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Another piece, exhibiting an advance in complexity of dramatic structure, is an 'ecloga overo pasturale, a disputation on love by Bernardo Bellincioni , apparently in some way connected with Genoa, in the course of which five characters, probably representing actual personages, though we lack external evidence, forgather upon the stage.
It was left to the Florentine poet, Bellincioni, in whose verses the smallest incidents that took place at court were faithfully reflected, to celebrate this "praiseworthy and memorable duel of intellect between these two august personages." At Beatrice's command Bellincioni wrote three sonnets illustrating the arguments brought forward on either side.
A curious letter addressed to him by the poet Bellincioni, in February, 1492, when the duke was absent from Milan for a few days, begins by informing Lodovico that he has given Duchess Beatrice a pastoral which she wishes to send her husband, and goes on to say that he was dining yesterday with Madonna Cecilia.
Bellincioni and a dozen other poets celebrated her name and recorded her words and actions in verse; learned scholars and commentators read Dante to her when she cared to listen. Niccolo da Correggio not only wrote sonnets and canzoni for her to sing but invented new patterns for her gowns; and Cristoforo Romano laid down the sculptor's chisel to play the lyre or viol for her pleasure.
In the same letter he complains of all that he has to suffer at the hands of envious detractors, and by way of ingratiating himself with the duke, reminds his Highness that he had always prophesied Madonna Cecilia's child would prove to be a boy. Bellincioni himself composed several sonnets in honour of Cesare's birth and of his accomplished mother.
Bellincioni, whose verses certainly mirror the court life of the day, if they also breathe the incense of flattery, wrote several sonnets in which he descants on the close friendship and companionship of the two duchesses, and the love that bound them together in the tender bonds of sisterly affection.
After the death of Bellincioni he succeeded to the post of court poet, and was often employed by Lodovico to address complimentary verses to other princes or to write sonnets on passing events, whether his theme were a royal wedding or the death of a favourite falcon.
Whenever a planet approached Isabella, the bride of the young Duke, the divinity whose name it bore stepped forth from the globe, and sang some verses written by the court-poet Bellincioni . At another festival the model of the equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza appeared with other objects under a triumphal arch on the square before the castle.
After a rough passage in the depth of winter, which sorely tried the patience of the court poet Bellincioni, who was a member of the Milanese suite, the bride landed on the 7th of February, and travelled by land to Genoa and Tortona.
While Beatrice encouraged these foreign poets to settle at Milan, Lodovico invited the Tuscans Bellincioni and Antonio Cammelli, surnamed Pistoia, to his court, in the hope of refining and polishing the rude Lombard diction.
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