body and mind." Two years afterwards, he gratified Barbara's fondest wish by bestowing a Cardinal's hat on her second son Francesco, a boy of seventeen, who was still studying at the University of Pavia. Her maternal pride was equally pleased when, in 1462, the Emperor Frederick III. arranged a marriage for her eldest son Federico with Margaret, daughter of Duke Sigismund of Bavaria. But the bad manners and rude habits of the German envoys, who came to Mantua to draw up the marriage contract, shocked the Italians, who declared that they behaved like cooks and scullions; and Federico, who is said to have been in love with another maiden, fled to Naples rather than marry this foreign bride. For several months nothing was heard of him, but at last he was discovered by King Ferrante, living in a destitute condition under an assumed name in the poor quarters of the city, and some time passed before his mother could induce him to return home and crave his father's forgiveness. In March 1463, Gianfrancesco and Rodolfo Gonzaga were sent to bring home the bride, who entered Mantua in state on the 7th of June. The chronicler Schivenoglia, who was Federico's secretary, evidently shared his master's dislike for the Germans, and describes the bride as short of stature, blonde and plump, and unable to speak a word of Italian; while her attendants were clad in coarse red clothes of ugly shape and colour. "As to their customs and manners," he adds significantly, "I will say nothing."[1] Margaret herself, however, soon learnt to appreciate the refinement of Italian manners, and when some years later she paid a visit to her old home took a troop of
- ↑ A. Schivenoglia, Cronaca di Mantova, 1445-1484.
