no • Violante's Later Life 



believed, of a poisoned dish. Lodovico and his brother were 

 removed to another prison, and she never saw him again,^^ since 

 she died, as we have seen, in November, 1386. 



Twice a papal dispensation had to be obtained to enable her 

 to marry, the suitors being within the prohibited degrees of 

 affinity.'^ The first of these was a violent madman. ^^ The 

 second, Lodovico, so it is expressly said, she married against her 

 will.^* In less than 19 years she was wedded and widowed three 

 times, her marriage each time being from considerations of policy. 

 She had no child by any of her husbands. Her father was schem- 

 ing and ferocious; her uncle (also her father-in-law) was 

 scheming and ferocious; her third husband was scheming and 

 ferocious^^; her second husband was ferocious, but unequal to 

 successful scheming. The groans of the oppressed were to be 

 heard on every side ; battle, murder, and sudden death, were the 

 incidents of daily life ; all the cold and glittering splendor which 

 marked the high days of her life was paid for with intolerable 

 exactions, with coins wrung from the poor, with the tears and 

 sighs of the overburdened. She herself was the plaything of 

 politics, the tool of magnificent and unscrupulous tyrants, the 

 most unfortunate of wives and widows ; yet a modem historian 

 can say^*: *She was a lady of sweet and honorable soul. It 

 rarely happens that in one house are found three spirits so 

 exquisite, so compassionate, and so swift to all goodness, as were 

 Bianca of Savoy,^^ Isabella of France,^® and Violante, between 

 whom the slightest dissension never arose. They were noble 

 souls in lovely bodies, and Heaven only knows what good they 

 wrought in natures like those of Galeazzo and his son.' 



"So R. I. S. 16. 546. She died in Pavia, and was buried in S. Pietro 

 Ciel d'Oro {R. L S. 16. 546, 778). 



"i?. /. S. 23. 594; M. H. P. 3. 1340. 



" 'Non bene sensatus' {R. L S. 16. 541, cf . 546) ; 'qui saevis et difficilimis 

 moribus erat' (R. L S. 23. 597) ; *un umor bestiale e quasi furioso' 

 (Muratori 8. 383). 



"/?. /. S. 16. 546, 778. 



"Lodovico and his two brothers, Carolo and Rodolfo, followed in the 

 footsteps of their father. For the catalogue of their misdeeds, see R. L S. 

 16. 799-800. 



"Magenta i. 176. 



" See p. 48. 



^^ See p. 49. 



