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"Signor Lodovico loved Bramante greatly, and rewarded him richly," writes Fra Gaspare Bugati, a Dominican friar of S. Maria delle Grazie, the Moro's favourite church, which this great architect did so much to beautify.
When the Germans reached the Italian frontier, Milan had already surrendered, and they met Lodovico flying for his life. There were traitors in the Moro's camp and court.
These last words were hailed with loud applause by the Moro's friends, and when Landriano had ended his speech, Galeazzo Visconti Baldassare Pusterla, the able lawyer Andrea Cagnola, and several other councillors, well known for their devotion to the Moro, all spoke in the same strain.
"Ille ego sum Maurus, franco qui captus ab hoste Exemplum instabilis non leve sortis eo;" and Jean Marot found inspiration in a Venetian song "Ogni fumo viene al basso" which he rendered in the following lines, alluding to the legend of the Moro's fresco in the Castello of Milan:
Moors and Moorish costumes were introduced in every masquerade and ballet, a Moorish page was represented brushing the robes of Italy in a fresco of the Castello of Milan, while mulberry colour became fashionable among the ladies of the Moro's court, and was commonly worn by the servants and pages in the palace.
Isabella d'Este was deeply distressed, and Francesco Gonzaga declared loudly that this disgrace was the result of Galeazzo di Sanseverino's jealousy and of the Moro's intrigues. In September the marquis and Messer Galeazzo met at a tournament held at Brescia in honour of the Queen of Cyprus.
They had cut him off from turning through Moro's orchard or Betts's vineyard, and so there was nothing for the fleet-footed fox but to keep steadily to the west and give his pursuers no chance to make a cut-off on him. But every now and then he made a feint of turning, which threw the others out of a straight track.
Would the rare prudence and self-control of the elder princess have led her to play a different part in the difficult circumstances which surrounded her position at the court of Milan as the Moro's wife? Would Isabella's calmer temperament and wise and far-seeing intellect have been able to restrain Lodovico's ambitious dreams and avert his ruin?
This, at least, may be said to Pistoia's credit he did not forget his generous patron in the days of adversity; and when Pamfilo Sasso, the Modena bard who had basked in the sunshine of the Moro's favour, assailed the fallen duke in his verses, Pistoia rose up in defence of his old master, and fiercely rebuked the cowardly poet.
In reply, he received the following list, which is still preserved in the archives of Milan, and which is of great interest, both as a monument of the Moro's untiring perseverance in seeking out the best masters, and as a record of the different degrees of estimation in which living artists were held by their contemporaries:
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