During the first years of his rule Lodovico did little to the Castle beyond completing its defences. But as time went on he allowed himself to assume the splendour of a reigning prince, and to satisfy an artistic appetite as eager as Galeazzo’s and ordered by a finer discrimination. The great artists whom he called to his court were set to work to make the palace such a home of art and beauty as the world has rarely seen. Their services were required not only for lasting work, but to design the ephemeral decorations of the gorgeous state ceremonies in which the regent delighted to display the wealth at his command. The magnificent decorations for the coming of the young Duke’s bride, Isabella of Aragon, in 1489, were designed, it is said, by Leonardo da Vinci. The regent’s own approaching marriage with Beatrice d’Este caused a great ferment of artistic activity during the next year in the Rocchetta in preparation for her habitation there. With despotic impatience Lodovico summoned all the best “painters of histories”—_depinctori de istoriade_—to come to Milan within two days of his order on pain of heavy fines, and show designs for the decoration of the Sala della Palla. He himself describes the room in a letter to his brother Cardinal Ascanio. The ceiling was blue, with golden stars, in similitude of the heavens, and the walls were covered with pictures on canvas representing the exploits of Francesco Sforza, whose image on horseback beneath a triumphal arch was depicted at the upper end. With the advent of Beatrice d’Este the Rocchetta became the scene of an incomparable gaiety. The young princess filled it with new life. Her extraordinary capacity for enjoyment never knew satiety, not even in the lengthiest of state functions, which she enlivened by teasing the hoary ambassadors who occupied the place of honour beside her. In the beautiful rooms prepared for her in the south-west side of the court she lived her brief enchanted existence in the midst of the most exquisite environment which her husband’s wealth and devotion and the fine art of the Renaissance could create for her. [Illustration: THE ROCCHETTA, CASTELLO] How difficult it is to-day, in this exhumed corpse of her old home, these dry bones of the past, denuded of all their old richness of detail and decoration, to realise that vivid young presence. Yet the sun shines gloriously in the wide cortile this afternoon, making a stately pattern of light and shade in the arcades, and we recognise at least in the fair and spacious proportions of the building and the grace of sculptured column and curving arch, that Renaissance beauty of architecture which made it once a worthy setting for such a prince and princess as Lodovico il Moro and Beatrice d’Este.