179] Niccolo Leoniceno,
a native of Vincenza, at whose feet many of the most famous scholars and
poets had sat, enjoyed great renown in Ferrara about 1464 as a
physician, mathematician, philosopher, and philologist. He was still the
pride of the city when Lucretia arrived there, as the great
mathematician, Domenico Maria Novara, was then teaching in Bologna,
where Copernicus had been his pupil.

Many famous humanists, who at the time of Lucretia's arrival were still
children or youths--for example, the Giraldi and genial Celio
Calcagnini, who dedicated an epithalamium to her on her appearance in
the city--were members of the Ferrarese university. All of these men
were welcome at the court of the Este because they were accomplished and
versatile. It was not until later, after the sciences had been
classified and their boundaries defined, that the graceful learning of
the humanists degenerated into pedantry.

It was, however, especially the art of poetry which gave Ferrara, in
Lucretia's time, a peculiarly romantic cast. This it was which first
attracted attention to the city as one of the main centers of the
intellectual movement. Ferrara produced numerous poets who composed in
both tongues--Latin and Italian. Almost all the scholars of the day
wrote Latin verses; most of them, however, it must be admitted, were
lacking in poetic fire. Some of the Ferrarese, however, rose to high
positions in poetry and are still remembered; preeminent were the two
Strozzi, father and son, and Antonio Tebaldeo. The poets, however, who
originated the romantic epic in Italian were much more important than
the writers of Latin verse. The brilliant and sensuous court of Ferrara,
together with the fascinating romance of the house of Este--which really
belongs to the Middle Ages--and the charming nobility and modern
chivalry, all contributed to the production of the epic, while the city
of Ferrara, with its eventful history and its striking style of
architecture, was a most favorable soil for it. Monuments of Roman
antiquity are as rare in Ferrara as they are in Florence; everything is
of the Middle Ages. Lucretia did not meet Bojardo, the famous author of
the _Orlando Inamorato_, at the court of his friend Ercole, but the
blind singer of the _Mambriano_, Francesco Cieco, probably was still
living. We have seen how Ariosto, who was soon to eclipse all his
predecessors, greeted Lucretia on her arrival.

The graphic arts had made much less pr