77 and 78.
Yet even at Ferrara tragedies which might remind her of the Vatican continued to surround her path.

Alfonso, rude in manners and devoted to gun-foundry, interfered but little with the life she led among the wits and scholars who surrounded her.

One day, however, in 1508, the poet Ercole Strozzi, who had sung her praises, was found dead, wrapped in his mantle, and pierced with two-and-twenty wounds.

No judicial inquiry into this murder was made.

Rumor credited both Alfonso and Lucrezia with the deed--Alfonso, because he might be jealous of his wife--Lucrezia, because her poet had recently married Barbara Torelli.