ster, the most unfortunate woman of the age, wife of Giangaleazzo of
Milan, who had been poisoned by Ludovico il Moro. The figure of Isabella
of Milan is the most tragic in the history of Italy of the period
beginning with the invasion of Charles VIII--an epoch filled with a
series of disasters that involved every dynasty of the country. For she
was affected at one and the same time by the fall of two great houses,
that of Sforza and that of Aragon. The saying of Caracciolo in his work,
_De varietate fortunae_, regarding the Sforza, namely, that there is no
tragedy however terrible for which this house would not furnish an
abundance of material may well be applied to both these families.
Isabella had beheld the fall of her once mighty house, and she had seen
her own son Francesco seized and taken to France by Louis XII, where he
died, a priest, in his early manhood. She herself had retired to Bari, a
city which Ludovico il Moro had given up to her in 1499, and of which
she remained duchess until her death, February 11, 1524.

Donna Isabella had taken Lucretia's son to herself, and from the records
of the household expenses of the Duchess of Ferrara it appears that he
was with her in Bari in March, 1505, for on the twenty-sixth of that
month there is the following entry: "A suit of damask and brocade which
her Majesty sent her son Don Rodrigo in Bari as a present."[224] April
3d his mother sent his tutor, Baldassare Bonfiglio, who had come to
Naples, back to him. This man is named in the register under date of
February 25, 1506, as tutor of Don Giovanni. It appears, therefore, that
this child also was in Bari, and was being educated with his playfellow
Rodrigo. In October, 1506, we find the little Giovanni in Carpi, where
he was probably placed at the court of the Pio. From there Lucretia had
him brought to the court of Ferrara on the date mentioned. She therefore
was allowed to have this mysterious infante, but not her own child
Rodrigo, with her. In November, 1506, Giovanni must again have been in
Carpi, for Lucretia sent him some fine linen apparel to that place.[225]

Both children were together again in Bari in April, 1508, for in the
record of the household expenses the expenditures for both, beginning
with May of that year, are given together, and a certain Don Bartolommeo
Grotto is mentioned as instructor to both.[226] The son of Lucretia and
of the murdered Alfonso, therefore, died in the home of Donna Isabella