A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Sforza, Ipolita

Layout 2

SFORZA, IPOLITA,

Wife of Alphonso the Second, King of Naples. Born at Milan, 1446; died 1488. She understood the classical languages; and Lascari wrote a grammar for her in Greek. Argelatti declares that she wrote Latin with consummate elegance. In the Ambrosian Library, at Milan, are preserved two orations, in Latin, spoken by her in Mantua, to Pope Plus the Second. In the monastery of Santo Croce is to be seen an autograph manuscript of a codex to Cicero'S treatise Be Senectute, in which she has produced striking thoughts in a finished style of expression.