"Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, unbetrayed; For if of our affections none find grace in sight of Heaven, then, wherefore had God made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have than that in loving thee Glory to that eternal peace is paid, Who such divinity to thee imparts As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. His hope is treacherous only whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour: But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower, That breathes on earth the air of Paradise." The ducal court at Ferrara became, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the centre of much intellectual life and brilliancy; generous patronage was extended to the arts and to literature, and here gathered together a company which rivalled in splendor the court of Urbino in the days of the Countess Elizabetta. The duke, Alfonso II., son of that unfortunate Renee, daughter of Louis XII. of France, who had been kept in an Italian prison for twelve long years because of her suspected sympathy with the reformed doctrines, came of a long line of princes who had in the past given liberally to the cause of learning. During his reign, which covers the period from 1559 to 1597, the social side of court life in his dukedom came into special prominence. The two sisters of Alfonso--Lucrezia and Leonora--presided over this court, and to it came, from time to time, many of the most beautiful women of Italy. Tarquinia Moeza was there, a woman of beauty and of rare poetic gifts; Lucrezia Bendidio, beautiful and accomplished, and having constantly about her a most admiring throng of poets and literati; and later came the two acknowledged beauties of the day, Leonora di Sanvitali, Countess of Scandiano, and her no less charming mother-in-law, Barbara, Countess of Sala. Among the men of this company, suffice it to mention the name of the poet Guarini, whose fame has become enduring on account of his charming and idyllic drama, _Il pastor fido_, for he it is who seems to embody that sprightliness of wit which gave to Ferrara at that time its gladsome reputation.