r sister in affectionate terms, and signed herself,
"_Quella che desidera vedere la Signoria Vostra_." She who desires to
see your Highness,

"BEATRICE SFORZA D'ESTE."[50]

Below she added messages from her baby-boy: "Ercole begs me to commend
him to your Highness, and to his new cousin."

Perhaps Beatrice was the more cordial and warm in expressing her
affection for her sister because of the difference that had lately
arisen between her husband and the marquis, who had lately been invited
to take the command of the King of Naples' troops in the war against
Milan. This offer he eventually declined, as well as an invitation from
the French king to enter his service; but on this and other occasions
his attitude excited Lodovico's displeasure, while the Moro's somewhat
imperious request annoyed both Gianfrancesco and his wife. For one
thing, Isabella could not forgive the way in which her brother-in-law
desired that fish from the lake of Garda should to sent to Milan at his
pleasure, and wrote to her husband on the 1st of February in the
following terms:--

"I am quite willing to see that fish should be sent to Milan
occasionally, but not every week, as he requests in his imperious
fashion, as if we were his feudatories, lest it should appear as if we
were compelled to send it, and it were a kind of tribute."

But although Beatrice's exalted position and the splendour of the
Milanese court sometimes excited Isabella's envy, and Lodovico's
pretensions ruffled her equanimity, nothing ever disturbed the happy
relations between the sisters. Beatrice was always frank and generous in
her behaviour to Isabella, and the marchioness remained sincerely
attached to her, and in her letters to her beloved sister-in-law, the
Duchess of Urbino, constantly assures her that she holds the next place
in her heart to that occupied by her only sister, "_la sorella mia
unica, la Duchessa di Bari_."

It was at Vigevano that winter, on the 28th of January, that Lodovico
drew up the deed of gift by which he endowed his wife with his palace
lands of Cussago, as well as the Sforzesca and other lands in the
district of Novara and Pavia. The deed, signed with his own hand, and
richly illuminated by some excellent miniature painter of the Milanese
school, is preserved in the British Museum, and is an admirable example
of contemporary Lombard art. Medallion portraits of Lodovico and
Beatrice are painted on the vellum, together with a frieze of lo