Cultural Pursuits and Diplomatic Missions
Throughout her marriage and during her regency, when she was not conducting affairs of state, Isabella preferred to spend her free time engaged in cultural pursuits. She read books, wrote letters, and played the lute (see Bartolomeo Tromboncino). She enjoyed the latter so much that she soon wished to experiment with all the new musical instruments that were being made available. In addition to playing music, she collected art, and sponsored philosophers, poets, and painters, such as Titian, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Leonardo Da Vinci. She repeatedly requested that Leonardo should paint her but only a drawing was made. She complained in a letter to Leonardo that her husband had given the sketch away and requested another, which she never received. Her requests for a painting of any subject were also ignored.
Being a leader of fashion, she ordered the finest clothing, including furs as well as the newest distillations of perfume, which she concocted herself and sent as presents. Her style of dressing in simple, boyish caps contrasting with gowns that were richly embroidered with plunging décolletage that revealed the nipples, was imitated throughout Italy and at the French court. Anne of Brittany, Queen consort of Louis XII often copied Isabella, who had a fashion doll made in her likeness.
Isabella had met the French king in Milan in 1500 on a successful diplomatic mission which she had undertaken to protect Mantua from French invasion. Louis had been impressed by her alluring personality and keen intelligence. It was while she was being entertained by Louis, whose troops occupied Milan, that she offered asylum to Milanese refugees including Cecilia Gallerani, the refined mistress of her sister Beatrice's husband, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who had been forced to leave his duchy in the wake of French occupation. Isabella presented Cecilia to King Louis, describing her as a "lady of rare gifts and charm".
Read more about this topic: Isabella D'Este
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