HAVING thus traced the advance of painting in the duchy of Urbino, from Oderigi da Gubbio, the friend of Dante, to Raffaele Sanzio, its facile princeps, it might be well to pause, and leave its rapid descent under a new dynasty of dukes to be followed in a future portion of our work. Yet there are still some native names, belonging to the better period both by date and by merit. Of these the principal was Timoteo Viti, who was born of reputable parentage in Urbino about 1470, and whose mother Calliope was daughter of Antonio Alberti of Ferrara, by whom the Giottesque manner had been brought to that city. Timoteo was sent to Bologna to profit by the instructions of Francesco Francia, and remained there from 1490 to 1495. The Christian painters of that city had chosen for their Madonnas a peculiar type, which, after being transmitted through several artists, attained its perfection from Francia's pencil. It may be distinctly traced in the best remaining specimen of Lippo Dalmasio, of whom we have already spoken,[192] a lunette in fresco, representing the Madonna and Child between two saints, which is over the door of S. Procul at Bologna. There we find a pensive cast of head gently bent on one side in dreamy contemplation,—the sweetly naÏve features, with less indeed of a divine or seraphic expression than we see in those imagined by the Florentine and Sienese masters, but whose look seems to indicate that, though of earth, their owner was not earthy,—though a child of fallen humanity, she had not tasted of actual guilt. Those who know the Madonnas of Francia need not be told that they resemble sinless women more than beautiful beings. Somewhat of the same sentiment may be traced in the earlier productions of Timoteo Viti. Thus his Magdalen, which, though now in the Pinacoteca of Bologna, was painted for Urbino, is a grand figure in red drapery largely cast, standing in front of a wide cavern. Her girlish countenance appears too pure and gentle to have felt carnal passion, too placid to have wept over human sin; her reverential attitude aspires heavenward, without, like most of her class, appearing to loathe the earth. The mild character of Timoteo, as well as his promising talents, established him in the friendship of his master, whose diary touchingly records the affection with which he bade god-speed to his pupil, on quitting his studio.[193]

Few of this painter's early works are identified, and no frescoes from his designs appear to survive; but his altar-picture painted for the Bonaventura chapel in the church of S. Bernardino at Urbino, and now by the hazards of war in the Brera at Milan, offers one of the most remarkable compositions of the age. The Annunciation, that graceful theme of Christian art, had hitherto been treated upon one uniform type, and though ever attractive was generally trite. The Virgin surprised by her heavenly visitor was a subject requiring, in contrast, the purest earthly and celestial beauty which the painter could invent. The early masters sought not to introduce any other character than that of hallowed loveliness, refined from worldly sentiment; their successors added what was meant for grace of manner, which in their hands generally fell into affected mannerism. Timoteo held a middle course, giving play to his fancy, but restraining its flight by the spell of holy reverence. Amid a fine and far-stretching landscape stands the Virgin, nobly beautiful, gazing with prayerful aspect upon an angel, whose demi-figure issues from a cloud. Far above her head the infant Saviour, supported by a dove in a triangular halo of dazzling splendour, descends from the skies to become incarnate in the womb of Mary; his foot poised upon a globe, and the cross resting in his left hand, whilst his right is raised in benediction. The archangel with out-stretched arms indicates the mother to the child, and the child to the mother, thus beautifully executing his mission by an expressive sign. In front of her, but on a lower level, so as to appear of less majestic presence, stand the Precursor and St. Sebastian; the former points to the principal group as the fulfilment of a cycle of prophecy which in his person was complete; the latter is a graceful prototype of that long series of martyrs who were destined to seal with blood their testimony to the atonement thus initiated. One portion of this novel theme had been anticipated by Giovanni Sanzi, in whose representation of the same subject at the Brera, though composed after old conventional ideas, the divine Infant is seen descending from the Almighty upon the Virgin, instead of the dove, which usually figures as the Holy Spirit. But such innovations were looked upon with watchful jealousy by a Church wedded to traditional conventionalities. Doubts were raised as to the orthodoxy of this representation of the Trinity, and an unfortunate ruddy tint suffused over the plumage of the snowy dove was construed into a stain on the immaculate character of the conception, which is usually represented as coincident with the Annunciation. The altar-piece was removed to undergo along with its author a searching examination, which resulted in its restoration as an object of devotion, and in his escape from the rigours of the Holy Office.

Two altar-pictures by Timoteo remain in the cathedral-sacristy of his native city,[*194] besides a St. Apollonia in the church of the TrinitÀ. These exhibit much soft expression and devotional feeling, combined with considerable breadth of execution; yet they scarcely possess the simple sentiment of the earlier Umbrian artificers, the noble character of Sanzi, or the fervour and finish of Francia. During his residence at Urbino, he may not improbably have influenced the young Raffaele's opening genius; but, ere long, fame's many-tongued trumpet told him how much he had to learn of his countryman, from whom he soon received an invitation to assist in executing the commissions which were crowding upon him at Rome; and, like many other gifted artists, Timoteo deemed it no degradation to work under his younger but more matured genius. Although one of the latest painters who retained that devotional spirit which we have endeavoured to trace from the Umbrian sanctuaries, his manner, at an after period of his life, changed with the influences to which he was exposed in the atmosphere of the Vatican; and some of those works produced under the superintendence of Raffaele which are generally ascribed to his hand, such as the Sybils in the S. Maria della Pace,[*195] display a very decided tendency to "the new manner." Few paintings have given occasion to greater variety of opinion and conjecture than this fresco, both as to the share in it which belongs to Timoteo, and as to the source from which the conception was derived. The theme is unquestionably referable to an authority older than that of Michael Angelo; and it is remarkable that, instead of the charge of plagiarism from his great rival being brought home to Raffaele, as has been frequently asserted, the former must have owed to Perugino, Pinturicchio, and Andrea d'Assisi the idea of rendering the sybils of mythological fable subservient to religious representation.[*196] By all these artists, pagan pythonesses had been grouped with scriptural prophets, as foreshadowing the mysterious plan of human salvation, and the fresco of the Pace must be regarded as a felicitous adaptation of Umbrian feeling to the tastes of such a patron as Agostino Chigi, deeply imbued with the classic tendencies of the Roman court.[197] The repeated restorations to which this fine work has been subjected render criticism of its merits in a degree nugatory, but the inferiority of the Prophets to the Sibyls is generally admitted.

Vasari, after communication with our painter's family, represents him as pining for his native air in the capital of Christendom, where his stay cannot have been of very long duration, as we find him in 1513 one of the magistracy of Urbino. Here he shared his time between the sister arts of poetry, music, and painting, "delighting to play upon various instruments, but especially the lyre, to which he sang improviso with uncommon success." On Vasari's authority, we are also told that he "was a cheerful person, naturally gay and jovial, handsome, facetious in conversation, and happy in his jokes." One of the most remarkable productions of his Raffaelesque period is a Noli me tangere (the appearance of Christ to the Magdalen after his resurrection), in the chapel of the Artieri, at Cagli, executed about 1518, which has been, perhaps, over-praised by Lanzi and others: the difficulty of the subject may in some degree disarm our criticism of its rather crowded and ungainly composition. On the whole, the merit and beauty of the few known productions of his pencil may well make us regret those which have disappeared, or which pass under other names; and, although Passavant accuses him of affectation and mannerism, the constraint apparent in some of his earlier productions may possibly be more justly ascribed to awkwardness. Pungileone supposes him to have returned to Rome in 1521, two years before his death, and there to have acquired a number of the cartoons and drawings of his friend Raffaele. Of these, and his own designs, a considerable portion passed a few years ago into the Lawrence collection, which the vacillation and ill-timed economy of our rulers allowed to be in a great measure dispersed.

Few artists have been the subject of more controversy than Bramante. His architectural works procured him high reputation, for he is associated with the genius of Julius II., and the vast piles of the Vatican: but his name and family have been disputed, as well as the place and province which gave him birth; while his biographers, besides confounding him with an entirely different person, Bramantino of Milan, have aggravated the confusion by conjuring out of these two a third artist, who exists only by their blundering. Bartolomeo Suardi, instead of being master of Bramante, as Orlandi and others have supposed, was a pupil who, from attachment to his instructor, added to his own name the diminutive Bramantino. He chanced, however, to have a scholar, Agostino, who, by also adopting that designation, has further perplexed matters; three persons being thus almost inextricably mixed up. For our purpose it is enough thus to supply a key to these masters, and to observe that their relative merits coincide with their chronology; the first being a bright light of the golden age, the last an obscure painter of the decadence, who has left us little beyond the reflected lustre of a borrowed surname. But although the minute diligence of Lazzari and Pungileone seems to have set this matter at rest, their tedious disquisitions supply few important facts or useful criticisms, and a brief notice will suffice for our present purpose.

Donato Bramante appears to have been born at Monte Asdrualdo, near Fermignano, in 1444, of parents in comfortable circumstances. As his first efforts were devoted to painting, he would naturally find instructors among the Umbrian artists already noticed; but for his education we have no particulars, beyond a conjecture that he studied under Fra Carnevale.[*198] At his father's death, in 1484, he was already abroad, probably in Lombardy, where most of his pictorial works were produced, and where some frescoes may still be seen, meriting no ordinary meed of approbation, and particularly distinguished by fidelity in portraits and accuracy of architectural perspective; qualities learned, doubtless, from the productions of Melozzo da ForlÌ and Piero della Francesca. Of these mural paintings, the most interesting remains in the church of the Canepa, at Pavia, and exhibits the artist presenting a model for that building to its founder, Duke Gian Galeazzo Sforza, his Duchess, and his mother. Rosini ascribes to him freedom of design, ease in movement and draperies, grand conceptions, and much ability in perspective. Indeed, whilst the colder genius of ultramontane nations has seldom occupied itself with more than one branch of art, many Italian masters attained to excellence in several; and Bramante's reputation as an architect being established, his engineering talents were called into exercise by Ludovico il Moro, upon the fortifications of Milan. There too he built several churches, and constructed as a sacristy for S. Satiro, one of those small round Grecian fanes which have been considered so peculiarly his own, that various churches of that type are ascribed to him on no better grounds than their form. The conception is, however, of earlier origin, for it appears in not a few miniatures and small devotional panels of the preceding century. He had adopted it in a little chapel of the Madonna di Riscatto, on the banks of the Metauro, opposite Castel Durante, said to have been his earliest work, and the idea was freely used by Perugino and his pupils, Raffaele included. It takes the form of a round building cased by Corinthian pilasters, in an easel picture preserved at Urbino, in the sacristy of Sta. Chiara, which is interesting as an architectural study, and has been attributed to Bramante, or to Giorgio Andreoli, the porcelain enameller of Gubbio. A symmetrically elegant Doric chapel, at S. Pietro in Montorio at Rome, is the chef-d'oeuvre of this classic style, and it was reproduced by della Genga in scenic decorations prepared at Urbino for the representation of Bibbiena's Calandra.

As the flower of Bramante's life went by during his long stay in Upper Italy, it is there that his pictorial talents must be appreciated, and that his most numerous, if not his most famous fabrics, may be found. But when Lombardy became the battle-field of Italian independence, when art was there neglected and personal safety compromised, he bethought him of the monuments of antique genius still scattered over the capital of her classic times, and came to Rome in quest of improvement as well as employment. The moment was not propitious, for Alexander VI. was no Maecenas. Yet in the public works, both of fresco-painting and architecture, Donato had a share; and he supplied designs for several private churches and palaces, varying the scene of his labours by prolonged visits to Naples and Tivoli.

On the accession of Julius II. his star rapidly rose to the zenith of his reputation. His Urbino extraction was a recommendation to the new Pontiff, which his talents fully justified, while the vast conceptions and daring energy of his Holiness found in Bramante a willing and apt minister. To raise a temple wherein the Christian world might worship the living God, was a project worthy of their united genius, and it was entertained in a manner befitting the enterprise. There, grandeur of design was seconded by resolute purpose; nor were means and will deficient for levying from the piety or fears of mankind contributions apparently inexhaustible. But in a struggle with time, man is seldom victorious. The shadows of age, falling upon the Pontiff and his architect, warned them that their day was far spent. Anticipating the night that approached to arrest their labours, they worked with a zeal which knew no repose, but which proved fatal to the stability of their fabric. Death overtook them both ere any part of St. Peter's approached to completion, yet not before the too hurried masonry had begun to yield under its own weight. The inadequate foundations occasioned much supplementary trouble and outlay to those who conducted the edifice towards a conclusion, which it did not reach until 1626, a hundred and twenty years after it had been begun by Bramante.

By some who witnessed the rapid and indiscriminate destruction of old St. Peter's,—that ancient basilicon, which early art had done its best to decorate, which Christian devotion had sanctified by cherished traditions, and over which time had cast a solemn halo,—Bramante has been blamed as a reckless innovator; and the charge meets a ready response from those who, in their search for primeval monuments of Catholic faith, pass from the glare and magnificence of the modern fane to mourn over broken sculptures and shattered mosaics buried in its rayless crypt. It would be easy to defend the architect at the expense of his master; but upon looking more closely into the charge, we shall find that the original fabric having become ruinous, its reconstruction was begun half a century before the accession of Julius, and that its last remains were not removed until a hundred years later. Thus it would seem that the demolition of so much that is ill replaced to the churchman and scholar of art, even by the gorgeous temple which commands our wondering admiration, must have proceeded from other reasons than haste. The slippery foundations that from time to time have occasioned infinite anxiety and expense, both for the church and adjoining buildings, were doubtless the original cause which lost us the basilicon of Constantine.

But Julius was not the man to devote himself exclusively to one idea, even though a favourite one. Wishing to provide a palace for his successors worthy of the neighbouring fane which he had founded, he put the Vatican into Donato's hands. That pontifical residence, after being enlarged by Nicolas V. and Sixtus IV. was in a great measure reconstructed by Alexander VI., whose predecessor, Innocent VIII., had erected a casino in the adjoining gardens of the Belvidere. In order to unite this casino to the palace, Bramante contrived a double corridor, the vast intervening area of which he designed for festive spectacles. This fine idea, left by him unfinished, was marred by succeeding architects, who broke up the extensive court by cross galleries and unseemly appendages. We may, however, pardon the transmutation, as it has afforded admirable accommodation for the treasures of art, ever since accumulating in these almost boundless museums. In that handsome street to which Julius bequeathed his name, there may be seen near the church of S. Biagio, straggling vestiges of vast substructions, with rustic basements resembling the gigantic masses of fabulous ages, on which have been reared some mean and modern dwellings. These are the sole remains of a vast undertaking, nobly conceived by the Pontiff, and ably commenced by his architect, in order to unite under one palace the scattered law-courts and public offices of Rome. But it was Bramante's misfortune to serve a restless spirit, which attempting more than the span of human life could overtake, left its finest conceptions abortive.

The merits of Bramante were appreciated by his contemporaries as well as by posterity, and gained him a substantial meed of honour and wealth. At the pontifical court he moved in a circle where refinement perfected the emanations of genius, and which included the choicest spirits of a brilliant age. Enriched by papal favour, magnificent in his expenditure, frank and joyous in his nature, he lived up to the advantages of his position, and made his palace the resort of many celebrities: there his Umbrian countrymen, Perugino, Pinturicchio, and Luca Signorelli, frequented his board; and after his death the house was bought by his friend Raffaele. He was a poet, for in Italy all sentiment readily falls into rhyme; but he was likewise a man of the world, whose natural tact and ready fluency compensated for a defective education. Dying in March, 1514, he was buried beneath that splendid fane which he had founded, but which many successive architects failed to raise. No monument testifies the gratitude of his countrymen, yet his name is entwined with garlands of undying verdure, and some of the noblest Italian piles bear the impress of his solid and enduring style.

Fra Bernardo Catelani was a Capuchin monk of Urbino, whose devotion sought scope in the exercise of Christian art, and who is generally considered a follower of Raffaele, although this is doubted by Grossi. Nor does it much matter, for the only work now identified with his name is an altar-piece of the PietÀ with two attendant saints, in the church of his order at Cagli. Still less is known of one Crocchia of Urbino, named by Baldinucci as a pupil of Raffaele. His countryman, Centogatti, is said to have exercised the arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting, and to have instructed Duke Francesco Maria I., and also Gian Battista Comandino, in engineering. To him Lomazzo ascribes the invention of baluardi, and the erection of walls round his native town; but in both respects he appears mistaken, as we have had occasion to show in speaking of Francesco di Giorgio.[199]

The patronage extended to Francia by Duke Guidobaldo seems, from Vasari's authority, to have been of a very undiscriminating character, for his commissions to that painter of sweet Madonnas consisted of a Lucrezia, and a set of horse-trappings, whereon was depicted a blazing forest, with various animals escaping from it. Gaye has recovered some facts as to the favour bestowed by this dynasty upon Andrea Mantegna. In 1511, Duchess Elisabetta wrote to interest her brother, the Marquis of Mantua, in favour of his son Francesco, expressing herself as mindful of the regard she had borne his father, on account both of his own merits and his devotion to her family. Andrea's acquaintance with Giovanni Sanzi, already referred to, may have been formed on his journey to Rome in 1488, or on his return thence in 1490; but his fame had ere then reached Umbria, for in 1484 Ludovico Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua, wrote to the Prefect della Rovere, pleading his excuse for declining an order for a Madonna, his time being engrossed in the palace of Mantua. Vasari further tells us that Marco Zoppo, another Lombard painter, took a portrait of Guidobaldo when in the Florentine service. To his reign probably belongs a very grand specimen of Giovanni Bellini in the church of S. Francesco at Pesaro. We have already noticed him as a pupil of Gentile di Fabriano; and his visit to the duchy may have enabled him to confirm his early devotional impressions, by there depicting that favourite theme of the mystic school, the Coronation of the Madonna, surrounded by witnessing saints. The countenances, though without the unearthly inspiration belonging to the Umbrian art, have great beauty softened by reverential sentiment, and a colour which glows even through the dirt of centuries. In the Sta. Maria Nuova of Fano are preserved two of Perugino's finest works, the Annunciation, and the Madonna enthroned between six saints, exhibiting all the qualities of his best time, with less timidity than belongs to his manner. The latter was executed in 1490, and the predella had been considered equal to Raffaele, who of course was then too young for such an undertaking. Such are some of the remaining pictures which must have influenced taste and art in the duchy. The catalogue is far from complete, for in the obscure villages may still be discovered altar-panels of scarcely inferior importance, besides not a few transported thence to Milan, Berlin, and other galleries.

We owe to Lord Lindsay some very interesting views on the influence of early Teutonic art beyond the Alps, a subject long overlooked and still far from exhausted.[200] Among its masters no celebrity equals that of Jean Van Eyck. He was not only capo-scuola in the Low Countries and inventor of a new method and vehicle of painting, but was the first to introduce that "feeling for nature and domestic sentiment" which, subordinate at the outset to religious delineation, has continued, through many phases, and for the most part with strictly naturalist aims, to characterise the Flemish pencil. The fame of his mechanism spread into Italy, and Vasari speaks of a bath scene being sent by him to Duke Federigo of Urbino. This was, however, probably the same work described as belonging to Cardinal Ottaviani by Facio, who wrote about 1456. In a room lighted by a single lamp, a group of nude females issued from the bath, an aged beldame, their attendant, bathed in perspiration, their thirsty dog lapping water. A mirror accurately gave back the scene, reflecting the profile of the one whose figure was turned from the spectator. Without, was elaborate and far-spreading scenery, with men, horses, castles, hamlets, groves, plains, and mountains, dexterously graduating away as the evening shadows fell. Keeping in view the state of art at that time, this painting, of which all further trace mysteriously vanishes, must have exercised an important influence. The borrowed illumination, the mirror reflections, the nude forms, the heated atmosphere detected by its physical effects on animal life, the minutely pencilled landscape, the delicately receding perspective, were all more or less innovations in Italy, apart from the colour and surface produced by the new process.

Among the followers of Van Eyck who first made their way to the Mediterranean shores was Josse or Justus of Ghent, who, under the signature of Justus de Alemania, appears to have executed an Annunciation in fresco, at the convent of Sta. Maria di Castello at Genoa in 1451.[*201] Admiration for Van Eyck's bath scene may probably have obtained for him an invitation to Urbino, where, however, he does not seem to have shared the ducal patronage, but was employed by the fraternity of Corpus Christi to paint for them an altar-piece, which, after nine years of labour, was completed in 1474, and is still preserved in the church of Sta. Agata.[*202] It was executed in oil, about ten feet square without the now missing predella, and seems to have cost 500 florins, besides materials. Its subject was appropriately the Institution of the Eucharist, in contradistinction from the Last Supper, and it is treated after the manner of the Romish mass,—Christ distributes the sacramental wafer to his Apostles kneeling round a table, over whom hover two white-draped angels of the Van Eyck type. Four personages stand apart, spectators of the sacred mystery, and these, by the legitimate rules of sacred art, might be portraits. Among them may be easily recognised the Duke; and a turbaned figure is said by Baldi to be the ambassador from Usum-cassan, King of Persia, while visiting the court in 1470-1, on a mission to unite the Italian princes in a league against the Turk,—a fact garbled by Michiels, whose commendations of the picture are greater than its distance above the eye allows me to confirm or challenge, as, without scaffolding or a very strong glass, all detailed criticism must be in a great measure conjectural. Neither have I discovered that influence upon art at Urbino which he and Passavant impute to this Fleming, whose only other known work in Umbria was a now lost church standard.

Art has in many instances been able largely to compensate the liberality of its early patrons. Besides preserving to after times the person of those

"Whose barks have left no traces on the tide,"

it has frequently transmitted to us the form and comeliness of men whose characters, actions, or talents have left an impress on their age. Although the pencil and the chisel were at first rarely dedicated to portraiture, a mode of representation arose in Italy during the fifteenth century which supplied this want with singular success. Reviving classical taste found few more attractive relics than the coins and medals of Greece and her colonies; but their imitators, struck with the inferiority of those under the Roman empire, adopted, and even surpassed, the bold style and high relief of the former. When almost every principality in the Peninsula possessed a mint, and die-cutting was a usual branch of the goldsmith's craft, there were great facilities for the new art. The circulation of precious metals being very limited, trade was then conducted chiefly by barter, or by the transmission of coin in sealed bags, stamped with the value they contained, whilst small transactions were made almost solely in copper money.[203] Heroic medals, which soon became the established meed of egotism and incense of flattery, were at first cast,—and, when machinery became more perfect, were struck,—in an alloy of copper, under the name of bronze. Those of the fifteenth century were of great size, varying from one to four and a half inches in diameter; many bear the names of well-known sculptors and painters as their artists, and exhibit a grandeur of conception unequalled in other numismatic productions.[*204] About three hundred and seventy-five such medals have been published in the TrÉsor de Numismatique et de Glyptique, and although the procÉdÉ Collas there adopted in general fails to preserve the sharpness and finish given to the originals by careful retouching, no work of art is so delightful a companion to Italian mediÆval history. Zannetti's elaborate collections on Italian coinages, and the fifth volume of Cicognara's great work upon sculpture, may also be consulted with pleasure and advantage.

The only medallist of Urbino now known was called Clemente, and, besides the portrait by him to be immediately noticed (No. I.), he is said to have ornamented the great hall of the palace with six round bas-reliefs of Duke Federigo's exploits. Seven medals of that prince have come to my knowledge, all of extreme rarity: the first five are described and engraved in the Zecca di Gubbio; the first, second, and fourth in the TrÉsor de Numismatique; the sixth is probably unnoticed elsewhere. The heads of all are in profile.

No. I. A medallion of 35/8 inches diameter. The Duke's bust is in armour, on which are chased a Lapitha reducing a Centaur, and other emblematic devices; his cap, called by the French a mortier, is of the usual cinque-cento form, exactly resembling a round Highland bonnet. The legend is a Latin couplet, signifying,

The reverse is redundant in allegory. In base, the eagle of Jove supports with extended wings a stage whereon are three devices,—the globe of command, with on one side a cuirass, buckler, and sword, and on the other a clothes-brush[205] and olive-branch; overhead are the planetary signs of Jupiter between Mars and Venus. On the vacant spaces are the names of the hero, "Federigo the Invincible, Count of Urbino, a.d. mcccclxviii.," and of the artist, "The work of Clemente of Urbino." The surrounding astrological legend runs thus:—

The date indicates this medal to have commemorated his campaign in Romagna against Colleone, in 1467, and notwithstanding the questionable taste of crowding in so many symbolical appendages, its merit is ranked high by Cicognara (see his eighty-sixth plate).

No. II. A medal 16/8 inches across, which was probably cast at Naples in 1474, by order of Ferdinand, in honour of Federigo's visit and installation as a knight of the Ermine. Being no doubt prepared before his arrival, the likeness is not striking. Round the bust is "Federico Count of Montefeltro, Urbino, and Durante"; on the reverse, over a collared ermine, "Royal Captain-General. The work of Paulo di Ragusa."

No. III. A similar but smaller medal, executed after he had been elevated to the dukedom. His head is bald, and the legend is "Federigo the Montefeltrian, Urbino's Duke;" over the ermine, "Never," the motto of the Order.

No. IV. A medal 33/8 inches across, commemorating his dignities of Duke and Gonfaloniere of the Church. Round his bust in armour, with the mortier cap, we read, "Of the divine Federigo Duke of Urbino, Count of Montefeltro and Durante, Royal Captain-General, and unconquered Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church." On the reverse he is represented in a cuirass, mail-coat, jack-boots, and the mortier cap, mounted on a heavy war-horse in housings of mail. He moves forward, stretching forth his truncheon in the attitude of anxious command, a two-handed sword on his side. Legend, "The work of Sperandei," who was a native of Mantua, greatly patronised by the sovereigns of Ferrara.

No. V. is a magnificent production, and of peculiarly English interest. On a medal 4¾ inches across, clasped round by the badge and gothic motto of the Garter, is a noble bust of Federigo in armour, his massive bald head uncovered. The reverse has five winged loves supporting an ample basin, from whence issue two grape-laden cornucopiÆ; between them the crowned eagle of Montefeltro sits on a globe of command, gazing sunward, and supporting the armorial shield of that house, with the papal arms in pale as borne by the Gonfaloniere: the contracted inscription "Duke Fe." appears on the ground. Riposati conjectures that in this device may be preserved the design of a fountain for serving wine to the populace during the festivities on his investiture with the English order; at all events, this piece, in size and style, perhaps the grandest medallion of the age, bears interesting testimony to the honour in which that decoration was held.

No. VI. Among the Vatican Urbino MSS. (No. 1418) is a case containing two impressions, stamped on leather, of another medallion, which we have nowhere else met with. It is 3½ inches in diameter, and round the head is "Federigo Duke of Urbino, Count of Montefeltro, Royal Captain-General and Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church." The reverse gives us a mounted knight cap-a-pie, who tramples down an armed soldier, while charging others who fly; in the distance are seen cities, and a martial host. Legend, "Mars gives him a worsted foe, Victory secures him fame. mcccclxxviii. The work of Gian Francesco, of Parma." This alludes to his successes against the Florentines when general of Sixtus IV.

No. VII. A medal of Federigo by Francesco di Giorgio, has neither been described nor preserved, unless it may have been No. V. above.

We have no medal of Duke Guidobaldo I.; but two have come down to us, representing his consort and her favourite Emilia Pia, so similar in character as to indicate probably the same artist and period, which Riposati presumes to have been in the Duchess's widowhood.

I. Elisabetta's bust on a medallion 3½ inches in diameter; her hair braided under her cap, and gathered behind into a long pendant tail or fillet plaited with ribbon; her forehead, neck, and shoulders ornamented with chains; legend, "Elisabet Gonzaga, the Feltrian, Duchess of Urbino": which we give. The mystic science of emblematic devices was often used by medallists without proper discrimination; and Riposati avows himself unable to interpret its allegorical reverse: the French editor describes it as a nearly nude female reclining on the ground, her head supported against a wicket, grasping in both hands a fillet from which a wig flies away, with the motto, "This tell to fugitive Fortune"; he interprets her attitude as contemptuous towards a passing opportunity, in allusion to her recent widowhood spurning fresh ties.

II. The medal of Emilia was evidently a posthumous memorial; we reproduce it also. It is 3¼ inches broad, the bust in the costume of the Duchess, and is inscribed "Emilia Pia the Feltrian": on the reverse, a tapered pyramid crowned by a cinerary urn, with "To her chaste ashes." The whole is studiously classical, and pagan in feeling. Her name Pio, turned into the adjective pia, becomes a complimentary epithet.

In order to dismiss this branch of our subject, we may here mention, that, although a few smaller medals were struck for the second dynasty of Urbino, none of them are worthy of special notice; indeed, this art was entirely degenerate after 1500.