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REMISSION AND REHABILITATION OF DUKE FRANCESCO MARIA I. IN 1511-13.

HAVING no wish to overload these pages with a papal bull, either in its barbarous Latinity or in a crabbed translation, we shall content ourselves with abbreviating the formal record of the investigation and sentence of absolution, dated the 9th of December, 1511, by which the Duke of Urbino was acquitted of the slaughter of the Cardinal of Pavia. Julius, in that document, sets forth that, after reducing Bologna to obedience of the Church, he placed over it the Cardinal as legate, who ungratefully betrayed his duty to the Pope and the Church by secretly plotting for restoration of the Bentivoglii, and for defeat of the army under command of the Duke, as well as by withdrawing to Ravenna on pretext of terror, but in fact to conceal his treason. That having, by these and many other enormities, incurred the guilt of treason and lÈse-majesty, he was slain by Francesco Maria; and that, on a complaint of this outrage being preferred, his Holiness, judging from the first aspect of the affair that this crime against the dignity of the purple afforded so pernicious an example, and such general horror and scandal abroad, as to require an impartial inquiry, had remitted it to six cardinals, in order to make sifting inquest into the matter, receiving secret oral testimony, without reference to the ties of blood, but with ample powers, judicial and extra-judicial, to carry out the process to its conclusion, and to pronounce sentence therein. And the apostolic procurator-fiscal having appeared to support the charges, required the Duke's committal to prison ere he should be allowed to plead, in order to secure the due course of justice against any elusory proceedings; whereupon he was put under arrest in his own house, and bound over to appear in the sum of 100,000 golden ducats. Thereafter, the judges having taken evidence and published it, the Pope advocated the cause and pronounced an acquittal, which the Duke refused to accept, insisting that the prosecution should take its course, and returning under arrest until it should do so. This having been proceeded with, the cardinals gave sentence, acquitting him "of the said charge of homicide, and the punishment it legally inferred," and debarring all future action thereanent at the public prosecutor's instance. Whereupon Julius embodied this narrative in a bull subscribed by eighteen cardinals, and formally guaranteed by the amplest authority, as a protection to Francesco Maria against any future question affecting his tranquillity and status.[326]

The remission of the Duke's subsequent misconduct was contained in a papal brief of the 10th of January, 1513, addressed to himself, wherein it was stated that he had been accused by many of maintaining intelligence with the King of France before the battle of Ravenna, and of other intrigues against the Roman Government, as well as of various crimes, including slaughter of cardinals and lÈse-majesty, and that he had in consequence been deprived of his dukedom and dignities; but that having experienced his zeal and good faith in the like matters, the Pontiff could not persuade himself of his guilt, for which reason he, ex motu proprio, granted to him and his adherents plenary remission from all spiritual and temporal censures and sentences incurred therein, and restored him to all his honours and dignities. The entire wording of this document, the original of which is preserved along with the bull just quoted, shows a studious exactitude and elaboration of terms, so as to guard it against future question; but, considering its importance with reference to the prosecution subsequently mooted against the Duke by Leo X., it may be well here to give the ipsissima verba of the remission clauses. The brief is addressed, but has no counter-signature; a transumpt of it in the same archive has the name "Baldassar Tuerdus" as a counter-signature.

"Motu proprio, et ex cert nostr scienti ac matur deliberatione, et apostolice potestatis plenitudine, apostolic auctoritate, tenore presentium, tibi et illis plenarie remittimus pariter et indulgemus, teque ac illos, et illorum singulos, ab omnibus sententiis censuris et penis quibuslibet, spiritualibus et temporalibus, a jure vel ab homine quomodolibet promulgatis, auctoritate scienti et potestate predictis, absolvimus et liberamus, ac te tuosque filios, natos et nascituros ac heredes quoscunque, ad Vicariatum, Ducatum, Comitatus, teque ac subditos, adherentes, complices ac sequaces, ac singulorum eorundem heredes, ad feuda, dominia, honores et dignitates, offitia, privelegia, bona ac jura, ac ad actus legitimos, quibus forsan premissorum, et ali quÂcunque occasione, etiam de necessitate experimend privati, censeri possetis, auctoritate scienti et potestate premissis restituimus, et etiam reintegramus, et ad eundem statum reducimus et reponimus, in quo tu et illi eratis ante tempus quo premissa commisissetis; districtius inhibentes quibuscunque officialibus nostris, et dicte Ecclesie, qui sunt et pro tempore erunt, ne contra te et subditos, adherentes, complices et sequaces, aut aliquem vestrum, occasione hujusmodi criminum possint procedere, aut occasione premissorum te vel illos, aut aliquem eorum, molestare quoquo modo presumant; ac decernentes ex nunc irritum et inane quicquid ac quoscunque processus et sententias, quos seu quas contra inhibitionem nostram hujusmodi haberi contigerit, seu etiam promulgari."