In the year 1474 the emperor Frederic III. came to Frankfort in a close carriage; and as he remained in it on account of the wetness of the weather, the inhabitants had no occasion to support the canopy which was held over him, but while he went to the council-house, and again returned. In the year following the emperor visited the same city in a very magnificent covered carriage. In the description of the splendid tournament held by Joachim, elector of Brandenburg, at Ruppin, in 1509, we read of a carriage gilt all over, which belonged to the electress; of twelve other coaches ornamented with crimson, and of another of the duchess of Mecklenburg, which was hung with red satin. At the coronation of the emperor Maximilian, in the year 1562, the elector of Cologne had twelve carriages. In 1594, when the margrave John Sigismund did homage at Warsaw on account of Prussia, he had in his train thirty-six coaches with six horses each[161]. Count Kevenhiller, speaking of the marriage of the emperor Ferdinand II. with a princess of Bavaria, says, “The bride rode with her sisters in a splendid carriage studded with gold; her maids of honour in carriages hung with black satin, and the rest of the ladies in neat leather carriages.” The same author mentions the entrance of Cardinal Dietrichstein into Vienna in 1611, and tells us that forty carriages went to meet him[162]. At the election of the emperor Matthias, the ambassador of Brandenburg had three coaches[163]. When the consort of that emperor made her public entrance, on her marriage in 1611, she rode in a carriage covered with perfumed leather. Mary, infanta of Spain, spouse of the emperor Ferdinand III., rode, in Carinthia, in 1631, in a glass carriage in which no more than two persons could sit. The wedding carriage of the first wife of the emperor Leopold, who was also a Spanish princess, cost together with the harness 38,000 florins[164]. The coaches used by that emperor are thus described by Rink:--“In the imperial coaches no great magnificence was to be seen: they were covered over with red cloth and black nails. The harness was black, and in the whole work there was no gold. The pannels were of glass, and on this account they were called the imperial glass coaches. On festivals the harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The imperial coaches were distinguished only by their having leather traces; but the ladies in the imperial suite were obliged to be contented with carriages the traces of which were made of ropes.” At the magnificent court of duke Ernest Augustus at Hanover, there were, in the year 1681, fifty gilt coaches with six horses each[165]. So early did Hanover begin to surpass other cities in the number of its carriages. The first time that ambassadors appeared in coaches on a public solemnity was at the imperial commission held at Erfurth in 1613, respecting the affair of Juliers[166].