re nearer Flanders, but more probably because the great Duke of
Ferrara was animated by that superb pride of race that chafes at
rivalry; this, added to a wish to encourage art, and the lust of
possession which characterised the great men of that day.

It was the middle of the Sixteenth Century that Ercole II, the head of
the d'Este family, revived at Ferrara the factory of his family which
had suffered from the wars. The master-weavers were brought from
Flanders, not only to produce tapestries almost unequalled for
technical perfection, but to instruct local weavers. These two
important weavers were Nicholas and John Karcher or Carcher as it is
sometimes spelled, names of great renown--for a weaver might be almost
as well known and as highly esteemed as the artist of the cartoons in
those days when artisan's labour had not been despised by even the
great Leonardo. The foremost artist of the Ferrara works was chosen
from that city, Battista Dosso, but also active as designer was the
Fleming, Lucas Cornelisz. In Dosso's work is seen that exquisite and
dainty touch that characterises the artists of Northern Italy in their
most perfect period, before voluptuous masses and heavy scroll-like
curves prevailed even in the drawing of the human figure.

[Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION

Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A.
Ryerson, Esq., Chicago]

The House of Este had a part to play in the visit of the Emperor
Charles V when he elected to be crowned with Lombardy's Iron Crown, in
1530, at Bologna instead of in the cathedral at Monza where the relic
has its home. "Crowns run after me; I do not run after them," he
said, with the arrogance of success. At this reception at Bologna
we catch a glimpse of the brilliant Isabella d'Este amid all the
magnificence of the occasion. It takes very little imagination to
picture the effect of the public square at Bologna--the same buildings
that stand to-day--the square of the Palazzo Publico and the
Cathedral--to fancy these all hung with the immense woven pictures
with high lights of silk and gold glowing in the sun, and through this
magnificent scene the procession of mounted guards, of beautiful
ladies, of church dignitaries, with Charles V as the central object of
pomp, wearing as a clasp to the cope of state the great diamond found
on the field of Marat after the defeat of the Duke of Burgundy. The
members of the House of Este were there with their