The Project Gutenberg eBook, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, Volume I (of 3), by James Dennistoun, Edited by Edward Hutton

Transcriber’s Note

This work was originally published in 1851. As [noted in the original], footnotes marked by an asterisk were added by the editor of the 1909 edition, from which this e-book was prepared.

Obvious printer errors have been corrected without note. Other errors are indicated by red dotted underlining. Hover the cursor over the underlined text to see a pop-up Transcriber's Note. These notes are also contained in a [Transcriber's Errata List] at the end of this e-book. Certain spelling inconsistencies have been made consistent; for example, Pietro della Francesca has been changed to Piero della Francesca; Rafaelle to Raffaele; and Pintoricchio to Pinturicchio.

Full-page illustrations have been moved so as not to break up the flow of the text.

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[CONTENTS]
[ILLUSTRATIONS]

MEMOIRS OF THE
DUKES OF URBINO

ILLUSTRATING THE ARMS, ARTS
& LITERATURE OF ITALY, 1440-1630

BY JAMES DENNISTOUN OF DENNISTOUN

A NEW EDITION WITH NOTES
BY EDWARD HUTTON
& OVER A HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS
IN THREE VOLUMES. VOLUME ONE

LONDON JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

JAMES DENNISTOUN OF DENNISTOUN
From a medallion in the possession of his Nephew,
James N. Dennistoun of Dennistoun

TO
EDMUND G. GARDNER
IN AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION
THIS NEW EDITION OF A FAMOUS BOOK
IS DEDICATED
BY THE EDITOR

[INTRODUCTION]

IT is surely unnecessary to make any apology for this second edition of the Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino. Notwithstanding all that has been done in the last fifty years by historians on the one hand, and by imaginative writers on the other, with the object of elucidating the history of that part of Central Italy which lies within the ancient confines of Umbria, or of appreciating the humanism of that Court which was once a pattern for the world, this book of James Dennistoun's remains the standard authority to which every writer within or without Italy must go in dealing in any way with these subjects. This very honourable achievement has been won for the book by the eager and methodical research of the author, who made himself acquainted with all available original sources, and in the years of his sojourn in Italy must have read and turned over a vast number of MSS., of which some have since been printed in various Bollettini, but a great number still remain in those Italian libraries which, always without an efficient catalogue and often without an excuse for one, are at once the delight and the despair of the curious student. For this reason, if for no other, such a work as this was not easy to supersede, and so, though a later writer always has an advantage, it was not outmoded by the careful and loving work of Ugolini in his Storia de' Conti e Duchi d'Urbino, which was written, I think, in exile.

But Dennistoun's Dukes of Urbino is not merely a history of the houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere, of their famous and most brilliant Court, and of that part of Italy over which they held dominion, but really a work in belles-lettres too, discursive and amusing, as well as instructive. It deals not merely with history, as it seems we have come to understand the word, a thing of politics—in this case the futile and childish politics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy—but illustrates "the arms, arts, and literature of Italy from 1440 to 1630." And indeed this programme was carried out as well as it could be carried out at the time these volumes were written. The book, which has long been almost unprocurable, is full, as it were, of a great leisure, crammed with all sorts of out-of-the-way learning and curious tales and adventures. Sometimes failing in art, and often we may think in judgment, Dennistoun never fails in this, that he is always interested in the people he writes of, interested in their quarrels and love affairs, their hair-breadth escapes and good fortunes. How eagerly he sides with Duke Guidobaldo, chased out of his city of Urbino by Cesare Borgia! It is as though he were assisting at that sudden flight at midnight, and, whole-heartedly the Duke's man as he was, almost fails to understand what Cesare was aiming at, and quite fails to see what Cesare saw too well—the helplessness of Italy, at the mercy, really, of the unconscious nations of the modern world. Such failures as this make his work, indispensable as it is, less valuable than it might have been, but they by no means detract from the general interest of the story. That is a quarry from which much has been hewn, and a good many of those enduring blocks which go to make up so popular and charming a work as John Inglesant came in the first instance from Dennistoun's volumes.

A second edition then, of such a work, as it seems to me, needs no excuse. What must, perhaps, be excused is my part in it, the intrusion of another personality into what was so completely the author's own. Yet I can truly say that I have intruded myself as little as possible, and, indeed, so far as the text goes, it stands almost as Dennistoun left it, with the correction of such errata as were due partly to the printers and partly to the oversight of the author. The notes which have been my business, my only part in the work, have filled the leisure of three years. They are far from being complete, and are imperfect in a thousand ways, as I know perhaps better than any one else, but they are as good and as useful as I could make them, and represent in some sort the work not of three years, but of ten. As for my intention in republishing Dennistoun's book with notes from my hand, I can frankly say that I undertook it from a love of all that concerns Italy, and especially Umbria, and therefore I have worked at it with joy through the long winter evenings, and in summer I have often raised my eyes from my manuscript to watch the dawn rise over Urbino and the beautiful great hills among which she is throned. And you, too, had you watched her thus, would have been sure that no labour of love could be too great for her. And then Dennistoun's book is so fine a monument of the love England has always borne to Italy. And I would be concerned in that too. Yet sometimes I have thought that, in spite of all my labour—and, though I loved it, labour it was—rather than sitting down to annotate another man's work, I should have done better to write my own. Friends, such as one must hear, were neither slow nor without persistence in impressing this upon me. I heard them and shook my head. I am not an historian, but a man of letters. This book is, after all, the work of one who thought well of facts, while I cannot abide them. For one idea, as I know well, I would give all the facts in the world. So the writing of history is not for me; for history is become a sort of science, and is no longer an art. And therefore I gladly leave her to the friend to whom I humbly dedicate my edition of this book, and to the virile embraces of Mr. William Heywood, who first led me into this nightmare of facts from which I am but just escaped. Let them settle it between them. For me there remains all the uncertainties that, God be thanked, can never be decided or be proved merely to have happened.

Thinking thus, I soon gave up any thought of writing the history of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino myself, and turned a deaf ear to those who would tempt me to it. I went on with my notes, however, partly from the joy one feels in playing with fire and all such mysterious and dangerous things, and partly from a hope that one day they might serve in some sort as finger-posts to an Englishman who should take up this subject and study it over again, from the beginning, more simply than Dennistoun was able to do.

As for Dennistoun's book, it always had my love, and day by day as I have worked through and through it, it has won my respect. Full of digressions, a little long-drawn-out, sometimes short-sighted, sometimes pedantic, it is written with a whole-hearted devotion to the truth and to the country which he loved. The facts are wonderfully sound, and if that part of the book for which it was most highly praised when it was first published—the chapters that deal with the history of Art—is become that which we can praise least, we must remember that in art, in painting more than anything else, fashion is king, and that the thrones from which we have driven Guido Reni, and perhaps Raphael, setting up in their stead other masters, are as likely as not to be in the possession of usurpers to-morrow, and we in as bad a case as our fathers.

Perhaps I may say a word about the [illustrations]. The book was one which lent itself very easily to illustration, and the great generosity of the publisher in this matter has been of the greatest satisfaction to me. I have sought in selecting my pictures to reflect the spirit of the book, which concerns itself with many a hundred things besides the Counts and Dukes of Urbino. As well as trying to give the reader all the portraits, or nearly all, that I could find, of the Montefeltro and Della Rovere Dukes, their Duchesses and courtiers, the men of letters, and the painters with whom they surrounded themselves, and the pictures of their gallery, I have made an attempt to illustrate the dress of the time—at a wedding, for instance, or in time of mourning; and seeing that this is for the most part a feminine business, I have chosen very many portraits of ladies, not only because they were beautiful, though there was that too, but also because they illustrated the manners of dressing the hair, or the wearing of jewels, and so forth; and I think this may be cause for entertainment as well as knowledge.

With regard certainly to two of the portraits I reproduce, I should like to suggest that they are of more than a superficial importance. I refer to the portraits of "[Giulia Diva]" and "[Cesare Borgia]," reproduced on [page 330] of Vol. I. from contemporary medals now in the British Museum, by the courtesy of Mr. G.F. Hill, who had casts made for me.

The first, that of "[Giulia Diva]," I suggest is a portrait of Giulia Bella, Giulia Farnese, that is, mistress of Alexander VI. If it be so it is very precious, for no portrait of her is known to exist, and though in this medal, struck about 1482, she seems already middle-aged, we most probably see there the portrait of her whom the Pope would scarcely let out of his sight. Of the two reputed portraits, the nude figure, lying on the tomb in the apse of St. Peter's, was carved some thirty years after her death, and since the monument it adorns commemorates a Farnese Pope, it is little likely to be the beautiful Giulia who was in some sort the shame and not the boast of her house. Ruined now by the Puritanism that suddenly overwhelmed the Papacy after the Council of Trent, the body is almost completely hidden by the horrid chemise Canova made for her to reassure his master. The portrait of Giulia Farnese, which Vasari tells us is painted in the Borgia apartments, has never been identified.

As to the medal of [Cesare Borgia], we are, I think, on surer ground. It bears his name, and was struck, Mr. G.F. Hill tells me, about 1500. In the Borgia apartments, as we know, he was certainly represented, and though his portrait has never been surely identified, this medal agrees so perfectly with Pinturicchio's [portrait of the Emperor] there, before whom [S. Catherine of Alexandria] (always supposed to be a portrait of Lucrezia Borgia) pleads, that we may well believe we have in that figure a contemporary portrait of one of the greatest and most romantic personalities then living.

My thanks are due to Mr. J.W. Dennistoun of Dennistoun for his courtesy in allowing me to reproduce the portrait of James Dennistoun, which forms the [frontispiece] to this work, and for his kindness in lending me the book from which I have drawn a good part of the [Memoir] which follows this preface. I have also to express my gratitude to Professor Zdekauer, Professor Anselmi, Mr. Edmund G. Gardner, Mr. William Heywood, Mr. G.F. Hill, Mr. William Boulting, and Mrs. Ross, for various assistance and kindness freely given whenever I sought it. I desire also to thank Mr. H.G. Jenkins for the infinite pains he has taken with the illustrations and the production generally of so large a book.

Edward Hutton.

London, September, 1908.

[MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR]
JAMES DENNISTOUN OF DENNISTOUN

JAMES DENNISTOUN of Dennistoun and Colgrain was descended from the ancient and noble Scots family of the Lords de Danzielstoun. The first of his house of which authentic records can be traced is Sir Hugh de Danzielstoun, witness to a charter from Malcolm Earl of Lennox, who lived during the reign of Alexander III of Scotland, who died in 1286. His son, Sir John de Danzielstoun, was the associate-in-arms of his patriotic brother-in-law, the Earl of Wigton, and of Sir Robert Erskine in the reigns of Bruce and David II. His son, Sir Robert, was one of the young men chosen from among the "magnates Scotiæ" in 1357 as hostages for the payment to Edward III of 100,000 marks of ransom for the release of David II. He seems to have been a prisoner in England for a long time. With him the direct line of the house of Danzielstoun failed, and the representation devolved upon his brother Sir William de Danzielstoun, the first of Colgrain. So we find that in 1828 James Dennistoun of Dennistoun, the father of the author of this work, having succeeded to his father 1816 in the estates of Colgrain, Camis-Eskan, and Kirkmichael, proved his descent as heir male of Sir John de Danzielstoun Lord of Danzielstoun, and obtained the authority of the Lord Lyon to bear the arms proper to the chief of his house[1] and thereupon assumed as his designation, Dennistoun of Dennistoun. He married in 1801 Mary Ramsay, fifth daughter of George Oswald of Auchencruive, in the county of Ayr, and of Scotston, in the county of Renfrew. By her he had thirteen children, and died on June 1st, 1834.

James Dennistoun of Dennistoun, the author of this work, was born on the 17th March, 1803, in Dumbartonshire, and spent the greater part of his youth with his grandfather, George Oswald of Scotston, to whom he owed, as he said, his first impulse towards letters. About the year 1814 he and his brother George were placed under the care of a tutor, the Rev. Alexander Lochore, later minister of Drymen parish. He then proceeded to Glasgow College, and later read for the Bar, though with no intention of practising. He passed advocate in 1824, but seems by then and for long after to have been gathering information regarding the old families of Dumbartonshire, which he placed at the disposal of Mr. Irving, who acknowledges his indebtedness to him. It was in 1825 that he went to Italy, spending Christmas in Rome with a few friends, and meeting there Isabella Katherina, eldest daughter of James Wolfe Murray, Lord Cringletie, whom he married in 1835. In 1836 he sold the family estates, including Colgrain and Camis-Eskan, and purchased Dennistoun Mains in Renfrewshire, the property which gave name to his house. His visits to Italy then became frequent, their most important result being the Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, which he published in 1851. He died some four years later, on February 13th, 1855, and was buried at his own desire in the Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh, not in the family vault at Cardross.[2]

The best contemporary account of his life appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1855, which he was so fond of quoting.

"Mr. Dennistoun," we read there, "was born in Dumbartonshire in 1803, and was the representative of the knightly house of Danzielstoun in Renfrewshire, one of the oldest Scottish families. He was educated at the College of Glasgow and qualified himself for the Bar in Edinburgh; but his taste took a different direction, and being possessed of sufficient fortune, he turned aside from the legal profession and devoted his whole attention to literature, in connection chiefly with the Fine Arts. He was an amateur of Art according to the true and proper meaning of that designation—he loved and admired Art, and studied to appreciate the best examples that the world possesses. Though in following out these studies he devoted much of his time to the Italian school, as there painting first arose in strength, yet he was no bigoted admirer, and could appreciate the qualities of all kinds of Art, whether Italian or German, ancient or modern. He then aimed at giving to the public the ideas he had formed regarding its principles, and the facts he had collected as to its history. He could not unfold before all his friends and visitors portfolios filled with sketches, done by himself, of passes in the Alps, or of scenery in the Tyrol, or of views of the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli, of Mount Vesuvius, etc.; but to all who wished to learn, he could impart in a manner the most simple and unpretending, but with a clearness and elegance that impressed and charmed all who were privileged to hear him (and these were many), information and instruction on almost everything relating to Art: while he often explained and illustrated what he stated by reference to examples he had himself collected—many of them of great rarity and value.

"He was a member of most of those societies formed for collecting materials for, and adding to and illustrating the literature of Scotland, and besides editing several important publications by the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs, contributed many interesting papers on subjects connected with Art to most of the leading periodicals, particularly to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews.

"His first work, we believe, was the edition of Moysie's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland from 1577 to 1603, which he contributed to the Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs in 1830. This was followed by the Cartularium Comitatus de Levenax, ab initio seculi decimi tertii usque ad annum MCCCXCVIII, edited by Mr. Dennistoun, and printed for the Maitland Club by Mr. Campbell of Barnhill. In 1834 another illustration of Lennox history proceeded from Mr. Dennistoun's pen, in a reprint of The Lochlomond Expedition, with some Short Reflections on the Perth Manifesto, 1715. He also edited the volume of The Coltness Collections, 1608-1840, for the Maitland Club, in 1842. The Ranking of the Nobility, 1606, was printed, along with some other papers, in The Miscellany of the Maitland Club.

"A residence in Italy gave a new bent to his pursuits. One of the first-fruits of these Transalpine studies was a deeply interesting paper on The Stuarts in Italy, published in the Quarterly Review for December, 1846. But by far the most considerable result of Mr. Dennistoun's Italian sojourn was his Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, published in three volumes in 1852. This work is of great value, as illustrating the state of Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the portion devoted to the Arts of the period being particularly interesting; and it is to be regretted that from a delicacy carried perhaps too far, he has curtailed this important section—the one he could best handle—from fear, as he states in the preface, of trenching on ground entered on by his friend, Lord Lindsay.

"Mr. Dennistoun was the writer of the article on Mr. Barton's 'History of Scotland' in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1854; and also of the analysis lately given in the same periodical of the Report by the Commission on the National Gallery, which is very masterly, and, indeed, the only successful attempt yet made to grapple with that huge accumulation of facts and opinions of all kinds.

"He had just lived to complete another very interesting work, consisting of the Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange, the excellent engraver, and of his brother-in-law, Andrew Lumisden, secretary to the Stuart princes, and author of the Antiquities of Rome. Sir Robert Strange was the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Dennistoun. To that lady, Isabella-Katharina, eldest daughter of the Hon. James Wolfe Murray, Lord Cringletie, a Lord of Session, Mr. Dennistoun was married in 1835."

In the Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, published by order of the House of Commons in December, 1853, we find Dennistoun as one of the witnesses. His evidence appears to have been of some value, and the articles which he wrote for the Edinburgh Review, both before and after the Report was published, are excellent both in tone and substance.

"You are the possessor," he was asked, "of a small and, I may say, very choice collection of Italian pictures, are you not?"

"A collection of early Italian pictures," he answered. And, indeed, in his day such a collection must have been very rare in England, or, in fact, anywhere else. These pictures were sold with other works of art that had been in his possession, on Thursday, June 14, 1855, and by the courtesy of Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods, of King Street, St. James's, I am able to print the [catalogue] they prepared for the sale, and the prices the pictures fetched.

E.H.

[CATALOGUE]
OF
THE HIGHLY INTERESTING COLLECTION
OF
PICTURES,
AND
OTHER WORKS OF ART,
Of that distinguished Amateur,
JAMES DENNISTOUN, OF DENNISTOUN, ESQ., DECEASED.

The PICTURES comprise choice Examples of the Italian School, commencing with the Works of some of the earliest Masters; also of the Spanish, German, Flemish, French, and English Schools.

The other WORKS OF ART include three very interesting early Paces, of Niello Work; Tryptics, of Ivory and Bone; a few Bronzes; Majolica Plates; Illuminated Miniatures; a Crucifix, in Boxwood, etc.

WHICH

Will be Sold by Auction, by

Messrs. CHRISTIE & MANSON,

AT THEIR GREAT ROOM,

8 KING STREET, ST. JAMES’S SQUARE,

On THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1855,

AT ONE O’CLOCK PRECISELY.

May be viewed Three days preceding, and Catalogues had, at Messrs. CHRISTIE and MANSON’S Offices, 8, King Street, St. James’s Square.

Note: The figures in brackets are the prices at which the works they refer to were bought in.

CATALOGUE
On THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1855
AT ONE O’CLOCK PRECISELY

WORKS OF MEDIÆVAL ART, AND CURIOSITIES

The total amount realised at the sale was £1398 15s. 6d.

[AUTHOR’S PREFACE]
(1851)

DURING nearly one hundred and ninety years, five Dukes of Urbino well and ably discharged the duties of their station, comparatively exempt from the personal immoralities of their age. The rugged frontier of their highland fief had, in that time, been extended far into the fertile March of Ancona, until it embraced a compact and influential state. Saving their subjects, by a gentle and judicious sway, from the wild ferments that distracted democratic communities, and from the yet more dire revolutions which from time to time convulsed adjoining principalities, they so cultivated the arts of war, and so encouraged the pursuits of peace, that their mountain-land gained a European reputation as the best nursery of arms, their capital as the favoured asylum of letters. That glory has now become faint; for the writers by whom it has been chiefly transmitted belong not to the existing generation, and command few sympathies in our times. But the echoes of its fame still linger around the mist-clad peaks of Umbria, and in the dilapidated palace-halls of the olden race. To gather its evanescent substance in a form not uninteresting to English readers, is the object of the present attempt. Should it be so far successful as to attract some of his countrymen to the history, literature, and arts of Italy, they will not, perhaps, be ungrateful to the humble pioneer who has indicated a path to literary treasures hitherto inadequately known to them. For such an undertaking he possesses no qualification, beyond a sincere interest in the past ages of that sunny land, and a warm admiration for her arts during their epoch of brilliancy. But a residence there of six years has afforded him considerable opportunities of collecting materials for this work, which he has been anxious not to neglect.

A great portion of the duchy of Urbino, including its principal towns, has been thrice visited, and nearly every accessible library of Central Italy has been examined for unedited matter. To these researches, time and labour have been freely given; and in the few instances when his attempts were foiled by jealousy or accident, the author has generally had the satisfaction of believing that success would have been comparatively unproductive. To this, two exceptions should be mentioned. He was prevented by illness from recently visiting the libraries or archives at Venice; and the Barberini Library at Rome has been entirely closed for some years, in consequence of a disgraceful pillage of its treasures. Should the latter be again made accessible, the MSS. amassed by the Pontiff under whom Urbino devolved to the Church, and by his nephews, its two first Legates, can hardly fail to throw much light upon the duchy. The invaluable treasures of the Vatican archives have been to him, as to others, a sealed book; but the Urbino MSS. in the Vatican Library, those of the Oliveriana at Pesaro, and of the Magliabechiana at Florence, have afforded copious sources of original information, and have supplied means for rectifying omissions and errors of previous writers. Some of these materials had been freely drawn upon by Muzio, Leoni, and Baldi, biographers of the early dukes of Urbino, who have not, however, by any means exhausted the soil; the amount that remained for after inquirers may be estimated from the single instance of Sanzi's almost unnoticed rhyming Chronicle of Duke Federigo, in about 26,000 lines.

The reigns of Dukes Federigo, Guidobaldo I., and Francesco Maria I., from 1443 to 1538, formed the brightest era of Urbino, and included the most stirring period of Italian history, the golden age of Italian art; but our regnal series would be incomplete without Dukes Guidobaldo II. and Francesco Maria II., who prolonged the independence of the duchy until 1631, when it lapsed to the Holy See. Its history thus naturally divides itself into five books, representing as many reigns; yet, as these sovereigns were of two different dynasties, it will be convenient to consider separately the origin of each, and the influence which they respectively exercised on literature and the fine arts, thus giving matter for four additional books. In [Book First] of these we shall briefly sketch the early condition of the duchy, with the establishment of the family of Montefeltro as Counts, and eventually as Dukes, of Urbino; but, regarding Duke Federigo as the earliest of them worthy of detailed illustration, we shall, in [Book Second], with his succession, enter upon the immediate scope of our work.

Among many interesting publications upon Italy which have recently issued from the English press, is that of Signor Mariotti.[3] With a command of our language rarely attained by foreigners, he has clothed a vast mass of information in an exuberant style, savouring of the sweet South. As an episode to his sketch of Tasso, he dedicates to the two dynasties who ruled in Urbino a single page, in which there occur seven misstatements. John or Giovanni della Rovere was never sovereign of Camerino; his cousin, Girolamo Riario, held no ecclesiastical dignity; the "unrivalled splendour" of the Montefeltrian reign at Urbino did not extend over even one century; the wife of Giovanni della Rovere was neither daughter nor heiress of Guidobaldo I. of Urbino, nor had she any "just claim to his throne"; Duke Francesco Maria did not remove either his library or treasures of art to Mantua. These slips, by a writer generally painstaking and correct, surely indicate some deficiency in the accessible sources of information regarding a principality which has for centuries been proverbial, in the words of Tasso, as "the stay and refuge of gifted men."

The truth is, that although the Dukes of Urbino figure everywhere as friends of learning and patrons of art, no work has yet appeared establishing their especial claim to such distinction, in a land where courts abounded and dilettanteship was a fashion. That of Riposati has indeed given us the series of these sovereigns, but his biographical sketches are meagre, and chiefly illustrative of their coinage. The lives of Dukes Federigo and Francesco Maria I., by Muzio and Leoni, are excessively rare; Baldi's crude biographies are either recently and obscurely published, or remain in manuscript. Out of Italy these authors are scarcely known. This paucity of illustration is not, however, the only cause why these princes have continued in unmerited obscurity. Whilst endeavouring to guard himself against undue hero-worship, and to subject the policy and character of those sovereigns to the tests within his reach, the author has been obliged in some instances to assume the functions of an advocate, and to defend them from charges unjustly or inadvisedly brought. This will be especially found in the life of Duke Francesco Maria I., who, as the victim of Leo X., and the opponent of Florence, has met with scanty justice from the three standard historians of that age in Italy, France, and England. The patriotism of Guicciardini, as a Florentine, was inherently provincial; as a partisan of the Medici, he had no sympathies with a prince whom they hated with the loathing of ingratitude; as an annalist he never forgot the day when he had cowered before the lofty spirit at the council-board. All that he has written of Francesco Maria is therefore tinged with gall, and his authority has been too implicitly followed by Sismondi, who, uniformly biassed against princes by his democratic prejudices, and seeing in Guicciardini an eminent denizen of a nominal republic, and in the Duke a petty autocrat, decided their respective merits accordingly. Again, Roscoe could save the consistency and justice of Leo only by misrepresenting the character of his early friend and eventual victim, and has not shrunk from the sacrifice. It has thus happened that, whilst ordinary readers have scanty access to details regarding Urbino and its dynasties, these names have been unduly excluded from many a page in Italian annals which they were well qualified to adorn.[4]

To separate from the tangled web of Italian story threads of local and individual interest would be fatal to unity of texture and subject. It will, therefore, be necessary to treat Urbino and its Dukes as integral portions of the Ausonian community, and, while distinguishing every characteristic detail, to view them as subsidiary to the general current of events. But, since this course offers at every moment temptations to launch our tiny bark on a stream perilous to its pilot, prudence will keep us mostly among those eddies which, unheeded by more skilful mariners, may afford leisure for minute observation. If it be thought that the martial renown of Federigo and Francesco Maria I. merited more ample accounts of their campaigns, we may plead that arms are but a portion of our object. To mankind battle-fields are instructive chiefly from their results; while foreign and domestic policy, the progress of civilisation and manners, of letters and art, are in every respect themes of profitable inquiry.

In a work undertaken with the hope of attracting general readers to the history and arts of Italy, controversial disquisitions would be misplaced. The student may detect occasional attempts to reconcile contradictory narratives and jarring conclusions; but religious discussion is excluded from these pages. The author is a Protestant by birth and by conviction, but it has been his endeavour to judge with candour, and speak with respect, of a Church which is the "parent of our religion," and which, during a great portion of his narrative, was catholic in the strict sense of that often misapplied term. He has mentioned without flattery, extenuation, or malice, such private virtues and vices of the various pontiffs as fell within the scope of his inquiry, leaving it to others to fix the delicate line which is supposed to divide personal errors from papal infallibility.

A considerable portion of these volumes was written in Italy, before the close of Pope Gregory's reign, and under impressions formed upon the existing state of the country. It has been their author's good fortune to know much of that attractive land during the last twenty years of the long peace, and to admire her substantial prosperity and steady progress. Between 1825 and 1846 he has seen in her cities new streets and squares rising, thoroughfares opened, gas-lights generally introduced, ruinous houses substantially rebuilt, crumbling churches and palaces renovated, shops enlarged and beautified, cafés, hotels, and baths multiplied and decorated, public drives and gardens created, equipages rivalling those of northern capitals, museums formed, galleries enriched, the dress and comforts of the population greatly improved, the street nuisances of Rome removed, the lazzaroni of Naples clothed.

In the rural districts he has observed cultivation spreading, waste lands reclaimed, irrigation and drainage carried on, the great highways rendered excellent, whole provinces opened up by new roads, railways rapidly extending, rivers and torrents bridged, palatial villas springing up round the towns and watering-places, banditti suppressed, the peasantry ameliorated in aspect. He has learnt, from crowded ports and spreading factories, that capital was increasing and industry being developed.

He has also noticed that, without organic changes, the political condition of the people was being modified; that Tuscany enjoyed the mildest of paternal governments; that in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Naples, many repressive statutes were in abeyance; that in Turin and Florence restraints upon the press were tacitly being relaxed; that scientific congresses were generally permitted, and political economy freely discussed; whilst, in regard to Rome, he ascertained the practical truth of a popular sarcasm, that prohibitory laws were usually binding but for three days.

While conscious of all this progress, the author felt that much remained to be done. He knew that the advance of the country was only comparative, and rendered more apparent by her long previous stagnation. He daily had before him solecisms in policy, errors of administration, official indolence or corruption; above all, ample proofs that priests were no longer adapted for ministers of state. He believed that intellect was needlessly or unwisely shackled, and that, to ardent or speculative minds, the full blaze of knowledge might be less deceptive than a compulsory twilight.

But, on the other hand, he was deeply convinced that, in material welfare, the Italian people were already far above the average; that any sudden change was more likely to endanger than to augment it; that, to a nation so listless yet so impressionable, so credulous but so suspicious, self-government was a questionable boon; at all events, that the mass of its present generation was infinitely too ignorant and unpractised, possibly too conceited and self-seeking, to comprehend the theory of a constitution, or to perform the duties it would necessarily impose. He knew further, that those who vaguely longed for change were usually blind to the benefits which their country already enjoyed, and had no definite or plausible plan for the removal of its grievances without perilling its advantages. He felt satisfied that, should an occasion ever present itself for testing their Utopian theories, native leaders, united in aims and worthy of their reliance, would be wanting. The movement party in Italy then scarcely numbered a man who had a considerable property to stake, a social position to lend him influence, or tried business habits to gain the confidence of his fellow-citizens. Those who stood prepared to pilot the vessel through revolutionary storms were, for the most part, persons whose detected intrigues, or rash outbreaks, had already driven them, with little credit, into exile, where, cut off from intercourse with home, and associating chiefly with kindred spirits expelled from other lands, they forgot much which it was important to keep in view, and learned little of that candour and moderation which are the true leaven of politics. Neglecting there those practical reforms of which Italy stood really in need, they devoted themselves to one idea. They set up the phantom of political unity as a new faith; they decreed that its worship should be the condition of their country's resurrection, and that all who demurred to it should be hunted down. Had they read Dante, or remembered what they hourly had seen, heard, and said in their native land, they would have known that their idol, like the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream,[5] was of incongruous and incompatible materials; that their unitarian scheme was antipathic to every passion and prejudice of those upon whom they would thrust it.

Under such impressions were written the very few allusions to the actual state of Italy which this work contains. The aspirations of her regenerators after nationality and constitutional freedom have since been fostered by her spiritual ruler, and prematurely fired by an explosion of French democracy. Subsequent events, under altered circumstances, may accordingly seem to have invalidated opinions therein expressed; but the end is not yet. The present continues overshadowed by gloom, and the torch of hope glimmers but dimly in the distance. A sincere interest in the country and its people dictates our prayer that the God of nations may grant an issue realising the fondest anticipations of genuine patriotism, and eventually crown these struggles with results compensating their recent evils.

Yet when we recollect the condition of Italy as we left her shores four short years ago,—when we contrast the calm then around her institutions, the stillness of her every-day life, the careless ease of her nobles, the physical enjoyment of her middle classes, the simple well-being of the peasantry under their own vines and fig-trees,—we must sigh to see so much positive happiness perilled for contingent ameliorations which, if ever attained, may, like most political experiments, fail to realise the promised benefits.

In a work of history, party politics ought to have no place; and when the nations are moved there is little inducement to assume a prophet's mantle. We, therefore, gladly leave a topic on which perhaps too much has been said. Possibly some Italians, to whom we have formerly represented that it were

may yet admit the truth of this suggestion. May they never personally realise the adage, that those who originate revolutions reap all their evils, without living to share their fruits!

A few words regarding the method adopted in these volumes. Of the names most conspicuous in Italian literature and art, a considerable proportion will there find a place; but readers who expect to see their productions enumerated, and their merits submitted to exhaustive criticism, will be disappointed. All that our limits permit, after rapidly sketching the revival of knowledge and the progress of that sacred painting which emanated from Umbria, is to mention those who have contributed to shed lustre over the duchy of Urbino, or who shared the patronage of its princes. The amount of notice allotted to each is therefore proportioned rather to its local importance than its absolute excellence; but, satisfied from experience how seldom a wide-spread interest attaches to individual details, our aim has ever been to generalise even those points demanding a more specific notice in connection with our immediate subject.

As the recurrence of foot-notes in a popular narrative unpleasantly distracts the reader from its continuous course, these have been avoided, unless when especially called for; and the necessity for them in citing references has been in a great degree anticipated, by prefixing a list of the leading authorities consulted, which it is hoped will generally bear out views that have been honestly formed, after examining what seemed the best sources of information. Extracts have been introduced, where it appeared desirable to preserve the style or words of an author; but they are in most cases rendered (literally rather than with elegance) into English, except such specimens of poetry as could not be fairly estimated from a translation. Documents and episodical details, which would have encumbered the text, are appended to the respective volumes.[7]

The majority of proper names being Italian, are written in that language, excepting such as, like those of places, and titles of popes and sovereigns, have long been familiar to English ears in a different orthography. In such matters uniformity of practice is the main object to be attended to, and having to choose between names as they were actually used and their English synonyms, we have preferred Giacomo Piccinino, Giulio Romano, and Lorenzo de' Medici, to James the Little Fellow, Julius the Roman, and Lawrence of the Medici.[8] There will often be mentioned districts and divisions of Italy which are defined by no exact political or geographical limits; it may therefore be well here to explain in what sense these somewhat convertible terms are employed. Central Italy may be considered to contain the papal territory and the three Tuscan duchies; Upper and Lower Italy include all the Peninsula, respectively to the north and the south of these states. Again, Lombardy is used as a generic term for the whole basin of the Po, the Polesine being that portion of its delta, north of the river, which belonged to the Dukes of Ferrara. Romagna stretches from the Po to the Metauro, from the Apennines to the Adriatic; La Marca, or the March of Ancona, continues the same sea-board to the Tronto: these two districts were long the cradle of Italian prowess, the allotment-land of petty princes; both were partially comprehended within the more ancient landmarks of Umbria, a mountain province lying east of the Tiber. The lower basin of this classic stream contained Sabina on the east, and the Patrimony of St. Peter on the west; the Comarca lying south of the Teverone stream, and the whole wide plain around Rome being called the Campagna. Tuscany, including the Sienese, ran northwards from the Patrimony, beginning below Orbetello; and Naples is familiarly called by Italians The Kingdom, having, until a recent date, been the only royal state in their fatherland.

Our chronology also requires the use of certain conventional terms, which ought to be defined. Assuming the close of the fifteenth century as the zenith of Italy's glory in letters and arts, in politics and arms, the only word specifically indicating that period is cinque-cento; but seeing that its lustre was attained under military and civil institutions, and was rendered permanent by studies and artistic creations, derived from the middle ages and breathing their spirit, the phrase mediæval is extended to include that period.

Few things are more baffling to students of history than the true worth of money in different states and ages, and its relative value in reference to our own standards. It is impossible to over-estimate the convenience which tables, showing the fluctuations of currency and prices among different nations, would afford; but the difficulties of completing them may perhaps be insuperable. In order to supply this desideratum, however imperfectly, a few observations are here submitted.

In considering the value of money at different periods, a variety of circumstances must be kept in view. There are, however, four elements to be embraced by all calculations for such a purpose: (1) the comparative weight of the coinage; (2) the respective amounts of alloy introduced into the standard of precious metals; (3) the effect produced on gold and silver value by the discovery of America; (4) the fluctuations in prices of commodities. The last of these elements includes and depends upon the others, so that a tariff of prices at various times might be practically sufficient for the object contemplated. The impediments, however, to obtaining such a tariff are apparently insurmountable. Statistical facts, incidentally mentioned by historians, or gleaned from original documents, must be received with large allowance. Articles of costly luxury in one age became abundant in another, and are at all times affected by local or temporary causes. Quality was also variable; horses, oxen, sheep, and poultry, reared or fed in rude times or uncultivated districts, cannot fairly be compared with those perfected by care and expense; the same may be said of wines, fruits, clothing; even land is saleable according to its condition, fertility, or situation. The test usually resorted to in such inquiries is corn; but weights and measures, seldom uniform, are with difficulty ascertained at remote periods, while exceptional prices are more frequently noted than average ones, by observers prone to record striking events rather than every-day facts. There are, however, some apparently admitted data not altogether unavailable for our immediate purpose.

During the period embraced by our memoirs of Urbino, the standard of value prevalent in most parts of Italy was the golden florin or ducat. Of these probably equivalent terms, the former was generally employed in Central Italy, the latter in Lombardy. According to Villani, the florin of Florence, in 1340, weighed 72 grains of pure gold, 24 carats fine. Sismondi, in referring to a period about a century later, estimates its weight at ⅛ of an ounce, or 60 grains. Orsini reckons it, in 1533, at 70 grains, 22 carats fine. On the whole, it appears, from Cibrario and other authorities, that this coin, and its successor the zecchino, have maintained an almost uniform weight down to the present time. Assuming that gold in Italy had then the same coinage-value as in England, it appears from calculations, founded upon Fleetwood's data, that the florin was, at these various periods, equivalent in contemporary English coin to 3s. 6d., 4s. 8d., and 5s. 10d. Again, the ducat of Venice is estimated by Daru at 4 franks in 1465, at 4⅓ in 1490, and by Sanuto at 4s. English in 1500. Riposati, in a careful analysis of the coinage of Gubbio, proves that the conventional Urbino florin of 1450 should have contained 63434/59 grains of silver, besides alloy, which would at that time have yielded 3s. 9d. English, or at our present pure silver value (5s. 6d. to the ounce) 7s. 3¼d.

It would follow, from these several opinions, that the florin or ducat of Italy, in the fifteenth century, was equal to from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. in contemporary English circulation, which disposes of two elements for our calculation. The remaining two must have been inadequately kept in view by Cibrario, Ricotta, and Audin, who respectively value the florin of 1400 as now worth 16⅔ francs, that of 1490 at 14 francs, and that of 1500 at 12 francs; while in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge it is set down at 10s. English in 1480. But if we assume the analogy of English prices as collected by Fleetwood, the result will be very different. From these it appears that an average cost of wheat and oats per quarter, in the fifteenth century, was about 5s. 2d. and 2s. 6d., while the wages of labourers and artisans were respectively 3½d. and 4½d. a day. Accordingly, if corn be taken as the test, money was then ten times beyond its modern value; while, if we include labour and luxuries, the actual depreciation must appear much greater. We are greatly encouraged to find such an inference not very different from that adopted by three recent and important authorities. Prescott values the Spanish ducat of 1490 at 39s. 4d., and Macaulay states that of Florence in 1340 at 40s. sterling, while Sismondi calculates it at about 48 francs. On the whole, then, we venture to assume that the Italian ducat or florin of the fifteenth century was nearly equal to the present Spanish dollar, and that it would have purchased about twelve times the amount of necessaries and luxuries which that coin now represents in England—a discrepancy of course lessened in the next and each succeeding age, especially as the precious metals continued to flow in from the new hemisphere. This estimate is, however, offered with great deference, and only as a general approximation to the truth, by no means applicable to numerous exceptional cases.[9]

In closing these preliminary observations, it is a pleasing duty to acknowledge the facilities obligingly placed at the author's disposal by kind friends in Italy and at home. The urbanity with which Monsignore Laureani afforded every assistance compatible with the stringent regulations of the Vatican Library, demands a tribute tempered by regret that death should have prematurely removed him from a trust which he usefully and gracefully discharged. To Don Pietro Raffaele, of the Oliveriana Library at Pesaro, and to the Abbé Francesco Raffaele Valenti, of the Albani Library at Urbino; to Signor Luigi Bonfatti, of Gubbio; to the archivists of many towns, and to the directors of not a few galleries in Italy, a large debt of gratitude has been incurred. The intimate acquaintance with the treasures of Italian art possessed by the Commendatore Kestner, minister from the Court of Hanover at the Holy See, was, with his wonted kindness and courtesy, freely rendered available. Mr. Rawdon Brown, whose profound knowledge of Venetian history and antiquities will, it is hoped, be ere long appreciated in England, as it already is in the Lagoons, has communicated most important documents, which the author was unable personally to inspect. Mr. F.C. Brooke, of Ufford Place, Suffolk, has likewise supplied some valuable notices. The embellishments of these volumes owe much to the friendly assistance of Mr. Lewis Gruner, an artist whose generous character and happy exemption from professional jealousies are not less remarkable than the success of his burin and the excellence of his taste. With a liberality unusual among English collectors, Dr. Wellesley, Principal of New College Hall, Oxford, threw open his stores of Italian historic art, and allowed the use of several rare medallions. To these, and to many whose good wishes have cheered him on, the author's thanks are thus heartily, though inadequately, offered.

[CONTENTS]

[BOOK FIRST]
OF URBINO AND ITS EARLY COUNTS

[BOOK SECOND]
OF FEDERIGO DI MONTEFELTRO, COUNT AND
SECOND DUKE OF URBINO

[BOOK THIRD]
OF GUIDOBALDO DI MONTEFELTRO, THIRD DUKE OF URBINO

[APPENDICES]

[ILLUSTRATIONS]

[CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE]

[CHAPTER I]

[CHAPTER II]

[CHAPTER III]

[CHAPTER IV]

[CHAPTER V]

[CHAPTER VI]

[CHAPTER VII]

[CHAPTER VIII]

[CHAPTER IX]

[CHAPTER X]

[CHAPTER XI]

[CHAPTER XII]

[CHAPTER XIII]

[CHAPTER XIV]

[CHAPTER XV]

[CHAPTER XVI]

[CHAPTER XVII]

[CHAPTER XVIII]

[APPENDICES]

Note.—The Editor's notes are marked with an asterisk.

[BOOK FIRST]
OF URBINO AND ITS EARLY COUNTS

MEMOIRS OF THE
DUKES OF URBINO
[CHAPTER I]

Topography of the Duchy of Urbino—Origin of the Italian communities—Their civil institutions and military system—Their principle of liberty—Political divisions of Romagna; opposed to modern speculations regarding centralization.

THE country which composed the Duchy of Urbino, and which nearly corresponds with the modern Legation of Urbino and Pesaro, is situated upon the eastern fall of Central Italy, between the 43rd and 44th parallels of north latitude. It stretches along the Adriatic, and extends about forty miles in length, and as many in breadth. From the Apennine ridge to the coast, it includes modifications of surface, climate, and soil, suited to a variety of natural productions, and admirably calculated for the development of the human frame. On the summit grew those magnificent pines which gave to the district of Massa the epithet of Trabaria, from the beams which were carried thence for the palaces of Rome, and which are noticed by Dante as

Below these stretched forests of chestnut and oak, succeeded by hardy orchard trees, and in the lower grounds by the olive and vine, to which its ever broken and undulating surface is peculiarly favourable. Through numberless ravines are conveyed copious streams, supplying abundant water-power for grinding rich harvests, grown in the alluvial valleys, and in the plains which open upon the sea. From its shores are drawn ample supplies of fish. Its mountains and manors abounded in game, so long as that was protected by resident princes. In its rugged Apennines, which around Cagli tower to the height of 5000 feet, no valuable minerals have been discovered; nor do its mountain torrents admit of navigation, but with two coast-harbours this was scarcely felt as a privation.

For the topography of the duchy our chief authority is Cimarelli, who wrote about two centuries ago, and who begins it about forty years after the flood! It was an absurd whim of Italian mediæval authors, which has prevailed almost till the present day, to wander among the traditional or imaginary cycles of remote ages, extolling the antiquity of their theme at a sacrifice of truth and credibility. Into such extravagances we shall not be tempted. It is enough to say that this district formed part of ancient Umbria, and is in some degree identical with that known to Roman history as Gallia Senonia. When the Western Empire crumbled to pieces, it was broken up into many petty communities, some of which adopted for themselves republican institutions, while others fell into the hands of military adventurers, who transmitted their sway to their descendants in hereditary right, founded upon personal enterprise or the consent of their subjects. After the nominal regimen of the occidental empire had been transferred across the Alps, these new communities and counts often sought from its titular emperor a confirmation of their self-constituted rights. This demand, recognising in name a sovereignty already substantially theirs, was willingly accorded as the basis of a transaction flattering to one party, momentous to the other. But the gradually opening ambition of the Church, and the extension of her temporal rule into Romagna and La Marca by the donations of Pepin, Charlemagne, and the Countess Matilda, introduced another competitor for dominion in these provinces. Her claim was made good, in some cases by a voluntary surrender on the part of men whose piety prevailed over their love of power, in others by force of arms; but by most of the mountain chiefs, and by a few of the free towns, loyalty to the emperor's shadowy authority was used as a pretext for resisting a new element which threatened their own sway. The two rival parties which sprang out of these circumstances came to be distinguished as Guelph and Ghibelline, although their watchwords were often adopted by local or temporary factions.

Many circumstances tended to an extensive establishment of political independence among the small states thus formed in Italy during the Middle Ages. Distance and the unsettled state of the Peninsula having reduced to little more than a name the direct imperial sovereignty of

the emperors endeavoured to render it still available to their political importance, through the intervention of military vicegerents. To each of these a certain territory was conveyed, generally with the title of count, which they were understood to govern for behoof of the empire. Practically, however, they were nearly secure against any strict accounting for their stewardship, and, provided they attended the imperial banner in the field with a befitting following, paid with tolerable regularity the annual cense, or contribution exigible under their tenure, and did homage as vassals at the imperial coronations, they were allowed to enjoy or abuse unquestioned what rights of sovereignty they thought fit to assume. Nor was there any effective check upon the marauding spirit of conquest, which in that age formed the natural outlet of personal ambition; and these feudatories were left to fight with their neighbours whenever their swords were not called into requisition by their common over-lord: still more were they allowed to deal undisturbed with the people submitted to their jurisdiction, who were of course presumed to endure and obey.

At a period nearly coeval with the formation of these independent fiefs, and much antecedent to the aggregation of civic communities in other parts of Europe, we find the peninsular towns advancing into importance. Their establishment was favoured by the absence of a perfect feudal organisation,[*11] for men exempt from such fetters associated together more readily than those in transalpine lands. The fertility of the soil, and consequent density of population, admitted of cultivators congregating in homes of their own choice; and the malaria generated in that luxurious climate often rendered isolated dwellings insalubrious.[*12] The peasant-hamlets thus formed were quickly augmented by the influx of all who sought protection from external foes or tyrannical masters. The increase of population brought strength; strength gave security; security attracted wealth and numbers; and these united elements created intelligence and public spirit, the only sure basis of liberty. Their first necessity being self-defence, their dwellings were placed in sites of natural strength, and soon girt by walls. The enemies they most dreaded were the adjoining lords, to whose jurisdiction they nominally belonged, but whose claims they were not unfrequently able to meet, either by formidable resistance, or by a charter of privileges, which the emperors, ever willing to curb their barons, were seldom loath to accord. The independence thus wrung from the counts was cemented by the spirit of civic liberty, while the development of municipal strength and privileges gave to citizens a social and political pre-eminence over the rural population, beyond what they attained in countries where feudalism served to link the agricultural class with the central authority. Among men united for a common object, and thrown upon their own resources, the popular element early developed itself. Such communities finding themselves without a master, a position which, when real freedom was unknown, only exposed them to attacks from stronger neighbours, their instinct of self-preservation, ere long, induced attempts at self-government. Townships consequently multiplied, developed themselves into cities, and became republics.

Thus rose the Italian republics, not as is often superficially supposed, in the mercantile cities alone, but in almost every township of Upper Italy. Their constitutional forms not only varied from each other, but were constantly fluctuating, under a desire for novelty, the contests of rival factions, and the influence of external events. Republics they were, in so far as they owned no hereditary head. They believed themselves self-governed, because their ever-recurring revolutions were their own act, or at least were effected by their own instrumentality. But the democratic element seldom long existed in purity.[*13] After the émeute was over, a self-constituted oligarchy, a rich and designing citizen, or an ambitious prelate, often stepped in, to enjoy that power for which the people had fought, until these, roused by some too undisguised tyranny, or by some new caprice, rushed to the piazza, and threw off their masters, leaving it to chance or intrigue to give them new ones.

Lamartine, the eloquent advocate and partially successful hero of popular rights, has admitted that there can be no progress unless "many interests are injured," and that "such transformations are not operated without great resistance, without an infinity of anguish and private misfortune." This, however, is no place to raise the question, how far the benefit of so much political liberty was balanced by the inadequate guarantee of person and property, inherent in such a state of things, or whether the security of domestic peace would have been too dearly purchased by a partial sacrifice of popular power. Yet few who argue these points will deny that whatever influence the republican constitutions of Italy may have had upon the individual happiness of their own citizens, they sowed the seeds of that intelligence, that freedom of thought, that ardent aspiration for the amelioration of mankind, which have ever since so beneficially acted upon European civilisation.

The liberty of Italian republics has been frequently misapprehended, and will disappoint those who seek in it such safeguards of life and property as freedom in its modern sense is understood to afford. Under no form of civilised government were those guarantees more feeble or ineffective than where tyranny of the wayward and irresponsible many was substituted for domination by one. The philosophic Guizot has even condemned these republics as "utterly irreconcilable with security for life (that first ingredient in social existence) and with progress;" as "incapable of developing freedom or extending the scope of institutions;" as tending to "limit their range and concentrate authority in a few individuals." To these conclusions we must demur, and they appear inconsistent with the just tribute he gracefully pays to the intelligence, wealth, and brilliancy of Italian democracies; to the courage, activity, genius, and general prosperity of their denizens. But the argument and inferences of this French historian are easily reconcilable with a political creed largely prevailing among his countrymen, who find in centralisation the triumph of our age, the panacea for social anomalies. To that end has doubtless tended the progress of Europe during the last four centuries, and more especially the present rapid career of events, whether for ultimate weal or woe must be hereafter seen. Yet whilst we hesitate to paint the Ausonian republics in the utopian colours of Sismondi, we cannot adopt the narrow proportions ascribed to them by his less enthusiastic countryman. They filled the Peninsula with separate aims and paltry interests at a time when union was its sole security, yet they trained men to self-government, the first step towards that constitutional freedom without which nationality itself is a questionable boon.

The growth of communities opposed by every interest to the domination of the imperial counts was viewed by these with natural jealousy. But in many instances their alarm proved groundless, as eventually some of them came to swell the very power which they were originally established to limit. Those towns which, from the fault of their site or other incidental circumstances, did not increase in population and wealth, found themselves defenceless in a land where might made right. They therefore often passed, after a more or less feeble resistance, under the sway of some powerful feudatory, or, by voluntary surrender of their unsubstantial independence, sought from his strong arm protection against the grasp of more dreaded neighbours, or redress from the ravages of rival factions which lacerated their internal repose. The title usually assumed with the authority thus acquired was that of Signore, which in the following pages is generally rendered by Lord or Seigneur, there being no term in our idiom adapted to express exactly a jurisdiction at no time known to our constitution, but resembling the "tyranny" of the old Greek commonwealths. The same word is used to designate those citizens or military adventurers who, by force or popular consent, acquired a temporary or enduring mastery in the free towns of the Peninsula. Widely different in its exercise as in its origin from feudal jurisdiction, the power which had thus been more or less derived from the people was for the most part temperately wielded. The territorial baron dwelt among his citizen subjects, conforming to their usages and encouraging their progressive civilisation. His authority was originally personal, but in many instances it was skilfully used as a foundation for family claims, which talent or influence enabled a series of persons of the same race to make good. But, as in Celtic chieftainship, rules of hereditary succession were less attended to than individual fitness for the change. Younger branches often excluded the elder ones, and in some cases, such as the Malatesta,

"The bastard slips of old Romagna's line,"

illegitimacy seems to have been practically a recommendation.[*14] To those at all conversant with Italian history, it may be superfluous to add that, while some of these petty sovereigns

others, more able or more fortunate, founded dynasties to which, as promoters of commerce, literature, and the fine arts, modern civilisation is largely indebted, and from whom are descended several reigning families of Europe.

No circumstance more generally affected all governments in Italy, or is of more importance to a comprehension of their history, than the contests of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Upon this wide and complicated topic it is unnecessary now to enter, further than to state, as a general rule, that the feudatories adhered to the emperor, whilst the self-governed communities were more partial to the Guelphic or papal faction. This was natural, as the Ghibelline or imperial party was essentially opposed to democratic tendencies, while the Church had, from various causes, become almost identified with popular principles. But the distinction was often inapplicable; for these words underwent the usual fate of party epithets, changing and counterchanging their signification with time and place, until the original meaning was lost, though their fatal influence on human passions remained unmodified. For alas! in all ages,

Thus, free cities which, like Florence, were regarded as strongholds of the Guelphs, were occasionally by a sudden revolution thrown into the hands of the opposite faction; even the Ghibelline nobles were sometimes induced, by ambition or pique, to make their peace with the Church; whilst more unprincipled holders of power sought to extend it by alternately selling their services to either party, and in turn betraying both. It also happened that counts of the empire, on obtaining the seigneury of towns, found these so much the most valuable portion of their dignities, that they were glad to strengthen their title to them by accepting papal investitures, instead of holding them by the sword, or by popular will. The pontiffs readily promoted a device, which converted into ostensible supremacy the vague and undefined claims they asserted to temporal domination, whether arising out of Countess Matilda's donation, or from other disputed titles; and they hesitated not to include even imperial countships in their charters. They thus transferred to the Holy See feudal presentations of money and military service which were legitimately due to the emperors, whose waning influence in Italy rendered such usurpations little hazardous; whilst the vassals, suiting themselves to the change of times, were content to hold their sovereignty as vicars of the Church, instead of as counts of the empire. Little did they deem that the rising sun, which they were thus prompt to worship, would eventually consume them, root and branch!

Yet the tenures and investitures of these seigneuries constituted but a pseudo-feudalism, resting upon a basis entirely different from that of the barons of northern nations. Among the latter, land, as the only known element of political power, was monopolised by the sovereign, who doled it out, under such conditions as he deemed fit, to those whose good swords were best able to defend it and the donor. The principle thus diffused from the centre radiated through the mass. The nobles parcelled out their great estates in various portions among friends and dependents, military service being the consideration chiefly exacted, in times when a circulating medium was scanty, and the pecuniary wants much restricted. This system established two main results. The hardy and patriotic soldiery who peopled the rural territory were the nerve of the nation, whilst the landless population, being destitute of individual importance, gradually drew together for mutual support, and settled in communities under the protection of some powerful lord or influential monastery. But in the Ausonian peninsula natural causes induced gregarious habits and social influences, whereby the peaceful pursuits of trade and money-making were promoted. An efficient soldiery was, however, rendered requisite for the small states by the very circumstances which most contributed to their general prosperity,—their numbers and near neighbourhood, the competition of commercial communities, the struggles of political or family factions. Yet in proportion to the development of that prosperity, and the increase of wealth and refinement, the reluctance of substantial and sedentary citizens became more decided to the inconveniences and hardships of the field. For them the art of war was scarcely less a calamity than its miseries; the more they had to lose, the less willing or able were they to defend it. There are few evils in life which money may not remedy or alleviate, and when it was found that substitutes could be hired to relieve them from military service, the problem was satisfactorily solved. Fighting became a separate profession, and its duties no longer distracted those who had other occupations. Thus arose the condottiere system, by which any bold baron or experienced captain, having formed round his banner a corps of tried and daring spirits, leased their services and his own for a stipulated term and price. Their whole arrangements being avowedly mercenary, they had no patriotism, no preference for standards or watchwords. The highest offer secured them, and when their engagement expired, or their pay fell into arrear, they were free to pass over to the enemy, or seek any other master. But besides their fixed stipend, they had perquisites from the hazards of war: the ransom of rich prisoners accrued to the leaders, while the soldiery were glutted by the occasional booty of a sacked city.

The changes occasioned by this system influenced Italy in its military, political, and social relations. Formerly, a truce disarmed the combatants, and sent them to forget their discipline in their domestic duties. Now, one campaign followed another, teaching the same free companies new evolutions and more perfect lessons in martial science; or if a piping time of general peace ever arrived, their leaders scrupled not to keep them in practice by a private adventure of pillage against some feeble victim, until they should be required for the fresh contests which a few months were sure to develop. Their armour, accoutrement, and drill thus became more complicated; men-at-arms and lances were considered the only effective troops. But their efficiency was counteracted by another result of stipendiary warfare. Exempt from enthusiasm in any cause, their tactics became a money question. To close a campaign by a series of brilliant successes was to kill the goose that gave them the golden eggs: to carry havoc into the adverse ranks was damaging to those who might be their next paymasters or comrades. Sanguinary conflicts brought them danger without advantage, whilst the capture of an opponent or a camp ensured for them a rich prize. War was, in fact, a game which they were paid to play, with no interest in the stakes beyond their individual opportunities of plunder. Equally indifferent to past victories or future fame, they cared little for beating the enemy, could they but reach his baggage-waggons, or temporise until he could buy them off. Battles, thus deprived of their dangers and stirring incidents, became great prize-fights, in which the victors deserved no sympathy, and the conquered required no commiseration. Gain was substituted for glory, languor for gallantry, calculation for courage. Patriotism slumbered; honesty of purpose and energy of action fell into disuse; the parties in the match, careless of victory, manœuvred only for stalemate. Hence the political results of Italian campaigns were inconsiderable, compared with the forces in the field, the time consumed, and the resources expended. Impoverished states were generally left without defenders and even wealthy belligerents were liable to a sudden and immediate desertion by their hireling bands. Still more fatal were the moral effects upon the people. The feudal system rendered every occupier of the soil a soldier, ready to stand by his king and country; and it transmitted to more peaceful times "a bold peasantry, their country's pride" and best defenders. But it was otherwise with the brave spirits of the Ausonian commonwealths; they were bound to the banner of some privileged bandit, who served the best bidder, whilst the mass of the community became indifferent to a native land for which they were never called upon to hazard life or limb. The stipendiaries fought for or against freedom, faith, country, and comrades; the citizens endured their outrage or purchased their mercy. In the end, the military were brutalised, whilst the civilians became enervated. The former were made venal, the latter cowardly. The master-mind of Machiavelli, after the French invasions of 1492-9, saw these mischiefs, and would have remedied them by his plan for a civic militia; but it was too late, and the degeneracy engrafted upon the national character of Italy by the condottiere system still cankers it to the core.

Although the states which grew up under these varying circumstances are universally known as the Italian Republics, this phrase is scarcely correct in our idiom. The leading peculiarity of mediæval Italy was the separate sovereignty of its petty principalities, and towns of minor rank, in which democratic constitutions were but incidental and transient distinctions, progressively disappearing as the dark ages were succeeded by a cycle of golden radiance. The Italian Republics might, therefore, be more aptly named the Italian Communes or Commonwealths. This misnomer has also given rise to somewhat confused views regarding the amount of liberty enjoyed in these states, especially since their history has become known to us from the pen of one whose democratic prepossessions, though clothed in eloquence, are so tempered by benevolent philosophy as those of Sismondi.

Liberty is a word of vague signification, both as to quality and degree. In a political sense, it has at least three meanings: personal freedom, self-government, national independence. Let us test the application of each of these qualities to the Italian commonwealths. Neither in them nor in any contemporary state, was freedom of person known in name or in fact. Individuals had no guarantee against oppression by their rulers, nor security from their powerful neighbours; no great charter constituted for them a claim of right to personal protection. In this respect there was little difference between the subjects of a petty autocrat and those of a democratic faction,—between the tyranny of one or of many: but in Venice, that most prosperous and permanent of all the commonwealths, which Roscoe, by a happy antithesis, has described as a "republic of nobles with a populace of slaves," and which especially arrogated the republic as its title, individual safety was at the lowest grade.

In most of the communities, self-government, or the sovereignty of the people, had scarcely a reality as regarded the masses. Under the seigneurs, when the hereditary principle was weak, it was oftener supplemented or infringed by the sword than by the popular will. In the few commonwealths which, during the fifteenth century, preserved their democratic institutions, such as Florence and Siena, the guilds and companies constituted indeed a quasi-representative system; but these had generally fallen into the hands of privileged classes, and even the shadow of power which clung to them was constantly torn away by some ambitious burgher, or misused for the extermination of a rival faction. Indeed, the most liberal of their constitutions corresponded in the main to our own municipal machinery, limiting the privileges of self-government to certain classes in the cities, and entirely excluding from them the rural population. The value at which these privileges were held may be estimated by the indifference of immediately adjacent despotic states, whether languishing under the savage tyranny of a Malatesta,[*15] or enjoying the beneficent sway of a Montefeltro. Even when, outraged beyond endurance, they rose against their oppressors, it was much more frequently to set up a new autocrat, than to seize for themselves power which the example of their democratic neighbours appears to have invested with no charm. We may therefore fairly conclude that the self-governed citizens of Ancona, Assisi, and San Marino, enjoyed no envied advantages over those of the surrounding principalities, which unquestionably outshone them in historical and literary illustration.

Since, then, the peculiar quality which infused extraordinary mental vigour into the Italian commonwealths, and imparted to them a social influence beyond their real importance, consisted neither in personal security nor in self-sovereignty, it must have chiefly depended upon the only remaining description of freedom, their nationality. By this phrase we mean not that mere independence of foreign and barbarian sway, which it was long the papal policy to vindicate by oceans of blood and treasure, but the maintenance in each community of a separate and supreme political status, frequently co-existent with municipal franchises and local administration, but always irresponsible to neighbours or to nominal over-lords, whether emperor or pope. The elevation of sentiment which such a position infused, both into communities and individuals, forms the noblest feature in Italian mediæval history. The honours, the privileges, and the responsibilities of citizenship were thus maintained in more immediate contact with those of the commonwealth, whereof the humblest might boast himself a participator. Besides this, there ensued many advantages of a more material description. By giving each small state its own capital, the wealth and patronage belonging to a seat of government, and in most instances to a court, were secured for it. The residence of its sovereign and officials retained in home circulation not only the revenues of the principality, but the income drawn by him from foreign fiefs and from military adventures. It kept up a permanent aristocracy of talent and genius as well as of rank and wealth, such as it was the pride of most of these courts to encourage and protect. The practical operation of these causes may be illustrated from the condition of Romagna and La Marca during the fifteenth century. About one half of the present papal territory there was then divided among the following independent states:—

It may seem strange that a territorial arrangement which, unless cemented by a confederacy, is condemned by the publicist as fatal to national strength, should have formerly ensured to Italy, as it had done to ancient Greece, no ordinary measure of those benefits which national independence is supposed to secure. But it is still more remarkable that the nationality prescribed by political empiricists nowadays as a remedy for all her woes should be directly opposed to the system under which she became the harbinger of European improvement and civilisation. This subject, if followed out, would lead to disquisitions, for which these pages are no place. Enough to observe, that the centralisation which united these twenty-two commonwealths under the papal sway, is still, after two centuries, their standing grievance. A spirit of discontent now broods over that district, although government is mildly administered, and taxation is moderate for a land so productive. But twenty-two capitals have been absorbed, and consequently humbled and empoverished. Hinc illæ lacrymæ! Yet theorists, sweeping away ancient landmarks, and overstepping natural boundaries, would begin their speculative ameliorations of the Ausonian peninsula by provincialising nine of her ten remaining capitals; they would diffuse desolation, propagate discontent, and call them nationality. The projects of union and strength that tinge such day-dreams are met by a perhaps insurmountable barrier, in the abundant local jealousies which have survived the independence of multitudinous petty states, and which, as in Spain, often amusingly startle strangers in that country.[16] When an Italian talks with ardour of his patria, or devotes his energies to illustrate its history or its heroes, he means not Dante's land,

"Circled by sea and Alps, parted by Apennine,"

but the village which gave him birth, or, at most, the province in which he dwells. Such is the boasted and burning patriotism of Young Italy, however her advocates may gloss over the fact.

These are, however, matters belonging rather to speculation than to history, and from which it is time to return. That we have not unreasonably questioned the tendency of the old Italian democracies to promote individual felicity, and the safety of personal rights, may be presumed from the dictum of one whose prepossessions are all in their favour. The views stated in the following passage in the main bear out those observations we have hazarded, and illustrate the tendency of republicanism, in its sternest forms, to pass under oligarchy or despotism.

"Our ancient republicans loved their institutions, not so much in proportion to the amount of happiness and security which they afforded to the mass, as to the share that each individual was allowed to take in the sovereignty of the state. Liberty was for them rather an essential element of life than a source of enjoyment. Public spirit was the mainspring which determined all private exertion. Freedom they understood to be the identification of every citizen with the state. Hence patriotism gradually prevailed over liberty. Every one was vitally interested in the advancement of his country's greatness and power, endangered his life and property, sacrificed his domestic comforts, and even submitted to vexatious and arbitrary laws, whenever the safety of the republic seemed to require it. In their eagerness to assert the supremacy of their native state, they acceded to the concentration of power into one or a few hands, and gave rise to the establishment of oligarchy and despotism. But those patricians and tyrants still constituted the state, and although the sovereignty with which they had been provisionally invested became, in their hands, oppressive and permanent, yet those national governments were looked upon with devotion and pride, as the emanation of popular will and the depositaries of popular power."[17]

[CHAPTER II]

Origin of the Counts of Montefeltro, and of their sovereignty in Urbino and the surrounding country—Their early genealogy—Guido, Count of Urbino—Antonio, Count of Urbino.

THE first princely dynasty of Urbino affords examples of most of the phases of mediæval jurisdiction on which we have briefly touched in our introductory remarks.

From the mists of the dark ages which brooded over the mountains of Central Italy, there emerged a race who gradually spread their paltry highland holding over a broad and fair duchy. In the territories earned by their good swords, and their faithful services to the Church, it was their pride to foster the lessons of peace, until their state became the cradle of science, of letters, and of art. The Counts of Montefeltro, a fief long held by imperial grant, gradually established the seigneury over the neighbouring town of Urbino, which thenceforth gave them their title, and in the thirteenth century they received investiture of it from the popes. Invited in 1371 by the people of Cagli to supplant the usurping Ceccardi, and in 1384, by those of Gubbio,[*18] to expel the tyrannical race of the Gabrielli, they were soon recognised as Church-vassals in both. Casteldurante, partially conquered from the Brancaleoni by Count Guidantonio, was erected into a countship in his person by Martin V. in 1433; and his son Federigo obtained by marriage the remaining fiefs of that family, including S. Angelo in Vado, Mercatello, and Massa Trabaria. Fossombrone was bought by the same Federigo in 1445, from Malatesta of Pesaro. Mondaino, Tavoleta, Sassocorbaro, La Pergola, S. Leo, Sant'Agata, and other townships, were wrested at intervals by the Counts of Urbino from their hereditary foes the Malatesta. The ducal house della Rovere owed to papal nepotism the rich endowments of Sinigaglia and Mondavio in 1474, and those of Pesaro, Gradara, and Novilara in 1513.

Alinari

VIEW OF URBINO

The state which had thus been by degrees extended over much of Romagna and La Marca constituted the Duchy of Urbino, and received no further increment of territory. It contained seven episcopal cities, a number of smaller towns, and some three or four hundred "castles," by which must be understood fortified villages, for in that land of interminable contests, every hamlet became a stronghold. Penna da Billi was the original capital of Montefeltro. S. Leo, in the same wild and rugged district, was by nature one of the most impregnable fortresses in Italy; yet we shall have to detail its capture by surprise or treachery on three several occasions. Fano, with its small circumjacent territory, though nearly in the middle of the duchy, continued to hold directly of the Church.

The early lords of Montefeltro were raised to the rank of counts of that fief by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa about 1160, a favour which seems to have long borne fruits in their Ghibelline principles. Their first investiture as Church-vassals was from Honorius III., in 1216, but it was not till towards the close of that century, that we find them designated Counts of Urbino, a title which they used in common with Montefeltro, until the dukedom of Urbino was conferred upon Federigo in 1474.[19] On the death of his son, Duke Guidobaldo, in 1508, the ecclesiastical investitures fell by failure of heirs male; but the dynasty was revived in the person of Francesco Maria della Rovere, who happened to be nephew of Pope Julius II. as well as of the Duke, and who thus founded the second ducal line. With his grandson, Duke Francesco Maria II., the male investiture again ended in 1631; and the days of gross nepotism being past, Urban VIII., who then filled the chair of St. Peter, instead of presenting the lapsed sovereignty to his nephew Cardinal Barberini, incorporated it with the states of the Church, and discharged the claims of consanguinity in modified measure by appointing him the first legate of Urbino and Pesaro.

It would be quite foreign to the object of this work were we to pause on a preliminary research into the remote antiquities of the [house of Montefeltro]. Like many other distinguished Italian genealogical stems, it had attained vigour ere modern history dawned. Nor shall we follow tradition in its mazy attempts to trace the hardy plant from the feeble seedling, which, whether of indigenous growth, or transalpine origin, took root upon the Apennine cliffs of Carpegna. In the twelfth century it put forth three leading branches, distinguished as those of Carpegna, Pietra Robbia, and Monte Copiolo. Whilst the last of these gradually acquired an important sovereignty, and earned undying distinction in Italian history, the eldest, less favoured by energy, talent, or opportunity, forcibly recals the unprofitable servant in the parable. The Counts of Carpegna continued to hold their tiny mountain fief, with its sovereign jurisdiction, in such utter insignificance, that their names gained no note during the centuries of turmoil which passed over them. Their eagle nest sent forth no eagle spirits. After the peace of 1815, the Camera apostolica, anxious to abolish privileges no longer consonant to the altered policy of Europe, bribed the Count with 300,000 scudi (65,000l.) to surrender the entire fief, with all its jurisdictions and immunities, and on the following day disposed of the allodial estates for one-fifteenth of that sum.[20]

It seems admitted that Antonio, the first Lord of Monte Copiolo, or his son Montefeltrano, performed some important services[*21] to the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, when he visited Italy for his coronation in 1154, and in return for these obtained, among other investitures, the countship of Montefeltro. From thence arose the distinctions, and the Ghibelline principles, which have preserved not a few names of this race in the picturesque pages of mediæval history; but we shall not attempt from these tattered leaves to disentangle their affiliation, or to distinguish their respective deeds of glory. Their extending influence took the direction usual in these days, and Urbino, the nearest township, tempting the ambition of Buonconte, he had the address to procure a double investiture of its sovereignty, from the Emperor Frederick II., and again, in 1216, from Pope Honorius III., by virtue whereof he became both count and vicar of that city. But parchments and bulls were then but imperfect title-deeds, and it was by the sword that they in general fell to be completed. The citizens of Urbino had hearts of oak and frames of iron wherewith to maintain their privilege of self-government, nor was it until after a struggle of nearly twenty years that they submitted to the seigneury of Buonconte. The succeeding century and a half found the Counts of Urbino occupied in ever-recurring struggles with the Church, originating from their Ghibelline policy, and occasionally complicated by the republican aspirations of their citizens. Upon these scenes of petty strife we need not dwell; but one of the race was far too striking a personage to be passed over in silence.

The earliest notice we have of Count Guido, the elder, is in 1268, when the youthful Corradino came into Italy to dispute the crown of Naples with Charles of Anjou. At Pisa he was met by the Ghibellines of Romagna and Tuscany: among them was the Count of Urbino, who obtained some laurels in the subsequent brief campaign, although spared from the crushing reverse at Tagliacozzo, having been left to maintain the imperial interests in Rome, with the title of Senator. In after years he acted as captain-general of the Ghibellines with such energy and judgment, that in 1281 all Romagna was subject to his sway, and he established Forlì as the capital of his new conquests. Martin IV. met the crisis by sending thither Giovanni di Appia, called in the old chronicles Gianni di Pa, one of the most esteemed condottieri of France, to sustain his interests as rector of the Church. The siege of Forlì ensued, where Guido had recourse to one of those stratagems which, to borrow the language of Villani, established his reputation as "a sagacious man, more cunning than any Italian of his time, masterly alike in war and in diplomacy." Gianni having carried Faenza by the treachery of Tribaldello,

"Who op'ed Faenza when the people slept,"

he made similar overtures for the betrayal of Forlì, which were accepted by order of the Count. On a stipulated day, in May, 1282, one of the gates was abandoned to the besiegers, the garrison withdrawing by another port as these entered. Delighted with their bloodless conquest, and deceived by the apparent cordiality of the citizens, the advanced guard threw aside their arms, and committing their horses to the charge of the inhabitants, prepared to enjoy the spoil. Meanwhile Guido, whom they supposed in full retreat, fell upon and dispersed their reserve who were posted in the plain; he then formed his infantry in the position which the enemy had occupied, and reentering the town with a division of cavalry, surprised the captors, who, unprepared for resistance, fled to their rendezvous, where they fell an easy prey to the Ghibellines at the moment they looked for support from their friends. The success of this stratagem equalled its dexterity, and long was the fatal day remembered, which

"Piled in bloody heap the host of France."

The Guelphic party were roused to fresh efforts, though rather of gold than of steel: within a year, Forlì and Meldola had been surrendered to Gianni by their inhabitants, and in 1286, Guido, having made his peace with the Pope, was absolved from excommunication.

But this reconciliation was short-lived. Within three years he merited new censures, by accepting from the Pisans the command of their troops against the Guelphs of Florence and Lucca, along with the seigneury of their republic. Whilst he held that authority, the fearful tragedy of Count Ugolino was perpetrated in the Torre della fame, but we may presume him guiltless of its horrors, since neither the naive narrative of Villani, nor the magnificent episode of Dante, alludes to his name, whilst impugning that cold-blooded murder. Meanwhile the people of Urbino had taken advantage of his absence and embarrassments to rally for their freedom round the papal banner. Wearied of these struggles, and fretting under their penal consequences, he once more humbled himself before his ecclesiastical superior, and obtained absolution in May, 1295.[*22] It was probably the cordial reception which his overtures met from Celestine V., that obtained for that pontiff, after his canonisation, a high degree of devotional repute among the people of Urbino. The romance of most men's lives goes by in youth; that of Count Guido was reserved for his declining years. Embued with the devotional enthusiasm which St. Francis evoked from the mountains of Umbria, he deemed the Pontiff's pardon an inadequate expiation of his accumulated rebellions. Casting aside the gauds of sovereignty, sheathing the sword which he had never drawn but to conquer, he assumed the cord and cowl of the new order, and in the holy cells of Assisi, sought that peace which it had been the aim of his previous life to trouble.

This monastic seclusion, upon which he entered about the close of 1296, was, however, ere long, broken in upon by one of the most remarkable pontiffs that has occupied the chair of St. Peter, whom we must briefly introduce to the reader. Boniface VIII., of the ancient Roman house of Gaetani, was elected in the end of 1294, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the abdication of Celestine V., a visionary anchorite, whom six months' experience had convinced that the triple tiara was a load ill-suited to his brows. His resignation was chiefly brought about by the intrigues of Cardinal Gaetani, of whom Celestine is said to have predicted that he would attain to the papacy by the arts of a fox, rule it with the fury of a lion, and die the death of a dog. Chosen at an age already much exceeding the ordinary span of human life, Boniface wielded his sovereignty with a boldness of will and an energy of purpose rarely found even in the prime of manhood; and dying at eighty-six, he had in nine years shaken the thrones of many monarchs, by pretensions and intrigues untried by his predecessors. It would be foreign to our purpose to trace his career, and to reconcile the various and contradictory estimates of his character: those who wish to glance at the state of this controversy may consult the pages of two recent periodicals, in which the respective views of ultra Romanist and Protestant writers are ably developed.[23]

But to the point which more especially regards our subject, the feuds between Boniface and the house of Colonna. The validity of his election had been early questioned, and was long disputed, on the ground that the rights of his predecessor, as a legally chosen pope, were indefeasible by abdication. Such doubts, it may be well conceived, the fiery spirit of Boniface could ill brook, and upon a rumour that two cardinals, sons of Giovanni Colonna, had been heard to express them, he at once summoned them to his presence to state their opinion upon that delicate point. This was in 1296, after the Pontiff's fierce character had been amply developed by a reign of two years; and these cardinals instantly withdrew from Rome to the strongholds of their family, from whence they issued an answer, respectfully avowing their misgivings as to the matter in question, and offering to submit them to the decision of a general council. But their flight, and the delay of a few days, had been construed by the haughty Vicar of Christ as acts of contumacy; and even before their offensive manifesto reached him, he had directed the thunders of the Church against the two Colonna, visiting on their devoted heads the accumulated offences of all their line, without allowing them an opportunity of explanation or defence. The bull of excommunication proceeds, with more than wonted elaboration of abusive epithets, to designate the obnoxious race, as "detested by their dependants, troublesome to their neighbours, enemies to the community, rebels against the Church, turbulent in the city, fractious to their allies, thankless to their benefactors, unwilling to obey, incapable of command, devoid of humility, agitated by passion, fearless of God, regardless of man." A general proscription of their whole family and adherents, and a sequestration of their vast property, was followed up by the siege of Palestrina, their principal fief. Finding his exertions unequal to the reduction of that fortress, Boniface bethought him of the military experience of the old Ghibelline monk of Montefeltro, and demanded of him counsel, silencing his religious scruples by a preliminary absolution for the sin of reverting to worldly schemes. Thus pressed, Count Guido advised recourse to deceitful promises as the surest means of conquest; and "the bard of hell," who is an authority for this passage in his life, hence consigns him to the doom of an impenitent sinner. But let us hear the poet, through the version of Carey:—

Such is the passage that has given a celebrity to Count Guido, which neither his prowess nor his alleged treachery could have conferred.[*24] Yet there are not wanting doubts as to the fidelity of this picture of his latter days; indeed, the whole charge against him in the affair of the Colonnas has been considered apocryphal by the apologists of Boniface VIII., and is rejected by Franciscan writers. Villani, whilst confirming the fact that the chiefs of that lawless race were cajoled by the Pontiff into a surrender of "their noble fortress" upon terms which were shamefully violated, drops no hint that Guido was a party to the fraud. Nor is there any reason to suppose his Holiness in want of a prompter, such faithlessness being then in usual practice for political ends, and the old chronicler expressly tells us that the conscience of Boniface was very readily stretched for gain to the Church, under cover of the axiom that the end justified the means. Against these authorities the vision can scarcely be deemed of historic weight, especially as such breach of good faith was, probably, in the eyes of Dante, a less heinous offence than his reconciliation with the Guelphs.[25] Indeed the poet in the Convito ranks him with those noble spirits, "who, when approaching the last haven, lowered the sails of their earthly career, and, laying aside worldly pleasures and wishes, devoted themselves to religion in their old age."[*26] Of the merit or efficacy of such sacrifices at the dread tribunal, it belongs not to erring man dogmatically to judge: for our purpose it is more appropriate to notice the following brief of Boniface to the Franciscan superintendent of La Marca, as remarkable evidence of the devotional zeal which actuated the Count in assuming the monastic vows, and which

"Our beloved son, the noble Count Guido of Montefeltro, has repeatedly conveyed to us personally, and through credible informants, his wish, desire, and intention, after communing with his own heart, to end his days in God's service, under the monastic habit, as a means of effacing his sins against Him, and the mother Church of Rome; and this with the full assent of his wife, who is said to be willing to take upon herself the vows of perpetual chastity. We, therefore, commending in the Lord his devotional aspirations, which seemed disposed in all prudence to admit the spirit of counsel, and in order to the more free fulfilment of his vow,—will that his household be paid out of what movables he possesses, and that he assign to his wife from his real estate as much beyond the amount of her dowry as may give her a hundred pounds in Ravenna currency yearly, during her life, a divorce having been first duly pronounced between them, in the form customary and becoming when a vow of chastity has been undertaken. And we further desire that all such personal effects as may remain, after remunerating his attendants, shall be securely deposited, and lie in the hands of responsible persons in the meantime, until we shall come to further resolutions regarding the real and movable property which he now has. And further, as the advanced age of his consort places her beyond suspicion, it is our will that she have leave to remain in her present position, if she cannot be persuaded to a monastic retirement." After conferring on the Superintendent the authority requisite for carrying these resolutions into effect, the Pope concludes by desiring that it be left to the Count's unbiassed decision, whether he will enter one of the military orders, or adopt the more rigid rule of the friars minor of St. Francis. This letter is dated from Anagni the 23rd of August, 1296.[27] The option thus given him in no way shook his intention of conforming to the ascetic rule of "poverty and Francis:" and although his Countess Costanza did not follow his example by assuming the monastic vows, she passed the eight remaining years of her worldly pilgrimage in the not less strict seclusion of Santa Chiara at Urbino, a convent especially favoured by her posterity, and of such rigid discipline that the nuns went barefoot and wore no linen, rising habitually at midnight, and but once a year permitted to approach the grating in order to see their nearest relatives. Her lord's remaining life was of shorter span, as he died at Assisi on the 27th of September, 1298, and is said to have been interred in the church there. That his courage was not unmingled with cunning seems established rather by some incidents in his life than by the bitter lines of the Ghibelline bard; that his piety was shadowed by superstition is a conclusion suggested by the closing scenes of his life, and still more by his most stirring years having bent to the slavish control of astrological quackery to a degree exceeding even the darkness of his age. His zeal founded the family chapel, which may yet be seen in the lower church at Assisi,—its frescoes cruelly defaced; and the devotion of his family was long after specially directed to the service of St. Francis and Santa Chiara.[*28]

During the next century, the pedigree of the Montefeltri, and their feats of arms against rival seigneurs, such as the Brancaleoni, the Malatesti, and the Ceccardi, are involved in confusion which we need not stay to extricate. Heroes they were, but in fields which the wide glance of history has overlooked: they found no Thucydides to depict their gallant deeds, no Froissart to chronicle their fame. Fighting under Ghibelline colours, their victories were followed by papal vengeance, affording a pretext for new risings of their urban subjects, in one of which Count Federigo and his son were torn to pieces about 1322. But though Guelph was then the ordinary watchword of freedom, and though all who desired self-government were wont to rally round the Church, they often found, like the frogs in the fable, that they had gained a worse master. As a specimen of the papal legates of his day, we may mention Guglielmo Durante,[*29] a predicant friar, who presided over the ecclesiastical territories in Romagna, about the beginning of that century, giving his name to a town in the duchy of Urbino which he rebuilt, and which long afterwards became Urbania. His tomb is in the church of the Minerva at Rome, one of those fine monuments where architecture and sculpture unite to perpetuate the dead, and over which mosaic throws the magic of rich colouring. The inscription, after enumerating his legal and liturgical works, thus celebrates the energetic qualities of this mitred warrior: "Savage as a lion against his foes, he tamed indomitable communities, he put church rebels to the sword, and reduced the vanquished to servitude." No wonder that the citizens of Urbino preferred to such pastors a return under their hereditary lords. Nor was Umbria the only theatre of Feltrian prowess. Among the republics, Pisa was as devotedly Ghibelline, as were these counts among the great feudatories. Intimate political relations were the natural result, and the Pisans were seldom without one of that race as their seigneur to maintain the common cause against their Guelphic rivals of Florence and Lucca.

Antonio Count of Montefeltro and Urbino, eighth or ninth in descent from Antonio first Lord of Monte Copiolo. His family having for some years been expatriated, and their state a prey to intestine broils, the harassed citizens recalled him in 1377 as representative of their ancient chiefs; and from that time we can follow with tolerable certainty the generations and history of the Montefeltri. The imperial party in Italy was now reduced to a mere name, fitted rather for a cry of faction than to be the rallying point of international feud. The authority lost by the emperors in Central Italy had passed to the pontiffs, and Count Antonio, emancipating himself from the spell that had bound his race to a falling cause, gave to his posterity an example of loyalty to his over-lord the Pope. He is mentioned in a chronicle of 1384 as introducing certain reforms in the administration of justice, which before publication were submitted for approval by the municipal council of Urbino, and eight years thereafter he put forth various amended statutes and constitutions. His good sense was rewarded by peace at home and acquisitions abroad. Cagli and Gubbio drove out their domestic tyrants the Ceccardi and the Gabrielli, in order to welcome his sway,[*30] and he conquered Cantiano from the latter after a nine years' struggle. Benedict IX. welcomed him as an obedient son of the Church, and established him by new investitures in these towns, as well as in the former holdings of his family.[*31] His bitter strife with the Malatesti was with difficulty appeased by mediation of that Pontiff and of the Venetians. Allied with Florence, Siena, and Milan,[*32] he gained the fame of a gallant captain, whilst his exertions to govern his people with humanity and justice established his reputation as a mild, generous, and benignant prince. His prudence, high counsel, and lofty spirit are lauded in an old chronicle of Forlì;[*33] and a sonnet, inspired by religion rather than poetry, and ascribed to his pen, will be found in the [Appendix I].

The death of Count Antonio was announced to the government of Siena by his son, in terms which, exceeding the formal expression of ceremonious regret, afford a pleasing specimen of official intercourse in early times. The original, in rude Latin, is preserved in the Archivio Diplomatico at Siena.

"To the mighty and potent Lords and special Fathers, the Lords Priors, and Governors of the people and city of Siena.

"Mighty and potent Lords, special Fathers; I should gladly communicate news more pleasant both to your magnificences, whose true and unwavering son I am, and to myself; but whatever they may be, they ought to be freely reciprocated where there exists true strength of affection, and intact purity of friendship, in order that such guileless amity may rejoice with a friend in prosperity, and may sustain, support, sympathise with, or even defend him in misfortune. And being made aware by information from others, as well as by personal experience, of the sincere affection and mutual interchange of favours continued between your progenitors and my own, I have decided, with tearful words, bitter sighs, and sad wailings, to inform your magnificences, to whom I faithfully commend myself and state, how, on the 29th of last April, the potent Lord my father, of unfading memory, yielded his noble spirit to the Almighty Creator of all, paying the timely but, alas, unavoidable debt, and separated from the flesh by force of fever, after disposing of his worldly affairs, and receiving the holy eucharist and other sacramental rites of our religion, with a mind distinct to his last hour. Ah me! wretched and afflicted, doomed to such distress! Dearest fathers, the loss of such and so great a parent torments and agitates me; what and how eminent a son have you and your community lost in him. It is indeed beyond the power of nature herself to replace to your magnificences one of greater or even equal affection, or to supply such a father to me who fain would imitate him. For he curtailed my cares, relieved my sighs, appeased my fears, cleared my entanglements. One only consideration soothes and mitigates my mental affliction, and the grief that envenoms my heart, that since fate has bereaved me of such a parent, it may find for me another in you, magnificent fathers, whom I heartily beseech to assume a paternal care of me your child, and of my state, and to counsel me in my affairs as a steady son, who will in no way abandon these recollections, and my paternal associations. Prepared for all compliance with your wishes, your magnificences' son,

"Guido Count of Montefeltro and Urbino.

"Urbino, 9th May, 1404."

Count Antonio died in April, 1404, and by his wife, a daughter of Ugolino Gonzaga, left,

• 1. Count Guidantonio, his successor.
• 2. Anna, who died unmarried in 1434.[*34]
• 3. Battista.

Upon the last of these sisters we must dwell in some detail, for she was conspicuous among the ladies of high birth, whose acquirements gave illustration to her age. By contemporary authors, her talents and endowments are spoken of in most flattering terms, whilst her character is celebrated for piety and justice, benignity and clemency. She corresponded with many of these writers, and employed her pen in theology and poetry. Among other moral treatises, she is said to have written upon human frailty, and on the true faith. In such exercises she found a resource amid the large share of public and domestic calamities which shadowed her lot. Her marriage was celebrated in 1404, when about twenty-one years of age, with Galeazzo Malatesta, heir of the seigneury of Pesaro, a spiritless creature entirely devoid of the martial qualities of his race, and whose incapacity so disgusted his subjects that, after two years, he was driven out. He subsequently sold his birthright by a transaction which we shall describe in our [fifth chapter], and, forsaking his wife, consoled himself in old age with another mate. Battista, with her only child, fled from her rebellious subjects to Urbino, and at the court of her brother found a ready welcome. When the Emperor Sigismund arrived there, on returning from his coronation at Rome in 1433, she was selected to pronounce, in his honour, a Latin harangue, which is published, but now possesses little interest. Her poetic vein had been encouraged by her father-in-law, who, anticipating the literary tastes which prevailed among the Italian princes later in this century, gained the surname of Malatesta degli Sonetti, from his success in that class of compositions. Several of the Italian sonnets and canzoni which passed between them are preserved in manuscript, as well as some of her letters in Latin.[35] Specimens of both are printed in the [Appendix No. I.], including a letter of Battista written for an interesting purpose. Cleofe, her husband's youngest sister, had married Teodoro, eldest son of an emperor of Constantinople, and despot of the Morea, but this splendid alliance was embittered by persecutions on account of her faith, which at length induced her thus to state the case to Martin V. The result of this appeal does not appear, but the subject of it is believed to have outlived his Holiness about two years.[36]

The ill-starred and virtually widowed lady of Pesaro eventually took the veil, by the name of Sister Gerolima, in the Franciscan convent of Santa Lucia at Foligno, where she died in 1450. Another monastery of the rigorous order of Sta. Chiara, dedicated by her at Pesaro to the Corpus Domini, had in 1443 received her daughter Elisabetta, whose lot was scarcely less unfortunate. Her husband, Pietro Gentile Lord of Camerino, fell a victim in 1433 to fraternal jealousy, leaving an only child Costanza, whom we shall subsequently notice as first wife of Alessandro Sforza, the supplanter of her grandfather in the seigneury of Pesaro, and as mother of Battista Countess of Urbino.

[CHAPTER III]

Guidantonio Count of Urbino—The Ubaldini—Oddantonio Count of Urbino—Is made Duke—His dissolute habits and speedy assassination.

COUNT GUIDANTONIO found himself, on his succession, hampered by debts incurred in purchasing another ample investiture in vicariate from Boniface IX., which cost him 12,000 golden florins. But prudence quickly retrieved these embarrassments, and not only enabled him to add materially to his territories and influence, but to raise his house to unprecedented distinction. In 1408, the mountain republic of Assisi sought protection from his sway; and this was approved by Gregory XII., to whom he adhered in opposition to the antipope Benedict XIII.[*37] The disgraceful schisms which at this time agitated Europe, and convulsed the Church, had their influence upon the Count of Urbino, who refused to desert Gregory when he and his rival Benedict were simultaneously deposed by the general council of Pisa, as a means of restoring union and peace to Christendom. Ladislaus of Naples, adopting the same policy, appointed the Count his grand constable, and leader of the war he was carrying on against John XXII., the de facto pope, by whom he was consequently excommunicated. Guidantonio, however, made his peace with the Church in 1413, and was created its gonfaloniere, and vice-general of Romagna; thereafter he was for some time occupied against Braccio di Montone, who carried fire and sword into his territories, on his failing to make good part of the ransom of Carlo Malatesta, for which he had become security.[*38] This Braccio was a fair specimen of Italian captains of adventure. His ancestors were among the magnates of Perugia, which, under the guidance of an oligarchy, had stretched its sway over much of Umbria, extending almost from sea to sea. "But man's estate being ever unstable, when its citizens, indolent by inclination, had thus greatly augmented their dominion and wealth, their pride swelled with their means. They who had vanquished their neighbours, waxing savage in their very vitals, set to conquer each other; hence there arose fierce discords and cruel feuds. Verily the city of Perugia was in those days most liable to changes, for it was alternately governed by the nobles, or seized by the mob; in either case supremacy having been obtained by arms and violence, rather than by equity and moderation, the victors cruelly massacred or exiled their opponents." This quaint description, borrowed from Campano, the biographer of Braccio, was then applicable to almost every city and township of the Peninsula. It was his hero's fate to be expatriated in early life by some such convulsion, and nothing was left him but his good sword, to cut his way therewith as a condottiere, until he established a despotic authority in his birthplace, and won a high place in the martial annals of Italy. Even after his death at the Lake of Celano, his name was during half a century cherished by his followers as the prestige of victory, and we shall often find the Braccian bands, under Nicolò Piccinino, opposed to those of his constant rivals the Sforza.

THE BATTLE OF S. EGIDIO

After the picture by Paolo Uccello in the National Gallery. Portraits of Carlo Malatesta and his nephew Galeotto “il Beato”

Cardinal Ottone Colonna, formerly bishop of Urbino, having been raised to the papacy in 1417, by the title of Martin V., Guidantonio lost no time in rendering him homage by an envoy, whom he next year followed in person, meeting the Pontiff at Mantua. His well-timed adhesion was repaid by a life-grant of the dukedom of Spoleto, after which he returned to defend his frontiers from his turbulent neighbour of Montone. On his arrival in Italy in 1419, Martin found his states greatly disorganised, and the temporal sway of the papacy deeply infringed by many seigneurs and communities, who had made themselves independent during the secession to Avignon, and in the prolonged schisms which had succeeded the return of Urban VI. to Rome. None of these had so much reason to dread the reckoning likely to follow the re-establishment of Christ's vicars in their ancient capital as the tyrant of Perugia, who was now at the height of his power. Unable to frustrate the impediments which Braccio threw in the way of his progress southward, the Pontiff paused at Florence, which he entered on the 26th of February; but even there he found a populace in the interest of his rebellious feudatory, and ever ready to outrage him with such taunts as "Martin Pope, not worth a plack."[39] Aware of the hazard of delay, and of the importance of gaining over a spirit so powerful for good or evil, Martin invited Montone to an interview, and found means to conciliate him by a compromise, recognising him as vicar of Perugia, Assisi, Todi, and Jesi, on his surrendering Orvieto, Terni, Narni, and Orte.[*40] He at the same time engaged his military services to reduce Bologna, then standing out for the deposed Pope John XXIII., who, on the fall of that his last stronghold, repaired to Florence to make submission to the reigning Pontiff, and died there in the end of that year.[*41] Martin's difficulties being thus overcome, he was enabled during the autumn to proceed in peace to Rome, and there to re-establish the metropolis of Christendom.

The Pope had availed himself of Braccio's visit to Florence to call thither the Count of Urbino, in order to effect a reconciliation between these rivals. Guidantonio, on this occasion, had from the magistracy of that city, as well as from his own over-lord, a highly honourable welcome, and in March, 1420, received, at the hands of his Holiness, the Golden Rose, a compliment usually conferred upon royalty.[*42] Three years later, he found himself widowed by the death of Rengarda, daughter of Galeotto Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, whom he had married in 1397, and who left him childless. After an interval, he strengthened his intimate relations with the Pontiff, by marrying Caterina, daughter of his brother Lorenzo Colonna, an alliance which secured him a series of further favours, in addition to a dowry of 5200 florins of gold. The nuptials were celebrated at Rome with great rejoicings, in the spring of 1424.[*43]

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—

• 1. Oddantonio, his successor, born in 1426.
• 2. Bianca, married to Guidantonio or Guidaccio Manfredi, Lord of Faenza and Imola, who had been brought up at her father's court.
• 3. Violante, who was born in 1430, and at twelve years of age, married Domenico Malatesta Novello, Lord of Cesena. She was remarkable alike for talent and beauty; and her husband, who died childless in 1465, left a fine monument of his literary tastes, in the public library which remains in that city.
• 4. Agnesina, born in 1431, who in 1445 married Alessandro Gonzaga, Lord of Castiglione, a younger son of the first Marquis of Mantua.
• 5. Brigida Sueva.[46]

Count Guidantonio also left two natural children:

• 1. Federigo, afterwards Duke of Urbino;
• 2. Anna, Aura, or Laura, married in 1420 to Bernardino Ubaldino della Carda, although by some authorities his wife is incorrectly called sister of Count Guidantonio.[47]

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

"Lord of himself, that heritage of woe,"

the good seed was choked by tares springing from the too fertile soil; and a prince on whom nature and fortune, imperial and papal favour, concentrated their bounties, perished miserably and disgracefully ere he had attained to manhood. His birth occurred in 1424 or 1426,[*48] his youth being distinguished by remarkable progress in liberal studies, and by rapidly mastering those accomplishments befitting the spurs of knighthood, with which he had been decorated in childhood by the Emperor Sigismund. Soon after his father's death, he repaired to Siena, to obtain from Eugene IV. a confirmation of his hereditary states, and to supplicate a renewed investiture of the dukedom of Spoleto. But the pontifical jurisdiction over the long-abandoned Italian provinces was as yet imperfectly consolidated, and Braccio di Montone had but recently shown to what peril it might be exposed by the restlessness of an overgrown feudatory. Profiting by this experience, his Holiness evaded compliance with Oddantonio's second request, but softened the refusal by conferring upon him the title of Duke, along with his patrimonial territories.

We have from the pen of Pius II. a narrative of this ceremonial, which took place on the 26th of April, 1443. "He who was to be created duke by the Pope repaired to his residence, suitably dressed, and arrayed in a mantle of gold, open on the right side from the shoulder to the ground. Thence he followed the Pontiff, holding the lower extremity of his cope, as he descended to the [cathedral] church to hear mass, and when his Holiness took his seat, he placed himself on the first step at his feet. Next he was made a knight of St. Peter, by girding him with a sword (which after three lunges in the air he resheathed) and by receiving three strokes with it on the shoulders, whilst his spurs were buckled on. The Duke-elect then kneeling, swore and promised reverence and obedience in time to come to the holy Church and to the Pope, serving him in all its behests, and defending his jurisdiction, rights, and territories, and bound himself to pay yearly on St. Peter's day, for his new dignity, a white hackney suitably accoutred. The Pontiff then placed the ducal cap on his head, and the sceptre in his hand, and the new Duke, having therewith kissed his Holiness's foot, was led by the two youngest cardinal-deacons to his place between them. Finally, having taken off his cap, he returned to the Pope's feet, and presented him with an offering of gold coin at his discretion, and, on conclusion of the mass, departed between the two cardinals, decorated with the ducal dignity: this was the ceremony performed by Eugene IV. for Oddantonio."

This Duke's brief life is shrouded in mystery; for contemporary authorities do not enable us to pronounce with certainty on the enormous vices wherewith tradition and innuendo have vaguely blackened his memory, whilst the narratives of Galli and Baldi, composed for his successors in a spirit of adulation rather than of truth, clearly overplead his defence. The testimony of Pius II. is so direct as to one atrocity, barbarous almost beyond belief, that it would be equally difficult to reject it, or crediting the tale, to limit the probable enormities of a wretch so inhuman. The accusations against him are that, intoxicated by good fortune, he cast off his early discipline, forgot the lessons of philosophy, and placing himself unreservedly in the guidance of dissolute favourites, dismayed his subjects by outrages the most licentious, and by cruelties the most revolting. The instance mentioned by Pius II. is that he had one of his pages, who had neglected to provide lights at the proper hour, enveloped in sear-cloth coated with combustibles, and then setting fire to his head, left him to the horrors of a lingering agony.

The account transmitted to us by his apologists mingles pity with our blame. They say that, desirous of suitably regulating his government, he listened to the silver-toned suggestions of his crafty and covetous neighbour, the Lord of Rimini, by whose advice he employed, as confidential ministers, Manfredi Pio da Carpi, and Tomaso Agnello da Rimini, men selected by Sigismondo as fitting instruments for his ruin. That, acting upon the instructions of their principal, these agents by precept and example debased the mind and corrupted the morals of the young prince, with the view of rendering his person and rule odious, and of accelerating a popular revolution, which might peril his life, or, at least, place his territories within the grasp of Malatesta. That in prosecution of this diabolical plot, they promoted loathsome orgies and shameless debaucheries, until the leading citizens, indignant at the dishonour which daily violated their domestic circles, rose at the instigation of Serafius, a physician whose handsome wife had been seduced by Manfredi. In the riot which followed, the two favourites and their master met a tragical end, and their bodies were exposed to nameless atrocities; but whether the popular vengeance was equally merited by, and inflicted upon the three, or whether the Duke was accidentally slain without being involved in these disgraceful malpractices, is a point likely to remain at issue. It would seem probable, however, from this passage of an old chronicle transcribed in the Oliveriana Library, that political discontent had a part in the rising: "On the 22nd of July, 1444, at lauds [three o'clock a.m.], Oddantonio was slain in his own hall, and along with him his familiar servants Manfredo de' Pii and Tomaso da Rimini; and forthwith the people of Urbino in one voice called for Signor Federigo, who at once took possession of the state. On the 1st of August, public proclamation was made of the abolition of imposts and of the assize of salt, and all penalties were remitted."[*49] The same writer speaks vaguely of previous intestine broils, slaughters, and alarms, with other symptoms of feeble government, all indicating considerable disorganisation in the duchy, of which the Malatesta and Bartolomeo Colleone availed themselves to harass its frontiers.[50]

Alinari

LEONELLO D’ESTE

After the picture by Pisanello in the Morelli Gallery, Bergamo

There were tinges of peculiar sadness in the gloomy fate which thus overtook this unhappy youth. In the preceding summer he had been betrothed to Isotta, daughter of Nicolò Marquis of Ferrara, and but three months before his death, had attended the nuptials of her brother Leonello. On that occasion he spent fifteen days in joyous excitement, preluding, as he hoped, similar festivities in his own honour. After the piazza of Ferrara had glittered with a gallant show of chivalrous exercises, and had witnessed the semi-religious pageant of St. George's triumph over the dragon, it was, as if by magic, converted into a forest-scene, studded with goodly oaks amid a thick jungle of underwood, the haunt of numerous wild animals. Upon these the sportsmen wrought their pleasure, until the place was strewed with bodies of bullocks, steers, wild boars, and goats. As a test of the attendant good cheer, we have a return of provender consumed, amounting to 2000 oxen, 40,000 pairs of fowls, pheasants and pigeons without number, 20,000 measures of wine, and 2000 moggie of grain, besides 15,000 pounds of sweetmeats, and 12,000 of wax candles.[51] On the conclusion of festivities congenial to his tastes, but ill-suited to his impending fate, the young Duke lingered in dalliance with his bride, returning home only the eve of the fatal night which summoned him

"From that unrest which men miscal delight."

It remains doubtful whether his own marriage was ever completed, as supposed by Litta, but Isotta's cup was fully charged with bitters. During the festive celebration of her after nuptials with one of the Frangipani, the partner and lover of her maid of honour fell dead in the dance, an evil omen too fully realised in domestic dissensions which soon sent her back to her brother's court.

The Duke was buried in the church of S. Francesco, but his remains are said to have been subsequently removed to the chapter-house of that convent. In a neglected cloister leading from the church, there may still be seen two monuments bearing the Montefeltro arms, one of which, canopied by light columns of spiral Gothic, has a stork, holding in its mouth a scroll.[*52] Here probably was the ill-fated Oddantonio's tomb; the nameless dead to whom the other was dedicated may have been his grandfather, Count Antonio, or the Countess Rengarda, both of whom were interred in these precincts, where their graves were opened and identified in 1634.

There is little inducement to dwell on the few notices remaining of one whose character and fate merit no sympathy. Yet among a rich store of letters from the Montefeltrian princes to the government of Siena, we have selected two written by Oddantonio in Italian; one is characteristic, the other calculated to throw a more favourable light upon his disposition.

"To our very noble and well beloved, the Podestà, Priors, and Vice-counts of Siena.

"Mighty and potent Lords, dearest Fathers; After commendations: Having heard that, in your magnificent city, stakes will shortly be run for, I should have much pleasure in sending to it one of my racers;[*53] but understanding that there are reprisals between your magnificent community and the illustrious lord, my lord father, I beg you, for my protection and security, to let me have by the bearer, whom I send on purpose, a safe conduct in such ample form as your magnificences may think fit, on whose singular favour I rely, ever recommending myself to your lordships. From Urbino, the 10th of November, 1439. Your magnificences' son,

"Oddantonio, Count of Montefeltro,
Urbino, and Casteldurante."

"Our noble and beloved;

"Though we should wish to write you things pleasant and consolatory, we must lay before you what our Lord God has ordered; and although you ought to participate in all our circumstances, whether prosperous or adverse, yet it is with grief and much bitterness of heart that we inform you how it has been the will of our Lord God to call to himself the soul of our lord and father, who passed from this miserable life on the 20th instant, between nine and ten at night [i.e. about half-past three a.m. of the 21st], before Thursday morning. And his death occurred in the course of nature, from the violence of fever, the proper sacraments of the Church having first been received as became a faithful Christian, with the utmost humility, contrition, and devotion, and having disposed in due form of his own affairs, and those of his children and state, and all his other concerns. I feel assured that you will be as much vexed and grieved at this event in mind and heart as myself; and this with reason, for the misfortune and severe loss is yours as much as mine, and keeping in view his worth, excellence, and good conduct, and the affection he bore you, I may say it specially touches you. In whose steps we shall do our best to tread, by a conduct at once satisfactory to you, and beneficial to our state, as to this city and people, and the others that we have to govern, that so you may be satisfied with our future conduct, and constrain yourselves to conform to the will of our Lord God, and be comforted. And we pray you to do thus, and to regard the welfare of this city and of our state as recommended to you, to which effect we firmly rely upon you. And by help of God's grace and the good advices of our said lord and father, with the counsel and aid of worthy friends, and our own right intentions, matters will go on well and to your satisfaction. If we have been [tardy] in advising you of these things, do not be astonished, as this was done advisedly and for good purpose.

"Oddantonio, Count of Montefeltro,
Urbino, and Durante.

"Urbino, the 24th February, 1443."

It does not distinctly appear whether the dignity of Duke was merely personal, or limited to the heirs male of Oddantonio's body. At all events it must have lapsed on his death, as it was not only dropped by his successor in the state, but Count Federigo, even after his new creation, called himself "first" Duke; in this he was followed by his descendants down to Francesco Maria II., the last of the race, who alone designated himself sixth Duke, counting from Oddantonio.[*54]

[BOOK SECOND]
OF FEDERIGO DI MONTEFELTRO, COUNT AND
SECOND DUKE OF URBINO