On the accession of Galeazzo to the dukedom, the Corte Ducale was completed with the utmost haste for his reception, and having settled himself there, the young tyrant gave rein to his extravagant passion for gorgeous decoration. While keeping architects and builders still continually at work on his new palace, he called painters from all parts of his state to fresco its walls, himself supplying the subjects. There is little doubt that everything possible to mortals was done to please a prince whose imperious will was supported by the torture chamber and the executioner, and that the palace was soon gay with the colour which he loved. Within its sumptuous halls Galeazzo entertained his guests with lavish splendour. Here Cardinal Pietro Riario was accorded pontifical state on his visit in 1473, and lay in a chamber so superbly adorned that no one had ever seen another so magnificent and princely, and here he and his host built up fantastic political schemes, which were to make the one monarch of Peter’s throne and the other king of all Italy—schemes drowned but a few days later in a poisoned cup offered to the mad young priest at a Venetian banquet. The Duke continued the construction of the Rocchetta also, which his father had left unfinished, and gave orders for the decoration of the great Sala della Palla on its north-east side. But it is with the Corte Ducale that the fateful memories of this prince are especially associated. Thither he returned on the Feast of St. Thomas, 1476, with the glory of a victorious campaign freshly investing him, yet abstracted and pensive, possessed with a sense of the nearness of death, so that he bid the singers of his chapel to repeat every day in the midst of the joyful celebrations of the season, the mournful cry from the Office of the Dead, _Maria Mater Gratiæ, Mater Misericordiæ_.... In the painted halls behind the chapel the usual Christmas ceremonies were carried out, and in the Sala _dei Fazoli_ the Yule log was solemnly lighted upon the hearth in the presence of the tyrant and his family, and of all the great feudatories of state. In the Sala delle Columbine—painted with doves—the Duke, clad in a long crimson robe, entertained his courtiers on Christmas Day, and discoursed on the greatness of Casa Sforza, pointing out with unconscious irony how firmly its fortunes were assured in the many descendants of his father Francesco then existing in health and prosperity. We may picture his tall figure on the following day, clad in the doublet of crimson satin lined with sable, for which, with characteristic vanity, he had cast aside his cuirass, fearing to appear too stout if he wore the armour beneath; and in the long hose, one crimson, one white, worn by the princes of Milan, passing through the loggia, which still exists, though much restored, and down the great staircase into the courtyard, on his way to attend Mass in S. Stefano. He had kissed his little sons, and parted from them with a strange