d Lombard town, where he had been
born, and which he had greatly improved and beautified during the last
few years. By his care the streets were paved, and new houses erected;
the buildings of the ancient Forum, which dated back to Roman times,
were restored; and the church repaired and adorned with pictures, and
decorated by the hand of the sculptor Cristoforo Romano.

"At Vigevano," writes the contemporary Milanese chronicler Cagnola, "a
place very dear to the house of Sforza, Lodovico made a fair and large
_piazza_, and adorned it with many noble buildings and a fine park,
which he filled with beasts of prey for the pleasure of the ducal
family. He also laid out some most beautiful gardens, and since all this
country was very dry and arid, he constructed aqueducts with great
artifice and ingenuity, and brought water into the place in such
abundance that these lands, which had hitherto been sterile and barren,
bore fruit in great quantities. And so entirely did he improve and alter
the whole place that, instead of Vigevano, it might well be called
_Citta nova_."

At the same time Lodovico rebuilt on a magnificent scale the old castle
which crowns the heights above the valley of the Ticino, and employed
Bramante to design the lofty tower and the arcaded courts with delicate
traceries and terra-cotta mouldings in the finest Lombard style. This
favourite palace of the Moro's has been turned into a barrack, and
little remains of its former splendour; but Bramante's tower is still
standing, and on the north gate of the keep we may read a significant
inscription placed there by the citizens of Vigevano, recording the many
benefactions of this most illustrious duke, who loved his native city so
well, and was never tired of heaping benefactions on her people. "By his
care not only was this splendid house raised from the ground, and the
square of the old Forum restored to its pristine shape, but the course
of rivers was turned, and flowing streams of water were brought into
this dry and barren land. The desert waste became a green and fertile
meadow, "the wilderness rejoiced and blossomed as the rose."

The same sentiments inspired the verses in which Galeotto del Carretto,
one of the most accomplished poets of Beatrice's court, celebrated
Lodovico's improvements in this his favourite country house:

"Vigevano, che gia fu gleba vile,
Ha fatto adorno, e gli agri a quel contigui
Ha coltivati con saper utile,