Transcriber's Note
The cover image was created by the transcriber for the convenience of the reader,and is placed in the public domain.
QUEENS OF THE RENAISSANCE
BY
M. BERESFORD RYLEY
WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published in 1907
To B——
| PAGE | |
| PREFACE | ix |
| CATHERINE OF SIENA | 1 |
| BEATRICE D’ESTE | 53 |
| ANNE OF BRITTANY | 104 |
| LUCREZIA BORGIA | 150 |
| MARGARET D’ANGOULÊME | 202 |
| RENÉE, DUCHESS OF FERRARA | 251 |
THERE are no two people who see with thesame kind of vision. It is for this reasonthat, though twenty lives of the six womenchosen for this book had been written previously,there would still, it seems to me, be room for atwenty-first. For though the facts might remainidentical, there is no possible reiteration ofanother mind’s exact outlook. Hence I havenot scrupled to add these six character studies tothe many volumes similar in scope and subject.
The book is called “Queens of the Renaissance,”but Catherine of Siena lived before theRenaissance surged into being, and Anne ofBrittany, though her two husbands brought itsspirit into France, had not herself a hint of itslovely, penetrating eagerness. They are includedbecause they help, nevertheless, to create continuityand coherence of impression, and the sixleading, as they do naturally, one to the other,convey, in the mass, some co-ordinated notion ofthe Renaissance spirit.
[Pg x]The main object, perhaps, in writing at all liesin the intrinsic interest of any real life lived beforeus. For every existence is a parti pris towardsexistence; every character is a personal opinionupon the value of character, feeling, virtue, manythings. No personality repeats another, no humandrama renews just the same in