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And among the illustrious men whose presence adorned the court of the duchess there were three high-born cavaliers, renowned for many talents, but above all for their poetic gifts Niccolo da Correggio, Gaspare Visconti, and Antonio di Campo Fregoso, together with many others, one of whom was myself, Vincenzo Calmeta, who for some years held the post of secretary to that glorious and excellent lady.
There was Lancino di Corte, or, as he preferred to style himself, Lancinus Curtius, the writer of Latin epigrams; and Antonio di Fregoso, the noble Genoese youth who, like Niccolo, won Calmeta and Ariosto's praises, and whose poetic disputes with Lancinus were a feature of Cecilia Gallerani's entertainments; and Baldassare Taccone of Alessandria; and Pietro Lazzarone of the Valtellina.
Beatrice d'Este as a patron of learning and poetry Vincenzo Calmeta, her secretary Serafino d'Aquila Rivalry of Lombard and Tuscan poets Gaspare Visconti's works Poetic jousts with Bramante Niccolo di Correggio and other poets Dramatic art and music at the court of Milan Gaffuri and Testagrossa Lorenzo Gusnasco of Pavia.
In the life of his friend, Serafino Aquilano, written seven years after Beatrice's death, when the Milanese was a French province and the Moro a captive at Loches, Calmeta recalls the brilliant days of his old life at Lodovico's court, and speaks thus of his lost mistress:
We see men of letters, such as Justolo, Calmeta, Sperulo, and others throwing down their quills to snatch up swords and follow him. Painters, and sculptors, too, are to be seen abandoning the ideals of art to pursue the ugly realities of war in this young condottiero's train. Among these artists, bulks the great Pietro Torrigiani.
Calmeta himself was a prolific writer both of verse and prose, whose translation of Ovid's Ars amandi, dedicated to Lodovico Moro, was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, and whom Castiglione introduces among the speakers of his Cortigiano.
Fortunately, both Leonardo himself, as well as Calmeta and Pistoia, were on friendly terms with Gaspare Visconti, who, originally a scholar of Prestinari, became the chief representative of the Lombard school of poetry at Milan, and whom Beatrice's secretary places next to Niccolo da Correggio among the best poets of her court.
And her own secretary, the writer known as "l'elegantissimo Calmeta" in the cultured circles of Mantua and Urbino, has told us how much men of letters owed to her sympathy and help.
Visitors come and go freely Messer Jacopo of Ferrara, the architect who was "dear to Leonardo as a brother," the courtly poet Gaspare Visconti, and Vincenzo Calmeta, Duchess Beatrice's secretary, or, it may be, the great Messer Galeaz himself, whose big jennet and Sicilian horse the master has been drawing as models for the great equestrian statue standing outside in the Corte Vecchia.
Perugia having rendered him her oath of fealty, the duke left her his secretary, Agabito Gherardi, as his commissioner, whilst sending Vincenzo Calmeta to Fermo Oliverotto's tyranny another State which was very fervent in the thanks it expressed for this deliverance.
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