the 5th of November, Lodovico wrote a note to Vigevano, where he and
Beatrice had retired after Duchess Leonora's death, informing his
father-in-law that he was on the point of returning to Milan to receive
the imperial ambassadors, Gaspar Melchior, Bishop of Brixen, and Jean
Bontemps. These important personages arrived on the 7th, and were met by
Lodovico and his nephew, the Duke of Milan, at the Porta Orientale,
opposite the newly erected Lazzaretto, and conducted in state to their
rooms in the Castello. Here the German envoys were loaded with gifts,
and magnificently entertained during the next three weeks. The nuptial
ceremony was put off a week, to allow time for the arrival of the
special envoys whom at the last moment Charles VIII. had decided to
send, to do homage to his allies, and finally took place on St.
Andrew's festival, the 30th of November, in the Duomo of Milan.

The street decorations on this occasion surpassed anything which had
been seen before; the doors and windows were wreathed with ivy, laurel,
and myrtle boughs, and the walls hung with tapestries and brocades
embroidered with the armorial bearings of the different royal houses
connected with the Sforza family. The adder of the Visconti, the cross
of Savoy, and the imperial eagle were seen side by side with the
mulberry-tree and other favourite devices of the Moro and his race,
while all manner of strange and fantastic emblems were introduced by
private owners, and one house exhibited the effigy of a crocodile, "a
creature never before seen," remarks the historian, Tristan Calco, "in
our city." But the most striking feature of the whole was the triumphal
arch erected on the piazza in front of the Castello, and, by Lodovico's
orders, crowned with Leonardo's model for the colossal equestrian statue
of the great captain, Francesco Sforza. This clay horse, to which the
Florentine master had devoted so many years of arduous labour, and which
had cost him such infinite thought and care, was now at length
completed, and the Milanese poets with one voice celebrated the praise
of Lodovico, who had ordered the work,--

"Per memoria del padre un gran colosso;"

and the fame of Leonardo, whose rare genius had produced this unrivalled
statue--

"Guarde pur come e bello quel cavallo
Leonardo Vinci a farli sol s'e mosso
Statura bon pictore, e bon geometra
Un tanto ingegno rar dal ciel s'impetra."

So Baldassare Taccone sang in his poe