To my illustrious lady and most dear sister the lady Isabella
di Gonzaga Estensis, Marchionissæ Mantuæ."
The splendours which Beatrice describes with so much enthusiasm did not end with the bride's return to the Castello. Here Bianca's magnificent trousseau was exhibited before the admiring eyes of the ladies of Milan. It was valued at 100,000 ducats, and included not only rich clothes and costly jewels, but gold and silver plate for use in the royal chapel and on the dinner-table, altar fittings and bed-hangings, mirrors and perfumes, and a vast store of fine linen, carpets, saddles and horse-trappings of the most sumptuous description. The court poet goes on to tell how Duchess Bona welcomed her daughter with tears of joy, and how during the next two days high festival was held in the Castello. There was a tournament, in which the "gran Sanseverini" once more proved their valour, and Messer Galeaz as usual bore off the prize, followed by much feasting and dancing, and a grand display of fireworks. "So many torches and lights illumined the darkness of night, that all Milan blazed as if the city were on fire."
On the third day after the marriage ceremony, the queen started on her journey across the Alps, attended by Maximilian's ambassadors and a numerous suite, which included her brother, Ermes Sforza; her cousin, Francesco Sforza; the Archbishop of Milan; the poet Gaspare Visconti; and the great jurist Giasone del Maino, as well as Erasmo Brasca, who was to resume his post of envoy to the King of the Romans. The Duke and Duchess of Milan, Lodovico and Beatrice, and Bona of Savoy all accompanied Bianca as far as Como, where the bishop and clergy came out to meet her, and conducted her in state to the cathedral. After a solemn thanksgiving service, at which all the court assisted, the queen and the German ambassadors spent the night in the episcopal palace, while the other princes and princesses were entertained in the houses of distinguished courtiers in the town. On the following morning the bride took leave of her family, and embarked on a richly decorated barge fitted out by the royal citizens of Torno and rowed by forty sailors, while her suite followed in thirty smaller boats, painted and decked out with laurel boughs and tapestries. Niccolo da Correggio, whose daughter Leonora was one of the ladies chosen to accompany Bianca on her journey, has described the beauty of the scene that morning, the blue waters of the lake covered with glittering sails, the shores crowded with people in holiday attire, and the joyous sounds of music that filled the air as the gay cortége left Como. The bridal party reached Bellagio in safety, and after spending the night at the Marchesino Stanga's castle, started on their journey towards the upper end of the lake. But hardly had they left the shore, than the weather changed and a violent storm scattered the fleet in all directions. The poor young queen and her ladies wept and cried aloud to God for mercy, and their companions were scarcely less terrified. Only Giasone del Maino preserved his composure and smiled at the terror of the courtiers, who gave themselves up for lost, while he exhorted the frightened boatmen to keep their heads. Fortunately, towards nightfall the tempest subsided, and after tossing on the waves for several hours, the queen's barge with part of the fleet managed to put back into Bellagio. The next day a more prosperous start was made, and on the 8th of December the party set off on horseback to cross the mountain passes. But the hardships of the journey were not yet over. A rough mule-track was the only road that led in those days over the Alps that divided the Valtellina from the Tyrol, "that fearful and cruel mountain of Nombray," as the Venetian chronicler calls the pass now crossed by the Stelvio road. No wonder the sight of those precipitous cliffs filled the Milanese ladies with terror, and they shrank from exploring such barbarous regions in the depth of winter. One maid of honour had to be left behind at Gravedona, unable to bear the fatigues of the journey, and Bianca herself complained bitterly to Erasmo Brasca of the hardships which she had to endure. "The queen," wrote the ambassador to Lodovico, "conducts herself well on the whole, but often complains that I deceive her, by telling her, each morning when she mounts her horse, that she will not find the road so rough to-day, and then, as ill luck will have it, it turns out to be worse than ever." At length, however, on the 23rd of December, the travellers reached Innsbrück, and Bianca was kindly received by Maximilian's uncle, the Archduke Sigismund of Austria, and his wife, with whom she spent Christmas and beguiled the winter days with dancing and games, while Erasmo Brasca went on to meet the King of the Romans at Vienna. Even then some weeks passed before this laggard bridegroom joined his newly wedded wife, and Erasmo Brasca's mind was sorely perturbed at his prolonged delays and excuses. Bianca, however, whose childish mind was easily distracted, found plenty of amusement in her new surroundings and wrote long and affectionate letters to her uncle Lodovico, telling him how she and the Archduchess Barbara had been dressing up their ladies à la Tedesca and à la Lombarda, and how the court painter, Ambrogio de Predis, who had accompanied her from Milan to paint Maximilian's portrait, had just made a picture of the archduchess, which greatly pleased her. And she informs her uncle that the German princess had sent to ask her for a portrait of Signor Lodovico, which she had been very anxious to see and had studied with the greatest interest.
Finally, on the 9th of March, Maximilian arrived at the castle of Hall, where his bride met him, and the marriage was at length consummated, "to the confusion of all our enemies," as Brasca wrote triumphantly to his master on the following morning. This union, in which Lodovico's friends and foes alike acknowledged a master-stroke of successful diplomacy, was not destined to prove a very happy one. From the first Maximilian looked with critical eyes on this bride of twenty-one, who was thirteen years younger than himself, and told Erasmo Brasca that Bianca was quite as fair as his first wife, Mary of Burgundy, but inferior in wisdom and good sense to that princess, adding that perhaps she might improve in time. He treated her kindly to begin with, and gratified her by the handsome robes which he gave her in order that she might appear attired in German fashion at her coronation. Before long, however, he began to find fault with her extravagant habits, and complained that she had spent 2000 florins, presented to her by the city of Cologne, in one single day. Brasca himself felt obliged to remonstrate with her on her foolish tricks, especially for eating her meals on the floor instead of at table, and other bad habits which annoyed the emperor, while the violent friendship which she made with one of her ladies, Violante by name, led to continual intrigues and quarrels. Maximilian soon began to find her presence wearisome, and to leave her mostly to herself, and when he found that his hopes of an heir did not seem likely to be realized, he allowed the poor empress to lead a very dull and solitary life. Left alone, as she often was for weeks, in the vast, gloomy castle of Innsbrück, Bianca pined for the bright and sunny villas and palaces of Milan, and looked back sadly on the gay years of her old life. She was constantly writing affectionate letters to her uncle, asking him to give places and pensions to her old friends and servants in Milan, and begging him for portraits of himself and Beatrice, as well as for the silks and feathers, the jewels and perfumes, with which her thoughts were always busy.[49]
But, to do her justice, she proved a loyal friend to Lodovico in his darkest days, and when his children lived in exile at Innsbrück, they found a kind and loving protector in the empress during the few remaining years of her life. From the year after her marriage her health began to droop, and she became gradually weaker, until in 1510 she died of this lingering illness, and was buried in the Franciscan church of Innsbrück, where the bronze effigy of Maximilian's Lombard bride, robed in the rich brocades which she loved so well, still adorns his sumptuous mausoleum.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Luzio-Renier. op. cit., pp. 380-382.
[46] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 383.
[47] "Leonardo da Vinci," by Eugène Müntz, vol. i. p. 226.
[48] Luzio-Renier, op. cit., p. 388.