Fortune, so long adverse to Guidobaldo, at length smiled upon him. The election to the tiara of his relative and confidential friend, Cardinal della Rovere, freed him from anxiety as to the restoration of his duchy, and promised him a long career of prosperity and honour. His policy of supporting the Venetians in their views upon Romagna thus not only became superfluous as a check upon Borgia, but seemed not unlikely to place him in a dilemma with the Camera. The new Pontiff, therefore, lost no time in removing him from a position of such delicacy, by summoning him to Rome. The invitation found him encamped before Verucchio, whence he immediately set out; and, after devoting two days at Urbino to public thanksgivings and festivities for his own restoration and for the election of Julius, he performed the journey in a litter, his gout preventing him from riding. On the eleventh day, being the 20th of November, he was met at the Ponte Molle by a superbly caparisoned mule, and on it was painfully but honourably escorted by an imposing cortège to his apartment in the Vatican, under a salute from the artillery of St. Angelo. Notwithstanding his fatigue, he was bidden by the impatient Pontiff to supper that evening, and was received by his Holiness on the landing-place with equal favour and distinction.
In the explanations which followed, their mutual views were frankly stated. The claim which the Venetians had upon Guidobaldo, from extending to him their hospitality and support in almost desperate circumstances, was fully allowed by the Pope, and his avowal that, in co-operating with them in an invasion of Romagna, he conceived they were thwarting Borgia, not the Church, was accepted as satisfactory. But his Holiness intimated, with reference to the future, that the vassal of the Apostolic See had duties paramount to all foreign ties; and that, since the rights of the Camera over that province admitted of no compromise, he would do well to resign the service of the Republic, and recall his consort to administer his affairs at home, whilst he remained in Rome for the winter. To these suggestions the Duke agreed, and wrote in most grateful terms to the government of Venice, explaining the obstacles which had unexpectedly arisen to his repaying at that moment the obligations he had incurred. We learn from Sanuto that on the 10th of October the Duchess with her ladies went into college, and being seated near the Doge, thanked the Signory in her lord's name for the favour, command, and protection granted to him, to which the Doge replied blandly, asserting the love borne him by the Republic. Again, on the 15th of November, there came into the cabinet of the Signory "the Duchess of Urbino with Madonna Emilia and her company of damsels to take leave, for she is departing early to-morrow morning for her duchy; she goes in a barge by the Po as far as Ravenna, and from thence on horseback: and the Doge spake her fair, and having taken leave, we sages of the orders accompanied her as far as the palace-gates, and she proceeded along the Mercery, reaching home on the 2d of December."
Borgia took the opportunity of Guidobaldo's visit to make advances for a reconciliation, having reason to dread his influence with the Pope. These were received with courtesy; but, in the words of the Venetian chronicler just quoted, "the Duke was resolved to have his own again, especially the library, which was promised him without damage, with the tapestries, although the Cardinal of Rouen had already got a good share of them." According to Baldi's elaborate and somewhat too dramatic description of their interview, he magnanimously forgave the extraordinary injuries he had received from his now humbled adversary. On the authority of private letters, an anonymous diary, already noticed, states that the usurper threw himself, cap-in-hand, at the Duke's feet, beseeching mercy and pardon, and excusing his conduct on the plea of youth, the brutality of his father, and the persuasions of others. This incident was represented in a fresco by Taddeo Zucchero, which I saw at Cagli in 1843, and which had been cut from the villa built at S. Angelo in Vado, by Duke Guidobaldo II. Cesare is a slight figure handsomely dressed, with long sharp features, a high nose and reddish hair. He kneels before the Duke of Urbino, raising his cap, whilst one notary appears to read aloud an act of surrender, and another makes an instrument upon the transaction.[18]
Even after Valentino had given authority for a surrender of the citadels in Romagna, they were held by his officers upon the plea that he was not a free agent, and the bearer of his missive was hanged by the castellan of Cesena. At length the Pope ordered Guidobaldo to reduce them by force. For this purpose he named him gonfaloniere of the Church, retaining him and four hundred men-at-arms, with a year's pay of 7000 ducats in advance. It was about this time that he was invested with the insignia of the Garter, to which illustrious order he had been elected in February. His acquisition of this dignity, and Count Baldassare Castiglione's mission to London as proxy at his installation, form an episode of so much interest to an English reader that we have gleaned every possible notice of these events, and have arranged them in [II. of the Appendix].
The Duke left Rome for his command, accompanied by his nephew the Prefettino, as he was then usually called from his youth, who had returned from France three months before to wait upon his Holiness. They were attended by Castiglione, who, after charming Julius by his polished society, was permitted by him to transfer his services to the court of Guidobaldo, of which he became the ornament and commentator. On the 1st of June they reached Urbino, and found the Duchess re-established among an attached people, who, to drive away sad recollections of their recent sufferings, had amused her during the preceding carnival with scenic imitations of the principal events of the usurpation! One of these was the comedy (so called rather in a Dantesque than a comic sense) of the Duke Valentino and Pope Alexander VI. In it were successively represented their plotting the seizure of the state, their sending the Lady Lucrezia to Ferrara, their inviting the Duchess to her wedding, the invasion of the duchy, the duke's first return, and his redeparture, the massacre of the confederates, the death of the Pope, and the Duke's restoration to his rights.
The garrisons of Cesena and Bertinoro had surrendered ere Guidobaldo took the field, that of Forlì came to terms as soon as his troops appeared. With it passed the last wreck of the Borgian substantial power and vast ambition, within a year from the death of Alexander, leaving to future times no memorial but a name doomed to lasting execration. Guidobaldo had at the same time the satisfaction of recovering most of the valuables that had been pillaged from his palace, estimated by him at not less than 100,000 ducats, especially a large proportion of his father's celebrated library.
On the 6th of September the Duke retraced his steps to Urbino, and there at length renewed the long-suspended joys of his secure and tranquil residence. Few, perhaps, of their rank and age, less needed such rough discipline to inculcate moderation, than this exemplary couple. Yet must the lessons of adversity have been ordained for some purifying purpose, and we may indulge the hope that they were not sent in vain. The Duke devoted his earliest leisure to signalise his gratitude for the unflinching loyalty of his subjects by conferring upon their several municipalities various privileges and immunities, and remitting their fiscal arrears. The Duchess expressed her thankfulness by many works of piety, by liberal charities, and by instituting a three days' fair on the anniversary of her lord's restoration. Their domestic circle was agreeably enlarged by the arrival of the Lady Prefectess, as the widow of Giovanni delle Rovere was entitled, who, on returning from a similar exile, and after paying her reverence to her brother-in-law the Pope, hastened to join her son at her brother's court. We have noticed the services which when assailed by Valentino, she received from Andrea Doria; they were now acknowledged by Guidobaldo with the castle of Sassocorbaro, and other holdings. Another guest at Urbino was Sigismondo Varana, the young heir of Camerino, who arrived with his mother Maria, sister of the Prefettino, and with his uncle and guardian Giovanni Maria, who afterwards supplanted him in that state.
Urbino was now enlivened by an event which proved of paramount interest to its sovereign, and was destined by providence to carry forward its independence and glories under a new dynasty. We have seen how it had been proposed between the Cardinal della Rovere and Guidobaldo, in 1498, that the latter should adopt the young Prefect as his heir, and procure from the Pope a renewal of the Dukedom and investitures to his favour.[19] The simulated sanction of Alexander to this arrangement led to no result; but, as soon as Julius was fixed in the seat of St. Peter, he took measures for placing his nephew's prospects beyond question. In the natural course of events the state of Urbino would lapse to the Holy See on the Duke's death, and, as the uniform policy of this Pontiff was to unite to it as many such fiefs as the failure of their seigneurs or the force of his arms brought within his grasp, his making an exception of the most valuable of them all in favour of his own nephew gave rise to not a few strictures. It is, however, the only instance in which nepotism can be laid to his charge, and the precedents left him by recent Popes may be pleaded in justification of a comparatively trifling abuse.
On the 14th of September the Archbishop of Ragusa arrived at Urbino as papal nuncio, charged with brieves for the completion of this affair, and also with the ensigns of command for the Duke as generalissimo of the ecclesiastical troops. The ceremonials consequent upon the implement of his mission have been detailed by Baldi, and are characteristic of the times we are endeavouring to depict. The nuncio and his splendid suite were received with distinction, and next day, being Sunday, was fixed for Guidobaldo's installation. The whole court and principal inhabitants being assembled in the cathedral, high mass was performed by him, after which, standing in front of the altar, he laid aside his mitre, and pronounced a solemn benediction on the two standards of the Church, which were held furled by a canon, whilst he waved incense over them, and sprinkled them with holy water. This ended, he desired them to be mounted on their staves, and having sat down and resumed his mitre, he presented them to the Duke, who received them, devoutly kneeling on the altar-steps, and handed one to Ottaviano Fregoso, the other to Morello d'Ortona. He then received the baton, with the like ceremonies, and rose, after kissing hands; whereupon the audience dispersed amid strains of martial music and popular acclamations.