iamonds, which
Messer Lodovico has bought for two thousand ducats, and is having strung
into necklaces for his wife's ladies.

A week of brilliant festivities had been arranged by Duke Ercole in
honour of his son-in-law. A splendid tournament was held one day on the
Piazza in front of the Castello. "Messer Galeazzo rode in the lists,"
writes the old chronicler of Ferrara, "with all his usual _gentilezza_,
and carried off the prize against his brothers Caiazzo and Fracassa,
Niccolo da Correggio, Ermes Sforza, and all other rivals. Afterwards,
taking a massive lance in his hand, he charged a gentleman of Mirandola,
broke his lance, and unseated him, so that both horse and man rolled
over together. And Lodovico sent one hundred ducats to the soldier of
Mirandola, because he fought so well. Another day a single-handed
contest between a Milanese and a Mantuan man-at-arms was held in the
courtyard of the castle, and won by the Mantuan, and Lodovico gave him a
satin vest with a gold fringe and skirt of silver cloth, and the Marquis
of Mantua and others made him fine presents."[38] Then came the
horse-races for the _pallium_, which Don Alfonso won, and at which
Gianfrancesco Gonzaga's famous Barbary horses made a splendid show. A
beautiful _festa_ was also held one afternoon in the gardens, at which
all the court assisted, and in the evenings, theatrical representations
of the _Menaechmi_ and other Latin plays were given, which pleased
Lodovico so well that he declared he must build a theatre at Milan on
his return. Amongst the pieces given on this occasion was a comedy, of
which the plot, Prosperi remarks, appeared to be aimed against Signor
Lodovico, but it seems to have given him no offence.

The Moro was apparently in the highest good-humour, courteous and
affable, after his wont, to all, and full of proud delight in his wife
and child. He admired the palaces and gardens of Ferrara, and surveyed
Duke Ercole's latest improvements with keen interest. The width and
cleanliness of the streets, struck him especially, and he determined to
follow the duke's example and remove the forges and shops which blocked
up the road and interfered with the traffic and the pleasantness of the
prospect at Milan. But of all the sights which he saw in Ferrara, what
pleased him best was Ercole's beautiful villa of Belriguardo. On
Saturday, the 25th of May, after Beatrice and her mother had started for
Venice, Ercole took his son-in-law and the M