Page:Matteo Bandello - twelve stories (IA cu31924102029083).pdf/361



T the time of that wise yet ill-starred prince Lodovico Sforza, there lived in a city of this duchy a merchant of great wealth and great credit among his peers, who had taken to wife a young gentlewoman, well-mannered and sweet of temper, by whom he had one only child, a son. The boy had not reached the age of ten when his father died, leaving him in his mother's charge as heir to all the property. Being desirous that her son should keep close to the noble traditions of her ancestors, the mother would not have him put his hand to trade, but she brought him up most carefully in the study of letters and in those other exercises that go to the making of a thorough gentleman, while doing all she could meanwhile to complete her