Certain tragical discourses of Bandello Author:Matteo Bandello Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRO- stand something of her charm as we look upon her grave, DUCTION 8Weet face, painted by Luini on the eastern wall of the church of the Monastero Maggiore i... more »n her native city. Possessed herself of high intellectual qualities, she devoted some of her great wealth to the patronage of artists and men of letters. She became strongly attached to Bandello, and in her house he found a pleasant refuge and congenial society. There, too, he was brought into contact with persons like the Countess of Celant and the Duchess of Maln's ill-fated husband, whose tragical histories he afterwards gave to the world. It was at the request of his patroness that he first began to write down the novelle that he had himself told, or had heard told, in her house. His fidelity to the Sforza faction ultimately made it expedient for Bandello to quit Milan. Driven from the city by political discords, he took refuge at Mantua, where he enjoyed the friendship of Isabella d'Este. There, surrounded again by a lieta brigata of artists and poets, of lords and ladies, he often discoursed of affairs of love, and won admiration by his skill as a narrator. So far did he succeed in gaining the esteem of the great Duchess, that, when certain ' envious malignants'1 complained to the General of his order of the too great freedom of the Dominican's walk and conversation, Isabella at once took up his defence, and despatched to his superior an extraordinary document,2 in which she testified to the religious and modest life of her friend, and extolled his innumerable virtues. How Bandello was revered and beloved in his own 1 Bandello, Novelle, Parte terza, Nvella 42. See ed. cit., vol. viii. p. 76. Luzio, I Precettori d'Isabella d'Este, Ancona, 1887, p. 45. Bandello at Mantua Isabella d'Este chapter{Section...« less