by Karen Essex
Though it has been some weeks since the duchess’s death, the duke’s demonstrations of grief continue. Hundreds of Masses for her soul are said daily throughout Milan and the rest of Italy. He has set aside his differences with the prior at the Santa Maria delle Grazie and now patronizes that church above all others. I hear that the path between the Treasure Tower and the church sees a daily parade of gold.
All the games and horse races in the foreseeable future are canceled. When I think upon how much Beatrice adored these events, I am not certain that it is right and proper to cease the celebrations, though I know it is out of honor for her memory. I suppose it would be far too painful to see the seat next to the duke empty of the exuberant spirit and the enthusiasm which she lent to every festivity.
Your Excellency, please accept all my condolences and my deepest hope that this missive will alleviate a small portion of your sorrow. I remain, one who will always be grateful for your friendship,
Cecilia Gallerani, Contessa Bergamini
Chapter Nine
XVI * LA TORRE CADENTE
(THE FALLING TOWER)
Let those who are in high places take warning, and let them remember that when Fortune sets you on top of her wheel, she may at any time bring you to the ground. And then the closer you have been to Heaven, the greater and the more sudden will be your fall.
—A VENETIAN CHRONICLER
IN THE YEAR 1499; IN THE CITY OF MANTUA
GOD is punishing her. That is all there is to it. One would think that God would tire of heaping death and misfortune upon Isabella, but that does not seem to be the case. She has been sure that she brought on all the deaths by praying so hard to God to allow her second child to be a boy. She was disappointed when the child had turned out to be female, but two months later, when the infant died, Isabella realized that the death was her special brand of punishment, carefully designed by the Lord to take His vengeance upon her arrogance for desiring something different than what He had planned for her. The sudden deaths of Bianca Giovanna and Beatrice followed, further proof of God’s retribution. Wrapped in black for so long, gliding like a crow through the palace, with each death extending her period of mourning, Isabella wondered if she would ever wear color again. Beatrice’s death had been so shocking that Isabella had needed the reams of black cloth to remind her that her sister was not merely a letter away. Bad fortune comes in groups of three, however, and Isabella was also confident that God had doled out enough misery. But God does not seem to be at all finished with Isabella d’Este; the horrible and sad death of Beatrice was not the end of sorrow but the beginning of the end of everything. For what seems to be racing toward its death now is her marriage.
What has she not done for Francesco? She elevated the House of Gonzaga by entering into it by matrimony. She has attended to him lovingly through his many strange illnesses and fevers. She has governed all of Mantua, down to the smallest detail, to the praise of its councillors, because Francesco has no patience for the minutiae of administration, preferring to spend his time at the stables or on military affairs. She has brought the finest artists of the day to adorn their buildings and churches. She has charmed heads of state who consider her husband too egotistical and not refined enough to dine with them. She defended his honor, even while his closest confidants informed her that he had a growing reputation as a disloyal scoundrel who spewed all his secrets when in his cups. Francesco’s exploits as the commander of the army that threw the French out of Italy grew exponentially every time he recounted the tale, annoying anyone who had to listen, but severely angering the Venetians. Why, oh why do men always believe the legends that spring up around their victories? Especially when these legends are concocted by other men merely to preserve or consolidate their own power? Both Ludovico and the Venetians had encouraged the poets of Italy to write great ballads of Francesco’s victory over the French. But that was to demonstrate to the people that their benefactors had saved them. Privately, both ruling parties were disappointed in their captain general’s performance—Ludovico, because Francesco had failed to annihilate the French entirely, and the Venetians, because after the war Francesco had shown too much mercy upon the French. Francesco, however, ignored the motives behind the poems and ballads sung in his honor and took the words unto his very bosom, mouthing them all over Italy whenever he had too much to drink.
Moreover, since Beatrice’s death, Isabella has played peacemaker between Ludovico and Francesco, whose contempt for each other has become more public every day. She had just taken off the mourning clothes a few months earlier, ready for life again, when she received a letter from Ludovico, accusing Francesco of making secret overtures to the French King Charles. “I have incontrovertible evidence in my very hands,” Ludovico wrote. “And if not for my love and respect for you, I would turn the traitor over to the Venetians immediately.”
Though Ludovico did not betray Francesco, the Venetians found out anyway and fired him as captain general of the army.
Isabella was devastated that her husband was engaged in political intriguing behind her back, and further dismayed that he was directly betraying both Ludovico and the Venetians, his benefactors. “How on earth do you expect us to live?” she had screamed at Francesco. “We will be crushed between these two great powers. You are going to be the death of the Houses of Gonzaga and Este and of Mantua itself!” She tried to mend things with her brother-in-law by sending soothing letters and a steady flow of gifts—fresh fish that he purported to adore from their Mantuan lakes, carp bred in their ponds, artichokes, and flowers. The fish, packed in ice brought down from the mountains, was difficult to ship, but Isabella spared no expense in cultivating Ludovico’s continued patronage.
But Ludovico surprised both the marquis and the marchesa by seeing a way to turn Francesco’s misfortune with the Venetians to his own benefit.
The French King Charles had died very suddenly after hitting his head on a doorway. Who had taken the throne but Louis of Orleans, Ludovico’s sworn enemy. Louis’s first announcement as king was that he was going to reconquer Italy for his two sons, making one of them the King of Naples and the other, Duke of Milan. Ludovico took the threat seriously and realigned with Emperor Max. But who would lead the new Milanese-German army? Ludovico had insulted Francesco after the last war, chastising him for allowing Charles to escape. And Francesco had threatened Ludovico in return by having secret dialogues with the French. Now, with the Venetians against Francesco, Ludovico saw his opportunity. He wrote to Isabella, informing her that he wished for Francesco to once again lead the Milanese-German army, and he was coming to Mantua to discuss the details. Oh, and he would be accompanied by an entourage of one thousand. Would that be too terribly much trouble for her?
Isabella sent to Ferrara for sumptuous plate of gold upon which to serve Ludovico and his courtiers. She spent far too much money buying a grand supply of his favorite wines—“light white for breakfast; a clear but strong red with his main meal; neither too sweet, if you please, but from the town of Cesolo, if it’s not too much trouble, for those are his favorites,” his steward had written. Once he arrived, she gave the duke use of her private apartment and moved into lesser quarters. She ordered jousting tournaments, dramatic plays, and tours of the kingdom to entertain him. She demanded that Francesco not only give the duke a tour of the collection of antique armor in the castle but also allow him to select one of their best horses from the Gonzaga stables.
“I hope that our quaint, backward little kingdom pleases you,” Isabella said modestly, knowing full well that while Mantua was not the bustling and modern city of Milan, its charms were many.
“Yes, it’s lovely, and it distracts from my misery,” he said. He had arrived still affecting the outward signs of the bereaved widower, but these emotions, Isabella observed, he wore like clothes. Beneath the ubiquitous black robe and mantle lay the real man, who, to Isabella’s impression, had long ago put aside his mourning. Though publicly Ludovico was in the process
of making all of Milan a shrine to Beatrice, emblazoning her image and her heralds everywhere in the city, Isabella had heard that once his son by Lucrezia Crivelli was born, he went back to that lady’s company, settling on her the estates that he had once settled upon Beatrice. Isabella was outraged by this news until she heard the voice of her mother whisper in her ear that one must always be generous to one’s husband’s bastards. The estates were undoubtedly for the boy, and there were certainly lands enough so that Beatrice’s two sons would not be cheated in their inheritance. Beatrice—generous, forgiving Beatrice—would have wanted the illegitimate child cared for. Isabella had hoped to hear more from Ludovico about her sister’s death, but he told her that dialogue about his beloved Beatrice would only sink him back into the dreadful melancholy from which he had so recently emerged. “Every day I visit her in the Santa Maria delle Grazie,” he said. “If you would see the exquisite marble tomb Cristoforo Solari has made for her, and the sweetness of her face as she lay at rest, you would weep and weep.”
That was all he would say upon the matter of his wife’s demise.
Isabella knew that she had to put aside her emotions over Ludovico’s betrayal of her sister and concentrate upon healing the rift between her husband and his potential benefactor. Mantua’s safety—and an immense salary of forty thousand ducats per year for Francesco’s services—was at stake. Knowing how much they needed money at this time, Francesco was playing a game of volley with Ludovico on the matter of his title. His title. Francesco was upset that Ludovico was unwilling to unseat Galeazz of his formal title of captain general of the Milanese army. “What are those two words compared with the money we require to run this kingdom?” she asked her husband.
Ludovico was outraged over Francesco’s request. Isabella could think of nothing more she could do to soothe the duke’s ruffled feathers, so she decided to employ another strategy. She had one final surprise awaiting her brother-in-law in her studiolo.
“I hesitate to allow you into the rooms where I keep my treasures,” she said to him. “You’re such the fierce collector that you’ll try to bargain them away from me.”
“I may,” he replied. “But I am not going to leave Mantua without viewing the frescoes of Andrea Mantegna and the painting of the scene on Mount Parnassus. I have heard that one of the Muses is particularly lovely.”
“I shouldn’t let you see anything by Mantegna,” she said. “You have too often tried to steal him from my service.”
“Yes. But that was in the event that you should ever have succeeded in stealing the Magistro from mine.”
“And how is that gentleman, if one might ever call a painter a gentleman?”
“I have him terribly busy, Isabella. He is finishing his exquisite work in the Saletta Negra in the Castello, which I intend to make my permanent quarters, painting twenty-four scenes from Roman history on the walls. The cost of the paint alone, my dear, is astronomical. The entire apartment will be a tribute to your dear sister, for whom I would happily give my own life if she might live again.”
But that does not mean that Lucrezia Crivelli won’t be spending most of her nights in those very rooms, Isabella wanted to say, hoping that Beatrice’s ghost would haunt the very quarters, scaring the lovers from their lovemaking and their slumber.
“And you will be happy to know that we are once again planning to cast the Magistro’s horse in bronze. I remember how upset you were when you saw his bronze floating down the river. I’ve never forgotten your forlorn face. I made up my mind on that day to make it up to you. When the statue is finished and revealed in the piazza, I shall give a grand ceremony for which you will serve as the lady of honor.”
There it was again, the charm that had so swayed Isabella when she had first met her brother-in-law. She thought, for one brief moment, that she could fall under his spell once more, even knowing now the extent of his cunning. For just that moment, she was again the young girl wishing that she, and not her sister, were the wife of this great and powerful prince, this lover of art and of all things beautiful. But even Ludovico’s considerable charms could not distill the fact that the sister whom Isabella had considered so lucky was now in a cold tomb, her last days spent in sorrow over her husband’s blatant infidelity.
“But that is only if you do not betray me by trying to take the Magistro away from me while he is at his duties,” Ludovico added.
“I do not have to do that, Your Excellency. I’ve already managed, by my own wits, to procure a little piece of him for my studiolo.”
Knowing that what she was going to show him would shock him, she stood taller and walked with a greater confidence into her private office. Sitting on a gilded easel, resting under a window where the sun might creep in and light its already luminous quality, was Leonardo’s portrait of Cecilia Gallerani.
She heard Ludovico’s gasp. “Cecilia?”
“Yes. I wrote to her, asking if I might borrow it. I wanted to compare Leonardo’s techniques to those of Giovanni Bellini the Venetian, whom I had recently as a visitor to court. She graciously complied.”
“And how did the two artists compare?” Ludovico asked, his words coming to him slowly, still trying to recover from the surprise of seeing his early mistress’s portrait in his sister-in-law’s home.
“Well, both are painters of natural light. Both use the light of the sky reflected behind their human figures to bring a particular luminosity to their subjects. It is such a unique method, and yet I do not know that the two gentlemen know each other. While both men delicately coat layer upon thin layer of paint to achieve their effect, I do believe that in the end, Bellini’s figures are gentler, whereas the Magistro is more adept at bringing out the soul of his subject. He certainly achieved that with Cecilia, don’t you think?”
Ludovico did not answer her, but stared at Cecilia’s portrait as if he had never seen it before. He did not meet Isabella’s eyes, though she did not take hers off of him.
“I would like to compare this portrait to the one of Madonna Lucrezia, but I am not as well acquainted with that lady. Perhaps you might facilitate that for me sometime?”
Isabella was pleased to see his shame. Still, he could not look at her. “Perhaps,” he said quietly.
She did not move, watching him stare at the portrait of Cecilia as if it were the first time he was seeing it. She spoke to him silently: This is why you will conclude negotiations with my husband. Because I know all that you did to my sister; I know the schemes that you concocted when I was but a naïve girl come to your extravagant court. I know how your schemes involve me still. And because I know the workings of your busy mind, I also know your shame. I know your inward emotions are far different from your outward actions. I know that you aggrandize my sister’s memory to Milan’s populace, while you disgrace it all the while with your mistress. I know these things because, like the Magistro, I can see into the soul, and I have seen that yours is black. And yet I do love you, which you also know.
“As you can see, we are bound together, so let us do each other’s bidding in a spirit of peace,” she said.
Quietly she took his arm and led him out of her studiolo, convinced that she had concluded her business with him on this visit. Shame would not go terribly far with a man like her brother-in-law, but it could accomplish much in the short term.
By the time Ludovico Sforza left Mantua, Francesco Gonzaga had a three-year contract to head the Milanese-German army. Isabella had spent a fortune entertaining the duke, in terms of both her emotions and her finances, but it had been worth it. She had secured employment for her politically fickle husband, guaranteeing to Ludovico that Francesco’s days of secretly courting either the French or the Venetians were over. Thus she secured not only Francesco’s salary but Mantua’s security. One would think that Francesco would recognize the part his wife had played in his salvation and reward her with beneficent acts of generosity and gratitude.
But that was not to be. Instead, weeks later, he sent secret wor
d to the doge begging for the return of his old job as captain general of the Venetian army—a direct betrayal of Ludovico and of Isabella, who had thrown her own guarantee of loyalty behind her husband’s signature. The doge was not inclined to reinstate Francesco, as his reputation for duplicity had spread. Then Isabella found out that Francesco offered to have her and their daughter sent to Venice as political hostages to vouch for his loyalty. She immediately sent word to Ludovico informing him of Francesco’s traitorous actions. Ludovico, after an initial volcanic reaction, calmed down. Isabella, too, put aside her hurt feelings, realizing that anything she did to ruin her own husband would bring her a hollow victory. For what was the wife of a ruined man but ruined too? Once again, she appealed to Ludovico to forgive Francesco. Allowing that he required Francesco’s generalship and valued Isabella’s alliance (not to mention the memory of her sister, for whom “I would happily give my own life if she might live again”), Ludovico sweetened the offer a little more and, once again, concluded negotiations with the Gonzagas. Francesco would usurp Galeazz’s title. Galeazz, a man secure in the renown for his ability and his valor, would have to be satisfied to be called something else.
Isabella waited once more for the warmth and gratitude to flow from her husband, but she received very different news in place of those coveted things.
To: Leonardo the Florentine
From: Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan
Dear Magistro,
