GONZAGA (ISABELLA).

Isabella de Gonzaga, the Wife of Guido Ubaldo de Montefeltro duke of Urbino, deserves to be reckoned amongst the most illustrious ladies. One of her panegyrists calls her, “a woman, for her goodness, integrity, courage, and nobleness, more divine than human.” She had such a chastity as deserves to be admired; although some circumstances are told of it, that appear fabulous; for it is said, that after she had lain two years with an impotent husband, she remained fully persuaded that nothing was wanting to her marriage, and that all other husbands were like her own. At last she was undeceived, and the duke himself confessed his infirmity to her, when he perceived that she understood the nature of it, but nevertheless

she continued her tender affection to him, comforted him, and never complained, nor revealed the state of her marriage to any body. The secret however came to be publicly known, for the minim Hilarion de Costa, having made an exclamation against those who say, “that women cannot keep a secret,” adds, “that the duchess of Urbino more faithfully kept her secret and promise to her husband than he did himself, having lived fourteen years with him without ever discovering the defect of her marriage by any complaint. For the first years she concealed it through youth and ignorance, and afterwards out of honour and virtue, and the obligation of secrecy. Not only the people of the duchy of Urbino, and the inhabitants of the fine city of Pesaro, but even the most intimate and familiar domestics, and the principal lords of the court, were ignorant that this defect and barrenness proceeded from the duke; on the contrary, they rather attributed it to the duchess. Nor had it ever been known if the duke himself bad not told it, when, being driven out of his dominions by Caesar Borgia, duke of Valentinois, he came to wait on king Louis XII, who was then in his duchy of the Milanese, and city of Milan, to whom he had recourse to be restored to his dominions; but not obtaining his desires, because the king was in league with Pope Alexander VI, father of the duke of Valentinois, and feared the hatred of the house of Borgia against him and his family, he gave them hopes of parting with his wife, and becoming an ecclesiastic; affirming he had never consummated the marriage, by reason of his impotency; and being asked by the king, be certified the truth of it. Thus the secret, being revealed by the husband, was divulged through all the territories of Urbino and Italy, where the meanest people knew that Ubaldo, duke of Urbino, was only a man in face, or that, if he were a man, he could not be ranked among husbands; and all the world admired the constancy and modesty of his prudent and chaste princess, Isabella Gonzaga: her constancy, because she might have had her marriage declared null, yet she would not, choosing rather to be silent than to pollute her lips; proving her modesty, by the heroical act of having lived above twenty years with such a husband.”

Isabella was strongly solicited to think of another match: it was made appear to her that she might very easily get her marriage declared null; and they represented many other forcible considerations to her, but nothing moved her. Here the monk strains his throat, and lifts up his voice like a trumpet. “What a wonderful chastity of a woman! what an incredible constancy! what a perfect and unparallelled virtue! thus to live twenty years with a husband, in the same house, in the same palace! here is a true pattern of chastity, and a demonstrative proof that the spirit and virtue have more power than the flesh and sensuality; and that conjugal faith and affection prevail over the inferior lust and the brutish part. How few others would have thus concealed the secret, I do not say for fourteen years, but for fourteen months, which she kept not twenty months, but twenty years, and even to the death of her husband, without voiding the marriage; when, being intreated, importuned, and almost forced, by all sorts of powerful persons that were her relations, to separate from her husband, for a thousand urgent considerations they laid before her, she would never hearken to them; but on the contrary constantly maintained, that the fault lay not in him, taking it ill to have it said otherwise; and she was much concerned when the truth of the story came to light. O most faithful and chaste princess! let thy example dazzle the eyes of those women who, led by the spirit of sensuality, without grounds, or with the least pretence and frivolous reason, break a marriage concerted by the consent of relations, and celebrated in the face of the church, procuring I know not what

dispensations under pretence of misunderstandings, which will only serve as a chain to drag them to damnation; whilst you, a young, beautiful, and noble lady, who might have lawfully procured a divorce, have shewn your marriage to be rather a match of the mind than of the body, &c. Isabella not only rejected all solicitations to part from her husband, till his death almost reduced her to despair, and her affliction had like to have proved truly mortal. Observe also that she had been married twenty years.”

The exclamations of this minim, who has praised her, are pardonable considering the rarity of the thing; but he might have been a little more moderate without transgressing the rules of a good rhetorician. Our Isabella spent the rest of her days in a glorious widowhood. She was aunt to Eleonora Gonzaga, whom she married to a nephew of Julius II, that is, to Francis Maria de la Rovere, who succeeded her husband in the duchy of Urbino. By that you will see at what time she lived; and if you read “Il Cortegiano” of Balthasar Castiglione, you will see her very much praised; and you will also learn, that the court of Urbino was then very polite.—Art. Isabella Gonzaga.