, which was solemnly proclaimed at Venice on St. Mark's day,
when, after high mass, the Doge conferred the honour of knighthood on
Taddeo Vimercati, the Milanese ambassador, and the banners of Milan and
of the Pope were borne in procession round the Piazza.

In order to confirm the alliance, Lodovico not only agreed to visit
Ferrara in May, but also decided to send his wife at the head of an
embassy to Venice, as a proof of his friendship for his new allies. Four
experienced councillors, Count Girolamo Tuttavilla, Galeazzo Visconti,
Angelo Talenti, and Pietro Landriano, were chosen to accompany her, and
an elaborate paper of secret directions was drawn up by Lodovico
himself, dated the 10th of May. On the same day a still more important
paper of instructions was delivered by the Moro to Erasmo Brasca, the
envoy whom he sent that week to Germany. This agent was instructed to
lay two proposals before Maximilian, King of the Romans. In the first
place, he was to offer him the hand of Bianca Maria Sforza, the Duke of
Milan's sister, with the enormous dowry of 400,000 ducats. In the
second, he was to ask Maximilian, on Lodovico's behalf, for a renewal of
the investiture of Milan, formerly granted to the Visconti dukes, but
never obtained by the three princes of the house of Sforza. As, on the
extinction of the Visconti race, the fief ought to have returned to the
empire, it was in the emperor's power to bestow the duchy upon Lodovico,
whose title would thus be rendered perfectly legal, while Gian Galeazzo
would become the usurper, he himself, his father, and grandfather having
only held the dukedom by right of a popular election, which had never
been confirmed by the emperor. This, then, was the proposal which the
Moro secretly made to Maximilian, whose father, the Emperor Frederic
III., was at the time still living, but was known to be in very failing
health. The King of the Romans was by no means insensible to the
advantages of an alliance with the powerful Regent of Milan, or to the
large dowry which Bianca Maria would bring with her to replenish his
empty coffers. Some objections were raised by the German princes, who
chose to consider this marriage with a Sforza princess beneath the
imperial dignity, but Maximilian himself readily consented to all
Lodovico's conditions, and promised to grant him the investiture of the
duchy of Milan as soon as he succeeded his father, only stipulating
that this part of the agreement shou