There were tinges of peculiar sadness in the gloomy fate which thus overtook this unhappy youth. In the preceding summer he had been betrothed to Isotta, daughter of Nicolò Marquis of Ferrara, and but three months before his death, had attended the nuptials of her brother Leonello. On that occasion he spent fifteen days in joyous excitement, preluding, as he hoped, similar festivities in his own honour. After the piazza of Ferrara had glittered with a gallant show of chivalrous exercises, and had witnessed the semi-religious pageant of St. George's triumph over the dragon, it was, as if by magic, converted into a forest-scene, studded with goodly oaks amid a thick jungle of underwood, the haunt of numerous wild animals. Upon these the sportsmen wrought their pleasure, until the place was strewed with bodies of bullocks, steers, wild boars, and goats. As a test of the attendant good cheer, we have a return of provender consumed, amounting to 2000 oxen, 40,000 pairs of fowls, pheasants and pigeons without number, 20,000 measures of wine, and 2000 _moggie_ of grain, besides 15,000 pounds of sweetmeats, and 12,000 of wax candles.[51] On the conclusion of festivities congenial to his tastes, but ill-suited to his impending fate, the young Duke lingered in dalliance with his bride, returning home only the eve of the fatal night which summoned him "From that unrest which men miscal delight." [Footnote 51: _Diario Ferrarese_, in _R.I.S._, XXIV., 194.] It remains doubtful whether his own marriage was ever completed, as supposed by Litta, but Isotta's cup was fully charged with bitters. During the festive celebration of her after nuptials with one of the Frangipani, the partner and lover of her maid of honour fell dead in the dance, an evil omen too fully realised in domestic dissensions which soon sent her back to her brother's court. The Duke was buried in the church of S. Francesco, but his remains are said to have been subsequently removed to the chapter-house of that convent. In a neglected cloister leading from the church, there may still be seen two monuments bearing the Montefeltro arms, one of which, canopied by light columns of spiral Gothic, has a stork, holding in its mouth a scroll.[*52] Here probably was the ill-fated Oddantonio's tomb; the nameless dead to whom the other was dedicated may have been his grandfather, Count Antonio, or the Countess Rengarda, both of whom were interred in these precincts, where their graves were opened and identified in 1634. [Footnote *52: The other in the sacristy is the _Flagellation_ with the Duke's portrait on the right; it is the work of Piero della Francesca.]