There was a fête given in honour of Colleoni at Venice in 1455, on the occasion of the bestowing on him the staff of supreme command. To Spino, Colleoni’s enthusiastic biographer and fellow citizen, the episode was portentous, as to one unfamiliar with Venetian traditions in this respect. It had, indeed, a significance he did not dream of; it was the reception not of a victorious fleet, not of an admiring monarch or fugitive pope, but of an army of mercenaries and their leader. Spino tells how Colleoni was accompanied by an escort of the chief citizens of Bergamo, Brescia and other cities of the kingdom that had been committed to his charge; how barges over a thousand were sent from Venice to fetch him and his party from Marghera; how the Venetians came out in flocks to meet him in gondolas and sandolos to the sound of trumpets and other instruments of music, preceded by _three_ ships called _bucintori_, “of marvellous workmanship and grandeur,” in which were the Doge and Signoria, the senate and other magistrates; and how ambassadors of kings and princes and subject states came to do homage to the new Serenissimo Pasqual Malipiero. He tells, as all the chroniclers of festivals at Venice tell, of the throngs, not only on windows and upon the fondamentas, but upon the house roofs along the Grand Canal; of Colleoni’s reception at San Marco and the display of the sacred treasures at the high altar; and how, as he knelt before the Doge, the staff of his office was bestowed upon him with these words, “By the authority and decree of the most excellent city of Venice, of us the Doge and of the Senate, ruler and captain-general of all our men and arms on land shalt thou be. Take from our hands this military staff, with good presage and fortune, as emblem of thy power, to maintain and defend the majesty, the faith and the judgments of this State with dignity and with decorum by thy care and charge.” For ten days the festivals continued with jousts and tournaments and feats of arms. But all was not fêting and merriment. Colleoni held grave discourses also with the Padri, and “their spirits were confirmed by him,” says Spino, “in safety and great confidence.” [Illustration: IN THE PIAZZA.]