eing there was
little hope of further employment and none of certain pay, Messer
Cristoforo left the Milanese court sorrowfully and went to Mantua, where
he carved the lovely doorway still to be seen in Isabella's studio of
_Il Paradiso_ at the top of the grim old Castello, and designed the
beautiful medal of the marchioness herself, which was praised as a
divine thing at the Court of Naples, and which the old scholar Jacopo
d'Atri kissed a thousand times over, for the sake of its beauty and of
the likeness which it bore to the beloved mistress whom he had not seen
for so many years. Afterwards we know Cristoforo moved on to Urbino,
where Bembo and Emilia Pia and the good duchess all gave him a glad
welcome, and Castiglione enshrined his memory in the pages of the
_Cortigiano_. Then, again, we find him in his native city, Rome,
searching for antiques in the ruins of the Eternal City, and examining
the newly discovered Laocoon with Michelo Angelo, until at last the
incurable malady which had long undermined his strength put an end to
his life, and he died in the prime of manhood at the Santa Casa of
Loreto. But his best work was done, and his happiest years were spent,
in the service of Duchess Beatrice, at the court of Milan.

If Lodovico did not always care to part from his best artists at
Isabella's request, he rarely failed to oblige his charming
sister-in-law in other matters. Presents of game and venison, choice
vegetables and fruit, artichokes and truffles, apples and pears or
peaches, were constantly borne to Mantua by his couriers; and in return
Isabella would send him the famous salmon-trout of the Lake of Garda,
that were accounted such rare delicacies, and which Lodovico was fond of
seeing at table, especially, as he often remarked, in Lent. The
correspondence between the two courts was briskly kept up that year,
although Isabella was unable to visit Milan. Lodovico himself rarely
missed a post, and complained repeatedly that Isabella was not so
regular a correspondent as himself.

"Certainly, my affection for your Highness is greater than yours for
me," he says, writing in September, 1491. "It is plain that I think of
you much oftener than you think of me, and I know for certain that I
write far more letters to you than you ever write to me."

But Isabella was unwearied in the applications which she made constantly
to her brother-in-law on behalf of persons who, rightly or wrongly, had
been accused of off