owing day sailed up
between the islands, under the long sandy shore of the Lido, into the
port of Venice. At Malamocco, the fort on the southern point of Lido
guarding the entrance of the harbour, they were received by a deputation
of patricians, while at S. Clemente the old Doge, Agostino Barbarigo,
himself came out to meet them in the bucentaur, followed by an immense
company of boats and gondolas in festive array.

"Of all cities that I have ever known, Venice is the one where the
greatest honour is paid to strangers," wrote Philippe de Commines, when,
a year and a half later, he came to Venice as ambassador from his most
Christian Majesty. And on this occasion the welcome offered to the wife
of the powerful Moro was grander, and the _fetes_ given in her honour
were more splendid, than had been seen for many years.

"Never," wrote Taddeo de' Vimercati, the Milanese ambassador, "was lord
or lady received with greater joy, or more magnificently entertained
than the duchess has been on this occasion." And in his letters to his
wife Isabella, the Marquis of Mantua, who had arrived at Venice three
days earlier, and was among the spectators of his mother and
sister-in-law's triumphal entry, dilates on the extraordinary honours
that were paid them, on the vast concourse of people assembled to greet
their arrival, and the exultation with which they were received. He
describes the procession of barks and gondolas, filled with ladies in
gay toilettes, that were seen rowing across the lagoon many hours before
the arrival of the illustrious visitors, and tells how the old Doge--the
same whose venerable figure is familiar to us in Giovanni Bellini's
altar-piece, at Murano--made his way to S. Clemente early in the
afternoon, and retired to rest for an hour or two, in a chamber prepared
for his Serene Highness, until the Ferrarese bucentaurs were seen in the
distance. Gianfrancesco dwells on the number and beauty of the gaily
decorated barges and triremes, and describes the magnificent loggia hung
with tapestries and wreaths of flowers which had been erected in front
of the _palazzo_ occupied by the Milanese ambassador, at the entrance of
the Canal Grande. But what impressed him most of all were the thundering
salvoes of artillery which burst from the fleet of galleys, from the
arsenal and the Milanese embassy, at one and the same moment, as about
five o'clock the Ferrarese bucentaurs reached Malamocco and entered the
Venetian wat