for himself". Formally adopted by her grandfather, the child in those years came to sign herself simply "donna Beatrice de Aragonia" and learned to express herself in a mixture of Catalan, Castilian and Italian, a habit that she seems not to have preserved as an adult. Marriage proposals In 1480 the Duke of Bari Ludovico Sforza, known as il Moro, regent of the Duchy of Milan in the name of his nephew Gian Galeazzo, began negotiations with Ercole d'Este to obtain the hand of his eldest daughter Isabella. This was not possible because the child had already been promised to Francesco Gonzaga. Hercules did not want to give up the relationship with the Moro, who was at the time one of the richest and most influential men of the peninsula, so he put forward the proposal of the second daughter Beatrice who, with the consent of King Ferrante, was immediately accepted. The alliance proved very useful to the Duchy of Ferrara, constantly threatened by Venetian expansionism. In 1484 her aunt Beatrice of Aragon, Queen of Hungary, proposed to her sister Eleonora an exchange: the eldest daughter Isabella would marry the King of Bohemia Ladislaus II (alleged lover, then husband, of the same Beatrice of Aragon), Beatrice Francesco Gonzaga and the Moro another Neapolitan noblewoman. Eleonora replied that this "exchange" was not possible, both because Isabella was loved by the Gonzaga, and because Beatrice was under the absolute power of her grandfather Ferrante. He proposed, however, to deal with Ferrante to secretly betroth Beatrice to Władysław, so as to guarantee her a reserve husband in case Ludovico sought a wife "more in keeping with her age". In 1485 the Marquis Boniface III of Monferrato, over sixty years old, widower and without heirs, but still "viripotens", hinted at marrying Beatrice; the proposal was probably not followed, both because of the great age difference (51 years), and because it needed a wife of childbearing age. Adolescence ferrarese (1485-1490) In 1485 Ludovico persuaded his in-laws to return Beatrice to Ferrara, so that she could be educated in a court more suited to her role (the Milanese had in fact a very bad opinion of the Neapolitans) and with the excuse of being able to visit her more easily (which she never did). King Ferrante denied her with "good and living reasons", saying that she was only ten years old, that he had taken her