[*75] This is a mistake. Vittoria Colonna had no children. There was, however, a Marchese del Vasto, a cousin of her husband's, whom she adopted as her son, and to whom she frequently alluded in her poems; one of her sonnets bewails his death.
[76] For the life of Francesco Maria II. our materials have been ample. His own Memoirs, extending from his birth to the marriage of his son, have been nearly all quoted verbatim. The autograph of this MS. I have examined in the Oliveriana Library (No. 384, folio 219 to 229), but have made my translations from the only printed edition, in the twenty-ninth volume of the Nuova Raccolta d'Opuscoli, known by the name Calogeriana, and published at Venice in 1776. There too will be found an account of the Devolution of Urbino to the Holy See, from the pen of Antonio Donata of Venice, by whom that negotiation was concluded on the Duke's part. In the Magliabechiana Library at Florence (class 25, No. 76) is the autograph Diary of Francesco Maria from 1583 to 1623, which I have closely searched. The rich MS. collections of the Oliveriana are stored with original correspondence and other documents illustrative of his reign, most of which have been looked into with scarcely remunerative labour, but among the matter there gleaned, his instructions to his son may be deemed of especial importance. From a vast mass of such correspondence in these two libraries, a general insight into his character and position, and those of his son, has been acquired, as well as many minute traits of both; but the Prince's brief and unhonoured span has been illustrated in a great measure from collections made by Francesco Saverio Passeri, of Pesaro, nephew of the naturalist Gianbattista Passeri, and printed in the twenty-sixth volume of the Calogeriana Collection. *Cf. also Scotini, La Giovinezza. di F.M. II. (Bologna, 1899).
[77] Tesoro Politico, II., fol. 169. Relazioni Venete, serie II., vol. II., p. 105. Litta says she was born the 16th December, 1535, making her thirteen years and two months his senior. Her sister, Tasso's Leonora, was born the 19th of June, 1537.
[78] Bibl. Riccardiana, MSS. No. 2340, art. 116-19.
[79] The word which I thus translate means literally a ship or galley commanded by a captain.
[80] The muster-roll of the armament at this time will be found in [V. of the Appendix].
[81] Particulars of those intrigues in the conclave, by which Cardinal Buoncompagni prevailed over his rivals Morone and Farnese, are omitted, having no reference to our immediate subject.
[*82] Cf. Celli, Storia della Sollevazione di Urbino contro il Duca Guidobaldo, 1572-4 (Torino, 1892).
[83] The object of this plot is stated to have been the Duke's assassination at a hunting party in the manors of Orciano, to which he was invited by the conspirators.
[84] MSS. Oliveriana No. 324.