ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-u.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429292354/3abb420d-80da-4aed-a9cf-ae5c42b997f9/content/ifig0001.tif"/>Francesco Gonzaga, fourth Marquis of Mantua, married Isabelia d’Este, the most famous woman of the Renaissance. He himself was an interesting and flamboyant representative of the princes of his generation. Short, lithe, athletic, Francesco was a superb horseman, a brave but barely competent soldier, a crafty and successfully dishonest ruler and a great lover of wine and women. Flatterers called him the bravest man in Italy, but did not mention his appearance because he was one of the ugliest men in Italy. His face was flat, his eyes protuberant, his nose snub and wide, his hair and beard bushy. Born in 1466, Francesco belonged to the generation of princely Italians who sometime in the 1490s began to wear beards. He was eighteen when his father died and he became marquis, twenty-four when he married Isabella in 1490, and only twenty-nine when he commanded the Italian army at the Battle of Fornovo. His engagement to Isabella had been arranged by his father and the Duke of Ferrara when he was fourteen and Isabella was five.
