he presented him
with fifty of his best horses. Ercole often received gifts of Barbary
horses from the Sultan of Tunis or the famous Gonzaga stables that were
reckoned the best in Italy, and bought Spanish jennets and steeds of
Irish race to improve his own breed. And Duchess Leonora owned a special
breed of greyhounds which were held in high esteem, and a pair of which
she sent to Caterina Sforza, Madonna of Forli, at the humble request of
this adventurous lady.

But it was only on very rare occasions that the young princesses of Este
were allowed to leave their studies, which occupied their whole days,
and, as we learn from their different preceptors' letters, absorbed
their whole attention. Nor, we may be quite sure, was their religious
education neglected under the eye of their mother, a sincerely devout
and pious woman, who took pleasure in the converse of learned Dominicans
and Carmelites, and paid frequent visits to S. Vito, close to the
Schifanoia villa, and to the Convent of Corpus Domini, in which church
she was buried. Her many charitable works, the liberality with which she
helped her poorer subjects, relieved their wants, and gave dowries to
virtuous maidens, as well as her munificence in adorning altars and
churches with rich ornaments, are recorded by every Ferrarese historian.
Sabadino degli Arienti places her high among the illustrious women of
the age, and says her deeds cannot fail to have opened the adamant doors
of Paradise, while Castiglione speaks of her excellent virtues as known
to the whole world, and pronounces her worthy to have reigned over a far
larger state. With the pattern of this admirable mother before their
eyes, with all that was choicest in art and fairest in nature around
them, Leonora's daughters grew up to womanhood, and insensibly acquired
that enthusiasm for beauty in all its varied forms, that fine taste and
perception which distinguished them above their contemporaries, which
made Isabella at the end of her long life still the most attractive
woman of her day, and which caused the bravest soldiers and the wisest
scholars to lament the untimely death of the youthful Duchess Beatrice.
In all the difficult and tangled ways which they were separately called
upon to tread, the breath of scandal, the slander of idle tongues, never
sullied their fair names. Both princesses held fast to the ideal of
their girlhood, and, leading the same pure and spotless life, left the
same gracious