rza--Leonardo's paintings at
Milan--Lodovico as a patron of art and learning.

1492

The year 1492 was one of great enterprises. The intellectual and
artistic movement which Lodovico Sforza had inaugurated was now in full
vigour, and the fruits of his wise and enlightened rule began to appear
in every direction.

"Now that the wars were ended," writes Corio, "an era of peace and
prosperity began, and everything seemed on a firmer and more stable
foundation than it had ever been in times past. The court of our princes
was most splendid, full of new fashions, rich clothes, and endless
delights. Here Minerva and Venus vied with each other, while beautiful
youths and maidens came to learn in the school of Cupid, Minerva held
her gentle academy in Milan, and that illustrious prince, Lodovico
Sforza, brought men of rare excellence from the furthest ends of Europe
at his expense. Here the learning of Greece shone, together with the
prose and verse of the Latin race. Here the muses of poetry, and the
masters of sculpture reigned supreme; here came the most distinguished
painters from distant regions; here night and day were heard sounds of
such sweet singing, and such delicious harmonies of music, that they
seemed to descend from heaven itself."

Foremost among the "men of singular merit" whom Lodovico attracted to
his court and retained in his service, were his two secretaries,
Bartolommeo Calco and Jacopo Antiquario of Perugia. Both were men of
great learning and discernment, fired with the same passion for arts and
letters as their master, and as liberal as he was in assisting poorer
scholars. Calco was Lodovico's right hand and chief adviser in his great
schemes for beautifying cities and palaces. He delivered his orders to
the countless artists in his employment, arranged court festivities and
generally conducted the duke's correspondence. Jacopo Antiquario was
more purely a scholar, who protected other men of letters, and helped
them generously in time of need. His honest nature and kindly actions
made him singularly beloved, and a contemporary describes him as the
most learned of good men, and the best of learned men; while his
intimate friend, the great printer, Aldo Manuzio, has immortalized his
memory in the beautiful epistle in which he dedicates the Moralia of
Plutarch to this man, whose name, he prays, may go down to future ages
linked with his own. Both of these secretaries proved able assistants in
the gre