Book II.] THE ROYAL STUD. 



77 



15 18 the latter sent " a Bolognese gentleman " and an 

 Englishman to bring him horses from Italy,* 



Frizzi, in his " History of Ferrara," mentions the 

 fact of the Duke Alfonso's havino- sent one of his 

 courtiers, named Girolamo Sestola, to Henry VHI. 

 with a present of a most superb horse with gold trap- 

 pings, and three trained falcons and a leopard, which 

 last kind of prey was used in Italy in those times to 

 course hares. f In October, 1515, Ferdinand, King of 

 Arragon, sent Henry VIII. a present of two famous 

 horses, caparisoned regio ornatu, said to have been 

 worth upwards of one hundred thousand ducats. J 



In April, 15 19, Sir Gregory de Cassalis, then at 

 Bologna, was commissioned by Henry VIII. to pur- 

 chase for him the best horses procurable at the time 

 in Spain and Italy. For this purpose he went to the 

 Duke of Ferrara, announced his business, was shown 

 the duke's stud and allowed to choose what he pleased. 

 None were up to the ideal standard, nevertheless two 

 were selected which were "of the breed of Isabella, 

 duchess of Milan." Ferrara, in a letter to Henry, 



* Cardinal Campeggio to the Marquis of Mantua. Lond., Nov. lo, 

 1518. 



t Sanuto mentions having seen a leopard take a hare at Vigevano in 

 1496 ; and in an Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Titian, in the 

 Manfrini gallery, two leopards are seen in a leash like dogs. Frizzi says, 

 the mission and present had for object to induce Henry VIII. to persuade 

 Leo. X. to restore Modena and Roggio to the Duke of Ferrara. 



X Ferdinand the Catholic was at this time considered insane because 

 he gave those horses to his son-in-law. He is said to have never 

 recovered the effects of the aphrodisiac dish which his new queen, Ger- 

 maine de Fois, set before him in the month of March, 15 13, as recorded 

 in one of the letters of Peter Martyr, who in a subsequent epistle says 

 King Ferdinand died of "hunting and matrimony, either of which are 

 fatal to most men at the age of si.\ty-three." 



