From the picture by Raphael in the Pitti Gallery, Florence
On the 29th of the month, his Holiness set out for Bologna, and, avoiding the territory held by the Venetians, reached Cesena on the 2nd of October by mountain tracks through Macerata and S. Leo. Thence he summoned the Bentivoglii to surrender their city to him as its lawful sovereign, and ordered the people on pain of interdict to abandon their cause, and open the gates. These chiefs had made great preparations for defence, but subsequently, on finding themselves deserted by Louis XII., offered terms, to which Julius, elated at the prospect of French succours, would not listen. The war, which promised to be obstinate, passed off in a revolution; for the Bentivoglii, losing heart, made their escape, to the delight of the citizens, who, thus saved from a siege, threw open their gates, and hailed the Pope as their liberator. He made his entry on Martinmas-day, and at once confirmed this favourable impression by abolishing various grievances, and by scattering in the streets 4000 golden scudi bearing the legend "Bologna freed from its tyrant by Julius."[24] The mob showed their zeal by demolishing the palace of their late rulers, one of the most beautiful in Italy, wherein miserably perished many treasures of art; and its ill-fated master and mistress soon after died of broken hearts in Lombardy. But fortune is fickle, and the breath of popular favour still more changeful. Four years and a half from this date the war-cry of "Bentivoglio" again rang through these streets; the same mob strained their brawny sinews to level the citadel which Julius had erected to curb them, and to shatter the colossal statue of him with which Michael Angelo had adorned their piazza; the same Pontiff saved himself from capture, and his legate escaped from the popular fury to fall by the dagger of a friend. Such are the retributions of Him "whose ways are unsearchable, and whose thoughts are past finding out."[25]
The Pope remained until late in February to settle his new conquest, keeping the Duke near him as a friend and counsellor, and on the 3rd of March, in defiance of the inclement season, repeated his visit to Urbino for one day, with a smaller company, while on his return to Rome. His host, after conveying him as far as Cagli on the 5th, pleaded his constitutional malady, and returned home with the Prefect. As this was the period selected by Count Castiglione for portraying the ducal court, it will be well to pause for a little, and consider the representation he has left us of it.
[CHAPTER XXI]
The Court of Urbino, its manners and its stars.
THE taste for philosophy, letters, and arts, and the patronage of their professors which Cosimo de' Medici and his son Lorenzo the Magnificent had introduced among the merchant-rulers of Florence, were, as we have already seen, adopted by several petty sovereigns of the Peninsula, but chiefly by those in the district of Romagna.[26] Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was the first to engraft these fruits of peace upon a military despotism, which his restless ambition and fierce temper ever rendered the torment of his neighbours, and the scourge of his people. The d'Este of Ferrara, the Sforza of Pesaro, but, above all, Duke Federigo of Urbino, improving upon his example, had shown how mental cultivation might be brought to modify, or, as the Latin idiom has it, to humanise, without enervating, a martial character. The reign of Guidobaldo was peculiarly favourable to the development of this new and attractive principle; for though enabled partially to sustain the fame in arms which his father had bequeathed him, his feeble health gave him greater opportunity for the cultivation of letters, and for the society of the learned, to which he was naturally partial. Seconded by the sympathies of his estimable Duchess, his palace became a resort of the first literary and political celebrities of the day, who during the few years that succeeded his restoration, diffused over it a tone of refinement elsewhere unrivalled. To fix for the contemplation of posterity those graceful but transient images which flitted across this gay and brilliant society was the pleasing task undertaken by Castiglione,[*27] one of its most polished ornaments.
The title Il Cortegiano,[*28] literally the Courtier, may be appropriately translated, "the mirror of a perfect courtier." The author intended it, to use the words of his preface, "as a portraiture of the court of Urbino, not by the hand of Raffaele or Michael Angelo, but by an inferior artist, whose capacity attains no further than a general outline, without decking truth in attractive colours, or flattering it by skilful perspective."[*29] But laying aside metaphor, he thus accounts for the origin of his undertaking. "After the death of the Lord Guidobaldo of Montefeltro Duke of Urbino, I, with several other knights who had been in his household, remained in the service of Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, his heir and successor in that state. And as the fragrant influence continued fresh upon my mind of the deceased Duke's virtues, and of the pleasure I had for some years enjoyed in the amiable society of the excellent persons who then frequented his court, I was induced from these reflections to write a treatise of The Courtier. This I accomplished in a few days, with the intention of subsequently correcting the errors incidental to so hasty a composition."