body. Painters and scholars alike
took delight in Lorenzo's company. He was the intimate friend of
Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna, of Pietro Bembo and Aldo Manuzio,
of Leonardo and Isabella d'Este. It was in these festive days, in the
Castello of Pavia, that Lorenzo da Pavia first met both the great
Florentine and the accomplished princess who set so high a store on his
friendship. For more than twenty years Isabella corresponded regularly
with this gifted artist, and employed him not only to make organs and
lutes for her, but to buy antiques and cameos, Murano glass and
tapestry, choice pictures and rare books. Whether she wished for a
_fantasia_, or Holy Family from the hand of Gian Bellini, or a choice
edition of Dante or Petrarch from the press of Aldo Manuzio, it was to
Messer Lorenzo that the request was addressed. In 1494, the Pavian
master moved to Venice, where he found it easier to procure materials
for his trade, and was able to carry on his work on a larger scale. By
this time his fame had spread far and wide through Italy. He made an
organ for Matthias Corvinus, the King of Hungary, and another which he
himself took to Rome for Pope Leo X. But his relations with Duchess
Beatrice were not interrupted by this change of abode. In that same year
he made her that clavichord which Isabella describes as the best and
most beautiful which she had ever seen, and which she never ceased to
covet until, after her sister's death and Lodovico's fall, she obtained
possession of the precious instrument.

It was at Venice, in the early spring of 1500, that Leonardo da Vinci
once more met this master, whom he had formerly known so well at Pavia
and Milan. There the two artists who had lived together for many years
in the Moro's service conversed sadly of the terrible catastrophe which
had overwhelmed their old master in sudden and inevitable ruin, and
mourned over the disastrous fate which had plunged the fair Milanese
into confusion and misery. Then, as they looked back on the happy days
of their former life, and talked of their old companions, the painter
brought out a drawing which Lorenzo immediately recognized as the
portrait of Isabella d'Este, the illustrious princess, who was proud to
call herself their friend.

"Leonardo," he wrote the next day to the Marchesana, "is here in Venice,
and has shown me a portrait of your Highness, which is as natural and
lifelike as possible."[27] This drawing, which the princess