e landed on the 7th of February,
and travelled by land to Genoa and Tortona. There her bridegroom, the
young Duke of Milan, was awaiting her, with his uncle Lodovico, and a
banquet as memorable for ingenuity as for splendour was given in her
honour. Each course was introduced by some mythological personage. Jason
appeared with the golden fleece, Phoebus Apollo brought in a calf stolen
from the herds of Admetus, Diana led Actaeon in the form of a stag,
Atalanta followed with the wild boar of Calydon, Iris came with a
peacock from the car of Juno, and Orpheus carried in the birds whom he
had charmed with his lute. Hebe poured out the wines, Vertumnus and
Pomona handed round apples and grapes, Thetis and her sea-nymphs brought
every variety of fish, and shepherds crowned with chaplets of ivy
arrived from the hills of Arcady, bearing jars of milk and honey to the
festive board. At Milan fresh wonders were awaiting the bridal pair. The
court of the Castello was hung with blue drapery and wreaths of laurel
and ivy, above which the ducal arms, designed in antique style, were
seen, supported by figures of Centaurs. Under a seven-columned portico
adorned with crimson-and-gold hangings, the duke's sister, Bianca Maria
Sforza, received the bride, and led her to a richly decorated chamber in
the Camera della Torre. On the following day the wedding was solemnized
with great pomp in the Duomo. The duke and duchess, clad in white,
walked hand-in-hand up the great aisles of the church, and finally, were
escorted to the rooms prepared for them in the Rocca, and after the
Milanese fashion, hung with pure white satin. But the most memorable
part of the wedding festivities, and that to which Lodovico himself
devoted especial attention, was the performance of an operetta composed
by the court poet Bellincioni for the occasion. "It was called _Il
Paradiso_" adds the chronicler to whom we owe these details, "because
Maestro Leonardo Vinci, the Florentine, had with great art and ingenuity
fabricated a paradise or celestial sphere, in which the seven planets
were represented by actors in costumes similar to those described by
those poets of old, who each in turn spoke the praise of Duchess
Isabella."

The festivities were interrupted by the illness of the young duke, who
was so much exhausted by the fatigues of these successive
entertainments, that he was unable to leave his bed for some weeks. But
in the following summer two splendid tournamen