e same year, we find Maestro Jorba once more at Milan,
working for Duchess Beatrice, much to the annoyance of her sister
Isabella, who was anxious to secure the services of the skilful
embroiderer, and offered him a salary of two hundred ducats a year if he
would settle at Mantua. Jorba, however, seems to have preferred to
remain at Ferrara, and only paid occasional visits to the princesses of
Este at Milan and Mantua.

Throughout April, all the tailors and embroiderers, goldsmiths and
jewellers, in Beatrice's service were busy making preparations for a
visit which their mistress was shortly to pay to her old home. Before
Leonora left Vigevano the Moro had promised to bring his wife and child
to Ferrara in May, and had decided to send Beatrice to Venice, with her
mother Duchess Leonora, who was going to spend a few days with her son
Alfonso and his wife, at the palace of the Estes on the Canal Grande. He
had further intimated his intention of paying a visit to his
sister-in-law at Mantua on the way. Isabella, who had just accepted an
invitation from the Doge, Agostino Barbarigo, to visit Venice for the
Feast of the Ascension, was somewhat dismayed when the news reached her,
and looked forward with no little alarm to the prospect of entertaining
her splendid brother-in-law. She wrote off without delay to consult her
husband on the subject--

"Madama sends me word that Signor Lodovico has decided to visit Ferrara
in May, and gives me the list of the company who are to attend him,
which I enclose for you to see. For my part I can hardly believe it, but
shall be sorry if I am at Venice when such _fetes_ are being held at
Ferrara. Your Highness must decide what you think is best for the honour
of our house, since when I was at Milan Signor Lodovico told me that if
he came to Ferrara he would visit Mantua on the way. No doubt you will
do what seems to be most prudent, and will let me know your wishes. But
perhaps I may be mistaken.[36]

"Mantua, 9th of April, 1493."

Isabella was still more disturbed when she heard that Lodovico intended
to send his wife to Venice. Her pride shrank from the bare notion of
appearing before the Doge and Senate at the same time as her sister,
whose sumptuous apparel and numerous suite she felt herself unable to
rival. "Nothing in the world," she wrote to Gianfrancesco, who was then
at Venice as captain-general of the Republic's forces, "will induce me
to go to Venice at the same time as my s