mperor, whose first wife, Mary of Burgundy, had died in
1482. Finding that there was no prospect of help from this quarter, the
Pope had been forced to come to terms with Ferrante, whose armies
threatened Rome, and made peace with Naples in January, 1492.

Meanwhile Charles VIII. had mortally offended the King of the Romans by
sending back his daughter Margaret, to whom while yet Dauphin he had
been formally betrothed by his father, Louis XI., and who had been
educated in Touraine for the last six years, and taking Maximilian's
affianced bride, Anne of Brittany, for his wife. The marriage was
solemnized in the Castle of Langeais in December, 1491, and two months
afterwards the new queen was crowned at Saint Denis. Maximilian now
sought to form a coalition against Charles, to avenge his injured
honour; and his ally, Henry VII. of England, sent a letter to Lodovico
Sforza, asking him to join the league and invade France from the south.

Under these circumstances Charles VIII. was naturally anxious to
strengthen the old alliance which had existed between his father and the
House of Sforza. Even before his own marriage, in the summer of 1490,
Lodovico had sent Erasmo Brasca on a private mission to the French king,
to ask for a renewal of the investiture of the Duchy of Genoa,
originally granted to Francesco Sforza by Louis XI. Since those days,
Genoa had been lost during the regency of Duchess Bona, and only
recovered in 1888, by Lodovico's successful negotiations. Now Charles
VIII. gladly granted the regent's request, and proposed to send an
embassy to Milan in the course of the next year. Lodovico, on his part,
prepared to give the French ambassadors a splendid reception, and in
March, 1491, wrote to his chief secretary, Bartolommeo Calco, from
Vigevano, giving minute instructions for the preparation of a suite of
rooms in the Castello, where the Most Christian King's envoys were to be
lodged. Since, at that time, extensive improvements were being made in
other parts of the palace, Lodovico gave up his own rooms on the ground
floor for the use of these distinguished strangers. The chief
ambassador, the Scottish noble, Bernard Stuart d'Aubigny, Chamberlain to
King Charles, he wrote word, would occupy the Duchess of Bari's
apartment, known as the Sala della Asse, from the raised platform at one
end of the room, and would use the duchess's boudoir, with the painted
Amorini over the mantelpiece, and the adjoining chambers for