s was duly informed, and, in sending her
congratulations, was able to tell her sister that she was hoping to
become the mother of a third child early in the following year. In
September the marquis fell dangerously ill of fever, and his wife
hurried to join him in Calabria, and, as soon as he was able to move,
brought him back by slow stages to Mantua. During that summer, the only
letter of interest which Isabella wrote to the Milanese court was a note
to her friend, the jester Barone, begging him to find out for her how
Messer Galeazzo and others who like him are the glass of fashion, manage
to dye their hair black on certain occasions, and afterwards resume the
natural colour of their locks, adding that she remembers distinctly to
have seen Count Francesco Sforza with black locks one day, and the next
with brown.

On the 9th of November, Lodovico wrote an imperative note from Vigevano
to the Castellan of the Rocchetta, Bernardino del Corte, desiring him to
see that the walls of the new rooms are dry and ready for habitation by
the end of the month, since the duchess must have the use of the
apartments adjoining the ball-room during her approaching confinement,
and telling him to ask Bergonzio, the treasurer, for money, if more
should be required. Bernardino replied that the rooms were finished, and
that good fires had been lighted to dry the walls, and that the whole
suite would be furnished by the following week and ready to receive the
duchess. He also informed the duke that the new rooms on the side of the
garden would be completed by Christmas, and told him that Bramante,
after finishing the arcades of the new gallery between the ball-room and
Rocchetta, had begun the design of the new tower. Both Leonardo and
Bramante were employed on extensive works in the Castello during the
duke's absence that summer, although the Florentine master, we know, was
chiefly engaged in finishing his great fresco in the refectory of the
Dominican convent outside the Porta Vercellina. Often during the summer
heats, Matteo Bandello, then a young novice of the Order, saw the
Florentine master at noonday, "when the sun was in the sign of the
Lion," leave the Corte Vecchia, where he was finishing his great horse,
and, hurrying through the streets to the Grazie, mount the scaffold,
brush in hand, and put a few touches to some of the figures in the
Cenacolo, after which he would hurry away as quickly as he came. Often
too the young friar w