Several years after his first introduction to Leonora d'Este, and after some of the most impassioned and least ambiguous of his verses were written, the Court of Ferrara was embellished by the arrival of two of the most beautiful women in all Italy,--Leonora di Sanvitali, Countess of Scandiano, then a youthful bride, and her not less lovely mother-in-law, Barbara, Countess of Sala. The Countess of Scandiano is the _other_ LEONORA who has puzzled all the biographers, from the open gallantry and avowed adoration with which Tasso has celebrated her; but in strains,--O how different from the sentiment, the veneration, the tenderness, and the mystery which breathe through his verses to Leonora d'Este! A third Leonora was said to exist in the person of the Countess's favourite attendant: but this is untrue. The name of Leonora's waiting-maid was Laura. Tasso has addressed several little poems to her; and there can be no doubt that she occasionally served as a blind to his real attachment for her mistress. The Countess of Scandiano's attendant was the fair Olympia, to whom is addressed that exquisitely graceful Canzone, O con le Grazie elette, e con gli amori. The Duchess of Ferrara's maid, the beautiful Livia d'Arco, and even her dwarf, are also immortalised in Tasso's verses, who poured forth his courtly gallantry with an exhaustless and splendid prodigality, fitting their praises to his lyre, as if it had never resounded to higher themes. At a court festival given by the Duke Alphonso, in honour of his beautiful and illustrious visitors, the Countess of Sala appeared with her fine hair wreathed round her head in the form of a coronet, which with her grand style of beauty and majestic deportment, gave her the air of a Juno. The young Countess of Scandiano, on the other hand, enchanted by her Hebe-like graces, her smiles, and the unequalled beauty of a pouting underlip;--nothing was talked of at Ferrara but these braided tresses and this lovely lip; the poets and the young cavaliers were divided into parties on the occasion. Tasso has celebrated both with the same voluptuous elegance of style in which he described his Armida. To the Countess of Scandiano he wrote, Quel labbro, che le rose han colorito Molle si sporge, e tumidetto in fuore, &c. To the Countess of Sala, Barbara! maraviglia de' tempi nostri.