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Orsini came to Newcastle shortly after his escape from an Austrian dungeon at Mantua, and addressed a great meeting in the Lecture Room. He spoke English fairly well; but it was the appearance of the man, and the knowledge of all that he had suffered in the struggle for Italian freedom, that appealed to one more eloquently than his words.
When couriers arrived in Mantua and Ferrara, saying that Duke Lodovico had that day entered Milan in triumph, people refused to believe the news. But it was true. "The Moro has returned," wrote Jean d'Auton, "and has entered Milan, where he has been received as if he were a God from heaven, great and small shouting Moro! with one accord. Verily these Lombards seem to adore him.
Like Calmeta and many others, however, after spending some time at the courts of Mantua and Urbino, he came to Milan, and devoted his talents to the service of Duchess Beatrice until her death, after which he went his way sadly, and sought shelter in his old haunts.
Benedetto departed in hot displeasure, and the alchemist came forward to announce that the commissioners waited. "My projection," he whispered, "only wants one more piece of gold to insure success, and Eustachio proffers thirty. Oh, give him Mantua in exchange for boundless riches!" "And they call thee a philosopher and me a visionary!" said Manto, patting his cheek.
Cardinal Montalto was a nephew of Pope Sixtus, and the strongest man, save the Pope, in Rome. He had immense wealth, great learning, and rare good sense in matters of art. He was a close friend of the Duke of Mantua; and to come into personal relations with such a man was a piece of rare good fortune for any man. The art world of Rome now belonged to Rubens all doors opened at his touch.
Nevertheless he executed on stone a Dead Christ with the Madonna, with an ornament also of stone, for Don Ferrante Gonzaga, who sent it to Spain. The whole work together was held to be very beautiful, and Sebastiano was paid five hundred crowns for the painting by Messer Niccolò da Cortona, agent in Rome for the Cardinal of Mantua.
Fortunately, whether from political motives, or from his usual attention to his astrologer's advice, Lodovico deferred his visit to Ferrara until the middle of May, and himself wrote a courteous letter to Isabella, expressing his regret that he would after all be unable to accept her invitation to Mantua, since he found himself obliged to visit Parma.
All Parma is full of Correggio, as Venice is of Titian and Tintoretto, as Naples of Spagnoletto, as Mantua of Giulio Romano, as Vicenza of Palladio, as Bassano of Da Ponte, as Bologna of Guido Reni.
The earliest secular play in Italian is, then, nothing but a sacra rappresentazione on a pagan theme, a fact which was probably clearly recognized when, in the early editions from 1494 onwards, the piece was described as the 'festa di Orpheo . It was written in 1471, when Poliziano was about seventeen, and we learn from the author's epistle prefixed to the printed edition that ît was composed in the short space of two days for representation before Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua. From the same epistle we learn that the author desired, or at least assumed the attitude of desiring, that his composition should share the fate of the ill-fashioned Lacedaemonian children; 'Cognoscendo questa mia figliuola essere di qualit
Bad news, which always travels faster than good, now brought the dismal story of his Juliet's death to Romeo, at Mantua, before the messenger could arrive who was sent from Friar Lawrence to apprise him that these were mock funerals only, and but the shadow and representation of death, and that his dear lady lay in the tomb but for a short while, expecting when Romeo would come to release her from that dreary mansion.
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