The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-06-08

was small and dainty and disllked large spaces and towering ceilings. Whether or not she succeeded in having her DOT trait painted by Leonardo da Vinci Is one of those delightful open questions to which new and more interesting an- swers are being given daily. One of these days if you are very, very good, and a mechanic, you may hear all about it, and be actually shown the sketches Leonardo Is said to have made of her for the portrait.
 In her Paradise she wrote that fa- nous letter to her husband which all advanced women think so fine; such a grand example of independence, wo- mems rights, etc, etc. He was tre- mendous fighter. He cared very little on which side he was fighting so long as he was in the very midst of it. He was one of the grandest leaders of the day and all parties sought his services. One unlucky day when he had been fighting grandly against the Venetians he was | captured and taken @ prisoner to Ven- Ice. How he chafed. If his head had eeen cut off at once he would have ac- cepted his fate as a matter of course. But to be kept shut up while such ele- gant fighting was going on all about was worse than being excluded from Donybrook fair. He offered large ran sons which were refused. Then he of fered double, treble. Finally @ huge sum was accepted on two conditions. First, that he would swear on the bones of St. Mark that for ten years he would | not raise finger against the Vene- to,, p,,J I ,f l, ,ie | be given as hostage and for ten years be educated as a Venetian gentleman; his education to be suspended by sus- | pending the boy by the neck should the boys father break his oath. The hus- band accepted the conditions and sent | at once to his wife for the cash and the boy. Her reply is still in existence. One of these days it may be read to you just as she wrote it. It would be spoil ing the fun and letting out the tiger to tell you about it just now.
 l There Is another perfectly charming thing to be seen in Mantua. 1sabella's husband Is called by some historians Francis IT., by others Gianfrancisco III. | Historians have way of disagreeing with one another for the purpose of making their histories indispensable. If all histories were exactly alike, there would be no sense in reading more than one of them. At all events the son and heir, who succeeded to the title, was Frederick IT., whether you spell it in Italian, French, German or English. He took after his father; was a man of l immense size and physical strength, | and was great fayorite of the Emper-
 or Charles ", who made him duke. Up
 to this time the Gonzagas had only been marquises. | When Charles captured and sacked Rome he set off a certain portion of the city for Frederick's personal sacking. | This portion happened to be the artistic
 portion. Singularly enough, right in
 the midst of the sacking the artistic in
 stinct which the duke had inherited l from his mother, but which up to this time had been latent, suddenly burst forth and became for the rest of his life 8 consuming fire. How such little inci- dents endear to us the personages of
 history! Frederick took all his artistic swag back to Mantua and set up the finest artistic exhibition of all Europe. But he must do something new to satis- ! phael was dead, he sent for Guilio Ro-
 mano Raphaers best pupil, and com manded him to build a brand new pal ace, and to spare no expense in it's erec- tion and decoration. So was built the | famous Palazzo del Te. At the other end of the city from the old palace and
 outside the gates. Guide-books specu- late about the origin of such queer
 name without stopping to think that probably "T'' Is old Italian for tea, and that here the Grand Duchess had her five o'clock teas. That tea was not introduced into Europe until the seven- teenth century cannot be proved. If
 the Grand Duchess had teas, and had
 them at her tea palace, then tea must have been introduced in time for her to do so; and there may be truth in the statement that teapots were found on the Mayflower.
 The guide books tell you all about the
 Palazzo del Te; it's general appearance; it's surroundings; it's various rooms; Giulio's frescos. etc, etc. But they do
 not call particular attention to its most
 charming attraction. Everybody knows how rooms are ordinarily frescoed. There's a bird here and a bird there; a bunch of flowers; a few cuplds, trellis
 works and palm trees, upright divisions and horizontal divisions. In fact fresco painting is like wall papering, except
 that fresco is done by hand and is,
 therefore, more expensive. Frescoing
 by Giulio Romano must have been the
 most expensive frescoing of the day.
 Well, one of the rooms is done in the or
 dinary fresco way, except that on each
 side, and about five feet from the floor,
 is painted large platform and on each platform is painted life-sized superb
 horse. There they stand, right In the
 midst of cupids, flowers, etc, looking as
 cosey and as comfortable as possible.
 You can hardly believe your eyes.
 Whatl Actually horses? Yes, and DOT
 traits of four of the Grand Dukes fa-
 vorite horses, which he would have put
 right there in spite of the remon-
 strances of his wife and daughters
 Giulio must have been delighted with
 the Grand Dukes order, for he has painted the horses most admirably.
 One of them, magnificent dappled
 gray, looks at you with almost a smile
 in his dark brown eye, as much as to
 say: T know 1t is funny, our being up
 here; but ain't we pretty?", Pretty, my
 dear nag? You are perfectly lovely. I