United States or Turks and Caicos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But he could not attach the great soldier of fortune to himself. Sforza took the pay of Florence against his old patron, and in 1441 forced him to a ruinous peace; one of the conditions of which was the marriage of the Duke of Milan's only daughter, Bianca, to the son of the peasant of Cotignola. Bianca was illegitimate, and Filippo Maria had no male heir.
The Venetians were not sorry to disband their army and see the French cross the Alps; but none the less their indignation was great at the Duke of Milan's breach of faith in concluding a separate peace, and sharp words passed between the ambassadors of Spain and Naples and the Milanese envoy at Venice.
With these words she breathed on the window, and her breath froze on the pane. Then she led Milan out of the room with her, shut the door, and threw the key away. Hand in hand, they hurried to the spot where they had descended into the lower world, and at last reached the banks of the lake. Prince Milan's charger was still grazing on the grass which grew near the water.
Thus jealousy, a thwarted will, and Milan's low pleasures combined to widen the breach between the Royal couple, so recently plighted to each other in the sacred name of love, and to prepare the way for the troubled and tragic years to come. AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE continued
As for the metaphors Shakespeare draws from dress, and the aphorisms he makes on it, his hits at the costume of his age, particularly at the ridiculous size of the ladies' bonnets, and the many descriptions of the mundus muliebris, from the long of Autolycus in the Winter's Tale down to the account of the Duchess of Milan's gown in Much Ado About Nothing, they are far too numerous to quote; though it may be worth while to remind people that the whole of the Philosophy of Clothes is to be found in Lear's scene with Edgar a passage which has the advantage of brevity and style over the grotesque wisdom and somewhat mouthing metaphysics of Sartor Resartus.
And seeing his son look astonished, he added: "Look not amazed, that I so suddenly resolve you shall spend some time in the Duke of Milan's court; for what I will I will, and there is an end. Tomorrow be in readiness to go. Make no excuses, for I am peremptory."
These two important interests, compromised by the Duke of Milan's proposition, changed the whole face of Italy. Ludovico Sforza had already made sure of Ferdinand's promise to conform to the plan he had invented, when the old king, at the solicitation of Piero, suddenly drew back.
In the midst of this magnificent escort advanced Charles VIII, both he and his horse covered with splendid armour; an his right and left marched Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the Duke of Milan's brother, and Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, of whom we have spoken so often, who was afterwards Pope Julius II. The Cardinals Colonna and Savelli followed immediately after, and behind them came Prospero and Fabrizia Colonna, and all the Italian princes and generals who had thrown in their lot with the conqueror, and were marching intermingled with the great French lords.
Meanwhile the Venetian envoys were secretly plotting the Duke of Milan's ruin, and on the 15th of April the Treaty of Blois was signed and the partition of the Milanese between France and Venice finally determined. The Signory agreed to invade the duke's territory with an army of 6000 men, and were to receive the district of Cremona in return for their assistance.
Now it had happened that Protheus' father had just been talking with a friend on this very subject: his friend had said, he wondered his lordship suffered his son to spend his youth at home, while most men were sending their sons to seek preferment abroad; "some," said he, "to the wars, to try their fortunes there, and some to discover islands far away, and some to study in foreign universities; and there is his companion Valentine, he is gone to the duke of Milan's court.
Word Of The Day