As the picture unrolls itself before us we are fain to turn away from the spectacle of anguish and all abomination during the hideous years of the Spanish occupation after 1525. The city preyed upon by the fiendish mercenaries, the people outraged, pillaged, and tortured till they yielded up their last mite of buried treasure. Multitudes flying from their homes to avoid worse things and sheltering in the country round, though that was infested by human beasts and wild ones only less cruel, or worse, stopped and bound, little children and all, by their ruthless tormentors, to prevent their escape. And withal siege, starvation; _such a leanness of men from hunger as was an anguish to witness_, the little bread which they possessed seized by the governor, the dying poor driven into so-called refuges, whence every days scores were carried out dead. But the story of these thirty years is not entirely of gloom. If we turn from the people to the great Milanese nobility, we see a different aspect of life, no less tragic in a sense, but brilliant enough and glorified by the fine culture and rare artistic taste of the age. Within their sumptuous palaces and wide secluded gardens, defended by great names and powerful interests from the intrusions of marauding soldiery, or in pleasant country villas beside the lakes and placid rivers of Lombardy, whither they retired when pestilence or famine held sway in the city, they created for themselves that unreal world of ladies and cavaliers, arms and love, of which Ariosto sings. It was during these years that the courtly Dominican friar, Matteo Bandello, was Prior of the Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, and was collecting in the most elect circles those gay and scandalous tales, which, retold by his witty pen with introductions describing the circumstances in which he heard them, give a vivid picture of the incomparable cinquecento society of Milan, with its fine literary accomplishment, vivacious wit and over liberal manners—a society presided over by such gracious figures as Ippolita Sforza, the lady of Bandello’s own particular adoration, and Cecilia Gallerani, the Moro’s old favourite. Ippolita, a granddaughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria, was married to Alessandro Bentivoglio, a son of the deposed Lord of Bologna. She and Cecilia, now the Contessa Bergamini, and Camilla Scarampi made up a trio of Milanese poetesses and literary connoisseurs of finest discrimination and judgment and of wide renown. Apparently careless of the woes of their country, these ladies and others of their rank, with the graceful cavaliers and dilettante ecclesiastics who made their court, occupied themselves in romantic vanities, in amorous intrigues, and in learned and philosophic dalliance. Close relations united them with the other courts and aristocracies of North Italy, and the famous Marchioness of Mantua, Isabella da Este, was often the centre and queen of those elegant