d stared as if he did not know what we
could mean, and so we all came home infinitely amused, and every one
asked Mariolo if he did not know the difference between a wild boar and
a tame pig!

"Your brother,
LODOVICO MARIA SFORTIA.[31]

Vigevano, December 6, 1492."

The most remarkable thing about these letters is that a prince who was
engaged in so much and varied business, who himself conducted a vast
correspondence in which the most intricate diplomatic questions of the
day were involved with his envoys at the different European courts, and
personally superintended every detail of administration, while at the
same time he gave minute instructions to the hundreds of architects,
sculptors, and painters in his service, should have found time to write
these bantering epistles to his sister-in-law. One of these letters, for
instance, is devoted to a long account of the jokes that passed between
Messer Galeazzo and the duchess at table, how Messer Galeazzo begged to
be allowed a taste of the duchess's soup, and complained that he was
forgotten now that the Marchesana was no longer there, and how Beatrice
told him she would write and tell her sister, to which he replied, "Tell
her whatever you like, as long as I get my soup!"

Yet at this very moment, when he penned these joking letters to
Isabella, Lodovico was engaged in some of the most difficult and anxious
negotiations with other States.

During Ercole d'Este's visit, the question of sending the customary
congratulations to the new Pope had been discussed, and Lodovico had
suggested that the ambassadors of the four allied powers--Milan, Naples,
Florence, and Ferrara--should send a joint deputation, both as a mark of
special honour to His Holiness, and as a public manifesto to foreign
powers of the strength of these united States. The step, he was
confident, would produce a good effect both on the King of the Romans
and Charles VIII. of France, whose designs on Italy were already
exciting alarm. Both the Duke of Ferrara and King Ferrante, who had been
consulted through his ambassadors, when they came to hunt at Vigevano,
agreed readily to Lodovico's proposal, and the only person to raise
objections was Piero de' Medici, who had lately succeeded his father as
chief magistrate of Florence, and pretended to the same power. The death
of his friend Lorenzo had been sincerely deplored by Lodovi