity are praised by all writers,’ while chasing a stag is separated from his followers, loses his way, and at last emerging from the wood, enquires the way from a countryman. The latter, busied with lading wood, begs the emperor, whom he does not know, to help him, and receives willing assistance. While still at work, Maximilian is rejoined, and, in spite of his signs to the contrary, respectfully saluted by his followers, and thus recognised by the peasant, who implores forgiveness for the freedom he has unwittingly taken. The emperor raises the kneeling suppliant, gives him presents, appoints him as his attendant, and confers upon him distinguished privileges. The narrator concludes: ‘Dimostrò Cesare nello smontar da cavallo e con allegra ciera aiutar il bisognoso contadino, una indicibile e degna d’ogni lode humanità, e in sollevarlo con danari e privilegii dalla sua faticosa vita, aperse il suo veramente animo Cesareo’ (ii. 415). A story in the Hecatomithi (viii. nov. 5) also treats of Maximilian. It is the same tale which has acquired a world-wide celebrity through Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (for its diffusion see Kirchhof’s Wendunmuth, ed. Oesterley, bd. v. s. 152 sqq.), and the scene of which is transferred by Giraldi to Innsbruck. Maximilian is the hero, and here too receives the highest eulogies. After being first called ‘Massimiliano il Grande,’ he is designated as one ‘che fu raro esempio di cortesia, di magnanimità, e di singolare giustizia.’

105

In the Deliciæ Poet. Italorum (1608), ii. pp. 455 sqq.: ad Alfonsum ducem Calabriæ. (Yet I do not believe that the above remark fairly applies to this poem, which clearly expresses the joys which Alfonso has with Drusula, and describes the sensations of the happy lover, who in his transports thinks that the gods themselves must envy him.—L.G.).

106

Mentioned as early as 1367, in the Polistore, in Murat. xxiv. col. 848, in reference to Niccolò the Elder, who makes twelve persons knights in honour of the twelve