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That memorable day when he rode through the streets of Milan, accompanied by the ambassadors of Florence and Ferrara, he said in reply to the congratulations of the latter, our old friend Giacomo Trotti, "In another month you will hear greater news."
I leave it to the reader to decide whether Ludovico, simply owing to his hatred of the Pope, was slandering him and indulging in extravagances concerning him when he had this conversation with Trotti, and also when he publicly stated to his senate that "the Pope had allowed three women to come to him; one of them being a nun of Valencia, the other a Castilian, the third a very beautiful girl from Venice, fifteen or sixteen years of age."
Such was the state of political affairs when, on the 18th of May, 1493, Lodovico and Beatrice, with their infant son, arrived at Ferrara. They spent the night before their arrival at the palazzo Trotti, in the suburbs, and on the following morning entered the town by the bridge of Castel Tealde.
Ignominious and detestable indeed, if true; but be it remembered that Trotti was the ambassador of France, whose candidate, backed by French influence and French gold, as we have seen, was della Rovere; and, even if his statement was true, the "ignominious and detestable thing" was at least no novelty.
Duchess Leonora was present on the occasion, and herself announced the happy event in a letter to her daughter Isabella, who promptly sent a special envoy with her congratulations to the Duke of Bari and her sister. A fortnight before, Leonora had set out for Pavia, where Trotti had been sent to meet her, and crowds shouting Moro! Moro! had everywhere hailed her arrival.
His brother, Cardinal Sigismondo, raised the Palazzo Diamante, that magnificent Renaissance structure in the Via degli Angeli. The Trotti and the Costabili, the Strozzi and Boschetti, all followed suit and built palatial residences in the neighbourhood. These fine buildings were surrounded with spacious gardens.
"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.
Towards the end of September Beatrice fell ill, and for some days her husband was seriously uneasy about her. The anxiety which he showed, and the attentions with which he surrounded her, were duly reported by Giacomo Trotti in a letter to Ferrara. "Signor Lodovico," he wrote on the 18th of September, "does not leave his wife's bedside by day or night.
Despatch of Giorgio Brognolo to the Marchese, Rome, May 6 and 15, 1494. Archives of Mantua. Despatch of Jacomo Trotti to Duke Ercole, Milan, June 11, 1494. May 1st the women were still in Rome, for on that date Madonna Adriana wrote a letter from there to the Marchesa of Mantua recommending a friend to her. The letter is in the Mantuan archives.
At the palace there was a family dinner, and after it the ladies of the Palace of the Italian Crown, Countesses Porro, Visconti, Thiene, Trivulci, and Mesdames Gonfalonieri, Trotti, de Rava, Fe, Mocenigo, Montecuculli, were presented by the Italian maid-of-honor, the Duchess Litta, and they all took the oath of allegiance.
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