itself." A drawing by Leonardo in pen and ink of c. 1490, housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, depicts an ermine representing these ideals by surrendering to a hunter. The ermine has also been noted to have a personal significance to Ludovico Sforza, as he would use it as a personal emblem, having been appointed by Ferdinand I as a member of the Order of the Ermine in 1488. Alternatively, the ermine could be a pun on Cecilia's surname: The Ancient Greek term for ermine, or other weasel-like species of animals, is galê () or galéē (). Such allusions were particularly popular in Renaissance culture; Leonardo himself had done something similar in his earlier work, Ginevra de' Benci, when he surrounded Ginevra with a juniper tree, or ginepro in Italian. Krystyna Moczulska suggests that the ermine follows the meaning of an ermine or weasel in classical literature, where it relates to pregnancy, sometimes as an animal that protected pregnant women. Around the time of the painting's creation, Cecilia was known to be pregnant with Ludovico's illegitimate son. Attribution It was not until the 20th century that the Lady with an Ermine was widely accepted by scholars to be a work of Leonardo. The attribution is due to the style of chiaroscuro, intricate detail and "contemplative tone" typical of Leonardo. Dating The Lady with an Ermine can securely be dated to Leonardo's first Milanese period (). Specifically, scholars date the painting to 1489–1491. Background Historical context To some extent the painting includes traditional characteristics of Italian portraiture from the 1430s and 1440s; the coloring, for example, is particularly reminiscent of the Florentine quattrocento tradition. Commission The sitter has been identified with reasonable certainty as Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo's employer, Ludovico Sforza. Gallerani was a member of a large family that was neither wealthy nor noble. Her father served for a time at the Duke's court. At the time of the portrait, she was about sixteen years old and was renowned for her beauty, scholarship and poetry. She was married at approximately age six to a young nobleman of the house of Visconti, but sued to annul the marriage in 1487 for undisclosed reasons and the request was granted. She became the Duke's mistress and bore him a son, even after his marriage to Beatrice d'Este eleven years previously. Beatrice was promised to the Duke when she was only