nd she
was impulsive,--an added charm where beauty reigns,--worldly-minded, and
dreadfully extravagant; moreover, she dressed to perfection.

The Duke of Bracciano paid rare visits to Florence, but the Duchess, in
compliance with her marriage-contract, spent a portion of each year with
her husband in Rome. These visits were not occasions of happiness and
satisfaction. The two had scarcely any interests in common, and the
infrequency of intercourse entailed unfamiliarity and embarrassment. The
good-byes were never unwelcome on either side!

The Duke took up, once more, his military duties, following in the
footsteps of his father as commander, in 1566, of a division of the
Imperial army against the Turks. For his bravery at the battle of
Lepanto, he was made Field-Marshal of the Emperor and a Count of the
Holy Roman Empire. In other respects he had his consolations for his
enforced separation from his wife--and Isabella, naturally, had hers
too!

It was said that every man fell in love with her, and she, on her part,
did not restrain her passion. There was no one to advise, no one to
check, no one to help her to keep in the path of wifely fidelity.
Reports of _liaisons_ were made to the Duke by his Chamberlain from time
to time, but these were couched in words which concealed his own part
therein. He and the Duchess were accustomed to be much alone together.
He was a musician and a linguist, a scholar and an artist like herself,
and a most attractive companion. She helped him in his great literary
work--_Lezione della Lingua Toscana_--perhaps the only serious
occupation she ever undertook.

An intimacy, with such a similarity of tastes, ripened naturally into a
romantic attachment--certainly quite in accord with the tenets of
Platonic humanism, and perhaps something more! That Duke Paolo was
conversant with the relations of his wife with his cousin was well
known, but he made no complaint, and took no action to check them.
Likely enough he had that "easy-going contempt of everything and
everybody" which Niccolo Macchiavelli has stigmatised as the prevailing
tone of Italian society.

Probably the sad deaths of Princess Maria and Duchess Lucrezia d'Este,
and the tragic events in the Maremma of 1562, affected Isabella greatly,
but they only tended to increase her husband's detestation for
everything Florentine. No doubt he judged that Cosimo's hand slew both
Maria and Garzia--might it not strike Isabella or himself! W