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Michael Angelo then, partly to see Rome, so much be praised by the gentleman as the widest field for a man to show his genius in, went with him and lodged in his house near the palace of the Cardinal, who, advised by letter in the meantime how the matter stood, laid hands on the merchant who had sold the Cupid to him as an antique, returned the statue to him, and got his money back; it afterwards came, I know not how, into the hands of the Duke Valentino, and was presented to the Marchesana of Mantua.
"I find myself highly honoured and caressed by Signor Lodovico," she wrote to her husband from Pavia; and the discerning eyes of the Ferrarese ambassador, Giacomo Trotti, noticed how much pleasure His Excellency already took in the company of Madonna Beatrice and the Marchesana.
"One thing only," wrote Messer Galeazzo, "was wanting to our pleasure, and that was the sweet company of yourself, fair Madonna Marchesana."
The demeanour of Signor Lodovico towards his wife, all he said and thought of her, was narrowly watched by Giacomo Trotti, and duly repeated in his letters to Ferrara. For the present this was eminently satisfactory. "Signor Lodovico," writes the ambassador during the wedding festivities at Milan, "has nothing but the highest praise both for his wife and the Marchesana.
But he consoled himself by reflecting that the Marchesana would soon be back at Milan, when he would easily be able to make her give up Rinaldo, and once more cry "Roland" as she had done before.
The Marchesana of Cotrone spoke the truth when in writing to Francesco she said that Lucretia was not especially beautiful, but that she had what might be called a "dolce ciera," a sweet face. The face resembles that of her father as shown by the best medals which we have of him but slightly; the only likeness is in the strongly outlined nose.
Four years afterwards, the same Elizabeth, the peerless Duchess of Castiglione and Bembo's adoration, stopped at Ferrara on her wedding journey to her new home of Urbino, and received an affectionate welcome from Leonora and her daughters. The duchess, she wrote, treated her as a mother, while in the Marchesana she had already found a loving sister and friend.
He too, writing on the 11th of February, was able to assure the Marchesana that all was going well, and that the relations between her sister and Signor Lodovico left nothing to be desired.
This time she wrote to the Marchesino himself, begging him to send Messer Johan Cristoforo to Mantua as soon as possible. Now Giovanni Stanga, besides being a finished courtier, was on intimate terms with the fair Marchesana herself and with all her family.
He wrote daily reports of her health to Isabella and her mother, and on the 4th of October rejoiced to be able to tell the Marchesana that her sister had once more been able to assist at a boar-hunt, which had taken place six miles from Pavia. "Yesterday your sister came to look on at a boar-hunt, six or seven miles from here.
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