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"Every one took these mailed figures to be alive," says Tristan Calco, the admiring chronicler to whom we owe these details. The procession halted on the piazza in front of the Castello, and the heralds gave a loud blast of music as the bride was lifted from her horse, and received under the grand portal by the duchess-mother, Bona of Savoy, and her two daughters, Bianca Maria and Anna Sforza.

The remodelling of the library of the Castello di Pavia was another important work which was carried out in the year 1492, by Tristano Calco the historian and kinsman of the chief secretary, under the eye of Lodovico himself, while he and Beatrice spent the summer at Pavia.

December 28th the same ambassador wrote to Ercole, "The Duke Ludovico told me that he was hourly expecting the arrival of Messer Bartolomeo da Calco with a courier bringing the news that the Pope was taken and beheaded."

Calco was Lodovico's right hand and chief adviser in his great schemes for beautifying cities and palaces. He delivered his orders to the countless artists in his employment, arranged court festivities and generally conducted the duke's correspondence. Jacopo Antiquario was more purely a scholar, who protected other men of letters, and helped them generously in time of need.

Foremost among the "men of singular merit" whom Lodovico attracted to his court and retained in his service, were his two secretaries, Bartolommeo Calco and Jacopo Antiquario of Perugia. Both were men of great learning and discernment, fired with the same passion for arts and letters as their master, and as liberal as he was in assisting poorer scholars.

His secretary Bartolommeo Calco founded free schools, where Greek and Latin professors lectured free of charge to poor Milanese students; and two other noblemen, Tommaso Grassi and Tommaso Piatti, endowed similar institutions. The new passion for learning spread from Milan and Pavia to other cities, and even Lombard villages had their public schools and lecturers.

So curious were Beatrice and her ladies on these matters, that Lodovico wrote on the 8th of April from Vigevano, desiring Calco to send him a drawing of the French queen's costume, "in order that the same fashion may be adopted here in Milan."

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."

Every detail of the proceedings was faithfully reported to Lodovico by Antonio Calco, the secretary of the mission.

"Item: to place an inscription in gold letters on black marble above the portraits of the chapel." This Memoriale was signed by the ducal secretary, Bartolommeo Calco, and the following lines were added by Lodovico himself: