It is curious to reflect on the possible changes in the course of events in Italian history during the next thirty years, if Lodovico Sforza's proposals had reached Ferrara a few months earlier, and Isabella d'Este, instead of her sister Beatrice, had become his wife. Would the rare prudence and self-control of the elder princess have led her to play a different part in the difficult circumstances which surrounded her position at the court of Milan as the Moro's wife? Would Isabella's calmer temperament and wise and far-seeing intellect have been able to restrain Lodovico's ambitious dreams and avert his ruin? The cordial relations that were afterwards to exist between Lodovico and his gifted sister-in-law, the Moro's keen appreciation of Isabella's character, incline us to believe that she would have acquired great influence over her lord; and that so remarkable a woman would have played a very important part on this larger stage. But the Fates had willed otherwise, and Beatrice d'Este became the bride of Lodovico Sforza. Her royal grandfather, old King Ferrante, gave his sanction to the proposed marriage, although he refused to part from his little grandchild at present, and when, five years later, Beatrice returned to Ferrara, she assumed the title and estate of Duchess of Bari, and was publicly recognized as Lodovico's promised wife. She had by this·time reached the age of ten, and her espoused husband was exactly thirty-four.

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