Isabella d'Este's studio at Mantua, has disappeared.
Only the fragments of frescoes and the rich terra-cotta mouldings and
slender columns of the elegant _cortile_ recall the joyous day which
Beatrice d'Este and her ladies spent at the villa. But their memory
sheds a glamour on the scene, and in the story of those Renaissance
days, among so much that is dark and sinister, it is pleasant to recall
this picture of the young duchess and her gallant cavalier singing songs
for pure gladness of heart as they rode out together in the fair spring
morning.

"One thing only," wrote Messer Galeazzo, "was wanting to our pleasure,
and that was the sweet company of yourself, fair Madonna Marchesana."
And with a sigh he tells her how much she is missed in the Castello of
Milan, and how often he wishes he could find her in Madonna the Duchess
of Ferrara's rooms, having her long hair combed and curled by her
favourite maidens Teodora and Beatrice and Violante, to all of whom he
sends courteous greeting. Then he returns to the old controversy over
Orlando, and replies to a gay challenge which Isabella has sent him in a
letter to Signor Lodovico, only wishing she were here to defend Rinaldo
in person, or rather to be made to own the error of her ways, and to
confess that the knight of Montalbano is not to be compared to Roland!
But he warns her that if she perseveres in this heresy, he will draw up
such an indictment of Rinaldo's faults as will fill her with confusion,
and make her recognize with shame his inferiority to Roland, that baron
of immortal fame, of whom nothing but good can be said. Isabella,
however, stuck to her colours, and, a whole month later, Messer Galeazzo
sent her a long letter from Vigevano, in which he drew up an elaborate
parallel between the conduct of the two paladins, as recorded in
Boiardo's poem, and ended with a splendid eulogy of Roland.

"Roland the most Christian! Roland the pure and strong, prudent, just,
and merciful servant of Christ, the true defender of widows and orphans!
Of his valour I will say nothing, this being known to all the world; but
this I say, that when I think of my worship for Roland, however sad and
ill disposed I may be feeling, my heart rejoices, and I become glad of
heart and joyous again."

So he begs her, for the love that he bears her Highness, to try and
amend her ways and recant her errors, and do penitence in this Lenten
season for her fault, after the example of the great