On August 29, 1511, Isabella d’Este, the Marchioness of Mantua, patron of the arts, fashion icon, and one of the most famous women in Renais-sance Italy, suffered a great loss.

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Isabella was an animal lover, and she loved little dogs in particular. Her courtiers always knew she was about to enter a room when they heard the approaching yaps. Isabella’s very favorite dog was Aura—“the prettiest and most agreeable little dog that there ever was,” according to Isabella’s secretary, Gian Giacomo Calandra. It was Aura who met her unfortunate end on August 29. She had been playing a game of chase with Mamia, another little member of the d’Este pack, when she fell off a balcony at the top of a tall staircase and plunged to the courtyard far below, dying instantly.

Isabella was distraught. The next day Calandra wrote with the sad news to d’Este’s eleven-year-old son, Federico II of Gonzaga, who was being held in Rome as the political hostage of Pope Julius II.…