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On the 5th of July the emperor left Innsbrück 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.
"In the year 1492," writes the chronicler Cagnola, "this glorious and magnanimous prince adorned the Castello di Porta Zobia with many fair and marvellous buildings, enlarged the Piazza in front of the Castello, and removed obstructions in the streets of the city, and caused them to be painted and beautified with frescoes.
However, the Captain tried to make up the money's worth in civilities, and was incessant in his attentions to "your Lordships," as he styled myself and my companion, Caesar di Cagnola, a young Milanese. The Maltese were tailors and clerks, who were taking a holiday trip to witness the great festival of St. Agatha.
He never ordered festivals except for some visitor; his pleasures were those of a simple private gentleman. He liked to dine out of his palace. Cagnola relates with surprise that he had seen the king dine after mass in a tavern on the market-place at Tours. He invited small nobles and bourgeois to dine with him.
Both Cagnola and Galeotto refer, no doubt, to the vast system of irrigation which Lodovico constructed at immense pains and expense to fertilize this district of Lomellina, and which may well have earned the gratitude of its inhabitants.
"At Vigevano," writes the contemporary Milanese chronicler Cagnola, "a place very dear to the house of Sforza, Lodovico made a fair and large piazza, and adorned it with many noble buildings and a fine park, which he filled with beasts of prey for the pleasure of the ducal family.
These last words were hailed with loud applause by the Moro's friends, and when Landriano had ended his speech, Galeazzo Visconti Baldassare Pusterla, the able lawyer Andrea Cagnola, and several other councillors, well known for their devotion to the Moro, all spoke in the same strain.
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