During the Borgian usurpation of their duchy in the same year, she shared her husband’s exile at Venice, and on returning to Urbino earlier than Guidobaldo, she amused herself with a scenic representation of the chief events that had occurred during their absence. She cared for her husband tenderly in his illnesses, administered his government wisely when he was called away, and on his death acted as regent and guardian for his nephew and successor, with whom she maintained affectionate relations as long as she lived, and from appropriating whose dominions she strove to the utmost to dissuade Leo X. Next to her husband’s niece by marriage, Emilia Pia (see note 37), her closest friend seems to have been her brother’s wife, the famous Isabella d'Este (see note 397), with whom she often travelled and continually corresponded by letter. Although still young and accounted beautiful at her husband’s death, she remained faithful to his memory, and the years of her widowhood were cheered by the companionship of her niece, the young duchess Eleanora of Urbino (see note 432). If we may trust universal contemporary opinion of her virtues and beauty, the author of THE COURTIER flattered her as little as did the painter of her portrait in the Uffizi Gallery. [Illustration: FEDERICO GONZAGA MARQUESS OF MANTUA FATHER OF “MY LADY DUCHESS” 1440-1484 ] Enlarged from a part of Alinari’s photograph (no. 18705) of the fresco, “The Return of the Exile,” in the _Sala degli Sposi_ of the Gonzaga Palace at Mantua, painted not later than 1474 by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506). See Heinrich Thode’s monograph on Mantegna, p. 56. For a notice of the Marquess’s life see note 263. Note 13 page 3. Vittoria Colonna seems to have had this passage in mind when she wrote, 20 September 1524, to Castiglione in praise of his book: “It would not be fitting for me to tell you what I think of it, for the same reason which you say prevents you from speaking of the beauty of my lady Duchess.”