r her child's
birth she had agreed to become the wife of Count Lodovico Bergamini. This
strange compact was duly carried out.

On the 3rd of May, the duke's discarded mistress gave birth to a son,
who received the name of Cesare; and in the following July, Cecilia
Gallerani was married to Count Lodovico Bergamini of Cremona, one of the
Moro's most loyal servants and subjects. Her trousseau on this occasion
was of the most sumptuous description, and it was noticed that the
corbeille which held her gowns bore the ducal arms. At the same time the
Duke of Bari presented her with the stately Palazzo del Verme,
originally built by his ancestor, Filippo Maria Visconti, for the great
Captain Carmagnola, on the _piazza_ of the Duomo, as a token of his
regard and a heritage for her infant son. Court painters and sculptors
were employed to decorate the halls and porticoes with frescoes and
medallions of the finest marble, and at the time of the French invasion,
eight years later, Countess Bergamini's palace was described as the
finest private house in Milan. Cecilia devoted herself to the classical
studies in which she had taken delight from her earliest youth, and
entertained her learned friends in her town house or at her villa near
Cremona until she died in advanced old age, some years after the last of
Lodovico's sons had ceased to reign over Milan. Lodovico seems to have
kept his promise loyally, but always treated Cecilia and her husband
with marked favour, and acknowledged the boy Cesare as his own son.

A curious letter addressed to him by the poet Bellincioni, in February,
1492, when the duke was absent from Milan for a few days, begins by
informing Lodovico that he has given Duchess Beatrice a pastoral which
she wishes to send her husband, and goes on to say that he was dining
yesterday with Madonna Cecilia. He tells Lodovico how he had seen her
son Cesare, who had grown into a very fine child--"_quale e grasso, dico
grasso!_"--and how he had made the little fellow laugh. In the same
letter he complains of all that he has to suffer at the hands of envious
detractors, and by way of ingratiating himself with the duke, reminds
his Highness that he had always prophesied Madonna Cecilia's child would
prove to be a boy. Bellincioni himself composed several sonnets in
honour of Cesare's birth and of his accomplished mother. And among the
exquisite miniatures of the little Maximilian Sforza's Libro del Gesu in
the Trivulzian li