iols, and examined the shape and size of their instruments with
curiosity. On Sunday theatrical representations were given, and Beatrice
appeared in a wonderful new gown made of gold-striped cloth, with a
crimson vest laced with fine silver thread "arranged," wrote an admiring
lady-in-waiting, "in the most graceful fashion. This your sister wore,"
she adds, "because it was Carnival Sunday; but even now, although Lent
has begun for most of us, Carnival is not yet over for these highnesses,
since Signor Lodovico and his duchess, Messer Galeazzo, the Duke and
Duchess of Milan, and many of their courtiers, have received
dispensations from Rome to eat meat all the same."[33]

Meanwhile Beatrice's little son was growing into a strong healthy child,
and her letters are full of the beauty and perfections of her precious
babe. Again and again, in her notes to Isabella, she talks of "my son
Ercole," with all a young mother's proud delight.

"I cannot tell you," she writes to her sister, "how well Ercole is
looking, and how big and plump he has grown lately. Each time I see him
after a few days' absence, I am amazed and delighted to see how much he
has grown and improved, and I often wish that you could be here to see
him, as I am quite sure you would never be able to stop petting and
kissing him."

Isabella, on her part, wrote warmly to her sister in return, saying how
much she longed to see her beautiful boy--"_il suo bello puttino_" and
"not only to see him, but to hold him in my arms and enjoy his company
after my own fashion."

Duchess Leonora returned to Ferrara at the end of another week, and one
of Beatrice's first anxieties was to have a portrait of her child
painted for her mother. On the 16th of April, she wrote from her
favourite country house Villa Nova, where she had brought the babe to
enjoy the sweet spring air--

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MADAMA MINE, AND DEAREST MOTHER,

"Your Highness must forgive my delay in writing to you. The reason was
that every day I have been hoping the painter would bring me the
portrait of Ercole, which my husband and I now send you by this post.
And, I can assure you, he is much bigger than this picture makes him
appear, for it is already more than a week since it was painted. But I
do not send the measure of his height, because people here tell me if I
measure him he will never grow! Or else I certainly would let you have
it. And my lord and I, both of us, commend ourselves to your Hig