United States or Mauritania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Lodovico's first step was to send Galeazzo di Sanseverino with a body of newly raised troops against Asti, on the 19th of April, and to summon the Duke of Orleans to surrender the town and to drop the title of Duke of Milan. In this he was supported by the Emperor Maximilian, who sent an imperious order to Louis forbidding him to assume the title, on pain of forfeiting his fief of Asti.
Another princess, who was in constant correspondence with the Moro during these last years, was his niece Caterina Sforza, the famous Madonna of Forli. Long ago, he had helped her against the conspirators who had killed her first husband and besieged her in the Rocca, and ten years before, Galeazzo di Sanseverino had won his first laurels at Forli.
Alfonso and his wife, Anna Sforza, were at the Castello in June, and Galeazzo di Sanseverino himself accompanied the heir of Ferrara to the shop of the famous Missaglia to order a suit of armour which should be "of a gallantry and perfection worthy of Don Alfonso."
These pageants and masques formed an important feature of Renaissance fêtes, and were evidently regarded as such by the chroniclers of these wedding festivities, but to us the chief interest of this tournament lies in the knowledge that the Scythian disguise assumed by Galeazzo di Sanseverino and his companions was designed by no less a personage than Leonardo da Vinci.
Our intention is to follow up our victory with the utmost speed, to effect the complete destruction of our enemies, and secure the passes neglecting no precaution. To-day we have sent Monsignore Sanseverino on with ten thousand Germans, and intend to follow with the remaining forces ourselves to-morrow.
For we have here, there can be little doubt, the portrait of Lodovico's daughter, by the hand of a Milanese painter, in all probability, as Morelli divined, the court-painter of the ducal house, Ambrogio de Predis. And the German critic, Dr. Müller-Walde, is probably right in his conjecture that the companion picture in the Ambrosiana is the portrait of Bianca's husband, Galeazzo di Sanseverino.
Girolamo Tuttavilla, the old and tried servant to whom this letter was addressed, had left Milan in February, owing to a quarrel with Galeazzo di Sanseverino and his brothers, whose haughty manners gave frequent offence to other Milanese courtiers.
The same day he arrested the cardinals Ascanio Sforza and Sanseverino at a consistory in the Vatican, upon which Galeazzo di Sanseverino, who was at Viterbo with the French king, rode all the way to Vigevano in three days, to take Lodovico the news of this insult to his family. The duke was furious, and vowed vengeance upon the Pope. But Alexander's courage soon failed him.
On one occasion a piece called La Fatica was acted at the house of Antonio Maria Sanseverino, whose wife, Margherita of Carpi, was the sister of Elizabeth Gonzaga's beloved companion, Emilia Pia, and herself a learned and cultivated princess. On another a representation described as La Pazienza was given before the court, in honour of a visit which Cardinal Federigo Sanseverino paid to Milan.
At break of day on the following morning, Monday, the 2nd of September, Duke Lodovico, accompanied by his son-in-law, Galeazzo di Sanseverino, his nephews, Ermes and the Count of Melzi, and his brother-in-law, Ippolito d'Este, and attended by a few armed horsemen, left Milan and rode to Como.
Word Of The Day