In spite of their reputation for scholarship, we have not any very serious remains of their intellectual efforts, and yet some of them wrote poetry and prose well above the average in merit, and at least in Italy their works are still read by students of Italian literature. For instance, we have the poems of Lucretia de Medici, the mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had been one of the Tornabuoni family, merchant princes of Florence, with many of the solid virtues of the middle class from which she sprang. Tradition tells us that she was ever her great son's most trusted councillor, and he has left it on record that he thought her the wisest. She was {318} noted for her princely alms, her endowment of poor convents, her dowries to orphan girls, and though it has sometimes been said that these were all so many bids for popularity, any such discount of her good works wrongs her deeply, for she was profoundly religious, took particular care to bring up her children piously, and it is to the fact that she wrote hymns for them that we owe the poetic works that have come to us and which rank high among this form of poetry. The best known of these women of the Renaissance, that is, the most famous for their learning, were the sisters D'Este, Isabella and Beatrice, of whom we have so many interesting traditions. The famous Battista Guarino of Verona was chosen as teacher for the girls, and with him they learned to read Cicero and Virgil and study the history of Greece. They learned Italian literature from the many distinguished literary men, some of them themselves gifted poets, who came to the beautiful palace and its gardens at Ferrara, and were welcomed by the well-known patron of learning, the Duke of Ferrara. They learned to read French at least and to enjoy Provençal poetry. Their mother, Leonora of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand, or as he is sometimes called, Ferrante, King of Naples, was herself a scholarly woman. The traditions of scholarship at the Court of Naples were deep, and of long duration. As their father was the famous scholar and patron of learning, Duke Ercole I, there was a precious heritage of culture on both sides. Their mother, however, was more known for her piety even than for her learning, though this was so noteworthy as to be historical. Her charities made her looked up to by all of her people until it is not surprising that the chroniclers of her time speak of her as a saint. [Illustration: BELLINI, MADONNA, ST. CATHERINE AND MARY MAGDALEN (VENICE)]