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When first Lorenzo de Medici had sent Leonardo to his friend's court to charm the Moro's ears with the surpassing sweetness of his playing, he had brought with him a well-known musician and maker of instruments, Atalante Migliorotti, who stood high in Lodovico's favour, and spent much of his time at Milan.
And the Moro's accomplished friend, Ermolao Barbaro, the young Venetian patriarch, who had been once more sent as envoy to Milan, composed a wonderful Latin epigram in honour of the occasion, praying Pallas not to avert her face in sorrow at the sound and tumult of war, which is after all but a mimic display, and calling upon her, the goddess whose wisdom Lodovico honours above all the thunders of Jove, to bless the great house of Sforza, illustrious alike in the arts of war and peace.
Like all the Moro's other undertakings, this was planned on a splendid scale. The villa itself was an imposing quadrangular building, with four lofty towers, and a noble gateway adorned with a Latin inscription cut in gold letters on a tablet of massive marble, and bearing the date 1486.
This may very well have been effected during the reign of Lodovico's son Maximilian, who was restored to his father's throne in 1512, and would explain the uncertainty which has always existed at Loches as to the Moro's grave, and the absence of any inscription to mark his burial-place. For Lodovico's sake, let us hope, the good Dominican's story is true.
One day she welcomed Fracassa as a delivering angel, the next she quarrelled with him violently, and turned a deaf ear to the Moro's advice to overcome the Condottiere's rudeness by fair words and gentle courtesy.
Here he remained for the next three weeks, enjoying the beauties of the Moro's favourite summer palace, and admiring the perfection of Lodovico's latest improvements the clock recently constructed by Bramante, the marble capitals of the great hall, and the model farm and stables of the Sforzesca.
But soon a change came over Il Moro's dream. The difficulties in the way of a closer union with Cecilia Gallerani were great, and must invariably lead to jealousies and quarrels of a serious order. His own position in Milan would be endangered, and fresh hindrances placed in the way of his future designs.
Not content with frustrating the Moro's plan, Piero induced King Ferrante to withdraw his consent to the joint deputation, a step which did not tend to improve the strained relations that had existed for some time past between Naples and Milan.
All the rest of the Moro's treasures, including a sum of 30,000 ducats, his vast stores of gold and silver plate, and all Duchess Beatrice's rich clothes and possessions, were left in the Castello, which was provided with ample supplies of food and ammunition, and defended by 1800 guns and a garrison of 2800 men, who had received six months' pay in advance.
Both princesses held fast to the ideal of their girlhood, and, leading the same pure and spotless life, left the same gracious memory behind them, alike in the old Mantuan city on the banks of the classic Mincio, where Isabella's presence lingers like some delicate perfume about the Camerini of the ancient Castello, and in that grander and more splendid court where Beatrice reigned for a few brief years by the Moro's side at Milan.
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