"Your Mother.
"The 8th of August."[44]
The widowed Duchess Leonora remained at Pesaro, stricken with grief, from which she slowly recovered to find a solace in her children. By her husband's will she had 28,000 scudi, besides the life-rent of his Neapolitan fiefs at Sora, which were left in remainder to their younger son Giulio. To each of the daughters were provided 20,000 scudi. She died at Gubbio, in 1543. Her devoted affection to her husband was accompanied by much sterling worth of character; but she was especially distinguished for that equanimity of temper which marks the expression of her admirable portrait in the Florence Gallery.
The children of Francesco Maria were these:—
1. Federigo, born in March, 1511, and died young.
2. Guidobaldo, his successor, born 2nd April, 1514.
3. Ippolita, married in 1531, to Don Antonio d'Aragona, son of the Duke of Montalto, in Naples.
4. Giulia, married in 1548, to Alfonso d'Este, Marquis of Montechio, son of Duke Alfonso I. From her descend the sovereign Dukes of Modena and Reggio.
5. Elisabetta, married in 1552, to Alberico Cibò, Marquis of Massa, and died in 1561. From her descended the sovereign Dukes of Massa Carrara.
6. Giulio, who was born at Mantua on the 8th of April, and created by his father Duke of Sora. He was educated for the Church, where his talents and application to business merited the shower of preferments which his high birth insured him, and which began by his nomination as Cardinal of S. Pietro in Vinculis by Paul III., when fourteen years of age. In 1548 he was made Bishop of Urbino, a dignity which he resigned three years later, on being appointed Legate of Rieti and Terni. In 1560 he had the see of Vicenza, but soon exchanged it for Recanati. In 1565, he was promoted to be Archbishop of Ravenna, to which was added, in 1570, the see of Tusculum; and, in 1578, when within a few months of his death, he became Archbishop of Urbino, having for some years previously been Legate of Umbria, and governor of Loreto. In these high posts he united to excellent business habits, and great energy in the discharge of his duties, a taste for magnificence, which made him popular with all classes. By his own family he was regarded as a valuable counsellor in every difficulty, and he greatly promoted the government of his brother and nephew, to whom he served as a sort of prime minister. His career of honour and utility was closed by a premature death, on the 5th September, 1578, when but forty-three years of age. Under his superintendence was drawn up a code of Regulations [Riformazioni] of Justice, which was published with his name in 1549. It does not appear in what way the dukedom of Sora and Arci passed from him, but, before the end of the century, it had been granted by Philip II. to Giacomo Boncompagno, natural son of Pope Gregory XIII. From his descendants, the Princes of Piombino, that fief passed, about the end of last century, to the Neapolitan government; and its picturesque baronial towers at Isola, once the scene of their festive revels, are now degraded into a woollen factory. The Cardinal left two natural sons, who were both legitimated by Pius V.:—