The courier to Mantua brought back word that the marchioness had not yet made use of Niccolo's invention, and begged that her sister would feel herself at liberty to adopt the idea and "satisfy her appetite." Beatrice ordered the camora to be put in hand without delay, and Messer Niccolo had the satisfaction of seeing the duchess appear in this robe at the imperial wedding. The subject is of special interest, because this same pattern is repeated in the sleeves of Ambrogio de Predis' portrait of Lodovico's fair young daughter Bianca, which must have been painted about this time, and was probably adopted at the wish of Beatrice, who was fondly attached to her youthful step-daughter. Again, this same linked tracery or "fantasia dei vinci," as it is called in Beatrice and her sister's letters, is to be seen both in the decorations that adorn the ceiling of a hall in the Castello of Milan, and on the vaulting of the sacristy in St. Maria delle Grazie. And as Mr. Müntz[47] has lately pointed out, this same interlaced ornament, or vinci, in which the Belgian professor, M. Errera, sees a play upon the great painter's name, forms the motive of the famous circular engravings bearing the words "Academia Leonardi Vinci," which have given rise to so many conjectures as to the existence of that mysterious institution. All these repetitions of the pattern invented by Niccolo da Correggio, and adopted by Beatrice d'Este for her wedding robe, show how fashionable the fantasia dei vinci became at the Milanese court, and lead us to imagine that Leonardo himself may have had some part in the original design.
On 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 è bello quel cavallo
Leonardo Vinci a farli sol s'è mosso
Statura bon pictore, e bon geometra
Un tanto ingegno rar dal ciel s'impetra."
So Baldassare Taccone sang in his poem on Bianca's wedding, while a greater scholar, Lancinus Curtius, recorded the completion of the long-expected work in the following epigram:—
"Expectant animi, molemque futuram
Suspiciunt; fluat æs; vox erit: Ecce deus!"
The court poet Taccone waxes eloquent over the splendour of the procession, led by Messer Galeazzo, captain-general of the armies, and the beauty of the bride, whose tall and slender figure showed to advantage in her gorgeous apparel, with her long fair hair flowing over her shoulders, as she rode through the streets bowing in response to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd. He paints the marvellous scene inside the Duomo, where the venerable Archbishop of Milan sang mass in the presence of the most brilliant assembly ever seen within its walls, and the firing of guns and ringing of bells marked the moment when the Bishop of Brixen placed the imperial crown on the bride's head. Taccone describes the glittering array of chandeliers and vases, designed after Signor Lodovico's favourite antique fashion, which adorned the high altar, the blaze of a thousand wax lights which illumined the majestic choir, the sweet perfumes of incense and celestial harmonies of the music that filled the air. And, like a true courtier, he contrives to make everything, decorations, music, and processions, redound to the praise of the great Moro, the author of all the glories of Milan.
But we have an equally minute and perhaps more interesting description of the scene from Beatrice's own pen, in a letter which she sent to her sister Isabella from Vigevano on the 29th of December. The marchioness, whose state of health prevented her from being present on the important occasion, had begged her sister to send her full accounts of the ceremony, but, owing to the fêtes which followed the wedding and the journey of the court as far as Como with the imperial bride, a whole month elapsed before Beatrice was able to fulfil her promise.