United States or Sierra Leone ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Despatches of the Ferrarese ambassador, Bartolomeo Cartari, from Venice, June 25, July 28, and August 2, 1501. Archives of Modena. Ercole's letter to Pozzi in Ferrara, August 25, 1501. Maximilian's letters are not in the Este archives but in Vienna. The instrument was drawn by Beneimbene. Cardinal Ferrari to Ercole, Rome, August 27, 1501. Ducal Records, September 1, 1501.

As early as 1484, he had written to the Duke of Ferrara, asking him to lend him a Bolognese actor, Albergati by name, who was also a skilled mechanic, to give sacred representations during Holy Week in Milan. The presence of Duke Ercole's daughter naturally gave a fresh impulse to the growth of dramatic art, and after Lodovico's visit to Ferrara in 1493, a theatre was erected in Milan.

On the one hand, Lodovico Sforza's troops checked the advance of the Venetians on the side of Modena; on the other, Ercole's brother-in-law, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, himself rode at the head of fifty horsemen and a troop of infantry to the help of the beleaguered city.

Marcello asked in surprise, for strange as it may seem to any but Italians, it was quite natural that he should never have known Ercole's family name. "Spalletta? That is your own name, Regina! What a strange coincidence!" "Yes," Ercole said. "I know that the young lady's name is Spalletta. It is for this reason that I desire the favour of a few words with her alone."

Unfortunately, both of these portraits have perished, and the only representation of Beatrice as a girl that we have is the sculptor Cristoforo Romano's well-known bust in the Louvre. While the native schools of painting became active and prosperous under Ercole's auspices, a flourishing school of arts and crafts arose in Ferrara under the immediate patronage of the duchess.

Nino growled, but did not lift his head. "You understand that," said Ercole, discontentedly. "If you were a Christian you would stick a knife into me for insulting your dead! Yet you cannot tell whose pocket-book this is! And if I knew, I should know something worth knowing." The pocket-book disappeared in the interior recesses of Ercole's waistcoat.

The city was heavily fined, the partisans of the Sforza were exiled or imprisoned, Niccolo da Bussola and Leonardo's beloved friend, Jacopo Andrea, were hung, and their limbs drawn and quartered and exposed to view on the battlements of the Castello, in spite of Duke Ercole's intercession on behalf of the distinguished architect.

The other Beatrice was Ercole's half-sister, the elder daughter of Niccolo III., who had long been the ornament of her father's court, when she had been known as the Queen of Feasts, and it had become a common proverb that to see Madonna Beatrice dance was to find Paradise upon earth.

Hedwig is a woman, and the principal satisfaction she gathered from Ercole's explanation was the knowledge that her friend the baroness had lied to her in explaining those strange words she had overheard. She knew it, of course, by instinct; but it was a great relief to be told the fact by someone else, as it always is, even when one is not a woman.

"As a rule, he is always smart in replying, and if he has seen about Ercole's death and my imprisonment in the papers, I'm sure he will be over soon." While she was thus waiting for her father, and Link in every way was seeking evidence against her, Mrs. Clear received an answer to her message.