The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497, by
Julia Mary Cartwright

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Title: Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497

Author: Julia Mary Cartwright

Release Date: May 27, 2008 [EBook #25622]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Barbara Kosker and the
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[Illustration: Bianca Sforza by Ambrogio de Predis. (Ambrosiana)]

BEATRICE D'ESTE

DUCHESS OF MILAN

1475-1497

_A STUDY OF THE RENAISSANCE_

BY

JULIA CARTWRIGHT

(MRS HENRY ADY)

_Author of_ "_Madame_," "_Sacharissa_," "_J. F. Millet_"

[Illustration]

1910
LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

_First Edition, November, 1899_
_Second Edition, June, 1903_
_Third Edition, November, 1903_
_Fourth Edition February, 1905_
_Fifth Edition, July, 1908_
_Sixth Edition, May, 1910_

_All rights reserved_

PREFACE

During the last twenty years the patient researches of successive
students in the archives of North Italian cities have been richly
rewarded. The State papers of Milan and Venice, of Ferrara and Modena,
have yielded up their treasures; the correspondence of Isabella d'Este,
in the Gonzaga archives at Mantua, has proved a source of inexhaustible
wealth and knowledge. A flood of light has been thrown on the history of
Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; public events and
personages have been placed in a new aspect; the judgments of posterity
have been modified and, in some instances, reversed.

We see now, more clearly than ever before, what manner of men and women
these Estes and Gonzagas, these Sforzas and Viscontis, were. We gain
fresh insight into their characters and aims, their secret motives and
private wishes. We see them in their daily occupations and amusements,
at their work and at their play. We follow them from the battle-field
and council chamber, from the chase and tournament, to the privacy of
domestic life and the intimate scenes of the family circle. And we
realize how, in spite o