NEWS of the evacuation of Milan by the French reached Leo X. at his hunting-seat of La Magliana, five miles down the Tiber from Rome. Though not quite well, he hurried to his capital on the 24th of November, to witness the bonfires and rejoicings at their discomfiture, and on the morning of the 1st of December was found dead in bed.[*282] The mystery attending this sudden death of one in the prime of life has never been cleared up. Suspicions of poison were rife at the time, and have not been removed; they point at the Duke of Urbino or of Ferrara, whom he had grievously outraged, or at Francis I., whom he recently disgusted, as its probable but undetected author. In absence of tangible accusation or tittle of evidence, it seems needless to repel such a charge from Francesco Maria, especially as other accounts impute the Pontiff's dissolution to malaria fever, to a severe catarrh,[283] to debauchery, or even to excessive exultation at the joyful news. So unexpected was the event that there was not time to administer the last sacrament, a circumstance which gave occasion to this bitter epigram, in allusion to the notorious venality of church privileges during his reign:—

Tidings so momentous to Francesco Maria reached him when on a visit to the Benedictine monastery at Magusano, on the Lago di Garda. He had audience on the same day with Lautrec and Gritti, the French and Venetian commanders, who bade him God-speed. Hurrying to his consort at Verona, he there spent two days in consulting with such friends as were at hand, and despatching courtiers to others, his resolution being taken to strike a speedy blow for recovery of his state. The impoverished finances of the papacy encouraged the attempt, and he was quickly in communication with Malatesta and Orazio Baglioni, who had been in like manner despoiled of Perugia. But before assuming offensive operations, he commissioned a special envoy to lay before the conclave a statement of his grievances, and a justification of the measures he was about to pursue.[285] In two days more he reached Ferrara, with the Baglioni, at the head of three thousand foot and above five hundred horse. On the 16th he was at Lugo, where, and all along his route by Cesena, numerous reinforcements poured in. "His subjects," to borrow the words of Muratori, "desired and expected him with clasped hands, because they loved him beyond measure for his gracious government." Anticipating a renewal of his "Saturnian reign," they, on his approach, flew to arms, threw the lieutenant of Urbino out of the palace window, and welcomed him with the well-known cry of "Feltro! Feltro! the Duke! the Duke!"

Pesaro received him on the 22nd, after a slight hesitation as to their relations with the Church; but the citadel was held by eighty men, there being no artillery at hand to bring against it. In absence of cannon-balls, it was carried by paper pellets thrown in from cross-bows, on which were written offers of a thousand scudi to the castellan, and twenty-five to each soldier. The terms were accepted, and the money advanced by Alfonso of Ferrara. On the day of the Duke's arrival there, a deputation from Urbino laid its homage at his feet, and, being thus secure of his own subjects, he turned to succour his friends. Taught by the lesson of three successive pontificates, whose policy it had been to crush the feudatories of Umbria, he saw the necessity of making common cause with such of these as still maintained a precarious independence. He therefore undertook the re-establishment of his nephew, Sigismondo Varana, and of the Baglioni, ere he devoted himself to the consolidation of his own authority. After two days' repose in Pesaro, he marched by La Pergola to Fabriano, where, hearing that Sigismondo had been cordially received at Camerino, he, on the 28th, turned towards Perugia, and, by the 5th of January, had reinstated the Baglioni, notwithstanding a spiritless resistance by their uncle Gentile, and by the vacillating Vitelli. Contrary to his own judgment,—but, as we shall presently see, by a happy chance,—he was induced to accompany his Perugian allies with seven thousand men in a foray upon Tuscany, for the double purpose of annoying the Medici, by whom Gentile was supported, and of re-establishing Pandolfo Petrucci as tyrant of Siena.[*286] When, however, he found no responding movement from within, and that the army of Giovanni delle Bande Nere was hovering in the neighbourhood, he withdrew to Bonconvento, and endeavoured to gain credit for his forbearance by despatching to the magistracy of that city the following oily missive:—

In truth, the Duke's own affairs required his full attention, for the power of the Medici, though shaken, was still formidable, and its natural representative, the Cardinal Giulio, was influential in the Sacred College, and almost sovereign at Florence. Francesco Maria therefore observed a prudent neutrality, when the Bande Nere advanced to support the claims of Gentile Baglioni upon Perugia. These, being warned off the ecclesiastical territory by the consistory, turned up the valley of the Tiber, and, passing the Apennines, made a descent upon Montefeltro, where they plundered until the end of February,—an outrage for which the Cardinal was greatly blamed, as a convention had already been signed between him and the Duke for their respective states of Florence and Urbino. Much light is thrown upon these very complicated transactions by a careful examination of Castiglione's letters. To his dexterous diplomacy that convention seems to have been chiefly owing. He endeavoured to clench the reconciliation by an engagement for Francesco Maria in the Florentine service, and a marriage between Prince Guidobaldo of Urbino and Caterina de' Medici, daughter of Lorenzo, and heiress of his pretensions. The failure of this plan, from backwardness on the part of the Cardinal rather than of the Duke, was, perhaps, fortunate for the intended bridegroom's domestic peace; and the contending claims which it was meant to solve never ripened into importance. The condotta had a better issue: avowedly for but one year, it seems to have been intended rather to neutralise a troublesome foe than with the idea of calling the Duke's service into actual requisition. Indeed, although he was nominally captain-general, with 9000 ducats of pay, besides 100 broad scudi for each of his two hundred men-at-arms in white uniform (three mounted soldiers counting as one man-at-arms), this was expressly their peace establishment and pay, to be increased in case of war.[288] Castiglione's success in these arrangements was facilitated by his having confided to Cardinal Giulio a refusal at this time, by Francesco Maria, of very flattering proposals from the French court, and the same good offices extended to disabusing the Duke in the eyes of Emanuel, the imperial ambassador, who, believing him committed to Francis, was countermining his interests in the consistory, and with the Cardinal.

Whilst immersed in these transactions, the election in which he was so deeply interested came suddenly to a conclusion, brought about indirectly by his means. The choice of the conclave astonished Italy, for it fell upon an ultramontane cardinal, unknowing and unknown in Rome. Adrian Florent,[*289] a Fleming of humble birth, was a man of mild temper, peaceful habits, and literary tastes. He had been preceptor of Charles V., and held the see of Tortosa. This selection so curiously illustrates the haphazard results, which have not unfrequently baffled both policy and intrigue in papal elections, that we may pause for a moment on the circumstances alleged by Guicciardini to have brought it about. The Medicean party had not strength, at once, to carry their Cardinal, in the face of the old members of the College, who were adverse from introducing the hereditary principle into their selection, yet hoped in time to exhaust the patience or the strength of their seniors. But whilst Medici and Petrucci were thus ingeniously devising delays, news reached them of the Duke of Urbino's descent upon Tuscany, causing them respectively to tremble for their supremacy in Florence and Siena, and to question the policy of procrastinating at the Quirinal, whilst interests so momentous were elsewhere in peril. In this state of matters the Cardinal of Tortosa "was proposed, without any intention of choosing him, but that the morning might be wasted; whereupon his eminence of San Sisto, in an endless oration, enlarged upon his virtues and learning, until some of the members beginning to accede, the others successively followed with more impetuosity than deliberation, whereby he was unanimously then chosen Pope. The very electors could allege no reason why, at a crisis of such convulsions and perils for the papacy, they had selected a barbarian pontiff, so long absent, and recommended neither by previous deserts, nor by intimacy with any of the conclave, to whom he was scarcely known by name, having never visited Italy, nor had he any wish or hope to do so."[290] The Roman populace resented a choice which they felt as an insult, and as the cardinals emerged from durance, they were assailed by execrations of the mob.[*291]

Francesco Maria had every reason to be gratified by an election he had most unwittingly influenced, for the exclusion of Cardinal Giulio was of vast importance to his interests, which must have been seriously compromised by the nomination of a hostile pontiff, at a moment when his affairs were in so precarious a juncture. He accordingly lost no time in accrediting to Adrian VI. in Spain, an envoy who pleaded his cause to such good purpose, that a bull was issued on the 18th of May, reinstating him in all his honours, including the prefecture of Rome, which, on the death of Lorenzo, had been conferred upon Giovanni Maria Varana, uncle of Sigismondo, whose state he had usurped under the sanction of Leo. Meanwhile his respectful and judicious demeanour had obtained from the Sacred College, before the Pope's arrival, an acknowledgment of his rights, upon the following conditions, dated at Rome, the 18th of February. "The Lord Duke of Urbino promises to accept neither pay, engagement, nor rank from any prince or power, and to take service only with the Apostolic See, should he be required; but if not called upon by it, to attach himself to no party without leave and sanction from the Pope, and the Holy See, as represented ad interim by the Sacred College. Also, he renews his obligation in future never to oppose the papal state; and further, for due observance of these terms, and more ample assurance of his Holiness and the Apostolic See, he binds himself within one month to deposit his only son as a hostage, in the hands of the Marquis of Mantua, captain-general of the ecclesiastical troops. On the other hand, the Sacred College undertakes to defend and protect the Lord Duke's person, as well as to maintain him in peaceful possession of the castles, fortresses, cities, and towns, held by him now or before his deprivation; and further, to use influence with our Lord the Pope for his reinvestment in the same, on the terms of his former tenure."[292]

Nor was it only from the Medicean faction that the Duke's tranquillity was threatened. Whilst his fortunes were yet in suspense, he was warned by Castiglione, then diplomatic resident at Rome for his brother-in-law the Duke of Mantua, that Ascanio Colonna was agitating certain vague pretensions on the duchy of Urbino, through his mother Agnesina di Montefeltro. The nature of these claims, which were from time to time revived, is not very intelligible. All authorities make Giovanna, wife of the Prefect, older than Agnesina, wife of Fabrizio Colonna, both being daughters of Duke Federigo. Thus, even supposing Francesco Maria's title irretrievably annulled, by the deprivations he had successively sustained from Julius II. and Leo X., if the old investitures did confer any rights upon females, his nephew Sigismondo Varana, grandson of Giovanna, would have excluded the Colonna. Ascanio's intrigues were, however, neutralised by the dexterity of Castiglione, and the influence of the Duke of Mantua, until Francesco Maria's cordial reconciliation with the Church and the Emperor had rendered his position secure.[293] Even the Medici thereupon refused to promote the pretender's views, and his only adherent was Gian Maria Varana, who, having within a few weeks succeeded in recovering possession of Camerino, sought so to occupy the Duke of Urbino as to prevent his espousing the cause of Sigismondo, its rightful lord. The latter also looked for support to his wife's uncle, Cardinal Prospero Colonna, whilst the interests of his competitor were backed by Cardinal Innocenzo CibÒ, his brother-in-law. But ere these respective claims could be tested, they were sadly set at rest by the death of "poor dear but ill-starred Sigismondo," as he is called by Castiglione, who was set upon and slain on the 24th of June by a band of assassins, whilst riding with five attendants near La Storta. This foul deed, in accordance with the wild habits of that age, and the fratricidal tendencies of the Varana family, was imputed to Ascanio Colonna at the instigation of Giovanni Maria, uncle of the victim.

When reassured of pacific and equitable measures, Francesco Maria dissolved a defensive league for mutual maintenance, which he had formed on the 4th of March with the Baglioni, Sigismondo, and the Orsini, to which the Cardinal de' Medici was a party. The strongholds of S. Leo and Maiuolo, however, remained till 1527 in the hands of the Florentines, mortgaged for their advances to Leo in the late war. During these complex negotiations, an offer from Lautrec of service under the lilies of France was declined by the Duke, on a plea of reserving himself for the disposal of his ecclesiastical overlord. Nor was the opportunity he looked for long delayed. Pandolfo Malatesta, on ceding to Venice his pretensions upon Rimini, after being expelled therefrom by Duke Valentino, had accepted from that republic the castle of Cittadella near Padua, with large pay in their service. His son Sigismondo availed himself of the Pope's absence, and the unsettled ecclesiastical policy, to surprise Rimini and its fortress towards the end of May. The consistory hastily mustered all their means to meet the emergency, and called upon the Duke of Urbino as their vassal to take the field. His answer was that without money he could do nothing. About the beginning of August the rocca was retaken by Giovanni Gonzaga for the Church; but the place was not finally recovered till Adrian sent thither some Spanish troops, when the people at length rose, and drove out the interloper, whose cruelties had alienated all his supporters. In this paltry fray the Duke appears to have lent some trifling aid, which the Pontiff gratefully acknowledged in writing to Leonora on the 24th of December. When it was over, he turned to the internal affairs of his duchy, disorganised by the long and severe struggle of which it had been the scene. In the spring of 1523 he brought home the ladies of his family

"Into their wished haven";

but of their once lively court we have little to record. Much had occurred to chasten the naturally staid temperament of Duchess Leonora. Retrenchment was imperatively imposed by accumulated debts and dilapidated finances: the brilliant assemblage which had frequented the saloons of Urbino seventeen years before was thinned by death, scattered by dire events, alienated by ingratitude, or seduced by newer attractions.

It was at this time that Pesaro seems to have become the permanent residence of the ducal establishment, although the original capital was frequently visited by its successive princes. Sanuto's Diaries afford us glimpses of life at that court, in detailing the journey to Rome of four Venetian envoys in March of this year. They arrived on Good Friday, half dead of fatigue, fear, and hunger, having ridden one hundred and twelve miles in two days, through wretched weather and a plague-stricken country. The two Duchesses of Urbino immediately sent them a pressing invitation to transfer their quarters from the inn to better lodgings. This was about sunset, and twilight had scarcely set in when both these ladies arrived in a fine gilt coach, lined with white cloth and trimmings of black velvet, drawn by four beautiful black and grey horses. They were suffering from fever, the younger Duchess having risen from bed expressly to visit the envoys, and apologise for a reception which, but for so unlooked-for an arrival, would have been more conformable to their wishes. Yet the apartment was tapestried from roof to floor, the beds with gold brocade coverlets, and the curtains very handsome. Next morning, after breakfast, the guests went to the palace to wait upon the Duchesses, who met them in the fourth ante-room, whence, after sundry ceremonies, they handed the ladies and their attendants into the presence-chamber, newly done up with arrases, gilding, and a daÏs of silk. After conversing in an under-tone for three-quarters of an hour, they retired with the like formalities. On Easter Sunday, after vespers, they had an audience of leave, when the younger Duchess, being very seriously indisposed, received them familiarly in a bed-chamber so small that they could not all enter it, renewing many excuses for their indifferent entertainment, in consequence of the religious observances, and the recent arrival of the household at Pesaro. On their return from congratulating the new Pontiff, the envoys passed by Gubbio, where the Duchesses again surprised them by a visit ere breakfast was over, attended by several lovely maidens.

The engagement which Francesco Maria had accepted, to command the Florentine armies for a year, did not call him from this retirement; it was important only as indicating an apparent reconciliation with the Cardinal de' Medici, to which the latter was induced by apprehension that he might have otherwise proved a formidable opponent to his interest in a future conclave. After a somewhat serious illness, the Duke repaired to Rome, to offer his homage on the arrival of Adrian in Italy, and was honourably received and formally invested with his restored dignities. He rode there escorted by two hundred lances, and was lodged by the Venetian ambassador in the palace of S. Marco. His late eventful history rendered him an object of general interest, and he was universally admitted to have borne his reverses with firmness, his successes with moderation. To commemorate these, he adopted this device, invented for him by Giovio,—a palm-tree, whose crest was weighed downwards by a block of marble, with the motto, "Though depressed, it recoils." This emblem of valour and constancy, which adversity could bend but could not break, he bore upon his banner and trumpets, and frequently introduced it in his coinage.

The repose of Italy was, as usual, of brief duration. Wearied of those contests in which the ambition of France had for thirty years involved the Peninsula, the leading powers began to regard Francesco Sforza's maintenance in the duchy of Milan as their best guarantee of peace. This policy was warmly adopted by the Emperor, interested alike in the welfare of the Neapolitan territory, and in humbling his rival Francis I. The result was a new confederation, to which the Pope, the Emperor, Henry VIII., Venice, Milan, and Florence were parties, but which brought on a general war, the very evil it was intended to avert. Francesco Maria's condotta with the Florentines being expired, he was named to succeed Teodoro Trivulzio, whose supposed French tendencies occasioned his removal from command of the Venetian troops. Those of the Church were committed to the Marquis of Mantua, and Prospero Colonna was general-in-chief of the League Lautrec and l'Escu[294] having been recalled, the Admiral Gouffier de Bonnivet was sent into Lombardy to make good the title of his master to the Milanese, whose daring spirit looked not beyond the glory of encountering single-handed the armies of Europe. This struggle, eventually so ruinous to Italy, so fatal to Rome, had scarcely commenced ere Adrian was called from events which he was in no respect fitted to direct. He died on the 24th of September, 1523,[*295] and was succeeded on the 19th of November by the Cardinal de' Medici, as Clement VII., whose first act was an adherence to the League.

Prospero Colonna did not long survive the Pontiff. From him, perhaps, Francesco Maria adopted the over-cautious policy which marked his military manoeuvres during the remainder of his life, and which contrasts strongly with the dashing valour of his early career. For this he has been severely blamed by Sismondi, and we shall see it attended with very miserable results. Fortunately for the Duke's fame, his reputation in arms had been firmly established before the later and more important years of his military prowess arrived. Ere the allies had completed their preparations, the French poured into Lombardy, carried Lodi, and laid siege to Cremona. The Venetian troops occupied the banks of the Oglio, where they were joined by the Duke of Urbino, as soon as he had received credentials and instructions from the senate; his own stipulated contingent, under his lieutenant-general Landriano, having already effected a junction.

Machiavelli, ever prone to cast reflections on mercenary troops, has remarked that the Republic lost her superiority from the time that she extensively employed them. This, however, is but a partial view of the case. By their means, backed by their maritime supremacy, and by her matchless diplomatic system, she gradually extended her mainland territory, in spite of the unmilitary genius of her people, until jealousy combined nearly all Europe against her in the League of Cambray. But there was another fault inherent in the organisation of her armies. Dark suspicion was the permeating principle of her policy. Each branch of the executive jealously watched the others. Magistrates distrusted their colleagues; fathers set spies upon their sons, husbands upon their wives; governors and governed doubted their paid troops, or countermined their selected generals. The senate accordingly sent with their stipendiary forces commissioners instructed to watch, and empowered to control, the leaders—a check necessarily inducing dissension, for, as Macaulay has happily remarked, what army commanded by a debating club ever escaped discomfiture and disgrace? Under the title of proveditori, these official spies performed some of the duties belonging to commissaries-general; and although this plan for controlling soldiers of fortune, who owed little fidelity to the cause, and whose ruling principle was usually self-interest, might seem the result of wise precaution, it practically occasioned perpetual embarrassments, and fomented personal quarrels, paralysing operations in the field. Such an imperium in imperio had in this instance its usual results. Distracted councils and divided responsibility hampered free action, and rendered abortive the best-laid plans.[*296] Throughout the long war now opening, the system was pregnant with peculiar mischief, and it ought to bear much of the blame of that dilatory inefficiency which is charged against Francesco Maria. Thus the Proveditore Emo, at the very outset of this campaign, prevented him from crossing the Oglio to harass the retreat of Renzo da Ceri, who, after loitering away two months before Cremona, was recalled to the siege of Milan. The Duke, however, soon after advanced to the Adda, and during the rigour of winter occupied his troops in fortifying themselves at Martinengo, from whence they were enabled to annoy the enemy by continual forays towards Lodi.[297]

The command vacated by the death of Prospero Colonna was conferred upon Don Carlos de Lanoy, Viceroy of Naples, who arrived at head-quarters in the spring, and, upon drawing together the confederates from their winter quarters, found himself at the head of about twenty thousand foot, and four thousand lances and light cavalry. Among their leaders were the Constable de Bourbon, the Prince of Orange, and Don Ugo de Moncada, with all of whom we shall often meet during the next few years.

In the confederate army there were too many conflicting interests, too many rival leaders; but it was the peculiar misfortune of the Duke of Urbino to serve a power whose jealousy exceeded all rational bounds. It was not without considerable persuasion that he obtained of the Signory sanction to cross the Adda, and unite their troops, amounting to twelve hundred horse and six thousand foot, with the forces of the League. The first combined operation was directed against Gherlasco, which Francesco Maria, though in command of the rear-guard, was permitted to carry by assault with his own division, being greatly aided by using explosive shells. From thence they advanced to Vercelli, taking Trumello, Sartirana, and other places by the way. This movement was intended at once to cut off supplies from the French army posted at Novara, and to intercept a strong body of Swiss, for whom they were anxiously waiting. The allies having reached Vercelli, it became a race which army should first gain the bridge of Romagnano, to the west whereof lay the Swiss subsidy. The French had almost passed, when Lanoy fell upon their rear, which suffered immensely in men, baggage, and artillery; and their commander, Bonnivet, was wounded. The credit of all these arrangements is claimed by Leone for the Duke of Urbino, whose annoyance may be imagined when he found himself arrested from reaping the full benefit of their success, by interference of Pietro da Pesaro, the Proveditore. That officer, standing upon the engagement of the Venetian contingent to serve only within the confines of the Milanese, objected to their passing the Sesia, which here formed its limit, and thus nullified the resolution of the confederates to follow up their partial victory by such a well-timed attack as might drive the enemy across the Alps. The indignant army appealed to Francesco Maria to break through this official obstruction, but the commissioner was right to the letter, and the stern Signory sanctioned no latitude of construction on the part of its servants. The Duke, however, gained his consent by private remonstrances, at once temperate and energetic, but especially by threatening to throw up his commission from the senate, and as a free captain to pass with his own company into the allies' service, leaving the Proveditore, with a disorganised contingent, to bear the whole responsibility of losing so admirable an opportunity of cutting short a struggle, which it was in every view the interest of his republic to close.[298]

The conduct of the French troops devolved, in consequence of the Admiral's wound, upon Piere de Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard, who was not long spared in a command which the blunders of his predecessor had rendered hopeless. On the 30th of April, whilst drawing off the rear-guard under the enemy's fire, a shot fractured his spine. Refusing to be carried from the spot, he had himself supported against a tree, with his face to the foe, and continued to give his orders with composure: at length, feeling the hand of death upon him, he confessed himself to his faithful squire, kissing the hand-guard of his sword as a substitute for the cross. The imperialists remaining masters of the field, he was approached by the Constable Bourbon, to whose words of sympathy and regret he sternly replied, "Grieve not for me, but for yourself, fighting against your king and country." His fall was reported to Charles V. by the imperial envoy, Adrian de Croy, in these touching terms:—"Sire, although the said M. Bayard was in the service of your enemy, his death is certainly a pity; for he was a gentle knight beloved of all, whose life had been as well spent as ever was that of any of his condition, as, indeed, he fully testified at its close, which was the most beautiful I ever heard tell of." Thus fell, in his forty-ninth year, the flower of French chivalry, "the fearless and irreproachable knight." His army evacuated Italy before the end of May, and the Duke of Urbino being entrusted with the recovery of Lodi, found it defended by his relation and attached comrade-in-arms, Count Francesco del Bozzolo, who, perceiving his position hopeless, soon capitulated upon honourable terms.

After the ample details we had given of the comparatively unimportant Urbino war, our rapid glance at the events in Upper Italy, from 1521 to 1526, may seem superficial. But as these Lombard campaigns, although momentous to Europe, told very slightly upon the general policy of the Peninsula, and as Francesco Maria bore no prominent part in their varying results, we must be content to pass over them thus cursorily, rather than to carry the reader too far from the more especial object of these volumes. We may, however, pause for a moment upon the reception accorded to the Duke at Venice, when summoned thither to receive public thanks for his services, graphic details of which are supplied by the unedited Diaries of Sanuto.

After he had, in compliance with orders from the Signory, disbanded their infantry, and disposed of their cavalry in the mainland garrisons, he proceeded to the maritime capital. At Padua, the rectors had been premonished to pay him every attention; at the mouth of the Brenta, and on the outskirts of the city, he was met by two deputations, each consisting of thirty young men of distinction, and was addressed in a Latin oration, "which he did not understand." He was then escorted to the Rialto; and, after being welcomed by the Doge, and all the foreign ambassadors, except the French, he was led on board the Bucentaur, an honour paid only to highest rank or rarest merit; and thus, amid a flotilla of state galleys and gondolas, crowded with a lively population in gala attire, their princely guest was conducted along the grand canal, its palaces glittering with brocades and arrases, its windows radiant with sparkling eyes and rich carnations, such as Titian and Pordenone loved to commemorate in glowing tints. The Duke wore a suit of black velvet, with frock and cap of scarlet, and was housed in an apartment prepared at the Casa di San Marco, near San Giorgio Maggiore, with fifty ducats a day for his expenses.

This festive welcome took place on the 25th of June. Next day being Sunday, the Duke presented himself at the Collegio, dressed in black damask over a white doublet, with a rose-coloured cap; a small person, of indifferent presence [poca presentia]. He was received outside of the audience-hall by the Doge and Signory; when admitted, he spoke in a few words, and with low voice, of his constant readiness to serve their state with life and limb. To which the Doge replied, that he had acquitted himself well, but it was their trust that he would do still better in future, and that, being fully assured of his fidelity, they had selected him for captain-general. The privileges of citizenship had been given him many years before, in compliment to his uncle Guidobaldo, but the general's baton was to be conferred upon him on the 2nd of July. In deference, however, to the predictions of an astrologer, he requested that his investiture might take place on the 29th of June, being St. Peter's day. Accordingly, the magnates and diplomatic functionaries of the most luxurious city in Christendom being assembled within its picturesque and time-honoured cathedral, Francesco Maria, was led in, magnificently arrayed in gold lama and damask, amid the din of trumpets and bagpipes. After celebration of high mass, during which he was seated on the Doge's left, the insignia, consisting of a silver baton, and crimson standard with the lion in gold, were blessed at the high altar, and consigned to his hands by the Doge, as badges of authority, which he then swore to employ for the glory of God, and for maintenance and defence of the Republic. This solemnity was hailed by the spectators' shouts, the clang of bells, the crash of martial music, the roar of artillery, and, as the Duke was conducted to his gondola by a long procession of military and civil dignitaries, the gorgeous piazza and gay canals displayed a splendour unwonted even in Venice.

Unfavourable rumours of the Duchess's health rendered him impatient to be done with these honours, and were probably the true reason for his desiring that the installation might be accelerated. But the fashionable club or company della Calza so urged his remaining for their festival, which had been fixed for the 3rd in compliment to him, that he could not well refuse a short delay in order to be present.[299] The sports were enacted on that usual scene of Venetian magnificence, the grand canal, decked out in many-tinted draperies, and thronged by gay parties. The club, with the Duke of Urbino and other honoured guests, were conveyed in two large flat barges, lashed together and beautifully curtained, wherein assembled the most distinguished youths of both sexes, who revelled in music and dancing as they glided along the glassy surface. At length they stopped at the massive, but now crumbling, Foscari palace, to witness a race of four-oared gondolas, and concluded the entertainment with a supper on the Rialto. Next day their sports were renewed, with addition of a dÉjeuner, where fancy confections were presented to the principal guests—a triumphal chariot to Francesco Maria, an eagle to the imperial ambassador, and so forth.

On the 5th of July, after ten days spent in these monotonous gaieties, the Duke returned to Pesaro in his twelve-oared barge; but his repose there was brief, for the second act soon opened of that bloody drama wherein the ambition of Charles and Francis involved Italy. An incursion of imperialists into Provence under the renegade Bourbon had shifted the scene to France; but the French monarch, by a sudden movement across the Alps, transferred it once more into Lombardy, and took possession of Milan. The Signory hastily summoned their general from his duchy, to guard their frontier. The established order of Italian policy, however, rendering it probable that new and contradictory combinations would speedily arise, his instructions were to act upon the defensive; and a like temporising spirit prevailed in the councils of his Holiness, who secretly lent an ear to proposals of Francis for a combined effort to shake off the Spanish domination in Naples. The Duke's undecided tactics, so condemned by Sismondi, were therefore in accordance with orders, which the ever-present Proveditore took care were complied with. He thus had no share in the great battle of Pavia, which crushed the chivalry of France, accelerated the climax of Italian subjugation, and rendered Spanish influence fatally paramount in Southern Europe. It was fought on the 25th of February, 1525, and left Francis prisoner in his rival's hands. Francesco Maria thereafter retired to Casali, suffering from a combined attack of gout and tertian fever, in which he was attended by his Duchess, who had hastened to see him.[*300]