orkmanship.

Such were a few of the treasures which the regent displayed before the
dazzled eyes of the French ambassadors. Unfortunately the presents which
he gave them on their departure seemed to them poor and insignificant,
after the marvels which they had seen in the Castello, and their
cupidity was but ill-satisfied.

"The French envoys," wrote the Florentine ambassador, Pandolfini, to his
master, Lorenzo de Medici, "are gone away disappointed with Signor
Lodovico's gifts, expecting to receive a handsomer present after seeing
all the splendours of the Treasury."[20]

Lodovico now determined to send an embassy to the French court to return
the king's civilities and congratulate him on his marriage. He was the
more anxious to strengthen his alliance with France on account of the
growing estrangement between himself and the royal family of Naples.
Hitherto, indeed, King Ferrante had maintained cordial relations with
the Regent of Milan, whose claims to this position he had been the first
to support, and whose marriage with his granddaughter Beatrice formed a
new link between the Houses of Aragon and Sforza. But his son Alfonso,
Duke of Calabria, who had frequently visited Milan during the long war
with Venice, had never forgiven Lodovico for treating with the Venetians
independently, and made no secret of his hatred for his brother-in-law.
The quarrel between the two princes was naturally embittered by the
complaints which Alfonso received from his daughter Isabella, Duchess of
Milan. Her miserable husband, Giangaleazzo, showed less inclination than
ever to take his proper place at the head of affairs, and abandoned
himself to low debauchery. In his drunken fits it was even said that he
forgot himself so far as to strike his wife.

"There is no news here," wrote the widowed Marchioness of Montferrat
from Milan to her envoy at Mantua, on the 2nd of May, 1492, "saving that
the Duke of Milan has beaten his wife."[21]

But the proud and high-spirited duchess began to resent the subordinate
position in which she and her husband were placed at their own court,
and she tried to instil her keen sense of this injustice into
Giangaleazzo's feeble mind. When Lodovico came to Pavia that spring, his
nephew began by refusing to see him, but before long he forgot his
wrongs, and after behaving for a few days like a sulky child, was on the
most affectionate terms with his uncle when they met again. Isabella
soon found that no d