Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, Volume 1 (of 3) / Illustrating the Arms, Arts, and Literature of Italy, from 1440 To 1630.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The armorial bearings are: Argent, a bend sable. Crest, a dexter arm in pale proper clothed gules holding an antique shield sable charged with a mullet or. Supporters, dexter, a lion gules armed and langued azure; sinister, an antelope argent, unguled and horned or. Motto: Adversa virtute repello.

[2] The account given above of the life of James Dennistoun has been drawn from Some Account of the Family of Dennistoun of Dennistoun and Colgrain (Glasgow: printed for private circulation by James MacLehose and Sons, 1906), kindly lent to the Editor by J.W. Dennistoun of Dennistoun, Esq.

[3] I speak of the first edition of his Italy; the reprint of 1848 is enlarged but not improved.

[4] Better evidence of the deficient information hitherto accessible could hardly be desired than the fact that Roscoe, in his Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, ch. viii., entirely mistakes the family name of the first dynasty of Urbino.

[5] Daniel ii. 32.

[6] Giovanni della Casa, translated by James Glassford.

[7] The most recent, and among the most interesting authorities for Urbino, is Passavant's Life of Raffaele, an admirable article upon which by Sir C.L. Eastlake, in vol. LXVI. of the Quarterly Review, suggested the present work. Had that biography been accessible to me at an earlier period, it might have assisted my labours, and perhaps modified some of my views; but I had no opportunity of consulting it until my own pages were nearly ready for press. It is the fruit of successful German industry, sweetened by candid and intelligent criticism, and its remaining still untranslated into any language is among the remarkable anomalies of literary history. I may be allowed here to mention that the accuracy and success with which Lord Lindsay and Mrs. Jameson have cultivated the field of Christian and legendary art, enable me to dispense with much regarding a subject which would otherwise have been more prominent in these volumes.

[8] The case is stated by Roscoe in his Preface to Leo X., and we approve of his decision, notwithstanding the objections taken to it in vol. VII., p. 356, of the Edinburgh Review.

[9] By an elaborate process, founded upon very complex facts, Cibrario concludes that, with reference to the value of wheat in Piedmont, the florin is now worth only about double what it was in the fourteenth century; but this does not seem a fair test to the relative power of money even in Italy; and in a work intended for English readers, it appears necessary to bring out an estimate applicable to present prices in this country, not in Southern Europe, where money still goes much further than with us.

[10]

"L'aquila grifagna
Che per piÙ divorar due becchi porta."
Luigi Alamanni.

[*11] This may be, and indeed is so; but see Lanzani, St. d. Comuni Italiani dal. Orig. al 1313 (Milano, 1882), lib. I., passim. Nevertheless, the relation of all the Dukes and Signori to the Empire or to the Church was absolutely feudal as I understand the term, as in essence was, in turn, the relation of a city to its contado. Cf. D. Winspeare, St. d. Abusi Feudali (ed. 1883), to which is added as appendix an article by F. de Coulanges on the feudal rÉgime. See also C. CantÙ, St. d. Italiani (Torino, 1854), tom. III., cap. LXXIV., pp. 224-39. C. Calisse, St. d. Diretto Italiano (Firenze, 1891), vol. II., parte II. e III.

[*12] For the malaria in Italy in the Middle Age, see Aquarone, Dante in Siena (Siena, 1889), p. 47-9.

[*13] I doubt a true democratic element anywhere; perhaps for a few decades in Perugia.

[*14] So far as the Malatesti are concerned this is absolutely untrue. Carlo Malatesta went to infinite trouble to legitimise Galeotto and Sigismondo, his brother's illegitimate children. See Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (Dent, 1906), p. 19.

[*15] The Malatesti were, without doubt, just as great and beloved as the Montefeltri. Sigismondo was as great and enthusiastic a patron of the arts, and in contemporary opinion a greater soldier than Federigo di Montefeltro. See Edward Hutton, op. cit., p. 86 note 1.

[16] This was written under Gregory XVI. Time will show how far the more enlarged and generous policy essayed by his successor can abate long and deeply rooted prejudices on the one hand, without fostering undue expectations on the other. As yet (1850) the experiment has signally failed.[*A]

[*A] As we know, it succeeded ten years later.

[17] Mariotti's Italy, II., p. 298, first edition.

[*18] The story of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino in Gubbio, which begins in this year, is a long one, lasting to 1632. Some of the sources of information may perhaps here be given.

Croniche di Gubbio di Ser Guerriero, di Fra Gir. Maria da Venezia e di Don Francesco (per cura del Prof. Giuseppe Mazzatinti), R.I.S., tom. XXI., parte IV. (CittÀ di Castello, 1902).

V. Armanni, Stor. della famiglia de' conti Bentivoglio da Gubbio (Bologna, 1682).

B. Tondi, I Fasti della Gloria (Venezia, 1684).

M. Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis (Pisauri, 1755).

R. Reposati, Della Zecca di Gubbio ecc. (Bologna, 1772).

Simon Paolo, Diario detto di Marcello Cervino (Gubbio, 1848).

G. Mazzatinti, Cronaca di ser Guerriero di Ser Silvestro Berni, in Arch. Stor. per le Marche e per l'Umbria (Foligno), vol. I., pp. 195 e 385.

G. Mazzatinti, Di alcune leggi suntuarie eugubine, in Bollettino per l'Umbria (Perugia), vol. III., pp. 287-301.

F. Ballerini, Le feste di Gubbio per la nascita di Federico Ubaldo, dei duchi d'Urbino, in Il Muratori, vol. I., fasc. II. e segg. (1892, Roma).

O. Scalvanti, Il Mons Pietatis di Perugia con qualche notizia di quello di Gubbio (Perugia, 1892).

F. Ranghiasci, De' palazzi municipali ecc. di Gubbio, in Arch. St. It., ser. VI., vol. VI., p. ii.

A. Pellegrini, Gubbio sotto i conti e Duchi d'Urbino, in Bollettino per l'Umbria, vol. XI., pp. 135-246 e 483-535, e vol. XII., pp. 1-50.

[19] It was first given to Oddantonio, in 1443, but lapsed a few months later by his death.

[20] The Carpegna arms were azure, three bends argent. The Montefeltri of Urbino had their bends or, impaled with the eagle as feudatories of the empire.

[*21] This was the detection of a plot against Frederick. Cf. Ugolini, Storia dei Conti e Duchi d'Urbino (Firenze, 1859), vol. I., p. 12.

[*22] He had been excommunicated for the third time in 1288 for defending the Pisani. He was finally reconciled to the Church, October 1, 1294. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., vol. I., p. 81 et seq. Muratori (Annali ad ann. 1295) says: "Guido conte di Montefeltro rimesso in grazia del papa, venne in quest'anno a ForlÌ...."

[23] Dublin Review, vol. XI., 1841, p. 505. Brit. and Foreign Review, vol. XIII., 1842, p. 415.

[*24] The authorities for the life of Count Guido il Vecchio of Montefeltro are the Cronaca Riminese and the Cronaca Estense, in Muratori, R.I.S. Cf. also Villani, Cronaca, especially lib. VII., caps. 81, 128, and Rodolfo Honig, Conte Guido di Montefeltro (Bologna, 1901). Cf. also Rizzoli, I Sigilli nel Museo Bottacin di Padova (Padova, 1903), p. 51, tav. 6, where a seal of Guido is described and illustrated.

[25] Yet the denial of this imputation by Muzio and Baldi may be ascribed rather to sycophancy than to historic research, especially as the latter, in his Encomio della Patria, has gravely maintained that Guido was placed in the Inferno, not for his misdeeds, but as the only modern warrior worthy to be the associate of Ulysses!

[*26] Convito, IV., 28, 61 seq. "Il nobilissimo nostro Latino Guido Montefeltro."

[27] Riposati, Zecca di Gubbio, I., p. 408.

[*28] There was never a Montefeltro chapel in the Lower Church of S. Francesco at Assisi. Guido died in 1298, and the first two chapels were only founded about 1310 by "due prelati di Casa Orsina, cioÈ Gian Giordano e Napoleone ambedue cardinali. Fece il primo far la cappela di S. Giovanni Battista in capo al braccio meridionale, e il secondo quella di S. NiccolÒ rimpetto alla menzionata, cioÈ in testa al baccio settentrionale della croce del sotterraneo." P. Giuseppe Fratini: Storia della Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi (Prato, 1882), p. 94. What Dennistoun possibly means, is that Guidantonio in the first half of the fifteenth century commissioned the painting of the Cappella dei Pellegrini in Via Principe di Napoli in Assisi from Mezzastris and Matteo da Gualdo. Cristofani: Storia d'Assisi (Assisi Tip. Metastasio), p. 198. Dennistoun errs again when he suggests that Guido was buried in S. Francesco. Cristofani (op. cit., p. 124) tells us he was buried "nel luogo degli Angeli. D'onde il figlio Federigo fe' poi trasportarne le ossa nella chiesa di S. Bernardino a picciola distanza dalla cittÀ d'Urbino." Cf. also Ugolini, op. cit., vol. I., pp. 88-90.

[*29] For Guglielmo Durante, see Mazzatinti, Il Card. Albornoz nell'Umbria ecc., in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. IV., p. 466 et seq., and Filippini, La riconquista dello Stato della Chiesa per opera di Egidio Albornoz 1353-57, in Studi Storici (Pisa e Torino, 1897), vol. VI., fasc. I., et seq.

[*30] According to Guerriero, op. cit. (see supra, note *1, p. 22), Antonio arrived on March 31, 1384, with 2000 foot and 400 horse—to the cry of "Viva el Conte Antonio"—"con piÙ suoi gentiluomini e provisionati, e con ottocento some di vittuaglia e fece molto onore alli consoli. Ebbe le guardie della rocca della cittÀ, le chiavi delle porte.... MandÒ alli nostri gentiluomini, e molti tornarono, e incominciÒ ad invilire il prezzo del grano a 20 ancone la mina." Cf. Simon Paolo, op. cit. (see supra, note *1, p. 22).

[*31] He went to Perugia in the latter part of 1392 while the Pope was there. Ghinolfo Conti, a Roman baron, administered justice in Perugia (without respect to the factions and with little satisfaction to the nobles greedy of privileges) in the name of the Pope "cui consigliava a trovar modo di rimettere i fuorusciti nella cittÀ. Allo stesso pietoso officio intendeva il conte Antonio da Urbino venuto a Perugia con 200 cavalli." Arch. St. It., ser. I., vol. XVI., part I., p. 254 and note 3.

[*32] The treaty was signed February 1, 1375. Cf. Sommi Picenardi, Trattato fra BernabÒ Visconti, ecc. ecc., in Miscellanea di Storia Italiana, vol. XXIII. (Torino, 1885).

[*33] Annal. Foroliviens, in Muratori, R.I.S., tom. XXII. See also Sozomenus Chron., in R.I.S., tom. XVI.

[*34] Anna married Francesco Brancaleoni. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., I., 191. Later she is said to have married a Malatesta.

[35] Bibl. Oliveriana, MSS. No. 454. Vat. Urb. Lib., No. 3212, f. 128. Also a MS. in the Chigi Library. See, as to the writings both of Malatesta and his daughter-in-law, Tiraboschi, VI., part II., p. 164, and Crescimbeni, III., pp. 214, 265.

[36] A very curious contract, preserved in Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, and dated 29th May, 1419, secures to her the exercise of her own religion and native usages during the marriage, and in case of widowhood, permits her return to Italy.

[*37] The Chronicle of Gubbio tells us that Cardinal Maramaldo, legate of the Pope in Umbria, had been promised the lordship of Assisi for his services, and that at this time he was in secret treaty with the Perugians to deliver Assisi to them. "Di che accortisi," says Cristofani (op. cit., p. 213), "i cittadini di Gubbio poco mancÒ, che non lapidassero il legato. Certo poi egli ebbe in seguito Assisi e la resse con titolo di vicario della Chiesa. Difatti in una sentenza registrata in forma pubblica a dÌ 18 di agosto 1413 in favor del monastero di S. Apollinare contro l'altro di S. Paolo si legge: nobilis ac potens comes Riccardus de ... gubernator Assisii pro illustri ac potenti domino Guidantonio comite montis feretri Assisii et UmbriÆ pro S.R.E. Vicario" (Archivio di S. Apollinare in Assisi). The domination of Guidantonio in Assisi is much better confirmed by a series of letters at various times directed by him to the public officials of Assisi that are given in the Riformagioni, lib. H, VII. One of these is given dated, 29 July, 1415, from Gubbio, by Cristofani (op. cit., p. 214, note 1).

[*38] About 1416 the power of Braccio was very great. The Perugians had lost to him nearly all their fortified places; for this cause they hired Carlo Malatesta of Rimini, who was at the head of some 2000 horse and 800 infantry in Assisi; others, too, flocked to him. Towards the middle of July Carlo and his nephew Galeotto, half-brother to the famous Sigismondo, fell into the hands of Braccio, as some say, after the battle of S. Egidio, near Bastia, between Perugia and Assisi. The ransom was 120,000 ducats. See Cristofani, op. cit., p. 215, and Edward Hutton, op. cit., pp. 17-18.

[39]

"Papa Martino
Non val' un quatrino!"

[*40] But see L. Fumi, Guidantonio e la CittÀ di Castello, in Bollettino per l'Umbria, vol. VI., pp. 377-401.

[*41] Cf. L. Bonazzi, St. di Perugia (Perugia, 1875), vol. II., p. 641.

[*42] The Golden Rose was conferred not infrequently on others besides royalty. Sigismondo Malatesta had it later.

[*43] It was in January.

[*44] Her name was Elisabetta.

[*45] Guidantonio died on February 21, 1443, according to the inscription on his tomb; but the Chronicle of Gubbio (Berni, in Muratori, R.I.S., tom. XXI., p. 981) gives the date as in the text. The library at Urbino was begun by him.

[46] Regarding this daughter, who was born in 1428, we have some curious particulars to offer. After her father's death, she was carried to Rome, to be educated by her uncles the Colonna. There she married Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, in 1448, an alliance rather of policy than of affection, and was received in his capital with all demonstrations of joy by her new subjects. Her husband, fully occupied with war and business, soon after set off for Lombardy: and in sooth her charms are described, even by her enthusiastic eulogists, as very homely, and little adapted to fix the roving tastes of her lord, whose dissolute and brutal conduct exceeded even the licence of that age. After patient endurance of his outrages during twelve years, she fled to the convent of Corpus Domini, of the Franciscan order of Sta. Chiara, at Pesaro, which she enriched with 7500 ducats out of her dower. That she did not leave behind all mundane tastes may be concluded from a curious inventory of paraphernalia which she took into the cloister, printed by the AbbÉ Olivieri from the original in her own hand, and contained in II. of our Appendix.[*B]

But even the sacred precincts of her cloister afforded to the unhappy Sueva no adequate sanctuary from her cruel husband, who, abandoning himself to a profligate connection with Pacifica, a fair damsel of Pesaro, sought by renewed persecutions to extort from his wife an entire release from his matrimonial tie. Her just complaints procured the interposition of the Colonna; but these were answered by false charges against her connubial fidelity, which, overawed by the menaces of Alessandro, that he would consign the monastery and its inmates to the flames, she tacitly admitted. Thus cut off from human succour, the afflicted lady had recourse to the support of religion, and whilst prostrated before a crucifix, her faith was reassured by the conviction that the figure upon it had turned towards her with compassionate words. For such woes the world had no asylum. The outraged wife became the spouse of Christ, by taking the final vows as Sister Serafina, and sent back to her oppressor the ring that had been the token of their ill-starred union. His restored liberty was immediately used to marry Pacifica, whom his cruelties within two years consigned to a premature tomb. Finally, repenting of his long criminal career, he sought forgiveness of Serafina, and richly endowed the convent, of which she had become abbess. After an age of peace, such as youth, and the world with its gauds, had failed to afford her, her body was deposited in the cathedral of Pesaro, where it is revered as a sacred relic, its spirit having, in 1754, received the honours of beatification, and been associated with Sta. Michelina and S. Terenzio, as a protectress of that city. I had the good fortune, in 1843, to discover in the Oliveriana Library there, and to rescue from neglect, a curious piece of furniture that had belonged to the Corpus Domini, on which were portraits of the Beata Felice who founded that monastery, and of the Abbess Serafina. They were executed in distemper, with much of the feeling of Pinturicchio, and the latter of them has been rudely but faithfully engraved for Olivieri's Life of Alessandro Sforza.

[*B] Cf. Feliciangeli, Sulla monacazione di Sueva Montefeltro-Sforza (Pistoia, 1903).

[47] The remote origin of the Ubaldini is curiously illustrated by an inscription, which is among the earliest known records of armorial bearings. It was inscribed in Gothic characters upon a stone, originally placed on one of their Apennine castles, but brought to Florence by a branch of their race, where it was long regarded as an heirloom. It has been published in Borghini's Discorsi Toscani, II., p. 25, and the following literal translation from its barbarous Latino-Italian rhymes may be acceptable to our readers. It was intended to commemorate the erection of the castle, and exhibits, in rude carving, the Ubaldini arms, a stag's head antlered.

"For this boon
Thanks I render to Christ,
Completed on the fÊte of the gentle
St. Mary Magdalene;
Ah! do Thou specially pray
To God for me a sinner.
In this my chant,
From the most veritable narration
I in nothing deviate.
In the year one thousand
Of Christ's salvation, and a hundred
Eighty-four,
Chased by hounds
Furiously, I, hard by the
Coppices in Mugello, a stag
By the horns stopped,—
Of old the genius of the Ubaldini,
Subjects of the holy Empire;
Where, rushing on at speed,
I grappled with my hands
At his horns all the while.
The mighty Sir Frederick,
Who observed him thus cumbered,
Having come up, slew him outright.
Thereupon he gifted me with
The forehead, beautifully horned,
And honourably branched;
And desired that it should be
Of my race
The accepted cognisance.
My father was Ugicio,
And my grand-sire Guarento,
Son of Ugicio, son of Azo,
Son of Ubaldino,
Son of Gotichino,
Son of Luconazo.
Q.D.A.A.D.V."

[Thus read]

"Who shall sway the Apennines? The favoured house of Ubaldini."

After many a conflict with their neighbours of Florence, the Ubaldini of Val di Mugello paid the penalty of their Ghibelline principles, by expulsion from their native fiefs, and were scattered throughout Central Italy. A branch of them retired to the more distant fortresses of Umbria, and after lording it for a time over CittÀ di Castello, found an eventual home on the mountains north of Gubbio, which they are supposed to have had in dowry with a daughter of the Brancaleoni, about 1280. Her descendant,

Bernardino Ubaldini della Carda, a gallant condottiere in the wars of Count Guidantonio, died in 1437, having married that Count's natural daughter Aura. Their son,

Ottaviano Ubaldini della Carda, will figure in these pages, as the companion and counsellor of his uncle Count Federigo.

In a lengthened sketch of his character, Giovanni Sanzi, the metrical chronicler of Federigo's reign, tells us that his native excellences were amply developed at the court of Filippo Visconti, where he was brought up under that Duke's immediate eye. During many years he was chief minister and treasurer of his uncle, to whose interests he devoted himself with unwearied zeal, discharging his duties with singular dignity and discretion. Nor did he, amid the cares of state, forget the improvement of his intellectual gifts. Francesco Filelfo dedicates a work to him, as a man of great weight and learning. Porcellio, who had probably shared his bounty, calls him an indefatigable reader of the poets; and Sanzi thus extends the catalogue of his acquirements:—

"Well versed he was in classic literature,
And mastered readily theology,
Whilst music's gentle art his pastimes shared:
The secrets of astrology to him
Seemed nature's lesson. Never man than he
A heart more trusty or more leal could boast;
A shrine of truth his bosom. Friend of peace
And justice, merit's steady patron still,
Painters and sculptors solace found in him,
Their almost father."

Berni, the chronicler of Gubbio, applies to Ottaviano and to his father the epithet Magnificent, a not unfrequent euphuism in Italy, although with us applied exclusively to Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1473 he had from Sixtus IV. in special guerdon the privilege of using at his devotions a portable altar, and authority to legitimise bastards. When Federigo set forth with sad forebodings on his last fatal campaign of Ferrara, he confided to Ottaviano the guardianship of his boyish heir Guidobaldo, and the government of his state, trusts which appear to have been faithfully and judiciously fulfilled. Yet Bembo has perpetuated what was probably a vile slander, or at best the suggestion of ignorant drivelling, that the alleged impotence of Duke Guidobaldo was occasioned by magical arts resorted to by his guardian, who had been named next heir of his state. Ottaviano breathed his last at Cagli in 1498, leaving by his wife Angela Orsini, an only son Bernardino, on whose early death the estates and townships of La Carda, Mercatello, Sassocorbaro, S. Marco, Rampugnano, Sta. Croce, La Merola, Lamola, Cargine, and Pecchio devolved upon Duke Guidobaldo. Two contemporaries of his name are mentioned, but I have not traced their relationship; Guidantonio Ubaldini, who in 1464 married Altadonna, daughter of Bartolomeo Contarini; and Pietro, whom Duke Federigo sent to England in 1475, as proxy at his installation as Knight of the Garter, and who was killed at La Stellata in 1482. In 1648 there remained to this ancient house but a wreck of their great estates, including Massa Vaccareccia, but in compliment to their descent and connection with the Montefeltri, they retained precedence over the nobles of Urbino. The Counts of Pecorari and Montefiori were branches of the same stock.

[*48] See page 47. The latter is correct.

[*49] The chronicle of Gubbio (Muratori, R.I.S., XXI., 982) speaks of Oddantonio's death happening on 22 July, "ob violatum pudicitiam feminarum," as the author of the Annali di ForlÌ, R.I.S., XXII., 222, writes. It is recorded that he left debts of many thousands of ducats to the Count, his brother, "per soperchierie e trascurate spese, fatte in quel poco di tempo che egli aveva governato." Graziani, however, the supposed author of the Perugian chronicle published under his name, who, as Prof. Oscar Scalvanti has demonstrated (Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. IV., p. 57 et seq.), is not the author, but rather Antonio dei Guarneglie, followed by Pietro Angelo di Giovanni, says in his Cronaca della CittÀ di Perugia that Oddantonio was murdered on 21 July, on Tuesday evening, at the sixth hour of the night, which I take to be about two o'clock on the morning of 22 July. He gives a long and circumstantial account of his murder. The Chronicle of Rimini, R.I.S., XV., 948, names the protonotary and one of the three other friends whom "Graziani" says fell with him. They were Manfredo da Carpi and Tomasso di Ser Guidicino da Arimino. "Graziani," who doubtless wrote from hearsay, says he was killed because "non aveva rispetto a persona e che quando glie piaceva una giovane, o zitola o maritata che fusse, se ne voleva cavare la voglia. Et el conte Guido suo padre fo tutto el contrario." The usual cries rang through the city: "Morto È il signore! Viva la Chiesa e viva el populo!" See Arch. St. Ital., ser. I., tom. XVI., parte I., p. 552 et seq. While fully admitting Sigismondo Malatesta to be capable of any cunning, I do not think we have any evidence against him here. The Malatesti were the enemies of the Montefeltri, and the latter, with their subjects, were afraid of Sigismondo, already a very brilliant soldier. Cf. Marcolini, St. d. Prov. di Pesaro e Urbino (Pesaro, 1885).

[50] In another chronicle, the immediate provocation to this fell outrage is thus tersely stated: "The Duke was slain by the citizens because he had little respect for their wives by night or by day." Sanzi has deleted a portion of his poem, and the substituted passage gives the version we have adopted, passing lightly over the manner in which the victims met their death.

[51] Diario Ferrarese, in R.I.S., XXIV., 194.

[*52] The other in the sacristy is the Flagellation with the Duke's portrait on the right; it is the work of Piero della Francesca.

[*53] For all that concerns the races in Siena see William Heywood, Palio and Ponte (Methuen, 1904), esp. p. 85 et seq.

[*54] Oddantonio seems to have strongly disliked Federigo, his father's natural son. He would not suffer him to live at Urbino. The Duke was to have married Cecilia Gonzaga, but preferred at the last moment Isotta d'Este, thinking she would be more likely to give him an heir and so exclude Federigo. See Tarducci, Cecilia Gonzaga ed Oddantonio di Montefeltro (Mantova, 1897). Violante, Federigo's half-sister, renounced her part of the heritage of her father in documents preserved in Arch. Centrale di Firenze (Carte d'Urbino, Cartapecore Laiche, Nos. 180 and 209), printed by Madiai in Le Marche, vol. III., pp. 125-32.

[55] Lazzerini, in his Memorie Storiche dei Conti di Urbino, has discussed without exhausting them in fifty folio pages. The magnificent work by Count Pompeo Litta is marred by adopting the theory of an Ubaldini descent for Duke Federigo. See his notice of Emilia Pio da Carpi, wife of Count Antonio di Montefeltro.

[56] The merit of another, and apparently an original conjecture, belongs to Sismondi, who makes him the adulterous son of Bernardino, by one of Guidantonio's wives. For this there is no authority whatever; indeed, this historian, by confounding Guidantonio with his son, and omitting Oddantonio entirely, has utterly confused the family and history of Urbino. We have formerly set down Aura as daughter of Guidantonio, on authority of a licence from Nicholas V. for Federigo, his wife, and his sister Aura, to choose a confessor, quoted by Gallo Galli, and also in the MS. of Muzio (Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 1011), which is much fuller than the printed edition. Thus also Giovanni Sanzi, father of the painter Raffaele, in his rhyming chronicle of Federigo's life, which we shall frequently have to quote (Vat. Ottobon. MSS., No. 1305), and shall examine in our twenty-fifth chapter, says of him,—

"But others call this admirable flower
Grandson of Guidantonio, being child
Of that count's daughter, whose exalted name
Is dear to virtue, Bernardino's wife
Of th' Ubaldini."

[*57] Federigo was born in Gubbio, where he remained for two years, and on 2 December, 1437, was there solemnly betrothed to Gentile Brancaleoni. On the question of the birth of Federigo, see Reposati, op. cit., tom. I., p. 136, and Ugolini, op. cit., tom. I., p. 221. I take this opportunity of referring the reader behind all the later lives of Federigo to what is probably the first, the codex Vatic. Urbin. 1010. It is a codex cartaceo in folio bound in parchment measuring 0·32 × 0·21 of 107 pages. It is written by many hands, and is rich in marginal notes probably by Bernardino Baldi. It is entitled, Commentarj della vita et gesti dell'invittessimo Federico duca d'Urbino raccolti et scritti da Pierantonio Paltroni da Urbino. Guido Zaccagnini has written a commentary on this MS. in Le Marche, fasc. I., ann. IV., pp. 8-33 (Fano, 1904). Cf. also Madiai, F. da M. nella Relaz. coi Parenti in Le Marche (Fano, 1903), vol. III., pp. 114 et seq.; G. Zannoni, Federico II., di Montefeltro e G.A. Compano, in Atti della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. See also F. Madiai, Pierantonio Paltroni e B. Baldi biografi di Federico da Montefeltro, in Le Marche, fasc. V.-VI., ann. II. (Fano, 1902).

[*58] Lucca was never absorbed. It is true she was sold to Florence, but the City of the Lily could never get her. Cf. Ammirato, Muratori, Sismondi.

[59] It consisted of a tight pantaloon, fantastically party-coloured, and a device distinguishing it from similar clubs. The members associated together for festive and social purposes, which were freely indulged in at the election or marriage of a brother of the hose, and they wore mourning for four days on the death of any one of their number.

[*60] On Vittorino da Feltre, see Rosmini, V. da Feltre (1845), and Prof. Woodward, V. da Feltre.

[*61] Guidantonio entertained many potentates in Gubbio, among them, on September 24, Pope Martin V., who was housed in the Palazzo Beni. Cf. Lucarelli, Memorie e Guida di Gubbio (Capi, 1888). The Emperor was received with great magnificence not in the autumn of 1432, but in August, 1433. Cf. Guerriero, op. cit. (supra, note 1, p. 22); R. Reposati, op. cit., vol. I., p. 141.

[*62] It is instructive to notice that the Emperor also conferred knighthood a few days later in Rimini on Sigismondo Malatesta and his brother Novello. Sigismondo was born in 1417, and was christened Gismondo. Cf. Clementini and Battaglini. The Emperor, in knighting him, bade him take his own name. Thus Gismondo became Sigismondo. This becomes of great importance later to his history. The family badge of the Malatesti was the elephant (complete); the elephant's head ÉchancrÉ was the family crest. Neither was ever a charge in the arms of the family. But for a century before Sigismondo's time the rulers of Rimini had been in the habit of placing an initial or monogram in the second and third quarters of the family arms. The first known date of this use by Sigismondo of SI is 1445, and this has caused it to be confused by all writers on the subject with the name of Isotta his mistress, later his third wife, whom he met about this time. The SI, say they, stands for Sigismondo-Isotta. It does not; it stands for Sigismondo, as I think I have shown. Of course, I am sure Sigismondo was only too delighted to find that his monogram embraced the initial letter of his Love. There is good evidence to show that this was the popular belief after Polissenas's death in 1449; but that is very different indeed from any assertion that he actually placed the "I" in the family coat for love of Isotta. If such a prince could do such a thing, I will believe with John Addington Symonds that he murdered a wife whom he never married. I may end this long note with a word or two on the use of the plural Malatesti. There are many excellent authorities for it, among them Clementini, Battaglini, and d'Annunzio, to say nothing of Villani and the chroniclers of Rimini. It is indeed a question for a pedant. However, the form, to be just, is Florentine, and arose in this manner, maybe. The Florentine family name was primarily a genitive. Rainiero, the son, called himself Rainiero Rainiero; Rainiero, son of Rainiero; Rainierus, Rainieri. The Latin genitive being the same as the nominative plural, all the family became Rainieri. This, however, presupposes a nominative singular in us. Were the nominative in a, the system would not work: Malatesta—Malatestae. In order to twist it into Florentine shape it was necessary to insert the preposition de, thus: Malatesta—de Malatestis, and then to drop the final s. This sounds excellent enough; but what if the plural is as natural after all as an English plural would be in its place: Smith—the Smiths; Rainiero—i Rainieri; Malatesta—i Malatesti?

[*63] Which among the condottieri is worthy of what Dennistoun seems to regard as only to be bestowed on the best of men? However, he is wrong about Piccinino. Of all the Bracceschi, he alone was an honourable man. Gaspare Broglio, one of Sigismondo Malatesta's captains, gives him the fifth place among the soldiers of Italy; after Carmagnuolo, Francesco Sforza, Sigismondo himself, and Federigo of Urbino. A fine fighter, an excellent strategist, it was his weakness to be true to his master. And then he was what Sforza never was, nor could the dukedom of Milan make him—a gentleman. Cf. Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (Dent, 1906), passim, and G. Campano e G.B. Poggio, Vite di Braccio Fortebraccio e di Nic. Piccinino Perugini (Perugia, 1636).

[*64] Bianca Maria was promised and withheld from Sforza many times. At the beginning of the third war with Venice, which ended in 1432, the Emperor Sigismund came into Italy, and to Milan first, to receive the Iron Crown. It was on this occasion that Sforza was first betrothed to Bianca Maria Visconti, just then eight years old. At the date of their wedding—they had not met between—she was only seventeen, yet I suppose this to have been none too early for an Italian girl of the fifteenth century. Sforza was forty. A curious panegyric on the bride will be found in Sabadino G., Gynevra de la clare donne (Scelta di curiositÀ letterarie inedite o rare Dispensa, 223, Bologna, 1888). And see C.M. Ady, Milan under the Sforza (Methuen, 1907), pp. 18 and 24-5.

[65] That is, Charles II., king of Naples, when Dante wrote. See Purgatorio, v.

[*66] I think Dennistoun is wrong here. Galeotto, called Il beato, was the son of Pandolfo Malatesta by Allegra di Mori, and was born 1411. Sigismondo was his son by Madonna Antonia, and was born in 1417. See Battaglini, Basini Parenensis PoetÆ Opera (Arimini, 1744), vol. II., p. 274; Clementini, Raccolto Istorico della Fondatione di Rimino (Rimini, 1617), vol. II., p. 299; and Edward Hutton, op. cit., p. 16. Novello was his son also by Madonna Antonia, and was born in 1418. Neither of these ladies was Pandolfo's wife. Pandolfo died before his brother Carlo. On Carlo's death the Malatesta territory was held in trust for a time by women till Galeotto succeeded. On his death the same thing happened; but at last Sigismondo took Rimini when he was fifteen, and Novello had Cesena. It is true that Novello predeceased Sigismondo, though only by a few years, but by then Sigismondo was fighting for his life, having lost everything save Rimini itself. All that Dennistoun says of the Malatesti is inaccurate and clouded by prejudice.

[67] Bib. Marucelli, MSS. G, No. 308.

[68] The heraldic bearing of the Montefeltri was an imperial eagle; of the Malatesta an elephant, allusive, perhaps, to the bones of Hannibal's elephants, said to have been found at the Furlo Pass, near Fossombrone and Fano, of which they were seigneurs.[*C]

[*C] See note *2, page 71, supra.

[69] See Ugolini, op. cit., pp. 4 and 5. S. Leo seems to have been called at one time Monteferetro. Cf. Marini, Saggio di ragioni della cittÀ di S. Leo (Pesaro, 1758), and Mazio, Relazione a Urbano VIII., dello stato d'Urbino (Roma, 1858).

[70] Views of S. Leo, from other points, will be found in Mr. Gally Knight's Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy, and in Comte de Bylandt's Atlas de Volcans, where it is rendered subsidiary to the phenomena developed in that remarkable district.

[71] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 928.

[*72] Sforza's origin is now proved. The Attendoli were not peasants, but among the leading families of Cotignola. As early as 1226 an Attendolo was ambassador for the neighbouring town of Bertinoro in its submission to Bologna. They were a well-known race of soldiers, it seems. Cf. Solieri, Le origini e la Dominazione degli Sforza a Cotignola (Bologna, 1897), and ibid., L'Antica Casa degli Attendoli Sforza in Cotignola (Ravenna, 1899). Also C.M. Ady, op. cit., p. 3.

[73] The original lines, notwithstanding their antiquated orthography, so much excel our version, that many readers will gladly refer to them:—

"Como a cometa enanze corre el ragio,
Cusi nel giovin le vertude ancora
Scorse il senthier del suo illustre viagio:
E como quando Apollo insu l'Aurora
Sparge le chiome d'or per l'oriente,
Mentre tranquillo vien del onde fora,
Mirava nel suo volto resplendente
D'un almo invicto segni senza frodi.
Onde a tal Re quel giovine excellente,
Cum futura speranza, in dolci nodi
El cor gli avinse, et poi dentro se fisse,
Si como in verde pianta saldi chiodi."

[74] Carteggio inedito d'Artisti, I., p. 179, from the Archivio di Urbino at Florence, Lettere, filza 104.

[*75] This eloquence is a little stupid. If the rendezvous was "under the walls of Pesaro," already held by Federigo, Sigismondo would have been indeed a fool to go.

[*76] I do not quite see what is meant here by "duty." No such thing as loyalty in our sense, loyalty "to our liege-lord the king," was, of course, known or even understood in fifteenth-century Italy. And even if it had been, what "duty" did the Urbinati owe to a bastard? And again, as we see they "elected" Federigo as the Signore.

[77] This, it is said, was exacted of him on oath, before he was admitted within the city gate.

[78] Passatojo, in Italian, signifies a deduction or drawback from the pay of soldiers. I am ignorant of the duties of these functionaries, unless they were commissioners charged with the adjustment of such claims.

[79] Cibrario, Economia Politica del Medio Evo.

[*80] For all that concerns Sforza in the Marche, see A. Gianandrea, Della Signoria di Francesco Sforza nella Marca secondo le Memorie e i documenti dell'Archivio Fabrianese, in Archivio St. Ital., series V., tom. I., disp. 4.

[81] Sismondi's account of these facts is strangely inaccurate. One page of his seventy-first chapter contains these four misstatements: 1. That Federigo was son of Bernardino della Carda by the Countess of Urbino; 2. That he married, about 1444, a daughter of Francesco Sforza; 3. That 20,000 florins was the price of both fiefs; 4. That Fossombrone was gifted to Federigo by Sforza. I have not found an authority for any one of these assertions.

[82] Sforza had this territorial title from Eugenius IV., when invested by him with La Marca in 1433, and we prefer it to using his more common designation of Count, in order to distinguish him from the Count of Urbino.

[83] Sanzi exults over the cowardly confederates in a triplet, whose sound ingeniously echoes the sense:—

"Cum pompa excelsa, al suon di molte trombe,
Empiendo l'aria d'alte voci humane
Par che ogni valle del remor ribombe."

The ruin occasioned by this campaign is supposed to have overtaken the poet's family, and to have induced them to exchange their roof-tree at Colbordolo for the more secure shelter of Urbino, where Raffaele was born.

[84] Machiavelli, Istorie, lib. V.

[85] Machiavelli, Istorie, lib. V.

[*86] Pomarance (giÀ Ripomarance) is in the Val di Cecina. Campiglia is in Val di Cornia. Castiglione is Castiglione della Pescaia. Cf. Malavolti, Historia, ad ann., and Repetti, Dizionario della Toscana.

[87] I found this condotta or engagement in the archives of the Albani Palace at Urbino. It is for six months from March, 1448, and stipulates for 3000 florins of monthly pay, for which the Count was to maintain 500 lances and 300 foot. Poggio says that his actual force was 1000 horse and 800 infantry.—Muratori, R.I.S., XX., 420.

[*88] For Federigo's service under Sforza see Rossi, F. da Montefeltro condotto da F. Sforza, in Le Marche (Fano, 1905), an. V., p. 142. Rossi prints the Mandata.

[*89] For the war in Tuscany see Rossi, La Guerra in Toscana dell'anno 1447-8 (Firenze, 1903).

[90] Berni dates the Tuscan campaign as in 1451, but Sismondi is correct.

[91] Though pruned of not a few redundant particles which obscure the original, this letter proves that even before Spanish fashion had elaborated feebly magniloquent expletives, the Italian style was justly chargeable with verbiage.

[92] Istorie, lib. VI.

[93] Carteggio d'Artisti, I., p. 178. Promis, the recent editor of Francesco di Giorgio's works, conjectures this artillery-founder to have been Agostino da Piacenza, not Francesco, as had been supposed.

[94] From the Italian original, in the Archivio Diplomatico at Siena.

[*95] There are here three mistakes in three lines. (1) Sigismondo had not betrayed Sforza; (2) he had not strangled his natural daughter; (3) his third wife Isotta outlived him. See Edward Hutton, op. cit.

[96] See above, p. 68, and afterwards ch. XIV.

[*97] Pius II. hated Sigismondo for his supposed treachery to Siena quite as much as Federigo did.

[98] Bibl. Laurentiana, plut. 90, cod. sup. 138, f. 4. We take these proceedings from the Pope's own narrative, Commentaria, pp. 52, 74.

[99] See letters to him from Pius II., of Nov. 11 and Dec. 12, 1459, in the Laurentian MS. just quoted.

[100] Baldi, II., p. 48.

[101] Dryden's translation of Æneid, VI., p. 810.

[102] See p. 41 above. The extreme inaccuracy of Frenchmen, in speaking or writing of names and persons, is proverbial; and Sismondi, a French writer, although no Frenchman, has fallen into manifest errors regarding the family of Urbino. We have already detected one as to the birth of Federigo. In chap. LXXI. he calls Battista daughter of Francesco Sforza, and in chap. LXXXI. falls into the still more gross blunder of making Sigismondo Malatesta father-in-law (beaupÈre) of Federigo. This may be a misprint for beaufrÈre, which he would have been had Battista been a daughter of Francesco, as well as Polissena, whom Malatesta had married; but this was not the case. See notes at p. 91 and above.

[103] Urb. Vat. MSS., No. 1236, her funeral oration.

[104] Archivio Diplomatico di Firenze, original dispensation.

[105] Amadigi, canto XLIV., st. 57. Cicero was born at Arpino.

[106] Baldi, III., p. 79. Pius had arranged all this with Federigo at Siena, in February, 1460, and had advanced him money, in order, if necessary, to corrupt Piccinino's troops—Commentaria, p. 97. At p. 100 the Pontiff insinuates against Federigo the same charge which the Urbino writers have preferred against his own legate, of facilitating their transit into the enemy's country, which unquestionably could not have been effected without collusion or remissness in some quarter.

[107] There is much discrepancy as to the date. Berni and Muzio say it was the 22nd of July; Baldi names the 29th; Muratori, followed by Sismondi and Ricotti, the 27th of that month; Simonetta the 22nd of June. Muzio and Baldi, however, agree that the battle was fought on a Tuesday, which must have been the 22nd of July, the Feast of the Magdalen.

[*108] As witness the almost comic challenge of Piccinino to Sforza. Cf. Edward Hutton, op. cit., pp. 124-7.

[109] Comment. Pii PapÆ II., pp. 129, 131, 184, 203.

[110] Muratori says that the battle of the Cesano was fought on the 26th; but we prefer the date given by Berni, who makes it commence on a Thursday night, being the 12th, not the 13th, which Sismondi has adopted for the combat.

[111] Papal bulls and briefs, when abusive, are often more pungent than dignified, and their epithets sometimes baffle translation. In this instance, the meaning being filtered through the slovenly Italian version of Muzio, may have lost somewhat of its point. The obscure mention of menial offices in the Pope's service, is perhaps a clumsy allusion to some now forgotten proverb.

[112] So say Muzio and Baldi. Pius II. and Reposati print the letter as from his brother Malatesta Novello, lord of Cesena, brother-in-law of Federigo, a prince who shared, without deserving, his brother's fate, and whose love of literature, differing widely from that of the vainglorious Sigismondo, continues to benefit posterity in the fine old library which he founded at Cesena, where its ponderous tomes remain chained to their stalls as he left them four centuries ago. See his verses in I. of the Appendices.

[113] Muzio says in four days, Baldi in eighteen.

[114] Urb. Vat. MSS. No. 1236, her funeral oration.

[115] Baldi, Vita e fatti di Federigo, III., p. 59.

[116] Vat Urb. MSS. No. 829, f. 55. Other nearly similar lists of his household are preserved in No. 1248 of that library, and in Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3141, f. 144, and Oliveriana MSS. No. 384, f. 1. There is no date affixed to any of these, but they were probably drawn up after he had attained the ducal dignity.

[117] Ordine ed Officii della Corte del Serenissimo Signore il Duca de Urbino, Urb. Vat. MSS. No. 1248.

[118] Memorie concernenti la CittÀ d'Urbino. It was edited by Monsignor Bianchini, and was meant to extend to four folio volumes, illustrating: (1) the city of Urbino; (2) the princes who ruled there; (3) its most famous citizens; (4) their works. Of these only the first volume saw the light, at the expense of Pope Clement XI., an Albani of Urbino. It contains, 1st, Baldi's prolix and fulsome Encomio della Patria; 2nd, his equally dull description of the ducal palace, with seventy-four engravings of its architecture and sculpture; 3rd, Bianchini's catalogue of the sculptured trophies, with seventy-two engravings; 4th, his geometrical survey of the province of Urbino in 1723. It is a curious example of a volume compiled from promising materials, but destitute of interest, and is dedicated to an English exile whose name, once a watchword ominous to our island, frequently meets us in Central Italy, and whose wanderings here found a brief repose. See an account of the Chevalier de St. George's residence at Urbino, in an article on the Stuarts in Italy, contributed by the author of these pages to the Quarterly Review for December, 1847, vol. LXXX.

[*119] Cf. Budinich, Il Palazzo Ducale di Urbino (Trieste, 1904). Rich in documents and designs.

[120] Gaye, Carteggio d'Artisti, I., p. 214, and Pungileone, Elogio di Bramante, 63. The original is in Latin.

[121] Carteggio, I., pp. 274-6. The author has discussed the point in No. 86 of the Kunstblatt for 1836.

[122] "Federicus Urbini Dux, Montisferetri ac Durantis Comes, sanctÆ Ro. ecclesiÆ Confalonerius, atque Italici Confederationis Imperator, hanc domum a fundamentis erectam, gloriÆ et posteritati suÆ exÆdificavit: Qui bello pluries depugnavit, sexies signa contulit, octies hostem profligavit, omniumque preliorum victor ditionem auxit. Ejusdem justitia, clementia, liberalitas, et religio pace victorias equarunt, ornaruntque."

[123] Pungileone has found a payment of 7 florins, in 1473, to Maestro Giacomo, from Florence, on account of intarsia for the audience-hall, which seems, from other entries there cited, to have been decorated during 1464 with paintings now lost. Elogio di G. Santi, p. 47.

[124]

"Sint tibi divitiÆ; sint aurea vasa, talenta
Plurima, servorum turbÆ, gemmÆque nitentes;
Sint vestes variÆ, pretiosa monilia, torques;
Id totum hÆc longe superat prÆclara supellex.
Sint licet aurati niveo de marmore postes,
Et variis placeant penetralia picta figuris;
Sint quoque Trojanis circumdata moenia pannis,
Et miro fragrent viridaria culta decore.
Extra intusque domus regali fulgida luxu,
Res equidem mutÆ; sed Bibliotheca parata est,
Jussa loqui, facunda nimis, vel jussa tacere,
Et prodesse potens, et delectare legentem.
Tempora lapsa docet, venturaque plurima pandit,
Explicat et cunctos coeli terrÆque labores."

[125] Commentary on Duke Federigo, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 941, f. 43. See his Life of Nicholas V.; Muratori, Script., XXV., 268, 274; also below, ch. XXIV.

[126] The Urbino Bible, noticed again in this extract, will be more particularly described in VI. of the Appendices.

[*127] On the "veltro" Dante, see Dennistoun's note in the Appendix to this vol., p. 448, and L. Frati, Federico Duca d'Urbino e il "Veltro" Dante, in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. II., pp. 360-67. Cf. also Vespasiano, Vite (Barbera, Firenze), p. 86.

[128] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1248, f. 58.

[129] There must be some mistake as to the length, which would scarcely half suffice for a hundred and fifty horses. See the original in Promis' Turin edition of Francesco di Giorgio's Works, I., p. 171.

[130] Much confusion of dates has arisen regarding this church, owing to its slow advance,—unusually protracted even for Italy. Lazzarini tells that it was founded by Federigo in 1447, and consecrated to S. Crescentino in 1534, but that the faÇade was not completed till 1781. The cupola, planned by Muzio Oddi, was erected in 1604, but fell in 1789. The pulpit and organ were designed by Girolamo della Genga, and the latter was painted by Baroccio. The stuccoes were executed by Federigo Brandani, who died in 1575.

[*131] It is the work of Lorenzo Laurana.

[132] The kindness of Mr. F.C. Brooke, of Ufford Place, Suffolk, enables me to supplement from his note-book this imperfect mention of the most interesting feature of the palace. "The small cabinet has shared a better fate than that of the remainder of the apartments, and requires little else than cleaning up to restore it to its original state. The ceiling is divided into several scanty compartments, of octangular form and relieved with gold, while the wainscoted walls are inlaid with tarsia, representing bookcases, or rather cupboards, with their contents, amongst which are a ship, a tambourine, military weapons, a cage with a parrot in it, and, as if for the sake of variety only, a few volumes of books, over one of which, containing music, with the word 'Rosabella' inscribed on its pages, is suspended a crucifix. On the central case opposite to the window, and occupying as it were the post of honour, is the Garter, with its motto, 'Honi soit q mal i pense'; a device which has been sculptured on the exterior of the stone architrave of the door of this apartment. It appears again in tarsia in the recess of the window, where may also be seen, within circles, 'G. Ubaldo Dx.' and 'Fe Dux.' On the frieze, and in a single line interrupted only by the spaces occupied by the door and window, is the following inscription in tarsia:—

"'Aspicis Æternos venerandÆ matris alumnos,
Doctrina excelsos ingenioque viros.
Vi nuda cervice cadant ante . . .
. . . . . genu.
Justiciam pietas vincit reverenda, nec ullum
Poenitet ultrici succubuisse suÆ.'

"I might also have mentioned as amongst the devices, the crane standing on one leg, and holding, with the foot of the other which is raised, the stone he is to drop as a signal of alarm for his companions. Among other feigned contents of a bookcase are an hour-glass, guitar, and pair of compasses; in another are seen a dagger, dried fruits in a small basket made of thin wood, and a tankard; while in a third is represented an open book surmounted with the name of Guidobaldo, who probably made the description inscribed on the two pages of the volume, comprising verses 457 to 491 of the tenth Æneid."

It is unnecessary here to introduce this long quotation; for the last combat and death of Pallas by the spear of Turnus, however happily described by Virgil, bear no traceable analogy to incidents in the Montefeltrian family. Mr. Brooke conjectures that it was recommended by the passage,—

"Stat sua cuique dies; breve et irreparabile tempus
Omnibus est vitÆ; sed famam extendere factis,
Hoc Virtutis opus:"

a sentiment equally beautiful in itself, and appropriate to the fortunes of Guidobaldo; yet why not have given point to the epigram by isolating it from the inappropriate context?

[133] We have very few notices of his sporting tastes; but the Vatican collection of his letters includes one of the King of France, on sending, at his request, a brace of dogs.

[*134] The palace of Urbino was indeed the wonder of the age. Dennistoun, however, tells us little or nothing about Federigo's villas. The gardens of Lorenzo de' Medici at Poggio a Caiano were provided with every vegetable, both for ornament and use, which the most diligent search could supply. Indeed, his was one of the first collections of plants made in Europe. Alessandro Braccio, in a Latin poem addressed to Bernardo Bembo, gives a graphic account of it. Laurentian Library, Plut. LXXXVI., sup. cod. 41. Band. Cat., III., 787. The poem is given by Roscoe, Lorenzo de' Medici, App. XXV.

[135]

"Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli
Dictus; erat nulli proprius, sed cedit in usum
Nunc mihi, nunc aliis."
Horace, Sat., ii. 2.

[136] See, as to later statistics of the duchy, the Appendix to Vol. III.

[137] Sismondi says the 14th; Harris Nicolas the 15th or 16th; Baldi mentions the morrow of the Assumption, which would be the 16th; but Berni specifies the fourth hour, or midnight of Tuesday the 14th, which corresponds with the calendar of that year.

[138] Gonfaloniere, originally signifying standard-bearer, was the title of supreme command in the papal armies, and is so used throughout these volumes when applied to the dukes of Urbino. In Florence, and other old republics, it meant the chief magistrate for the time, and it is still employed in the same sense throughout many towns, especially in the ecclesiastical states. The gonfalone, or banner of the Church, was and is now white, with the golden cross-keys, surmounted by the umbrella-shaped baldachino, or canopy, usually carried over the Pope in processions. This device was borne on the armorial shields of the Gonfalonieri, impaled between their proper quarterings, as seen on the stamp outside of these volumes. The golden keys surmounted by a triple tiara is another common pontifical device, used in place of a crest.

[139] Muzio, p. 389.

[140] Ricotti (Storia delle Compagnie di Ventura in Italia, 1844, vol. III., pp. 191-201) ably reviews the evidence on both sides, and satisfactorily disposes of an error which had been received during three centuries and a half.[*D]

[*D] Cf. also C.M. Ady, op. cit., p. 78, for a well-argued defence of Sforza.

[141] These intrigues are most succinctly explained by Pignotti, but Machiavelli and Sismondi may be consulted, as well as Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, ch. II.

[142] Machiavelli speaks as if Bartolomeo continued in the Venetian service, and Roscoe appears to adopt this view; but the best authorities bear out Sismondi's statement, which I have followed.

[143] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 941, printed in the Specilegium Romanum of Cardinal Mai, I., 94.—Archivio Diplomatico di Firenze, May 15, 1467.

[144] Ricotti, III., p. 208, quotes these authorities. Our account of the battle endeavours to reconcile the Urbino writers with the generally received facts. Muzio says above 40,000 men were engaged in it. Berni estimates the Count's force at eighty-three squadrons of horse and two thousand foot against ninety-six squadrons and thrice as many infantry; the killed he states at 500, and the wounded at the same number, chiefly on the side of Colleoni. The Ferrarese diarist, speaking of an engagement fought close to his capital, may be preferred to Machiavelli. He considers the loss on both sides at 500 killed, and 1000 mortally wounded, besides "above 1000 horses ripped up;" and mentions Saturday, the 23rd of July, as the date of the battle. Roscoe, in a succinct account of the campaign, cites three authorities for his facts, but two of these refer to points of unimportant detail (one of them quoting a recent writer, whose information is at second hand), while the third establishes a view entirely passed by in the text. I mention this in no spirit of cavilling, but to show the inutility of a system of copious and indiscriminate reference by foot-notes, which, without pretending to establish every momentous statement, constantly distracts attention from the continuous narrative. Corio, a contemporary at the court of Milan, has, by confusing his master's two visits to Florence, misrepresented this engagement as fought in 1471. He mentions some incidents of it, one of which, whether accurate or not, is characteristic of such battles. Federigo, towards the close of the conflict, meeting Alessandro Sforza, whose daughter he had married, but who then fought against him, exclaimed, "Oh, my lord and father! we have already done enough;" to which Sforza replied, "This I leave you to determine;" whereupon both commanders called off their troops. Another anecdote represents Galeazzo Maria as severely blaming the Count of Urbino for not securing a decided victory by a more vigorous onset; to which the latter replied he was nowise to blame, and would leave it to any one cognisant of the art of war to say if he had not proceeded after the rules of military tactics. But so little was the Duke satisfied with this plea, that, when the Count went afterwards to visit him at Milan, he threatened to decapitate him, and would have done so but for the intervention of his secretary Simonetta, a personal friend of Federigo. The latter, taking the hint, soon retired, and made the best of his way home. Notwithstanding Corio's authority, and Galeazzo Maria's impetuous temper, this story appears apocryphal: see our immediate context, p. 189.

[145] So described by Ricotti, who apparently has declined reducing this measurement to an intelligible quantity. The cubit of Vitruvius was of six, sixteen, or thirty-six palms, a Roman palm being nine inches and a half. Dr. Johnson defines the cubit as eighteen or twenty-one Paris inches. Such want of precision in weights, measures, and money, occasions constant and often inextricable embarrassment in mediÆval history.

[146] Such, at least, is the key afforded by Sansovino to the obscure couplet inscribed on his tomb in his great edifice of S. Francesco:—

"Porto le corna ch'ogn'uno le vede,
E tal le porta che non se lo crede."

Baldi asserts for all his wives an unblemished reputation, and charges him with the murder of but two of them. Mazzuchelli alleges that he jilted or repudiated the first, and made away with the next two.

[*147] It is perhaps needless to assert the partiality of this verdict on the life and character of Sigismondo Malatesta. That, after a considerable study of all the available sources of his life and times, I have come to a very different conclusion regarding him, it is perhaps not altogether egotistical to point out. If I send the reader, then, to my own work on this extraordinary man (Sigismondo Malatesta, by Edward Hutton, Dent, 1906), it is that there is no other work concerned with him in the English language. As for Dennistoun, most of what he says, even though it were just in its conclusions, is inaccurate in detail. To begin with, Sigismondo was only "detested" by his enemies; the people of Rimini appear to have loved him, supporting him in his troubles, and loyally standing by his wife Isotta after his death. His bravery is sufficiently proved by a thousand encounters, notably that (described at page 150 of my book) when he outwitted his captors and spent the whole night in a marsh up to his neck in water; or that in which he set out to kill the Pope in the Vatican, and would have done so but that he found him surrounded by cardinals, armed. That his domestic morals were bad, "even in that age of laxity," I am not eager to deny; but no single crime of this sort laid at his door, chiefly by his bitterest enemy Pio II., who in his relations with Sigismondo always seems least himself, can be proved—I have tried to prove them—and all can be very easily denied. As for his three wives, which, according to Dennistoun, he "sacrificed to jealousy or vengeance," it will be sufficient to say that the first Madonna Ginevra d'Este appears to have died of fever at Villa Scolca while Sigismondo was besieging Forlimpopoli, and in any case the d'Este remained his close friends after her death. Neither Clementini (op. cit.) nor Battaglini (op. cit.) nor Broglio, in his unpublished life, know anything of the supposed murder, which, so far as I know, was first laid at Sigismondo's door by Pio II., who hated him for his treachery to Siena. Sigismondo's second wife was Madonna Polissena, daughter of Francesco Sforza. Again, when she died of plague in Rimini, Sigismondo was absent in Lombardy. (Cf. Clementini, op. cit. II., 363, who accuses Pio II. of this second libel also.) As for his third wife Isotta, who had been his mistress, she outlived him, and was killed at last, as is supposed, by her stepson Roberto, in the service of Pope Paul II., who coveted Rimini, and would have had it but that Roberto outwitted him. What motive Sigismondo can have had in murdering his two wives, both daughters of powerful houses, does not appear. To Dennistoun "the sole redeeming trait" in his character was his love of Isotta; but we, less strict perhaps than in middle Victorian times, shall always love and honour him as one of the earliest and most sincere of Italian humanists and patrons of learning and art, a true lover of beauty and a protector of scholars and poets. As for the "deification of his paramour" (p. 194), I do not know what it means; but if it refers to the "Divine" Isotta, it was a common mode of address in that age: and for the decoration of the Tempio, they are not pagan gods (alas!), but the planets we see there; they illustrate a poem Sigismondo wrote in his youth. Dennistoun (note, p. 194) insists that Sigismondo had three wives before Isotta, though Sismondi would have put him right there. He has been misled probably by an early betrothal of Sigismondo to the daughter of Carmagnuola, who, on her father's execution by the Venetians, was repudiated.

[148] According to his epitaph, on the 7th ides, being the 9th of October, 1468. Sismondi, chap. lxxxi., says on the 13th; calls him father-in-law of Count Federigo; and speaks of his having but two wives besides Isotta. He certainly had three; while his connection with the house of Urbino arose from his brother Domenico having married the sister of Federigo, and his son Roberto espousing a daughter of that Count. Nothing can be more terse and graphic than the sketch of his character by Pius II. in his Commentaries, book II., p. 51.

[*149] Roberto murdered Isotta. With the assistance of the Pope and Federigo of Urbino he had set out to win Rimini—for himself, as it proved. Once within the walls he first befriended Isotta, finding her too strong in the affections of the people to oppose openly. On August 8, 1470, Sallustio was found dead in a well belonging to the Marcheselli in Rimini, and within the year Isotta died also, of poison, as was believed, for Valerio, her second son, was openly slain by Roberto not long after.

[150] The following dispatch by the Count to the priors of Siena, from Urbino, the 27th of July, before the confederates had appeared, proves how unimportant were the proceedings of the siege. "Since I last wrote your lordships, nothing new has occurred beyond some attempts by the besiegers of Rimini, to which those of the town offered such resistance that they proved fruitless, indeed, rather detrimental. It also happened, by a sudden and unexpected chance, that the barks and armed vessels which blockaded the town were dispersed and scattered; one if not two of them are known to have foundered, but nothing further has yet been heard of their fate."—Archiv. Diplom. at Siena.

[151] We have spared our readers the numerous orations with which Baldi, emulating the style of Livy, has interpolated his narrative. This one is taken from Muzio, and may be a fair specimen of the eloquence then in use on similar occasions.

[152] From the original in Italian in the Archivio Diplomatico at Siena.

[153] Her mother having been then married but eleven years, Berni is palpably wrong in calling the bride nineteen. Three years appear to have intervened between this betrothal and the nuptials, that the bride might attain the age of puberty. Roberto Malatesta had from his contemporaries the appellation of Magnifico, in common with others of like station. The authorities quoted by Roscoe (ch. ii., note 49), as proving this distinction to have been special to Lorenzo de' Medici, are comparatively modern, and do not countervail repeated instances of its adoption by personages of much less mark. Neither is Sismondi correct in considering it a generic title of such princes as possessed no other.

[154] Letter of Matteo Bosso, quoted by Riposati, I., 409.

[155] So written by Pietro Bizarro, whose Historia Rerum Persicarum is our chief authority for these circumstances. The letter of Federigo (Urb. Vat. MSS. No. 1198) has Asanbech Kan; it is also written Uzun Hassan Bey. The picture is mentioned in Pungileone, Elogio di Giovanni Santi, pp. 11 and 64.

[*156] The picture is now in the Pinacoteca.

[*157] I am in some doubt here. Guerriero says (see op. cit. supra, p. 21) that on 27 April, 1472, the Cardinal [Bessarione] Niceno, called the Cardinal Greco, came to Gubbio on his way into France as Legate. "Fo de lunedÌ. Foli facto grande honore. Stecto in Ugubio tucto el martedÌ et in quello dÌ cresimÒ el figliolo piccino del Signor Conte con grande festa, el mercoledÌ partÌ ... laso ... certe indulgentie al sepulcro novamente facto in la fraternitÀ di Bianchi in Ugubio." As to Pietro Riario, I can find nothing; but it may well have been as Dennistoun says.

[158] Bembi, Opera, I., p. 588. The portentous tale is gravely repeated by Baldi in his Life of Duke Guidobaldo; and as an instance of the twaddle of Italian biographies, we may translate literally the reverend abbot's exposition of the exertions through which the Count and Countess at length obtained a male heir: "Meanwhile, being both of them resolved to leave nothing untried, they, under the direction of prudent physicians, unceasingly employed potent remedies, calculated to invigorate them, and, in as far as practicable, to supply by artificial means the defects of nature. Aware more especially of the efficacy of pious works, accompanied by righteous and fervent prayers to the Most High, they distributed vast alms, aiding them with vows and with public and private prayers." After this sample, we need not dwell upon the prodigies preceding, nor the astrological calculations occasioned by the appearance of the dieu-donnÉ.

[*159] 24 January, 1472. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., vol. I., p. 497. Cf. infra, p. 282.

[160] Berni, the annalist of Gubbio, says the names were Ubaldo Girolamo Vincenzio.

[161] The tract by Ivano (? Hyvanus), printed in vol. XXXIII. of Muratori, is diffuse and unsatisfactory, although he was an official of Volterra. I prefer the contemporary narratives of Porcellio and Vespasiano, Vat. Urb. MSS. Nos. 373 and 941. I have also consulted the epics of Sanzi and Naldo, Rinuccini's Ricordi, and a number of unimportant narratives and documents in the public library of Volterra, as well as the standard Italian histories.

[162] There is in the Albani library at Rome a MS. by Giunta, where I found it stated that the Count asked and obtained this Bible of the magistracy, in exchange for the standards taken at Volterra.

[163] Sanzi tells us its crest was Hercules trampling on a griffin (the device of Volterra), which lay wounded, plucked of its pinions, and chained by the neck. How often has it happened that art, capable of ennobling the meanest materials, is lost to the world from being employed on those whose intrinsic value is a temptation to ignorant cupidity. This helmet might now bring tenfold the price for which it probably was broken up!

[164] It may not be inappropriate here to glance at the territorial limits which, under him, were erected into the duchy of Urbino, and their gradual increment from the petty holding of Montefeltro, which was at first narrow in extent and poor in all but defence. Lying in the furthest highlands of Umbria, its soil and climate yielded nature's bounties but sparingly, though its fastnesses bred bold hearts and stout sinews. The township of Urbino, over which its counts extended their authority, added little to their limited territory. Those of Gubbio, Cagli, and Cantiano, which next came under their rule, lay many miles from their mountain home, separated by an Apennine rampart, and the valleys of the Foglia and Metauro, as well as by the Brancaleoni fiefs. These scattered domains were concentrated by Federigo's first marriage, which gave him all Massa Trabaria from the Foglia to the Cantiano. His purchase of Fossombrone and his conquests from the Malatesta extended his frontier to the Vicariat of Sinigaglia, which he lived to see conferred on his daughter's husband. His long struggles with Sigismondo Pandolfo were further compensated by Tavoleto, Sassocorbaro, S. Leo, Sta. Agata, and Castel d'Elce, establishing his sway over what had been hitherto at best debatable land, to the extreme northern boundary of the state. Although precise limits cannot now be defined, it would seem that Count Federigo nearly trebled the territory which had obeyed his brother, and the only important addition subsequently made consisted of the sea-board brought to it by his grandson Francesco Maria I.

[165] The first of the letters here introduced was addressed to his allies, the magistrates of Siena, in the archives of which city I found the Italian original. The next, without address, but probably for the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, and the two following extracts, are copied from the volume of his Latin letters already quoted. Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198. Muzio and Baldi by mistake place Battista's death in 1474.

[166] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 324, 373, 727, 1193, 1236, 1272.

[167] See ante, p. 39, for Battista the elder.

[168] A relic of like strange perversion of childhood still obtains at Rome, in the displays at the Aracoeli Church from Christmas to Epiphany, where girls of five years old are elevated on a table and spout to assembled crowds the events of the Nativity.

[169] Campano's funeral oration, Vat. Ottob. MSS., No. 3135, f. 274.

[170] Porcellio, in his Feltria, Vat. Urb. MSS. 710, describes his emotions in these rough lines:—

"Ipse domum rediens primum vacua atria lustrat,
Mox semota petens, clausis de more fenestris,
In luctu et lacrymis, nigraque in veste sedebat.
Pullati incedunt comites, famulique minores,
Ac nigra sunt mensi mantilia, nigra supellex,
Et thalamum infaustum velamina nigra tegebant."

[171] Its form somewhat resembled an heraldic cap of maintenance; but on this occasion Baldi says the older shape was retained, with large ears hanging down at the sides. The sceptre was of silver gilt, nearly two feet in length.

[172] The details of these ceremonials by Baldi are partly taken from the narrative of Cardinal Arrivabene, in No. 568 of EpistolÆ Card. Papiensis, p. 832. Some writers mention his also obtaining the Golden Rose, which usually accompanied the papal gift of the Sword to sovereigns whom the Church delighted to honour. Sismondi says the dukedom was conferred on the 21st of August, but we prefer the date given by Baldi. The latter assigns the Golden Rose and Giovanni della Rovere's marriage to the year 1475, after the affair of CittÀ di Castello; we, however, in these follow an unedited history of Sinigaglia, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 819, f. 208. Volterrano's Diary is confused as to dates, and would seem to place Giovanni's betrothal and his princely investiture in May, 1473. The latter, he says, "was considered a pernicious example of [partiality to] flesh and blood;" but a still more serious scandal arose in the sacred college from the special mark of favour conferred by Sixtus in placing the Lord of Urbino immediately beneath the cardinals in chapel, a seat privileged for heirs apparent of royalty, against which several of these dignitaries vainly remonstrated, reminding his Holiness of the few years that had elapsed since that Duke successfully defied the papal banner under the walls of Rimini.—Murat., Scriptor., XXIII., 95. This annalist unfortunately passes over Federigo's investitures with his new honours. Not so Porcellio in his Feltria, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 710; but a brief sample of his rude rhythm may suffice. Describing the Pope's appearance, he says:—

"Aurea vestis erat, lato circundato limbo,
In medio effulget latus sub pectore clavus,
Statque ingens diamas majoris sideris instar,
Et nitidus media radiens de nocte pyropus,
Purpureusque lapis, viridesque in margine gemmÆ,
Adde quod et triplices gemmarum ardore coronÆ
Fulgebant capiti fusis per serta lapillis."

[173] See p. 216.

[174] There was an idea that the ermine would submit to be taken rather than soil its coat, and hence the legends of this order were Malo mori quam foedari, or Nunquam.

[175] Baldi has unquestionably fallen into error in fixing 1476 as the date of this event.

[*176] Dennistoun does not seem to be acquainted with the Ode lirica a Federigo di Montefeltro (Per Nozze. Roma Tip. della Camera dei Dep., 1899), which Francesco Filarete wrote to him after the conquest of Volterra in 1472. It was possibly spoken at Florence in 1474, when Federigo became Duke. It speaks (strofe 14) of Federigo's early campaigns with NicolÒ Piccinino, without hiding (strofe 16) the disaster of Monteluro and the rout of Montelocco (strofe 17), and goes on to tell of the Tuscan campaign of King Alfonso and the retaking of Fossombrone (strofe 26), and so forth.

[177] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198.

[178] Several of these MSS. I have found in the Laurentian library at Florence.

[179] Bib. Laurent, plut. 90, Cod. sup. No. 36. The rubric mentions Abbot Jerome as author of this letter. Gambino appears to have offered the incense of a poem in praise of Federigo, and is mentioned by Quadri as author of some fugitive and forgotten verses of local interest.

[180] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 941.

[*181] For Federigo's intercourse with Campano, cf. G. Zannoni, Federigo di Montefeltro e G.A. Campano, in Atti della R. Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, vol. XXXVIII. (Torino).

[182] This painter was Justus of Ghent, mentioned at p. 205. To the subject of art at Urbino we shall return in ch. xxvii.

[183] We need not quote the many authorities, but in Muratori, Script., XXIII., pp. 268 and 777, will be found the Duke's good and evil qualities fairly balanced, and frightful details of the brutal licentiousness which he made his pastime.

[*184] Murder in church was a crime peculiar to that time. It might seem that the "tyrants" were so well guarded that it was impossible to lay hands on them save at mass; for on no other occasion was the whole family gathered together. To say nothing of the clergy and the Pope who murdered Giuliano and tried to murder Lorenzo de' Medici in S. Maria del Fiore, it was in church the Fabrianesi murdered their Signori the Chiavistelli (1435), the Milanesi Duke Giovan Maria Visconti (1412), and Galeazzo Maria Sforza (1476). Ludovico Sforza only escaped the same end because by chance he entered S. Ambrogio by a door that was not watched. For the whole subject see Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, pp. 387-97, especially 396, and Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Period of the Renaissance (trs. Middlemore, 1878), vol. I., p. 79.

[185] It is painful to find an author of our age, and especially one of Sismondi's merited reputation and influence, so warped by anti-despotic feelings as to become the apologist of assassination. The phrase we use is startling, but surely not misapplied to those passages in vol. XI., pp. 44 to 47, and p. 114, where, by innuendo, if not by argument, motives which led to the murder of Galeazzo Maria, and two years later to that of Giuliano de' Medici, are shielded from infamy by ingenious special-pleading, worthy the pen of Machiavelli or the morality of Loyola. I refer to the comments of Roscoe in his volume of Additional Illustrations to his Lorenzo de' Medici, pp. 114 to 119.

[186] The convention of Galeazzo Maria with Taddeo Manfredi, and the bull investing Riario, explain this transaction more fully than the authorities quoted by Sismondi, ch. lxxxiii. They are printed in vol. III. of Burriel's elaborate Life of Caterina Riario Sforza.

[187] On the 15th of November, 1848, Count Rossi was assassinated on entering the Chamber of Deputies at its first sitting. No effort was made by the bystanders or Assembly to seize the culprit. At night the streets rang with the chorus—

"Benedetta quella mano
Che il tiranno pugnalÒ!"

It has been our study to exclude from these pages all allusion to modern politics, or to events as yet untested by time. But when outrages such as this are perpetrated in broad day, and applauded by a people, it becomes all men to protest against lessons calculated to annihilate civilisation, and to reproduce the worst features of the dark ages.

[188] See also in Fabronio, Laurentii Medicis Vita, ch. ii., p. 130, a letter from Sixtus to Duke Federigo, explanatory of his policy, but curious rather from the eccentricity of its illiterate style, in which barbarous Latin forms a strange medley with uncultivated Italian. Likewise, at p. 136, a protest of the Florentine clergy to the Pope.

[189] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198.

[190] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198. In this collection of Federigo's letters are other proofs of his intimacy with the accomplished Sovereign of Hungary. In 1476 he entertained at Urbino the ambassadors sent by that monarch to negotiate his marriage with Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Naples; and having received, through the physician Fontana, an invitation to the nuptials, the Duke wrote to King Matthew that, though most willing to attend, this must depend on the pleasure of his Holiness and Ferdinand, adding that he had been the servant of his affianced bride from her tender years.

[*191] For an account of the Duke's connection with San Marino, cf. G.G., Tre Documenti inediti risguardanti la Rep. di S. Marino (Pesaro, 1888). The first document refers to Federigo in 1461, the others to 1502 and 1560.

[*192] Allegretti, Diario Senese, in Muratori, R.I.S., vol. XXIV. Tonini, Storia di Rimini (Rimini), vol. IV., p. 163, tells us that "Furono comprato nove palle di ferro del total peso libbre 33, pro 9 pallottis bombatarum pond. 33 libr...."

[193] It was usual to bind the annual fiscal accounts of Siena in wooden boards, on which some historical or domestic incident was painted. Many of these bicherne remain, curious memorials of manners and of art. I found at p. 210 of Pecci's Iscrizioni, MSS. in the public library there, a notice of one representing the siege of Colle, which would valuably illustrate these observations, could it be recovered.

[194] Volterrano gives a curious account of this function, R.I.S., XXIII., 114.

[195] This condotta is preserved in the Oliveriana MSS. The diary of Duke Francesco Maria II. gives a slightly varied version of the engagement, and explains that, of the gross allowance, 45,000 ducats in war and 25,000 in peace were the general's personal pay. The war of Ferrara is minutely detailed by Sanuto; in the Scriptores, xxii. 1215; and in a volume of Commentaries privately printed at Venice, in 1829; also by Cyrneo, in Scriptores, xii., 1189. Sanzi's chronicle supplies very ample particulars, as does Vespasiano.

[196] This letter by no means bears out the allegation in support of which it has been referred to by Roscoe,—that the preparation and direction of this war chiefly rested on Lorenzo de' Medici, and that on his activity and prudence the allies mainly relied. There is no evidence whether he fully carried out the suggestions here made, but it is quite clear that Federigo received from none of his confederates adequate support during the campaign.

[197] See ch. xxviii. and Appendix to vol. II.

[198] Sanzi.

[199] Machiavelli says he died at Bologna, but this is a mistake. Sanzi tells us he meant to do so, but was persuaded by the Duchess Leonora to prefer her capital.

[200] Vespasiano da Bisticci.

[*201] He died on the same day (September 10) as the Duke. See Bern. Zambotto, Silva Cronicarum, Bib. Civica di Ferrara, MS. 470, f. 104 v. under Settem. 10, 1482: "The Duke of Urbino, Captain-General of all the army of the league, returning sick, in the ducal chambers of the garden towards our Duke's chapel of Our Lady in the palace with continual fever, died to-day at the sixteenth hour, and I saw him lying dead in his room under a covering of crimson velvet. He was conveyed by his own people to Urbino to be buried." Zambotto is writing in Ferrara, the palace—corte—is the present Palazzo del Municipio, and "our Duke" is the Duke of Ferrara. I am able to publish this note by the kindness of Mr. E.G. Gardner who sent it me. His book Dukes and Poets at Ferrara (Constable, 1904) should be consulted concerning Ferrara.

[202] The following pompous epitaph was written for Roberto:—

"Io son colui che venne, vidi, e vinsi
L'invitto Duce, e Roma liberai,
E lui da gloria, e me da vita spinsi."
The chief was I who came, and saw, and beat
The Duke, till then unconquered, freeing Rome.
I spilt my life, but spent my foeman's fame.

[203] Vespasiano's Commentary, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 941, fol. 50.

[204] Two famous jurisconsults, whose portraits by Raffaele in the Doria Pamfili gallery have preserved their names after their decisions have been forgotten.[*E]

[*E] Bartolo and Baldi are by no means forgotten. They were Perugians, and are often alluded to as notable in the Bollettino per l'Umbria, e.g. "un opinione di Bartolo."

[*205] About a mile to the east of Urbino.

[*206] It was Edward IV., not Henry VII., who only came to the throne in 1485, whereas Federigo was invested with the Order at Grottoferrata in 1474. Cf. supra, 214.

[*207] He lies now in S. Bernardino, beside Duke Guidobaldo.

[208] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 489, f. 11. Odasio's oration is No. 1233. The Duke's epitaph will be found in the Appendix to Vol. III. His favour for this church has been already alluded to. It was rewarded, in 1470, by a rescript from the general of the order of Minims, granting all the spiritual privileges of that fraternity to him, his consort, and children, including a right to its peculiar funeral services,—fit guerdon for

"A race that nobly, fearlessly,
On their hearts' worship poured a wealth of love."

[*209] Cf. L'Arte, ann. IX., fasc. i. (Miscellanea).

[210]

Clarus insigni vehitur triumpho,
Quem, parem summis ducibus, perhennis
Fama virtutum celebrat decenter
Sceptra tenentem.
Quemodum rebus tenuit secundis,
Conjugis magni decorata rerum
Laude gestarum, volitat per ora
Cuncta virorum.

[*211] It is to Vasari we owe the statement that Piero was blind in 1458, being then sixty years old (cf. Vasari, Vite, vol. II., p. 500). This appears to be another of Vasari's mistakes. Fra Luca, who records so many facts concerning his master, is silent as to his blindness, while if dates are looked into they will easily disprove the statement. Cf. W.G. Waters, Piero della Francesca (London, 1901), p. 93.

[212] See his catalogue of painters in the Appendix to our second volume.

[213] The AbbÉ Pungileone, in his Elogio di Giovanni Sanzi, and Padre Marchese, in his Memorie dei Pittori Domenicani, both adopt, without examination, the identity of the Madonna and Child with the Duke's wife and son. The picture is engraved in Rosini, Plate 93, and in the Brera gallery.

[214] Several important medallions of Federigo are described in our thirtieth chapter, and, in our fifty-third, a statue erected to him in the palace at Urbino by his great-great-grandson, Francesco Maria II.

[*215] For the life of Guidobaldo, see Baldi, Vita e fatti di Guidobaldo I. di Montefeltro (Milano, 1821); Zaccagnini, La Vita e le opere edite e inedite di B. Baldi (Modena, 1903); Castiglione, Epistola ad Sacratissimum Britanniae Reg. Henricum de Guidobaldo Urb. Duce; Bembo, De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio deque Elisabetta Gonzagia Urbini Ducibus liber (Cod. Vatic. Urbin., 1030), and Ugolini, op. cit., II., lib. VIII. and IX.; see also Madiai Commentari dello Stato di Urbino, in Arch. Stor. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., pp. 419-464.

[*216] See supra note *1, p. 208. There, too, Guidobaldo's names are given as Guido Paolo Ubaldo. As stated here they seem to be right.

[217] See above, p. 207.

[218] Guidobaldo always honoured and enriched Odasio, to whom he gave, for instance, a fine podere on 26 February, 1495 (cf. Arch. Centr. Perg. d'Urbino, p. 275). This eulogy was an ovation and nothing more; it was not the truth, or meant to be the truth. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., vol. II., p. 151.

[*219] His sister, not his aunt. It was Elisabetta, the third child of Federigo, who married Roberto Malatesta, illegitimate son of Sigismondo. Roberto and Federigo of Urbino died on the same day (cf. Allegretti, ap. Fabr. II., 245, and E.G. Gardner, Dukes and Poets at Ferrara (Constable, 1904), p. 184).

[220] See above, p. 50, note.

[221] These being the insignia of the Pope, Florence, and Siena. See Della Valle, Lettere Sanese, II., 47.

[222]

"Sistere qui potuit nullo cum foedere Sixtus,
Audito tantum nomine pacis, obiit."
MSS. Bib. Magliab. Cl. vii. No. 345.

[*223] Cf. Ambrogio da Paullo, Cronaca Milanese, 1476-1515.

[224] We have spoken of this above.

[*225] Cf. Pasolini, Caterina Sforza. It was Ludovico and Cecco Orsi who slew Girolamo, with the aid of two soldiers.

[226] The current edition of this anecdote, though somewhat too gross for literal translation, is curiously illustrative of the determined character of its heroine. It is thus recounted by Boccalini, in his Ragguagli di Parnasso:—"Onde i congiurati cosÌ vedendosi ingannati, apertamente le protestarono, che in pezzi avanti gli occhi le havrebbono tagliati i suoi Figliuoli, s'ella non consegnava loro la Rocca nelli mani, e ch'ella per quelle horrende minaccie, in tanto non si spaventÒ punto, che anzi alzatesi le vesti, e loro mostrando le parte vergognose, disse, che de' suoi Figliuoli facessero a voglia loro, che a lei rimaneva la stampa di rifarne degli altri." He represents Caterina as demanding, on the merits of this action, admission into Parnassus, whereupon Apollo decides, after ample discussion, that although "il sempre contenersi entro i termini della modestia, fosse obbligo delle donne private, disse, che le Principesse nate di alto sangue, negli accidenti gravi, che occurrevano loro, erano obbligate mostrar virilitÀ." Bonolli, in his history of ForlÌ, tells the same story, and Vallery characterises the expedient of the Countess as "noblement impudique, et moins mÈre que femme de parti." Those who wish to compare the various authorities on this point will find them enumerated by Sismondi, chap. lxxxix. A letter of the conspirators to Lorenzo de' Medici, printed by Roscoe, Appendix, No. 24, tends to clear him of that participation in their crime of which he was suspected.

[227] Urb. MSS. No. 1248. It was compiled after the death of Duke Federigo, and apparently for his son's court.

[*228] Castiglione, Il Cortegiano (Firenze Sansoni, 1894), Lett. Dedic. I., lib. I., iv.; III., ii.; III., xlix. Cf. also Bembo, Lettere, IV., i., 31.

[229] In the Laurentian Library (Plut. 91. No. 44, f. 57) there is a laboured Latin epithalamium in ninety-six lines, written on this marriage by Marcial de Gathe of Mantua, among his poems which are dedicated to Bernardo Bembo.

[*230] An interesting book has been announced on the medical practice of that day: Tarulli, I medici ed i primordi della scuola medica Perugina. Meanwhile cf. Tarulli, Appunti Storici, in Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. XII., p. 385 et seq. According to Petrarch, Astrology and Medicine were different branches of a common charlatanism. Cf. Libri IV., Invectivarum contra medicum quemdam. Heywood, The Ensamples of Fra Filippo, a Study of MediÆval Siena (Siena, 1901), p. 325. Voigt, Il Risorgimento dell'antichitÀ classica (Fir., 1897), vol. I., p. 77 et seq. Owen, The Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1893), p. 119, and cf. Chaucer in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. For medical practice in the fourteenth century, see Fiori di Medicina di Maestro Gregorio Medicofisico Del Sec. XIV. (Bologna, Gaetano Romagnuoli, 1865), and cf. Il Lasca, Nov. I., et X., Cena Prima. Pico della Mirandola was one of the first who entered the lists against these charlatans in his treatise in twelve books, Adversus Astrologos (Venice, 1498).

[*231] Gaspar Veronensis in Muratori, R.I.S., III., pt. II., 1036, speaking of the young Cardinal, says: "Formosus est, laetissimo vultu, aspectuque jocundo, lingua ornata atque melliflua, qui mulieres egregias visas ad se amandum gratior allicit, et mirum in modum concitat, plusquam magnes ferrum; quas tamen intactas di mittere sane putatur."

[232]

"CÆsare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima, Sextus
Regnat Alexander; ille vir, iste Deus."

[*233] All that Dennistoun says of the Borgia must be accepted with care. He takes the Puritan point of view in a country where such a thing as Puritanism has happily seldom existed. Pastor, to whom it seems natural to refer the reader [A History of the Popes] is almost equally censorious though more discerning in his condemnation. He, apparently holding a brief for the Papacy, felt it incumbent upon him to restore the balance of some of his judgments by denouncing Alexander VI. It is strange that the only two sane historians of the Borgia should be Protestants. I gladly refer the reader with every confidence to the work of Creighton [A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome, vols. IV. and V.] and of Gregorovius [Lucrezia Borgia].

[*234] As for Machiavelli's opinion of Alexander VI., it is the most valuable we could possibly have, but he says little of him, thinking him of small importance beside Cesare. Dennistoun, not content with abusing the Pope himself by taking words out of the context, tries to bring Machiavelli to his way of thinking. This is not easily excused. In chapter xi. of Il Principe, Machiavelli says: "Di tutti i Pontefici che sono stati mai, mostrÒ quanto un Papa e con il denaro e con le forze si poteva prevalere." As Creighton says: "The Borgia have become legendary as types of unrestrained wickedness, and it is difficult to judge them fairly without seeming to palliate iniquity.... The exceptional infamy which attaches to Alexander VI. is largely due to the fact that he did not add hypocrisy to his other vices.... Moreover, Alexander VI. was the only man in Italy who clearly knew what he wanted to do and who steadily pursued his purpose" (vol. V., pp. 51-52).

[235] Among numerous conflicting statements, the Duke of Gandia is named Giovanni by Sismondi, in Biog. Universelle, voce Borgia, CÆsar; and Francesco by Despartes, voce Alexander VI. in the same work.

[236] See below, p. 368.

[*237] The Borgia entered as strangers into the cunning but childish game of deception and lying that made up Italian politics. Accepting the principles of the game, as all must who would play at all, they broke through its absurd conventions. It was this that caused them to be so universally hated. Savonarola, extraordinary though his success was, knew that the greatest statesman in Italy saw through his treason and his ambitions. The other politicians were beaten at their own game, and loudly proclaimed that they had been cheated. But, as Creighton reminds us, "Alexander dealt unscrupulously with unscrupulous men, and played for higher stakes than any of them dreamed of." Even his love for his children has been thrown in his face. Would it have been a virtue in him to hate them?

[238] Guicciardini, ch. i.

[239] Opera Latina, III., Eleg. i., p. 95.

[240] Du Peloux, in a despatch addressed to Charles V. in 1529, alluding to the distractions and miseries of Italy, in terms more appropriate to the period now under our review, observes "that there were two races who occasioned all its misfortunes, the Medici and the Sforza, and that it would be well for the world were both of them extirpated."—Lanz Correspondenz.

[*241] The Lancia had been used in Romagna and the Marche for over half a century, certainly, in 1492. Cf. Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta, p. 71. Cf. Battaglini, op. cit., vol. II., p. 348.

[242] Of sixteen Vitelli named in the genealogy following the appendix, all but the first were renowned condottieri.

[243] Ricotti, III., 257. The Swiss were first brought into Italy by Sixtus IV., and fought at Giornico in 1479.

[244] Carteggio d'Artisti, preface to vol. II. Among the other sources to which we have been indebted for these military details, we may mention Machiavelli, Ricotti, and the Relazioni Venete, passim, but especially Promis' edition of Francesco di Giorgio on military institutions, a work of great learning and research, published at Turin in 1841. See below, ch. xxvii.

[245] Refer back to p. 189; also to p. 248, for a description of the bombards used at the siege of Colle in 1479. The same tendency to overweight artillery seems common to many half-civilised nations. The size of the guns mounted in the Dardanelles is an instance, as well as that of the Scottish Mons Meg; but the most gigantic projectiles yet known have been found among the Burmese, and I believe the Chinese. In modern warfare, field batteries are usually of six, or, at most, nine pounders.

[*246] Ludovico Sforza held dominion in Genoa till 1498, when he was defeated by Louis XII. of France, to whom Genoa was then made over.

[*247] See note below.

[*248] Ludovico was alarmed at the alliance of Florence and Naples, and tried to meet it with a league between the Pope, Milan, and Venice [cf. Codice, Aragonese, II., 254, etc.] On April 25, 1493, Alexander VI., guarded by an armed escort, celebrated Mass in S. Marco, and after published his league with Venice, Milan, Siena, Mantua, and Ferrara. The Pope's object was the recovery of the possessions of the Holy See. Ferrante saw this, and immediately wrote to Spain speaking of him as a profligate and accusing him of stirring up strife—the one weak point in the Pope's armour. The Spanish ambassador, Don Diego Lopez de Haro, came to Rome to offer the obedience of the Catholic kings, and at once began to plead for the peace of Italy, which was enforced by a hostile demonstration on the part of Naples. Alexander agreed to negotiate. The result was that peace was established. Orsini was allowed to keep the castles he had bought from CibÒ on condition that he paid 40,000 ducats to the Pope. Peace with Naples was cemented by the marriage of the Pope's son Jofre and Sancia, a daughter of Alfonso.

[249] Roscoe, in a note to chapter iii. of the recent editions of Leo X., discusses the conflicting assertions as to the Pope's encouragement of Charles's expedition.

[*250] For all concerning Lucrezia, see Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia.

[251] Stephani Infessuri Diarium RomanÆ, in Muratori, R.I.S., III., p. ii., p. 1246. He dates the marriage ceremony the 12th of June, 1493.

[252] Gaye, Carteggio, I., p. 326. See a contemporary estimate of the invading army in VIII. of the Appendix.

[253] Our French authorities for this expedition are valuable, including Comines, and AndrÉ de la Vigne, contemporaries who shared in its hazards. A curious essay by M. de Foncemagne, ascribing to Charles the ambition of a crusader, and pointing at Constantinople as its real destination, will be found in vol. XVII., p. 539 of MÉmoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions.

[254] Carteggio, I., p. 213.

[*255] These words are infinitely misleading.

[256] See some details of it in IX. of the Appendix.

[257] See their pedigree, so far as concerns our subject, in the table at the end of this volume.

[258] Marino Sanuto's Diary MS. i. 374. From another passage in his annals we learn that a then usual scale of ransom was twenty-five ducats for a man-at-arms, twelve for a light-horseman, and three for a foot-soldier. These Diaries extend to fifty-seven large volumes, from 1495 to 1533. Our various extracts from them were most kindly communicated to us by Mr. Rawdon Brown, who has printed at Venice a very curious digest of their contents, and whose successful diligence in illustrating the secret history of that Republic may well put her own citizens to the blush. They are preserved in Bib. Marciana, MSS. Ital. classe vii. No. 419.

[259] Diary MS. i. 448.

[260] The assertion of most historians, that the pretext was Giovanni's impotency, is contradicted by very curious documents in the suit of divorce. A commission having been issued by the Pontiff, empowering two cardinals to examine into the facts, Lucrezia stated to them that in her twelfth year she had been contracted in marriage, by the words "Will you? I will," to Gaspare, son of Giovanni Francesco da Procida, Count of Aversa, but that subsequently she had been induced [quadam facilitate] to marry Sforza, and live with him above three years; but she offered to prove by her own oath, and by the report of obstetrices, that this marriage had never been consummated. Giovanni averred himself ready to affirm on oath that no copula had ever followed, and he adhibited his consent to the divorce. These steps took place towards the close of the year, and on the 18th of December a bull issued dissolving this ill-fated union. Archiv. Dipl. Urb. at Florence.

[261] Sanuto's MS. Diary, Bib. Marc., vol. II., 466-71, 489, 495, 587-98. Compare with Burchard, Eccard., II., 2060; Tommasi, I., 223-43. Burchard has no trace of that partiality for Cesare at this period, usually imputed to the Pontiff, but establishes an excessive fondness for his elder brother up to his death. Roscoe rejects the charge against the Cardinal; his German translator credits it.

[*262] They always did; it was a mediÆval practice in the case of any trouble or riot: it might seem the merest common sense. But the truth is, that when a crime had been committed the government closed the shops till the culprit was forthcoming.

[263] Sanuto. Yet there are scoffers who sneered at this worthy successor of St. Peter the fisher, netting the river for his bastard son! Burchard apud Raynaldum.

[264] The papal legitimation of this Giovanni di Borgia, then in his third year, dated the kalends of September, 1501, proceeds upon this preamble: "Legittime genitos, ex quorum verisimilibus infantilis Ætatis indiciis, spes concipi potest quod, succedentibus annis, se in viros debeant producere virtuosos, quousque progenitorum suorum prÆclara merita, et ortÛs generosa propago decorant, naturÆ vitium minime decolorat, quia decus virtutum geniturÆ maculam abstergit in filiis, et pudicitia morum pudor originis aboletur." He is called a son of Cesare, but in another, and probably secret, brief of the same date, the Pope recognises him, nevertheless, as his own offspring by an unmarried woman, this description being also a legal fiction.

[265] Sanuto, Diario MS. i. 539.

[*266] For this expedition, see Matarazzo, Chronicle of Perugia (Dent), p. 243 et seq.

[*267] For the peace, July 6, 1498, see V. Ansidei, La Pace fra Guidobaldo Duca d'Urbino e il Comune di Perugia, in Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. V., p. 741 et seq.

[268] Bembo says 170 pounds of gold. Hist. Venet., IV. Navigero puts the mounted cross-bow-men at 200. Muratori, R.I.S., xxiii. 1214.

[269] Molini Documenti di Storia Italiana, i. 29.

[270] See the curious disclosures of a Venetian ambassador, printed by Ranke, History of the Popes, Appendix, sect. i., No. 3. The exposition, by Machiavelli, of the French policy, and of the persevering pursuit of sovereignty by the Borgia, is interesting and instructive; Il Principe, ch. iii. and vii.

[271] See a more correct statement of this transaction, above, pp. 72, 90.

[272] British and Foreign Review, No. xxix.

[273] See above, p. 308.

[274] Some interesting particulars of his arrival in France will be found in XI. of the Appendices.

[275]

"'Borgia CÆsar eram, factis et nomine CÆsar;
Aut nihil aut CÆsar,' dixit: utrumque fuit."

The idea was thus repeated by Sannazaro:—

"Aut nihil aut CÆsar vult dici Borgia: quid ni?
Cum simul et CÆsar possit, et esse nihil."
CÆsar or nothing, Borgia fain would be;
CÆsar and nothing, both in him we see.

[*276] This again is overstated. The Pope wanted money to enable Cesare to subdue the Romagna. It is absurd of Dennistoun to ask below whether Cesare "directly participated" in these "unrighteous profits." Sanuto (III., 855) tells us that Duke Valentino visited the old cardinals and asked them to agree to the new nominations that he might be supplied with money for his work in Romagna.

[277]

"Vendidit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum;
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."

[*278] Sanuto, III., 878. Burchard, III., 77, who gives the sum obtained from each.

[*279] This is the most absurd attack on Sismondi, who was certainly prejudiced, if at all, against "tyrants." Dennistoun's whole view of Cesare is worthy only of his age. His conscience has blinded his intelligence. How are we to explain the fact that Leonardo and Machiavelli were eager to follow Cesare's fortunes and believed in him if we accept Dennistoun's estimate? Cesare was greatly in advance of his age, which he met with its own weapons.

[280] Yet one of his sonnets, bewailing the abasement of Italy, is so touching and so true, as well as so little known, that we shall introduce it in XII. of our Appendices. It in some degree anticipates the more powerful and popular declamatory rhymes of Filicaja on the same theme, which Byron has embodied in Childe Harold.[*F]

[*F] Without doubt Cesare was welcome in Romagna. Cf. Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, and Guicciardini, Op. Ined., III., 307, who says the inhabitants loved his rule.

[281] Sanuto has preserved a story that his page having fitted him with a tight shoe, he with one kick threw him upon the fire, where he slew him with his hanger, and left his body to be calcined.[*G]

[*G] Dennistoun forgets to mention that Cesare descended on d'Orco suddenly and put him to death.

[282] Burchard tells us that Cesare ordered a masked figure, who had lampooned him at Rome, to be seized, his hand and tongue to be amputated, and publicly exposed during two days. Verily his tastes lay towards melodramatic murder!

[*283] For treaty, see Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, III., 445.

[284] We have spoken of this above.

[285] See Alberi, Relazioni Venete, series II., vol. III., Capello.

[*286] Cf. Burchard, III., 162. "Hurrah," cried the people, "for the Duchess of Ferrara! Hurrah for Pope Alexander VI.!" when the news was brought to Rome that the contract was signed. Lucrezia, in splendid attire, rode to offer thanks at S. Maria del Popolo. Four bishops and three hundred horse accompanied her.

[*287] Cf. Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, p. 189 et seq. The wedding was celebrated on 30th December in the Cappella Paolina before the Pope, who sat on his throne attended by thirteen cardinals and the foreign ambassadors. The Emperor was not represented.

[288] Sanuto says 753 mouths, 426 horses, with 234 mules. See details in Mr. Rawdon Brown's Ragguagli, II., p. 192.

[289] Diarii di M. Sanuto, xxvii. f. 320. The reader is again referred to Roscoe's dissertation on the character of Lucrezia, for views which this letter tends to support. In Sanuto we find a very elaborate report of the marriage festivities which celebrated her arrival at Ferrara in 1502, and in which the Duchess of Urbino bore a distinguished part. It is perhaps the most graphic description of a cinque-cento pageant that has come down to us, and will be found in XIII. of the Appendices.

[290] Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 188. In No. 904, f. 43, is the diary of a citizen of Urbino during the usurpation of Borgia, which has supplied us with many of the succeeding details.

[*291] In this year begins Diario delle Cose di Urbino, which Federico Madiai has published in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 423 et seq. It begins on January 18, the day on which Lucrezia came to Urbino, "con 150 cavalli e circa 2000 bocche." "AndÒ moglie di D. Ferrante figlio del Duca di Ferrara. Fu stimato che tra Gubbio, Cagli e Urbino il nostro Duca spendesse circa ottomila ducati." For Gubbio, see A. Pellegrini, Gubbio sotto i Conti e Duchi d'Urbino, in Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. XI., p. 211 et seq.

[292] This rudeness was, however, visited by the Signory with a sharp rebuke.—Sanuto's Diaries.

[*293] The Duke left between the fourth and fifth hour of the night (i.e. between 11 p.m. and midnight) on June 20. Cf. Diario delle Cose di Urbino in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 423.

[294] Bembo, Opera, II., p. 637.

[*295] The Diario delle Cose di Urbino makes no mention of any terror or looting on the 21st or after. There was an earthquake on the 23rd at mid-day, "che non s'udÌ mai il maggiore." On the 25th Cesare departed towards Casteldurante. He returned on August 3rd and left on the 6th.

[296] See of her, p. 289.

[297] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, art. 17.

[298] Sanuto has preserved the following letter of the 8th October, addressed by Cesare to the inhabitants of Bertinoro, near Cesena, in reference to this feat of Brizio:—

"The Duke of Romagna, Prince of Urbino and Adria, Lord of Piombino, to our well-beloved, greeting: The peasants of S. Leo, carrying wood into that place, induced by cupidity of new booty, captured the warder and took the castle; and it being the capital of Montefeltro, the neighbouring castles have rebelled; and as perhaps Guidobaldo, feigning to have assistance from some potentate, may attempt to go thither, we command you, as you value our favour, to exert yourselves, and guard the passes with armed men, arresting all who may come that way, giving them into the hands of our commissary, or slaying those who may make resistance. Guidobaldo is not aware of the good understanding which exists between the Pope's Holiness and the most Christian King of France, as also between other potentates and us."

[*299] On 8 October, according to the Diario above cited (p. 401, note *1), news came of the return of San Leo, San Marino, and Tavoleto, and all the Montefeltro. Gubbio and Cagli had returned to their allegiance to Guidobaldo, and all Urbino armed itself and cried, "Feltro! Feltro! Feltro!" There was, however, at first a large party who did not wish to see Guidobaldo again. The rocca, still presumably in the hands of Cesare, was taken next day, four contadini being killed.

[300] Among the Oliveriana MSS. I found a statement that his return was reluctant, and against hope of success, and that it had been somewhat forced upon him, in consequence of the injudicious zeal of a priest, who, finding his seal in S. Leo, gave out that he was arrived, ordered rejoicings, and issued forged letters in his name. The apocryphal story is not supported by any authority that I have met with. From the instructions to Machiavelli, dated 5th of October, it appears that his return was anticipated before the surprise of S. Leo had taken place,—an event probably brought about in part by such rumours, tending

"Spargere voces
In vulgum ambiguas, et quÆrere conscius arma."

Indeed, he had secretly applied to the Signory for pecuniary aid some days anterior to the rising in his duchy.

[301] On 18 October, 1502, the Duke returned to Urbino; he had with him but ten horse. "Non saprei estimare la moltitudine degli uomini d'ogni parte grandi e piccoli che si trovarono per la strada. Da poi che si partÌ da San Leo per sino a Urbino, in ogni poggio erano le tavole apparecchiate dagli Urbinati. Ogni uomo se gli fe incontro dalla terra a un miglio, a due, a tre, a quattro" (Diario, cf. supra, p. 401, note *1).

[*302] "Our Signore," says the Diario, "did not leave his bed on the 19th because he had the gout ... but every man went to speak with him in bed, the contadino as well as the citizen; and day and night he gave them audience, and spoke with every one willingly."

[303] The extract sent me has "supplicat," probably for "suppetat."

[304] This commentary, I believe, bears also the name of Raschid.

[305] MS. works in the Albani library at Rome.

[306] That many of the greatest Italian painters, up to about 1500, were in the habit of illuminating religious and historical MSS. is a fact which need not here be illustrated by examples. But as the name of Perugino occurs, I may mention that one of the most perfect miniatures known to exist is the martyrdom of St. Sebastian, signed by him, in a Book of Offices of the Romish Church, purchased by me at Rome, in 1838, from Prince Albani, which now ornaments the Earl of Ashburnham's rich collection. This volume, containing several other paintings of equal merit, was executed for Giovanni di Pierantonio Bandini Baroncelli, long ambassador from the Medici at the court of Charles V., the great antiquity of whose family is sarcastically maintained by Boccaccio, on the ground that their ugliness proves them to have issued from the hands of Nature ere she had become perfect at her business!

[307] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198, f. 12, &c., LiterÆ Ducis Federici, in Latin.

[308] The date of this mission is indicated by a letter of 22nd August, 1475. It and another are addressed to Don Antonio and Don Guglielmo, probably English courtiers, referring to that embassy to England, offering duty to Edward, and the writer's services in his behalf at Rome and Naples.

[309] Anstis refers to this as of 1476-9.

[310] Among the other letters in this collection relating to England, are one to the Reverend John [Morton, Master of the Rolls], counsellor to the King, with thanks for his attentions to Pietro Ubaldini; another, thanking the Lord Chancellor for a horse and hounds; another of civility to Archbishop Boutcher, Cardinal of England, presbyter of S. Ciriaco. There are three others to Edward IV. In the first he avails himself of a visit from Sir John de la Scrop, then on his return from the Holy Land, to offer the King his affectionate duty, and to express his high regard for that nobleman. In the next he alludes to Sir John, an English ambassador then at Urbino, who seems to have been accredited in order to co-operate with the Duke in obtaining a Jubilee [1475], and in recommending some one to an Irish see. In another he mentions hearing that his Majesty had crossed over to France [1475], and offers his good offices with the Pope and King of Naples.

[311] This passage, written probably in Norman French, has become somewhat obscure in its transmission through barbarous Latin into Sanzi's rugged rhymes.

[312] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 373, f. 105, 106.

[313] The former march of the army by the same passes required but three days from Fornovo to Pontremoli; on this occasion the King was four days in crossing, besides a halt of three more to enable his artillery to get ahead of him. It is probable that in 1494 much of his ordnance, baggage, and stores had been sent in the fleet.

[314] It is curious to find this cowardly policy openly laid down by such authority as a maxim, and it affords a clue not only to the lax military operations of the grasping Republic, but betrays the secret that their mainland advantages were oftener gained by tortuous diplomacy than in open field. The Venetian proveditori were at first of the nature of quartermasters and commissaries-general, their duty being to distribute pay and quarters to the troops, as well as to levy and allot taxes whereby the military finances were maintained through the agency of local sub-commissaries. But they became tools of the ever-jealous Signory, empowered to control the commanders, as well as to watch and report their proceedings. We have frequent occasion to notice the bad consequences of this narrow policy.

[315] Vies des Hommes Illustres, Discours 48.

[316] It is scarcely necessary to point out in these interludes the germ of the modern ballet spectacles (which in Italy are still introduced between the acts of the opera), as well as of various carnival pastimes. The details illustrate the history of the stage, as well as the social manners of the cinque-cento, which may excuse the length of this extract.

[H] Cf. with the Table in Yriarte, CÉsar Borgia, vol. I.

Transcriber’s Errata List

Page xxi, number 18: Price is missing in original.

Page xxii, number 21: "Sazi" should be "Sanzi".

Page xxii, number 22: "Luigo Allemanno" should be "Luigi Alamanni".

Page 460, bottom: Subtotal is missing in original.

Missing legends for natural children in some of the genealogical tables have been added. In some tables, the original uses the same symbol to indicate both natural children and skipped generations. In order to distinguish between them, the skipped generations are indicated by the § symbol, as that symbol is used for that purpose in the other original tables.

In the first table relating to the succession to the Crown of Naples, Jane, wife of Ferdinand I., is actually his second wife, and not the mother of his issue listed here. The original table lists this marriage twice; both instances are combined here for clarity.

The Borgia genealogical table is not historically accurate, but is presented here as it appears in the original. (See the author's comment on the Borgia pedigree on p. 320.)

Footnote 226: Errors in the Boccalini quotations have been corrected by comparison with the 1612 edition of 'De' ragguagli di Parnaso' at the Internet Archive.

Footnote 299: Original erroneously cites p. 385; corrected to p. 401.

Footnote 301: Original erroneously cites p. 385; corrected to p. 401.

List of Greek Transliterations

Page 445, number 25: PhilairetotatÔ.

Page 445, number 27: Olbios sianolbios.

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