The house of Urbino had hereditary feuds of long standing with the Brancaleoni, a race of Guelphic principles, whose fiefs lay along the Apennines from Gubbio to Montefeltro, including all Massa Trabaria and the upper valley of the Metauro. Their recurring contests ended in a victory, or were compromised by a marriage, from which the former were usually the gainers. Upon pretences which it is needless amid conflicting statements to investigate, and assured of the Pontiff's support, Guidantonio had seized upon Castle Durante and other fortresses in 1424, and on the death of Bartolomeo Brancaleoni, leaving only a daughter,[*44] he arranged her marriage with his natural son Federico, whose fortunes we shall hereafter have to follow. The large territory thus absolutely or virtually placed under the Count continued with his posterity so long as the independence of Urbino was preserved.

To the impression which Guidantonio had made on his visit to Florence some ten years before he probably owed the baton of captain-general, sent him in the autumn of 1430 by that republic in their campaign against Lucca. But there he reaped no laurels. In an engagement fought in the face of his protestations, he suffered from Nicolò Piccinino a total discomfiture, and, throwing up the command in disgust, he returned home early next year. About the same time his prosperity received a further check in the demise of his steady friend the Pontiff, who lived to see the schism that had perplexed the Church during half a century finally healed by the death of all his competitors for the chair of St. Peter. The triple tiara passed to the brows of Eugene IV., who visited Martin's undue partiality for his own family the Colonna, by escheats which they flew to arms to avenge. The Lord of Urbino, naturally leaning to the party of his wife's relations, lost the Pontiff's favour; but he gained a well-wisher in the Emperor Sigismund, who, while returning to Germany from his coronation at Rome, was magnificently entertained at that court, and conferred the honour of knighthood upon his host and the young Count Oddantonio.

The death of Countess Caterina, on the 9th of October, 1438, seems to have in a great degree broken the fine spirit of her husband, who immediately retired to pass ten days in devotional exercises at Loretto, and thenceforward devolved all his military cares upon his natural son Federigo. His few remaining years were given to pious works, to which the cathedral of Urbino and the church of San Donato, both founded in 1439, bear witness; and he is said to have then habitually worn, under his ordinary dress, the habit of St. Francis, in which he was interred. His death took place on the 20th of February, 1442,[*45] and he was buried in San Donato, where his cowled effigy is still seen on the pavement, his spurs of knighthood hanging from his sheathed sword-hilt, with a barbarous inscription, which will be found in the Appendix to our third volume.

On the demise of this prince, who has been sometimes confused with Count Guido the elder, "the city of Urbino was," in the simple words of an old chronicle, "left widowed and desolate." Of his character and merits, whatever has reached us is favourable. The doggerel verses of his epitaph celebrate his clemency and justice; his religion was manifested by the tenor of his latter years, the general respect of his contemporaries honoured him through life, and he left behind him an extended frontier and a condensed state. His surviving children were—

Count Guidantonio also left two natural children:

Count Oddantonio from infancy gave promise of a character combining the virtues of his immediate predecessors with talents rare in any rank. But prematurely