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         QUEENS OF THE
          RENAISSANCE

              BY
      M. BERESFORD RYLEY


WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS


         METHUEN & CO.
     36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
            LONDON


   _First Published in 1907_




  [Illustration: BEATRICE AND LUDOVICO KNEELING
    ALTAR-PIECE BY ZENALE]




To B----




CONTENTS


                                    PAGE
  PREFACE                             ix

  CATHERINE OF SIENA                   1

  BEATRICE D'ESTE                     53

  ANNE OF BRITTANY                   104

  LUCREZIA BORGIA                    150

  MARGARET D'ANGOULÊME               202

  RENÉE, DUCHESS OF FERRARA          251




PREFACE


There are no two people who see with the same kind of vision. It is
for this reason that, though twenty lives of the six women chosen for
this book had been written previously, there would still, it seems to
me, be room for a twenty-first. For though the facts might remain
identical, there is no possible reiteration of another mind's exact
outlook. Hence I have not scrupled to add these six character studies
to the many volumes similar in scope and subject.

The book is called "Queens of the Renaissance," but Catherine of Siena
lived before the Renaissance surged into being, and Anne of Brittany,
though her two husbands brought its spirit into France, had not
herself a hint of its lovely, penetrating eagerness. They are included
because they help, nevertheless, to create continuity and coherence of
impression, and the six leading, as they do naturally, one to the
other, convey, in the mass, some co-ordinated notion of the
Renaissance spirit.

The main object, perhaps, in writing at all lies in the intrinsic
interest of any real life lived before us. For every existence is a
_parti pris_ towards existence; every character is a personal opinion
upon the value of character, feeling, virtue, many things. No
personality repeats another, no human drama renews just the same
intricate complications of other dramas. In every life and in every
person there is some element of uniqueness, some touch of speciality.
Because of this even the dullest individuality becomes quickening in
biography. It has, if no more, the pathos of its dulness, the didactic
warnings of its refusals, the surprise of its individualizing
blunders.

All the following lives convey inevitably and unconsciously some
statement concerning the opportunity offered by existence. To one, it
seemed a place for an ecstasy of joy, success, gratification; to
another, a great educational establishment for the soul; to a third,
an admirable groundwork for practical domestic arrangements and
routine; to Renée of Ferrara, a bewildering, weary accumulation of
difficulties and distress; to her more charming relative, an enigma
shadowed always by the still greater and grimmer enigma of mortality.
And lastly, for the strange, elusive Lucrezia, it is difficult to
conceive what it must have meant at all, unless a sequence of
circumstances never, under any conditions, to be dwelt upon in their
annihilating entirety, but just to be taken piecemeal day by day,
reduced and simplified by the littleness of separate hours and
moments.

In a book of this kind, where the intention is mainly concerned with
character, and for which the reading was inevitably full of bypaths
and excursions, a complete bibliography would merely fill many pages,
while seeming to a great extent to touch but remotely upon the ladies
referred to, but among recent authors a deep debt of gratitude for
information received is due to the following: Jacob Burckhardt, Julia
Cartwright, Augusta Drane, Ferdinand Gregorovius, R. Luzio, E. Renier,
E. Rodoconarchi, and J. Addington Symonds.

Finally, in reference to the portraits included in the life of
Beatrice D'Este, a brief statement is necessary. For not only that of
Bianca, wife of Giangaleazzo, but also those of Il Moro's two
mistresses, Cecilia Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli, are regrettably
dubious. The picture of Bianca, however, by Ambrogio da Predis, is
more than likely genuinely that of Bianca, though some writers still
regard it as a likeness of Beatrice herself. It is to be wished that
it were; her prettiness then would have been incontestable and
delicious. But in reality there is no hope. One has but to look at the
other known portraits of Beatrice to see that her face was podgy, or
nearly so, and that her charm came entirely and illusively from
personal intelligence. It evaporated the moment one came to fix her
appearance in sculpture or on canvas. Nature had not really done much
for her. There was no outline, no striking feature, no ravishing
freshness of colouring. On a stupid woman Beatrice's face would have
been absolutely ugly. But she, through sheer "aliveness," sheer
buoyant trickery of expression, conveyed in actuality the equivalent
of prettiness. But it was all unconscious conjuring,--in reality
Beatrice was a plain woman, with sufficient delightfulness to seem a
pretty one, while the portrait of Bianca is unmistakably and lovingly
good-looking.

As regards the portraits, again, of Il Moro's two mistresses, Cecilia
Gallerani and Lucrezia Crivelli, there is no absolute certainty. The
portrait facing page 6 in the life of Beatrice has been recently
discovered in the collection of the Right Hon. the Earl of Roden, and
in an article published by the _Burlington Magazine_ it has been
tentatively looked upon as that of Lucrezia Crivelli. This does not,
however, appear probable, because Lucrezia, at the time of Il Moro's
infatuation, was a young girl, and the picture by Ambrogio da Predis
is certainly that of a woman, and a woman, moreover, whose experiences
have brought her perilously near the verge of cynicism.

At the same time, the portrait is not only beyond doubt that of a
woman loved by Il Moro, but was presumably painted while his affection
for her still continued, as not only are the little heart-shaped
ornaments holding together the webs of her net thought to represent Il
Moro's badge of a mulberry-leaf, but painted exquisitely in a space of
⅜ by ⅝ inch upon the plaque at the waistbelt is a Moor's head,
another of Ludovico's badges, while the letters L. O. are placed on
either side of it, and the two Sforza S. S. at the back. A discarded
mistress, if Ambrogio--one of Il Moro's court painters--had painted
her at all, would have had the discretion not to wear symbols
obviously intended only for one beloved at that moment.

There seems--speculatively--every reason to suppose that the picture
represents Cecilia Gallerani, who was already beyond the charm of
youth before Ludovico reluctantly discarded her, and whom he not only
cared for very greatly, but for quite a number of years. Cecilia
Gallerani, besides, to strengthen the supposition, was an
exceptionally intellectual woman, and the portrait in the possession
of the Earl of Roden expresses above everything to an almost
disheartened intelligence. To think deeply while in the position of
_any_ man's mistress must leave embittering traces, and Cecilia became
famous less even for physical attractions than because her mind was so
intensely rich and receptive.

The other two--the pictures of "La Belle Ferronière" and the "Woman
with the Weasel,"--by Leonardo da Vinci, have both a contested
identity. But since the first is now almost universally looked upon as
being the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, the second must surely
represent her also. For in both there is the same beautiful oval, the
same youth, the same unfathomable eyes and gentle deceit of
expression. Both, besides, represent to perfection the kind of
beautiful girl likely to have drawn Ludovico into passionate
admiration. He was no longer young when he cared for Lucrezia, and if
Leonardo's paintings are really portraits of her, she was like some
emblematical figure of perfect youthfulness,--unique and unrepeatable.

                                                    M. B. R.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                        TO FACE PAGE
  BEATRICE AND LUDOVICO KNEELING. ALTAR PIECE BY
      ZENALE AT BRERA                                 _Frontispiece_
    _From a Photograph by Messrs. Anderson_

  STATUE IN WOOD OF ST. CATHERINE, BY NEROCCIO LANDI               2
    _From a Photograph by Messrs. Lombardi_

  ST. CATHERINE'S HOUSE AT SIENA                                  16
