The Marriage Portrait

Back in the Fortezza in 1561, Lucrezia is feeling feverish but nevertheless insists that Emilia prepare her for a public appearance. She descends the stairs filled with “a crystalline, righteous anger” (286).

Lucrezia and Alfonso enter Ferrara to great fanfare. The crowds seem anxious to see their new duchess. The castello where they live is enormous and looks as fortified as a prison. Lucrezia is presented to Alfonso’s younger sisters, Elisabetta and Nunciata. While Elisabetta is pretty and communicative, Nunciata is plain, taciturn, and suspicious. The sisters make it known that their mother and their elder sister, Anna, escaped to France; they seem surprised that Alfonso has not shared this knowledge with Lucrezia. However, Alfonso dissimulates that he already told her.

The sisters guide Lucrezia to her chamber. Elisabetta voices that she is unmarried because she has not yet received a tempting proposal. Nunciata intimates that Elisabetta engages in extramarital transgressions; she seems embarrassed and tells Lucrezia not to mention anything to Alfonso. She later learns that Alfonso is so suspicious of treason that spies are stationed everywhere in the Ferrara region.

At the great feast to celebrate their marriage, Alfonso asks Lucrezia to put on a display by wearing her splendid wedding clothes.