Oh Isabella
Feb. 25th, 2014 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveI have been reading some pages from the Renaissance in Europe text books from an arts course i did some years ago. It is good to keep your mind active and to refresh things that i may have forgotten. I was reading about Isabella d'este . She was the Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance and as a major cultural and political figure.
She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court. The poet Ariosto labeled her as the "liberal and magnanimous Isabella", while author Matteo Bandello described her as having been "supreme among women".[1] Diplomat Niccolò da Correggio went even further by hailing her as "The First Lady of the world"[1].
She served as the regent of Mantua during the absence of her husband, Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua and the minority of her son, Federico, Duke of Mantua. In 1500 she met King Louis XII of France in Milan on a diplomatic mission to persuade him not to send his troops against Mantua.
She was a prolific letter-writer, and maintained a lifelong correspondence with her sister-in-law Elisabetta Gonzaga. Lucrezia Borgia was another sister-in-law; she later became the mistress of Isabella's husband.
1/ Marek - The Bed And the Throne , The Life of Isabella d'Este (Harper and Row)
She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court. The poet Ariosto labeled her as the "liberal and magnanimous Isabella", while author Matteo Bandello described her as having been "supreme among women".[1] Diplomat Niccolò da Correggio went even further by hailing her as "The First Lady of the world"[1].
She served as the regent of Mantua during the absence of her husband, Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua and the minority of her son, Federico, Duke of Mantua. In 1500 she met King Louis XII of France in Milan on a diplomatic mission to persuade him not to send his troops against Mantua.
She was a prolific letter-writer, and maintained a lifelong correspondence with her sister-in-law Elisabetta Gonzaga. Lucrezia Borgia was another sister-in-law; she later became the mistress of Isabella's husband.
1/ Marek - The Bed And the Throne , The Life of Isabella d'Este (Harper and Row)
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Date: 2014-02-25 02:02 pm (UTC)Hugs, Jon
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Date: 2014-02-25 05:10 pm (UTC)I trust the book doesn't come up with the usual nonsense about Lucrezia Borgia who is a far more complex figure than the appalling Hollywood Lady Macbeth style portrayals suggest? In historical fact, she was by far the most decent and likeable member of that family and never poisoned anyone.
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Date: 2014-02-25 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-25 05:32 pm (UTC)