OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi A Renaissance Marriage OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi A Renaissance Marriage The Political and Personal Alliance of Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga, 1490–1519 CAROLYN JAMES 1 OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Carolyn James 2020 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2020 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. 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OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi Acknowledgements The research on which this book is based was begun during a year-long fellowship in 2001–2 at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, then under the directorship of the late Walter Kaiser. A number of fellows became firm friends, especially Deanna Shemek, who was embarking on her own studies of Isabella d’Este that academic year, and whose marvellous English translations of a large selection of Isabella’s letters, published in 2016, I have used extensively here. The library at I Tatti was a crucial resource and I wish to acknowledge the help of Michael Rocke, Kathy Bosi, and Ilaria della Monica. The fellowship permitted me to make frequent trips to the Archivio di Stato in Mantua, where I received unfailingly courteous and unstinting help from the former director, Daniela Ferrari, and her staff, including the current director, Luisa Onesta Tamassia. I also worked at the Archivio di Stato in Modena and Milan. I encountered friendly and very helpful archivists in both places. I have returned to these archives many times and to the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence, helped by the award of an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2006–9), which permitted me to continue to gather new material and to develop what had become a very large project. The Cassamarca Foundation of Treviso also con- tributed to the completion of this book through its financial support of my appointment at Monash University. When I was not able to travel to Italy, the Louis Matheson Library at Monash University, especially its interlibrary loan department, has been central to my ability to gain access to secondary sources not held in Australia. Claudia de Salvo was indefatigable in tracking down books and articles that I needed. I am most fortunate in having scholarly colleagues such as Molly Bourne, who shared her research on Francesco Gonzaga, and Deanna Shemek, whose knowledge of Isabella d’Este’s life is formidable indeed. Both scholars read this book in draft and offered helpful suggestions for its improvement. I am grateful, too, to Sarah Cockram, whose monograph, Isabella d’Este and Francesco Gonzaga: Power Sharing at the Italian Renaissance Court (2013), has many themes in common with mine. Deanna Shemek, along with Anne MacNeil and Daniela Ferrari, direct the digital platform IDEA, Isabella d’Este’s Archive, which makes available images of all the letters preserved in Isabella’s copialettere, and explores her music-making and art patronage. See http://isabelladeste.web.unc.edu. This resource was still in development while I was researching the present book, but its riches will facilitate many new studies by other scholars. OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi vi Acknowledgements I wish also to acknowledge the help of colleagues in Australia such as Barbara Caine, Clare Monagle, David Garrioch, Pauline Nestor, Diana Barnes, Constant Mews, and Kathleen Neal, with whom I collaborated on an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, which investigated the history of women’s letter-writing practices from the late medieval period to the twentieth century. That project has informed the present monograph from a methodological perspective. Adam Clulow read the entire manuscript of the book in draft and offered many valuable suggestions. Jessica O’Leary helped me with research assistance and has been a wonderful collaborator throughout her graduate studies at Monash University. Annamaria and Antonio Pagliaro provided advice about how to translate into English some of the more difficult passages in the letters of Francesco and Isabella and I am grateful for the friendship they have offered over many years, especially in the dark days of my husband Bill Kent’s illness and premature death, when work on this book had to be largely set aside. Other scholars such as Alison Brown, Nerida Newbigin, Camilla Russell, and Glenda Sluga have all assisted my research in various ways. My children James and Antonia Kent and my stepdaughter Margaret Kent have been important sources of support and I thank them for their forbearance in tolerating the many years of work that this book has entailed. I dedicate the book to them. OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi Contents Illustrations ix Abbreviations xi Family Tree of the Este and Gonzaga Families xvi Introduction 1 1. Betrothal 11 2. Building a Spousal Relationship 27 3. The Crafting of Identity and the Division of Political Labour 52 4. Parallel Aspirations: First Fruits 73 5. Risk-Taking and Risk Management 92 6. Parenthood and Politics 113 7. Years of Crisis 134 8. A Mind of Her Own 159 Conclusion 185 Bibliography 189 Index 199 OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 26/11/19, SPi Illustrations 1. Francesco Gonzaga to Isabella d’Este, 11 March 1513, from Mantua, ASMn, AG, 2120, c. 36. xiii 2. Isabella d’Este to Francesco Gonzaga, 13 March 1513, from Piacenza, ASMn, AG, 2120, cc. 116r–v. xiv