66 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



rara, where it was said that " there were as many poets as 

 there were frogs in the country round about, " were gath- 

 ered the most gifted poets of the Eenaissance who had 

 been attracted there to recite their latest masterpieces. 

 Among them were Clement Marot, the first poet of modern 

 France, and Ariosto, the immortal author of Orlando Furi- 

 oso. There were the great painters, Titian and Bellini, 

 and the illustrious poet, Torquato Tasso, whose love sub- 

 sequently immortalized ReneVs youngest daughter Leo- 

 nora. 



A similar artistic and intellectual supremacy was held by 

 Isabelle d'Este. For portrait painters she had Titian and 

 Leonardo da Vinci, while, as decorators of her home, she 

 had Bellini and Perugino, whose compositions she herself 

 arranged, even in the minutest details. So it was likewise 

 in the gay and brilliant court of Beatrice d'Este, in Milan, 

 a place where artists and scholars of all nationalities 

 were always sure of a cordial welcome. 



But the ideal center of intellectual culture was the court 

 of Urbino, the central figure of which was the learned and 

 accomplished Elizabetta Gonzaga. This picturesque city of 

 the eastern slope of the Apennines was then to Italy what 

 Athens had been to Greece in the days of Pericles; and 

 Elizabetta was to its court what Aspasia was in her own 

 matchless salon the magnet which attracted all the artists 

 and men of letters of the age. 



Castiglione, whose great work, The Courtier, was partly 

 written as a memorial of the peerless woman who inspired 

 it, gives us a vivid picture of "the fair ladies, with their 

 quick intelligence and ready sympathy," discussing ques- 

 tions of art, literature, philosophy and Platonism, with the 

 most eminent scholars and artists of Europe. But Cas- 

 tiglione confesses that he is unable to give us more than the 

 mere outline of the picture. ' ' To paint the polished society 

 of Urbino," as has been well said, "we should need colors 

 no palette contains transparencies of the Grecian sky, the 



