BIANCA SFORZA 
described as “ a profile portrait of Madonna . . . 
daughter of Signor Lodovico of Milan . . . after¬ 
wards married to the Emperor Maximilian, by the 
hand of . . . Milanese.” Taddeo Contarini was a 
wealthy Venetian banker, who often supplied Isabella 
d’Este and her lord with loans of money, and who 
owned several fine paintings by Giorgione and other 
choice works of art. Nothing would be more likely 
than that, after the sack of the Castello of Milan 
by the French in 1499, and the dispersion of the 
Moro’s treasures, this picture fell into the hands of 
some Venetian dealer, who sold it to Contarini. But 
there was some evident confusion in the Anonimo’s 
mind as to the two Bianca Sforzas. It was not 
Lodovico’s daughter, but his niece, the sister of the 
reigning Duke, who in 1498 became the wife of 
Maximilian I. Two superb portraits of the young 
Empress are still in existence. Both were painted by 
Ambrogio de’ Predis, who at the Emperor’s request 
was sent to Innsbruck in his bride’s suite, and who 
took refuge there in 1502, after the conquest of 
Milan by the French. One of Bianca’s portraits is 
now in the Widener Gallery, at Philadelphia, U.S.A., 
the other remains in the possession of the Countess 
Visconti-Arconati, in Paris. In the one she wears a 
sumptuous court robe and a profusion of jewels, in 
the other she is clad in a simple tight-fitting bodice, 
cut square at the neck, with a single string of pearls 
169 
