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The matter being settled, Gonzaga produced a heavy bag which gave forth a jangle mighty pleasant to the ears of Fortemani, and let it drop with a chink upon the table. "There are a hundred florins for the equipment of this company. I do not wish to have a regiment of out-at-elbow tatterdemalions at my heels." And his eye swept in an uncomplimentary manner over Ercole's apparel.
"Give me that letter," Ercole insisted, now advancing upon him, and wearing an air of ferocity that drove back into Gonzaga's throat such resentful words as he bethought him of. Then, like an animal at bay and even a rat will assert itself then he swung aloft the heavy arbalest he held, and stood barring Ercole's way. "Stand back!" he cried; "or by God and His saints, I'll beat your brains out."
They struck Ercole's weather-beaten face as he sat beside the coachman with bent head, with his soft hat pulled down over his eyes, and the rain dripped from his coarse moustache. Kalmon and Marcello leaned as far back as they could, under the deep hood and behind the high leathern apron. "There is some animal following us," the cabman said to Ercole as they turned a corner.
Wars of Venice and Ferrara Invasion of Ferrara Lodovico Sforza and Alfonso of Calabria come to the help of Ercole d'Este Peace of Bagnolo Prosperity of Ferrara, and cultivation of art and learning at Ercole's court Guarino and Aldo Manuzio Strozzi and Boiardo Architecture and painting The frescoes of the Schifanoia Music and the drama Education of Isabella and Beatrice d'Este.
It had always been Ercole's dream to live in the city, though he did not look like a man naturally intended for town life. He was short and skinny, though he was as wiry as a monkey; his face was slightly pitted with the smallpox, and the malaria of many summers had left him with a complexion of the colour of cheap leather; he had eyes like a hawk, matted black hair, and jagged white teeth.
It was all very much the same, but between that time and this there lay all Ercole's life by the Roman shore. When he had heard, as every one had, how Marcello had been brought to Rome on the tail of a wine-cart, he had been sure that the boy had been laid upon it while the cart was standing before Paoluccio's inn in the night.
Adriana, as a near connection of the Pope and Lucretia, had been treated with the highest respect at Ercole's court, where she had enjoyed a close intimacy with the Marchioness Isabella, as is shown by a letter which the latter addressed to Adriana, February 18th, the same day on which she wrote Lucretia.
They wrangled violently, but so great was the Pope's desire to secure the ducal throne of Ferrara for his daughter that he soon announced that he would practically agree to Ercole's demands, which Cæsar urged him to do.
After the death of his father, the able and learned Niccolo III., who first established his throne on sure and safe foundations, Ercole's two elder half-brothers, Leonello and Borso, reigned in succession over Ferrara, and kept up the proud traditions of the house of Este, both in war and peace. Both were bastards, but in the Este family this was never held to be a bar to the succession.
I thought as much," added the old man, with a chuckle. "Wasn't Signor Ercole's woman here with a lanthorn just now?" said another of the bystanders, a young man, who, though wrapped to the eyes in the universal all-levelling cloak, belonged evidently to a superior class of society to the previous speakers. "Si, Signor Conte, she is there in the kitchen.
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