BIANCA SFORZA 
archives at Milan and Modena, we catch charming 
glimpses of Bianca. We read, for instance, how she 
and Beatrice went out together on bright spring 
mornings to pick flowers in the gardens of the Castello, 
and how they rode out to Vigevano or Cussago, to fly 
their herons and enjoy the balmy sweetness of the air, 
and danced and ran races and played at palla on the 
green sward. In a graphic letter to his master, Duke 
Ercole, Jacopo Trotti describes how on May-day the 
dukes and duchesses, followed by the whole Court, rode 
out from the Castello, according to their usual custom, 
to receive the first flowers of spring —torre del Majo. 
The stately procession issued from the gates in the early 
morning and rode out three miles into the country, 
where the dukes and their consorts flew falcons and 
then returned to the piazza in front of the Castello, 
to receive the first May-blossoms from the hands of 
a troop of maidens, before an immense concourse of 
people. On this occasion Isabella and Beatrice were 
clad in green taby silk and wore their hair after the 
French fashion, crowned by a peaked head-dress, 
studded with pearls, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, 
with long silken veils flowing down to the ground. “ But 
everyone noticed,” remarks Trotti, “that the Duchess 
Beatrice’s pearls were much finer and larger than those 
worn by the Duchess of Milan. And Madonna Bianca, 
the daughter of Signor Lodovico, was dressed in exactly 
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