 In 1496, when Bianca was no more than 14, she was married to Galeazzo Sanseverino, captain of the duke's Milanese forces and a patron of Leonardo.Bianca was dead within months of her marriage, having suffered from a stomach complaint (possibly an ectopic pregnancy).Kemp pointed out that Milanese ladies were often the dedicatees of volumes of poetry on vellum, and that such a portrait of a "beloved lady" would have made a suitable title page or main illustration for a set of verses produced on the occasion of her marriage or death.