. The
coazzone hairstyle with a long plait in the back was popular in Milan during the Italian Renaissance. On 16 March 1494 After 1500, Maximilian lost all interest in Bianca. She lived with her own court of Milanese people in various castles in Tyrol. On several occasions, he left her behind as security when he could not pay for his rooms on trips (although this is disputed by historian Sabine Weiss, according to whom she was only left behind if it was related to her own debt.) Maximilian took the title of
emperor-elect of the
Holy Roman Empire in 1508, making Bianca empress. Recent research, however, indicates that Bianca was an educated woman who had a political role as a mediator for different kinds of agendas, both involving Ludovico Sforza and Maximilian. Unterholzner notes that while the emperor did not love her and sent few letters (a 1499 letter explained the reason Maximilian did not come to the defence of her uncle Ludovico; another, sent in 1504, informed her of his victory against the Kufstein fortress), there was contact between them and he supported her rights in numerous cases, notably concerning her
preces primariae. Sometimes, he sent her deceiving words, such as in 1508, when he explained to her that she should not appear at his coronation ceremony because he would bring her along when crowned at Rome next year anyway. (The previous year, they marched together to the Reichstag in [Konstanz] to prepare for the 1508 coronation.) At this point, the once richest bride of Europe had become an emaciated woman who lost all sense of etiquette and all will to live. When he knew that she was near her death, he sent a medicus who tried to give her a
bloodletting, but she refused. Maximilian did not try to soothe her with words. Empress Bianca died at
Innsbruck on 31 December 1510. She was buried at
Stams. Her husband did not attend her funeral or even dedicate a gravestone to her. The official cause of death was given as excessive consumption of snails. Joseph Grünpeck, the court historian of Maximilian, said that she died "dehydrated" (
cachexia) and the ultimate blame laid with the husband's neglect of her. Maximilian and his court wore black in commemoration of her death however, and they still wore black at the
Battle of the Spurs (1513). In Maximilian's horoscope, the astrologer had predicted that in his third epoch of life, he would meet a very young woman of good faith, "devoted to her husband, decent, and righteous", and who would bring him benefits and prosperity, but she would be sickly and unhappy. Größing remarks that this reflects Bianca very well.
The queen's court and public events Bianca had her own court of 150–200 people, and she was considered extravagant, but Maximilian did not let her get control of her own finances and thus one minute she lived in luxury and the next her court was a show of poverty. Church festivals gave the form of the annual cycle at Bianca's court. Easter, Christmas, as well as Pentecost and Corpus Christi, were celebrated with particular lavishness. Carnivals, dances, tournaments, weddings, mummeries, music, entrances, theatre, hunting, and fishing were integral parts of the queen's (later empress) court life. Her first
hofmeisterin, appointed in 1493, was Violanta Cayma, who followed her from Italy, enjoyed the trust of both Maximilian and Bianca, and played a key role in correspondence with the Milanese court. In 1494, Niklas von Firmian became the
Hofmeister. His wife Paula Cavalli (von Firmian) was Cayma's successor. In 1503, Bianca was persuaded by the pseudo-mystic of Augsburg,
Anna Laminit (who claimed to be a
"hunger saint" and had managed to dupe even her husband Maximilian), to lead a penitent procession with the city's leading officials—probably the largest one the city had ever seen. Later, Laminit's fraud would be exposed by Maximilian's younger sister
Kunigunde in October 1512. In 1514, Maximilian expelled Laminit from Augsburg. After continuing to engage in fraudulent behaviours, she was condemned as a witch and executed by drowning. She attended public events in
Freiburg several times. In 1498, she inspected the troops together wỉth Maximilian. At the end of that year, she took care of the funeral of . ==In current research==