The Lady of Monza.

Virginia Maria de Leyva was a descendant of Charles V.’s general, Antonio de Leyva, who through many years administered the Duchy of Milan, and died loaded with wealth and honors.[188]

[Footnote 186:  In support of this assertion I translate a letter addressed (Milan, September 15, 1622) by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo to the Prioress of the Convent of S. Margherita at Monza (Dandolo, Signora di Monza, p. 132).  ’Experience of similar cases has shown how dangerous to your holy state is the vicinity of soldiers, owing to the correspondence which young and idle soldiers continually try to entertain with monasteries, sometimes even under fair and honorable pretexts....  Wherefore we have heard with much displeasure that in those places of our diocese where there are convents of nuns and congregations of virgins, ordinary lodgings for the soldiery have been established, called lonely houses (case erme), where they are suffered or obliged to dwell through long periods.’  The Bishop commands the Prioress to admit no soldier, on any plea of piety, devotion or family relationship, into her convent; to receive no servant or emissary of a soldier; to forbid special services being performed in the chapel at the instance of a soldier; and, finally, to institute a more rigorous system of watch and ward than had been formerly practiced.]

[Footnote 187:  In Venice, for example, they were called Monachini.  But the name varied in various provinces.]

[Footnote 188:  The following abstract of the history of Virginia Maria de Leyva is based on Dandolo’s Signora di Monza (Milano, 1855).  Readers of Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi, and of Rosini’s tiresome novel, La Signora di Monza, will be already familiar with her in romance under the name of Gertrude.]

For his military service he was rewarded with the principality of Ascoli, the federal lordship of the town of Monza, and the life-tenure of the city of Pavia.  Virginia’s father was named Martino, and upon his death her cousin succeeded to the titles of the house.  She, for family reasons, entered the convent of S. Margherita at Monza, about the year 1595.  Here she occupied a place of considerable importance, being the daughter of the Lord of Monza, of princely blood, wealthy, and allied to the great houses of the Milanese.  S. Margherita was a convent of the Umiliate, dedicated to the education of noble girls, in which, therefore, considerable laxity of discipline prevailed.[189]

[Footnote 189:  Carlo Borromeo found it necessary to suppress the Umiliati.  But he left the female establishment of S. Margherita untouched.]