of other occupations added their voices in moments of leisure. Among these was Bramante, who, in the intervals of his labours as architect, engineer, painter and master of revels, competed eagerly for the laurel wreath. The chief theme of their song, and the object of the gallant adoration and service of all, was the younger Beatrice da Este, who at fifteen came to Milan to be the Moro’s bride. To this child of tuneful Ferrara, trained from childhood upwards in all the æsthetic traditions of its famous Court, an atmosphere of poetry, music and art was as natural as the air she breathed. With that full and eager vitality which she shared with her father, Duke Ercole, and her sister, Isabella of Mantua, she sought all beautiful and joyous things. In the Court of her rich and indulgent lord she could satisfy every desire. For the rich equipment of her person and her surroundings she had the rarest talent at her command. Leonardo da Vinci devised curious girdles for her. That finest of goldsmiths, Caradosso, carved the beautiful gems which she wore, and spent his most delicate workmanship on pax or reliquary for her oratory. To create her presentment in marble she could choose a Gian Cristoforo Romano, most cultured and graceful of young sculptors. Her love of sweet melody was fed by the crowd of skilled musicians who frequented this Court, where their art was traditionally welcome. Besides the Flemish priest Cordier, and the other ultramontane singers of Duke Galeazzo’s celebrated choir, there were here the viol player, Jacopo di San Secondo—the Apollo of Raphael’s Parnassus—whose strains were able to soothe the Moro in moments of fever and pain, Atalante Migliorotti, the friend and companion of Leonardo, and others numberless, nameless to us now. An incomparable craftsman, Lorenzo di Pavia, made instruments for her of purest tone, in cases of ivory and ebony most exquisitely worked. She played herself upon these, and had a sweet voice. Many a time with her devoted knight, Galeazzo di San Severino, model of all fashionable graces, and himself an accomplished singer, and her favourite Daino, most musical and delightful of fools, she and her ladies would make harmonious concert. As became a daughter of Este, Beatrice extended a princely patronage to scholarship and serious literature. Her secretary, the learned Vincenzo Calmeta, tells us that she engaged men suitably gifted to read aloud to her the _Divina Commedia_ and the works of other Italian poets. She would give serious attention to literary debates, such as the lively poetic contention we read of between Bramante and Gaspare Visconte, on the respective merits of Dante and Petrarca.