lan on the frontier
of Tyrol and the Valtellina, and discuss their future plan of operations
together.

On the 5th of July the emperor left Innsbruck for Nauders, and on the
same day the duke and duchess, accompanied by Galeazzo di Sanseverino
and the Count of Melzi, set out on their journey up the lake of Como to
Bormio, in the Valtellina, On the 17th they reached the Abbey of Mals,
"an ancient monastery," says Cagnola, "at the foot of those terrible
mountains on the way to Germany;" and two days afterwards, received a
message from Maximilian, informing the duke and duchess that he was
about to pay them a visit, but begging them not to leave their lodgings,
as he wished the meeting to be informal and without ceremony. Early on
the morning of the 20th, the gay music of hunting-horns woke the
mountain echoes, and a hunting-party suddenly appeared at the gates of
the old Benedictine abbey. First came a hundred soldiers on foot,
bearing long lances, then fifty German lords in hunting-garb, with
falcons on their wrists. These were followed by his Imperial Majesty, a
princely figure in his simple grey cloth tunic and black velvet cap,
with a lion's skin hanging over his thighs, and the badge of the Golden
Fleece on his breast. A troop of servants and pages, in the imperial
liveries of red, white, and yellow, brought up the rear of the
procession, that wound along the steep mountain-side and halted before
the convent, where the Duke of Milan had his lodgings.

The Venetian ambassador, Francesco Foscari, hearing of Maximilian's
proposed visit, had, on Lodovico's invitation, followed him across the
Alps, accompanied by the Cardinal of Santa Croce, the papal nuncio.
Both these envoys waited on the emperor at Mals, and that evening
Foscari's secretary, Conrade Vimerca, wrote the following account of the
meeting between Maximilian and the duke and duchess in his despatches to
Venice:--

"His Majesty alighted with an eagerness which seemed to me only too
great, and went upstairs, where he found the duke alone with the
duchess, and spent half an hour in close and affectionate intercourse
with them both. Afterwards they all three attended mass in the
neighbouring church, and his Majesty appeared, leading the duchess with
his right hand and the duke with his left, with such demonstrations of
love and familiarity as can hardly be described. All three then rode on
horseback to the emperor's lodgings at Colorno (Glurns), some eight
m