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Updated: June 29, 2025
The actual share which the great Florentine took in the preparation of the wedding festivities has often been discussed, and we are never likely to know how much of the duchess's cabinet he painted, or what part he took in the decoration of the city, but at least this characteristic note on the lad whose honesty he had reason to suspect, proves that he was present in Milan at the time, and was the authority to whom Lodovico's son-in-law naturally turned for advice in planning this masquerade.
"All of these days," she writes on the 22nd, "I have been trying to write to Your Highness, but have never been able to find time, as I am always in my sister's and Signor Lodovico's company. Now I have at length snatched a moment, and hasten to pay you a visit in mind, since I cannot do so in person.
The triumph of Lodovico's diplomacy was complete, and without shedding a drop of blood, or making any warlike demonstration, he had outwitted all his foes and secured the alliance of his most powerful neighbour. The good news gave fresh zest to the pleasures of Beatrice's court that summer, and to all the memorable enterprises upon which Lodovico was engaged at home.
There seems little doubt that Caiazzo's defection was one of the principal causes of Lodovico's ruin, but, whatever the circumstances of the case may have been, it is certain that on the next day the French entered Alessandria without meeting with any resistance, and Trivulzio sent word to his kinsman Erasmo that before the week was over he would dine with him in Milan.
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 the more impartial judgment of modern historians, together with the light thrown upon the subject by recently discovered documents, has done much to modify our opinion of Lodovico's character.
A council of war was held, and Lodovico's recommendation to blockade the town instead of carrying it by assault was finally adopted. On the 5th of August the duke and duchess were present at a grand review of the whole army, which, with Galeazzo's troops and the German and Swiss reinforcements, now amounted to upwards of forty thousand men.
Now Lodovico's foundation has become national property, the remnants of his spacious buildings are used as government schools.
There, during the next three centuries, masses were duly said for the repose of Duke Lodovico's soul and that of his wife, on the four anniversaries sacred to their memory, "in gratitude," writes Padre Pino, "for all the benefactions that we have received from this duke and duchess."
"Like some demented woman," continues Corio, she fled as far as Abbiategrasso, where she was detained by Lodovico's orders, and not allowed to proceed to France as she had intended.
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