Page:Matteo Bandello - twelve stories (IA cu31924102029083).pdf/16

 was not wasted; indeed it may have served to shape his taste for letters. Much of Bandello's early manhood was passed at Mantua, where he became the tutor and devoted admirer of the accomplished, bewitching Lucrezia Gonzaga. In Scaliger he also found another distinguished friend, and was upon familiar terms with all the most cultured, scholarly gentlemen of the time; for he could count the illustrious families of Visconti, Gonzaga, Da Este, and Sforza as his patrons and friends. Statesmen, and not only men of letters, recognised his ability, and several princes and courtiers entrusted him with important negotiations of a political nature. During this time he had excellent opportunities to collect and arrange materials for his famous series of novels, the suggestion to compose these having been made to him by Ippolita Sforza-Bentivoglio—one of the first and most constant of his patrons.

But his literary work was grievously interrupted when, in 1525, the Spaniards routed the French and took possession of Milan. As a partisan of France, Bandello's father was condemned to exile, his goods being confiscated and his house destroyed. Matteo himself was obliged to escape, leaving all his papers