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Love and Jealousy at the Gonzaga Court:

The Rivalry of Isabella d’Este and Isabella Boschetti
Maria F. Maurer
Presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America

In 1525 Isabella d’Este, the Marchesa of Mantua, absented herself from the Gonzaga

court and spent the next two years in Rome. One purpose of this trip was surely to satisfy the

Marchesa’s “insatiable” appetite for art and antiquities. However, contemporary

commentators site another reason: Isabella d’Este had a rival at court. Her son’s mistress,

Isabella Boschetti, was immensely popular, and, as Paolo Giovio tells us, “la Boschetta” rode

triumphantly through the city, followed by all the gentlemen who usually accompanied

Isabella d’Este. On these occasions, the Marchesa remained in her rooms with only one or two

faithful servants, until she could bear it no longer and left the city altogether. It was Boschetti

who attracted the admiration of the young courtiers, and it was Boschetti who received gifts

and attention from Federico. Isabella d’Este had expected to reign over her unmarried son’s

court, only to find herself supplanted by his favorita.

Isabella Boschetti’s relationship with Federico II Gonzaga, the future Duke of Mantua,

began in 1516, when the two were both just sixteen years old. The daughter of Giacomo

Boschetti and Polissena Castiglione, and niece of none other than Baldessarre Castiglione,

Isabella had already been married to Francesco Cavriano Gonzaga for two years, and had

given birth to at least one child. While it is not clear how the couple first met, the relationship

between Boschetti and Federico proved to be passionate, long-lived, and a continued source

of annoyance to Isabella d’Este.

Already in September of 1516 Federico was celebrating his love for Boschetti by

commissioning an impresa for her from Paride da Ceresara. In the letter accompanying the

initial drawing of the device, Ceresara writes that it “alludes to the name of the person for
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whom it was made” because Amor stands in a small forest, or “piccola boschaya.” Found

today at the Palazzo del Te, this impresa depicts a leggy Cupid standing between two trees,

one alive, the other dead, which Ceresara explains are a demonstration that “the life and death

of the Lover depends on the Love of the piccola boschaya.” This kind of hyperbole was not

unusual with regards to Renaissance mistresses. In many ways Federico seems to be

following in the footsteps of Sigismondo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, and Pier Maria de’ Rossi

of Parma, both of whom incorporated their chivalric love for their mistresses into their

personal identities through literary commissions such as Malatesta’s Liber Isottaeus and

artistic endeavors like the Camera Peregrina Aurea located in Rossi’s Torrechiara near

Parma.

However, neither Sigismondo nor Pier Maria had jealous mothers to contend with. In

1519 Federico’s father died of syphilis and he became Marquis of Mantua under the tutelage

of his mother, Isabella d’Este and his uncles. He also became a father, for Boschetti gave birth

to Alessandro Gonzaga, the bastard son of Federico II. While Isabella d’Este’s thoughts on

this matter remain a mystery, she was noticeably absent from the court’s visit to Venice in

March of 1520. Federico, his sister Eleonora, Duchess of Urbino, his brother Ercole, and a

contingent of Mantuan courtiers went to Venice to celebrate Carnevale. The diarist Marino

Sanudo tells us that conspicuous among the Marchese’s party was his favorita, Isabella

Boschetti: she went to mass at San Marco with him, attended a luxurious feast hosted in

Federico’s honor by a company of young Venetian nobles, and rode with the Marchese on the

bucintoro through the canals.

It was during the 1520s that the rivalry between Federico’s mother and his mistress

began to heat up. Giorgio Vasari tells us that Federico commissioned several paintings from
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Giulio Romano for Isabella Boschetti, among them the Madonna della Catina. While not

particularly innovative or encoded with symbols of their love, this painting bears witness to

Boschetti’s influence at the Gonzaga court. Despite the Marchesa’s admiration for his work,

Federico never gave paintings by Giulio Romano, or any other artist, to his mother.

To add insult to injury, the courtier and writer Matteo Bandello tells us that Isabella

Boschetti convinced Federico to imprison a confidante of Isabella d’Este, the lawyer Leonello

Marchese. Bandello was sent by the Marchesa to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, to request

his aid in freeing Leonello. While Bandello does not recount the motives behind Boschetti’s

actions, what is significant is the fact that Isabella d’Este was forced to seek support from

outside the Gonzaga court. Boschetti’s power at court was on the ascendant, while Isabella

d’Este’s influence over her son was waning.

It was also during this period that Federico commissioned the Palazzo del Te from

Giulio Romano. Located on the Isola del Te at the edges of Renaissance Mantua, the palace

shows the extent to which the relationship between Federico and Boschetti had been

incorporated into the Marchese’s personal identity. While the traditional narrative of the

palace traces its impetus to the couple’s desire for a lovers’ hideaway, this seems unlikely. As

I hope I have already demonstrated, there was nothing hidden about Federico’s passion for

Boschetti, nor did they take pains to keep their relationship secret from the Gonzaga court or

the Italian nobility. Had Federico been attempting to hide his affair with Boschetti, he surely

would not have included her impresa on the northern facade of the building.

Boschetti’s impresa appears again in the Camera delle Imprese, a room which situated

Federico amongst his illustrious forebears by depicting their imprese. Here the “piccola

boschaya” is situated next to Federico’s impresa, a salamander with the motto QUOD HUIC
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DEEST ME TORQUET, or “What it lacks torments me.” This refers to the salamander, a cold

blooded creature, which is not burned by the flames of passion which plague Federico. The

salamander impresa appears in nearly every room of the Palazzo del Te, subtly if pervasively

identifying Federico with traditions of chivalric love and incorporating his passion for

Boschetti into his personal iconography. It was his ability to love that was on show at the

Palazzo del Te, and Boschetti served only as its object.

Though the couple clearly took no pains to disguise their relationship, caution might

have been in order. In 1528, there was an attempt on Isabella Boschetti’s life orchestrated by

her husband, Francesco Cavriano Gonzaga. Though this type of honor killing might seem

normal given the Renaissance preoccupation with female chastity, to my knowledge,

Boschetti is the only court mistress to have experienced familial repercussions for her actions.

In fact, as Helen Ettlinger has shown, families often encouraged their daughters, wives, or

sisters to pursue adulterous liaisons with rulers in order to gain the material and social benefits

of such relationships. What’s more, the motives behind her husband’s murderous scheme

remain mysterious. Boschetti’s son by Federico II Gonzaga had been born almost a decade

earlier, a second child may have been born in the early 1520s, but died in infancy, and her last

child with Federico, a daughter named Emilia, was likely born around 1525. Upon

discovering the plot, Federico II had Francesco tried and sentenced to death.

Whatever the truth of the matter, by 1528 Isabella Boschetti was a widow and

Federico was pursuing marriage prospects with other women. In 1530 Federico was granted

the title of Duke, and he entered into a marriage contract with Giulia of Aragon, who was

several years his senior and believed to be barren. Federico therefore approached Holy Roman

Emperor Charles V, asking that should his marriage to Giulia remain childless, his son by
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Isabella Boschetti be legitimized. This news must have distressed Isabella d’Este, who hoped

for a legitimate heir to the Gonzaga dynasty. She and her brother, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara,

therefore attempted to block Federico. A Ferrarese courtier describes a meeting between

Isabella and Alfonso d’Este in which they “discussed certain rumors that Federico was trying

to obtain a dispensation from the emperor for the son of the Boschetta.” Our Ferrarese

correspondent continued that Alfonso had spoken to the emperor and had been assured that

the emperor would not do such a shameful thing and that this news had reassured Isabella

d’Este.

We are informed by another Ferrarese correspondent that Isabella Boschetti was not

exactly happy about the match either, and despaired because she had to “watch another

woman succeed in all of her own desires.” However, Boschetti commented that she could

accept the marriage because of its political advantages, and added that Federico II “could not

lean toward another woman” unless it was her wish. Boschetti was therefore secure in her

continued influence over Federico, and likely looked forward to the day when her son would

rule the Gonzaga duchy. Her confidence was borne out in an imperial decree dated April 8th,

1530, which promises to legitimize Federico’s natural sons should his union with Giulia fail

to bear fruit.

The marriage proposition with Giulia of Aragon quickly fell through, and one wonders

how much Isabella d’Este had to do with it. Instead, Federico contracted marriage with

Margherita Paleologa, but his fifteen-year long relationship with Boschetti troubled his

prospective mother-in-law. Margherita’s mother, Anna d’Alençon, worried that Federico

would not give her daughter the love she deserved, saying “God is my witness that I would

not want anything bad to happen to Signora Isabella, ... but I wish that His Excellency would
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not give me cause to doubt... I say three times: I will be a good mother, I will be a good

mother, and I will be a good mother, because ... I am placing in his hands the best thing I have

in the world.” Anna was reassured by Federico’s ambassador that the Duke had every

intention of separating himself from Boschetti, and that Isabella herself intended to enter a

monastery. It should perhaps come as no surprise that neither of these promises were kept. In

fact, just three months prior to his wedding to Margherita Paleologa, Federico Gonzaga

granted Isabella a tract of land, ensuring that she would be able to support herself without

taking either religious or marriage vows.

While scholars have generally assumed that Federico’s relationship with Boschetti

ended, or at least cooled down, after his marriage, this does not seem to be the case. In 1532 a

Ferrarese ambassador was sent by Federico II to visit Boschetti, and noted her luxurious

surroundings: she was dressed in a gown of “black slashed silk, and a collar of even more

kinds of silk; her room was worked with letters of black and brown silk and velvet and

furnished with tapestries of fine and happy figures.” Isabella therefore retained importance at

the Gonzaga court, receiving ambassadors in the rich clothing and rooms not normally

available to the widow of a criminal.

In 1536 Isabella Boschetti’s mother, Polissena Castiglione, purchased a chapel in

Sant’Andrea and paid for the construction of two sepulchers therein. Polissena died before

any further work could be completed, but left the chapel to her daughter. In his Life of Giulio

Romano, Vasari reports that Giulio “painted an altarpiece in oils for the Chapel of Signora

Isabella Buschetta in S. Andrea at Mantua ... [and] on the walls of the same chapel, he caused

Rinaldo [Mantovano] to paint two very beautiful scenes after his own designs.” Vasari

believed the chapel to be Isabella’s, not her mother’s, because the decoration of the chapel
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occurred under Isabella’s aegis. Additionally, given that Federico II Gonzaga’s court artist

was responsible for the decoration, I would argue that the ornamentation of the Boschetti

chapel is yet another gift of the Duke to his long-standing favorita.

The iconography of the Boschetti chapel concerns St. Longinus and the Most Precious

Blood, a relic of the blood of Christ, which local legend states was brought to Mantua by the

Roman centurion Longinus. St. Longinus was converted by the sight of Christ on the cross,

and was moved to collect some of the blood. After many wanderings, he found himself in

Mantua, where he deposited the relic and then died. The relic was lost for centuries, but was

rediscovered by Beatrice de Canossa, mother of Mathilda, in 1048, thanks to the intervention

of Saint Andrew, who granted a vision of the relic’s location to a friar named Adalberto. The

relic was installed in the first church of Sant’Andrea and remained an important element of

Mantuan civic identity. It was later incorporated into the Gonzaga dynastic image after they

gained control of the territory in 1328. The basilica of Sant’Andrea, planned by Leon Battista

Alberti at the behest of Lodovico Gonzaga, is a cavernous structure, which Alberti wrote was

intended as a “grand space where many people may view the Blood of Christ.”

The entirety of the basilica was not finished under Lodovico, and in fact a second

building campaign was begun in 1530 by Federico II Gonzaga. After assuming the title of

Duke, Federico wanted to re-associate his new duchy with its most precious relic.

Additionally, coins from this era depict a portrait of Federico on the obverse and reliquary

containing the Most Precious Blood on the reverse. It is therefore not surprising that Federico

would support Boschetti’s decoration of a chapel dedicated to St. Longinus.

The altarpiece, painted by Giulio Romano and now located in the Louvre, depicts the

Adoration of the Shepherds, who hover in the shadows above Mary and Joseph; all gaze
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intently at the sprightly antics of the infant Christ, while in the background we see the

Annunciation to the Shepherds. This scene is flanked by the saints Longinus and John the

Evangelist, the saint who brought the relic to Mantua and the biblical writer who described

the centurion’s conversion. On the wall to the right of the altarpiece Rinaldo Mantovano

painted a Crucifixion, dramatically oriented toward the altarpiece to its left. Hovering angels

catch the blood of Christ in chalices, while St. Longinus kneels below with another chalice,

waiting to receive the precious fluid. John the Evangelist catches the swooning Madonna,

while a mob of figures in the background dissolves in the gloom.

Interestingly, the St. Longinus in Giulio Romano’s altarpiece does not direct the

viewer toward the mirror image of himself in Rinaldo Mantovano’s frescoed Crucifixion.

Rather, he gazes out of the frame to his left, directing our attention to the Rediscovery of the

Most Precious Blood, also painted by Rinaldo. In the foreground three men lift a casket from

its hiding place, opening it to reveal the relic within. Beneath a canopy, Adalberto, the

Mantuan bishop Marziale, and Beatrice of Canossa kneel in adoration. Above this earthly

scene, Saint Andrew sweeps down from the heavens accompanied by angels. The crowd

surges forward, nearly overwhelming the principle figures in their desire to behold the Most

Precious Blood. A young assistant to Bishop Marziale gazes off to the right, as if aware of St.

Longinus’s presence nearby. As in the fresco of the Crucifixion, the composition of the fresco

is oriented toward the altarpiece via the rightward movement of St. Andrew and the postures

of Beatrice and her attendants.

Given the lack of documentation regarding the decoration of the Boschetti chapel, it is

difficult to determine Isabella Boschetti’s agency in devising its iconographic program.

However, whether the chapel’s dedication to St. Longinus was suggested by Federico II or by
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Boschetti herself, her affiliation with the Gonzaga’s most important relic testifies to

Boschetti’s power at court and her influence over the Duke. Her chapel was, in many ways, an

extension of Federico’s own work at Sant’Andrea, in that it sought to more closely connect

the Duke and those around him to the Most Precious Blood. By commissioning a chapel for

his mistress in Sant’Andrea and utilizing similar themes, Federico continued the personal and

romantic association with Boschetti that was a defining aspect of his courtly personality.

While Federico’s relationship with Isabella Boschetti clearly continued unabated until

his death in 1540, the rivalry between Boschetti and Isabella d’Este seems to have subsided.

After her son’s marriage and the birth of legitimate heirs, Isabella d’Este was perhaps content

that at least her adversary would not be mother to the next Duke. The aging Marchesa

withdrew from the conflict and Boschetti’s supremacy went unchallenged.