Galeazzo’s love of decoration vented itself in the adornment of his palaces with paintings and works of art. He employed a host of artists, and in his impatience and excitement demanded miracles of them. He would have marble palaces and painted chambers rise as at the stroke of a magician’s wand; and an oft-told tale relates how he commanded a certain artist to decorate a whole wall with portraits of the ducal family in a single night. And woe to those who displeased him. The glittering, gaudy figure of this prince, with the great black eyes and hawk nose, and the white effeminate hands, dressed in the motley parti-coloured dress, red and white, used by the Dukes of Milan, moves through the pages of history in an alternation of black shadow and garish light. He was pointed out in whispers as the murderer of his own mother. It is true that his imperious temper had quickly resented Bianca Maria’s attempt to share in the government and to retain the power which her influence on her husband had given her. A short struggle had ensued between the mother and son, and ended by the defeated Duchess resolving to withdraw to her dower city of Cremona and there exercise her lawful authority. But neither did this division of the State suit the new Duke, and he detained her in the Castle of Melegnano, where, devoured by anger and grief, she fell sick after a few months and died, poisoned, according to common belief. But the accusation appears to rest only on Galeazzo’s general reputation for wickedness, and the ingratitude and want of filial piety which he had already shown himself capable of towards his mother. He is not a singular instance, however, of a young sovereign disagreeing with a dominant queen-mother. With as scant evidence, the death of his first betrothed, Dorotea Gonzaga, which freed him to make the more advantageous alliance with Bona, is laid to Galeazzo’s charge. [Illustration: GALEAZZO MARIA SFORZA, BY PIERO POLLAIUOLO (UFFIZI, FLORENCE) _To face p. 138_] [_Alinari, Florence_ ]