the hand up the grand staircase into the best suite of rooms in the palace. The travellers spent two days in these comfortable quarters, and enjoyed the brief interval of rest, although the Duchess, as Bottigella was careful to tell the Duke, seemed the least tired of the whole party, and was in blooming health and high spirits. On the following Sunday Christina rode into Novara, on a brilliant spring morning, and was lodged in the Bishop's palace, and received with the greatest enthusiasm by her lord's subjects. At Vigevano, the birthplace and favourite home of Lodovico Sforza, the nobles, with Massimiliano Stampa at their head, rode out to welcome the Duke's bride, and carried a rich baldacchino over her head. Nevertheless, halfway between Novara and Vigevano, De Praet complained to the Count that neither the reception of the Duchess nor the rooms prepared for her were sufficiently honourable--"in fact, he found fault with everything." The Count expressed some surprise, since both the Emperor Maximilian and Charles V. himself had stayed at Vigevano, and the latter had greatly admired the buildings and gardens laid out by Bramante and Leonardo. But, to pacify the exacting priest, Stampa proposed that the Duchess should only take her _déjeuner_ in the castle, and push on to his own villa of Cussago, where she was to spend some days before entering Milan. But De Praet replied that the Duchess, not being yet accustomed to this climate, felt the heat of the sun, and must on no account ride any farther till evening. So all the Count could do was to send Bottigella on to see that the Castello was adorned with wreaths of flowers and verdure, and that a good bed was prepared for the Duchess.[98] [Sidenote: MAY, 1534] CHRISTINA'S HUSBAND]