One cannot quote her son’s wife, the fair-haired Lucrezia Borgia, as a model princess, though in later years she partly redeemed the faults of her past by her kindness to the poor, her intelligent patronage of art and letters, and her devotion as wife and mother. It is not likely that she was as black as she has been painted, or, as has been suggested by later historians, Ariosto, with all his courtier love for paying pretty compliments to women, especially princesses, would hardly have dared to put her on a level with the Roman Lucretia in “charms and chastity,” in a country where satire was merciless and scandal many-tongued. In her tragical youth she was possibly more sinned against than sinning. With a father who was the embodiment of all the vices, and brothers as powerful as they were infamous, one can readily imagine that she had little choice in her manner of life. It was quite in the interest of this terrible trio that her three husbands were disposed of in one way or another, and it was equally in their interest that the widowed Duke Alfonso was virtually forced to marry her, though evidently against his inclination. The wishes of a Holy Father with unlimited power were compelling. And so it happened that this beautiful, clever, and much-talked-of woman went to Ferrara with a flourish of trumpets, as became a pope’s daughter. She was only twenty-five, though she had seen tragedies enough to color a lifetime. On her way she visited Urbino with her two thousand attendants,--princesses were costly guests in those days,--and the good Duchess Elisabetta, by command of this wicked and grasping Holy Father, who had designs on her own domains that might be furthered by her absence, went with the much heralded bride to take part in the magnificent wedding festivities. There was little in the entry of this brilliant but very much clouded Lucrezia on her white jennet, resplendent in satin and gold and flashing jewels, to suggest the beauty and desirableness of “plain living and high thinking.” To be sure, she had university dons to support her canopy, and all the learning of Ferrara in her train; but it was a fashion of these princesses to honor scholars. Then there were comedies of Plautus to give the occasion a classic flavor, besides music, dancing, medieval combats, Moorish interludes, and more barbaric amusements for the multitude. The splendors of dress, the wealth of velvets, brocades, gold, and gems, were all duly chronicled by the society reporter of the time, and the descriptions of modern court balls seem modest and tame in comparison. The good Duchess Leonora had been sleeping in her tomb with the other princesses many a year, duly labeled by Ariosto. But the pure-souled Isabella d’Este was there with a new and regal costume for every scene, and no doubt various misgivings about her imposing sister-in-law which she thought best to say nothing about.