FOOTNOTES

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[1] Our chief authorities for this tragic scene are Machiavelli's despatches and separate narrative, with the Diaries of Burchard, Buonaccorsi, and Sanuto. Some details are taken from the Ricordi of Padre Gratio, guardian of the Monastery delle Grazie at Sinigaglia, a contemporary, and probably an eye-witness to many of them. Vat. Urb. MSS. 1023, art. 17.[*A]

[*A] Cf. Madiai, Diario delle Cose di Urbino, in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, tom. III., p. 437. Machiavelli, who was with Cesare at the time, describes the massacre of Sinigaglia as "il bellissimo inganno di Sinigaglia." Cesare wrote an account of it to Isabella d'Este. Cf. her letter to her husband (D'Arco, Notizie di Isabella Estense, in Arch. St. Ital., ser. i., App., vol. I., No. II. (1845), p. 262).

[2] Our version is from the original letter. Nearly similar in purport, but much shorter, is a despatch written by him to the Doge of Venice on the very night of the raid, so anxious was he to conciliate the Signory.

[*3] It is unlikely that Machiavelli abetted the massacre, though he certainly approved it dispassionately enough. By it the Papacy was rid at last of the houses of Colonna and Orsini. Cesare met Machiavelli after the affair "with the best cheer in the world," reminding him that he had given him a hint of his intentions, but adding, "I did not tell you all." He urged on Machiavelli his desire for a firm alliance with Florence. Cf. Machiavelli, Legazione al Valentino, Lett. 86, and the Modo tenuto dal Duca Valentino nel ammazzare Vitellozzo. See also Creighton, op. cit., vol V., p. 40.

[4] Vermiglioli: Vita di Malatesta Baglioni.

[*5] The schemes of Cesare were in his age no more unscrupulously carried out than Bismarck's in his. "It is well," said Cesare, "to beguile those who have shown themselves to be masters of treachery."

[*6] Cf. Lisini, Cesare Borgia e la repubblica di Siena, in the Boll. Senese di Stor. Pat., ann. VII. (fasc. I.), pp. 114, 115, and 144 et seq. for all the documents. And for a short but excellent account in English of the whole Sienese affair, Langton Douglas, A History of Siena (Murray, 1902), p. 206 et seq.

[7]

"Neque enim lex Æquior ulla
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua."
Ovid. Ar. Amat. i. 655.

[*8] There is no authentic basis for this story. Rome was in a pestilential condition in August, and the Pope, Cesare, and the Cardinal Hadrian were all stricken with fever, which a supper in the open air was surely not unlikely to produce. Alexander was so detested that the strangeness of his death suggested poison at once to his enemies. Cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., p. 49. An excellent essay on The Poisonings attributed to the Borgia will be found in Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., p. 301 et seq.

[9] This passage appears conclusive as to the fact of poison having been taken by the Pontiff; and it will be observed that Sanuto's story of the confection-boxes in no way accounts for the illness of Valentino, which is equally passed over in another totally different statement of this affair, given in the Appendix to Ranke's History of the Popes, section i. No. 4,—omissions to be kept in view in testing the probability of these conflicting accounts. Roscoe seems to have subsequently abandoned the doubts thrown upon the poisoning in his first edition, although ever prone to extenuate vices of the Borgia: witness his elaborate defence of Lucrezia, or his views as to the Duke of Gandia's murder and the massacre of Sinigaglia. Voltaire treats the question like a habitual doubter, with the ingenuity of a critic rather than the matured judgment of a historian. He is answered, with perhaps unnecessary detail, by Masse, to whom Sanuto was unknown.

[*10] This is probably an exaggeration. Alexander VI. was without reticence in his sins, and so has not escaped whipping. I append a brief list of authorities for the Borgia:—

  • Cerri, Borgia ossia Alessandro VI. (1858).
  • Antonetti, Lucrezia Borgia in Ferrara (1867).
  • Schubert-Soldern, Die Borgias und ihre Zeit (Dresden, 1902).
  • Citadella, Saggio di Albero Genealogico della Famiglia Borgia (1872).
  • Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia (1874).
  • —— Geschichte der Stadt Rom., tom. VII. (1880).
  • Alvisi, Cesare Borgia (Imola, 1878).
  • Nemec, Papst Alexander VI. eine Rechtfertigung (1879).
  • Leonetti, Papa Alessandro VI. (1880).
  • d'Epinois, in Revue des Questions Historiques (April, 1881).
  • Vehon, Les Borgia (1882).
  • Maricourt, Le ProcÈs des Borgia (1883).
  • Yriarte, CÉsar Borgia (1887).
  • —— Autour des Borgias (1891).

[*11] I am not quite clear what this means. The Inquisition was introduced into Italy in 1542, and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was established. But the congregation of the Index was not established till the Council of Trent. Magical books were prohibited as early as the Council of Nice, 325.

[*12] During the Duke's absence an interesting correspondence passed between Isabella d'Este and Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in Rome concerning a Venus and a Cupid of the Duke's. The Venus was a torso and antique, but the Cupid was the work of Michelangelo. Cf. Gaye, Carteggio d'Artisti, vol. II., p. 53; Alvisi, Cesare Borgia, p. 537; Luzio, in Arch. St. Lombardo (1886), and Julia Cartwright, Isabella d'Este (Murray, 1903), vol. I., p. 230 et seq.

[*13] Cf. Madiai, Diario delle Cose di Urbino, in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 444.

[14] In the communal archives of Perugia, there is a brief addressed to the authorities of that town by Pius III., dated 17th of October, 1503, "before his coronation," but in fact the day preceding his death, which must have been obtained by the influence of Cesare, and which speaks a language very different from what his Holiness would probably have adopted had his life been spared. Its object was to prohibit certain "conventicles" which Gianpaolo Baglioni was reported to be holding in Perugia, for the purpose of plotting against the person of the Duke of Valenza and Romagna, and to desire that he be charged to avoid all courses tending to the prejudice of Borgia.

[15] Our information is in many respects deficient regarding the numerous and complicated events occurring at Rome between the poisoning of Alexander and the final departure of his son Cesare, and authorities are frequently irreconcileable. We are indebted to Sanuto's Diary for many unedited particulars, especially of the papal elections, but the most distinct account of these transactions, and on the whole trustworthy, which we have met with, is given by Masse.

[*16] Cf. the latter, in which an account of the interview between Cesare and Guidobaldo is given, Ugolini, op. cit., vol. II., p. 523. It does not bear out Giustiniani's account (q.v. ii., 326) of what Guidobaldo said to him, and is probably mere rhetoric.

[17]

"Omnia vincebas, sperabas omnia CÆsar;
Omnia deficiunt, incipis esse nihil."

[18] Considering that Borgia was probably dead half a century before this painting was commissioned, little reliance can be placed upon the likeness. *This is the account alluded to in note *1, page 29.

[*20] Cf. Madiai, op. cit., in Arch. cit., vol. cit., p. 451-2.

[*21] Cf. Madiai, op. cit., in Arch. cit., vol. cit., p. 455. This Diary says that the Duke returned at the end of February, 1506.

[*22] Cf. Madiai, op. cit., Arch. cit., vol. cit., p. 456-7.

[23] These, and many other particulars interwoven with our narrative, are taken from the anonymous Diary, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 904. During the preceding year of scarcity, wheat had varied in different parts of Italy from four to twelve golden ducats, each of forty bolognini, a price scarcely credible. Riposati quotes a document proving that in 1450 a florin contained forty bolognini of Gubbio, of which twenty-nine and a half were coined from an ounce of silver, with 9/48 of alloy. Although it seems right to insert the above tariff, most of the prices appear enormous, beyond all belief. See the Preface to this work, for the comparative value of money. *This diary is the one quoted under Madiai.

[24] In the same feeling, though of later date, a copy of Raffaele's speaking portrait of his Holiness, now in the Torlonia Gallery, and attributed to Giulio Romano, is inscribed, "The author of freedom, for the citizens he saved." This conquest became a triumph of art as well as of arms; the colossal statue of Julius, begun by Michael Angelo in Nov. 1506, was erected in February, 1508. It weighed 17,500 lb. of bronze, and cost about 12,000 golden ducats, of which 1000 went to the artist.

[25] See ch. xxxiii. of this work.

[26] See above, ch. viii., ix., x.

[*27] The following is a short bibliography of Il Cortegiano, and of works relating to it:—

  • Salvadori, Il Cortegiano (Firenze, 1884).
  • Cian, Il Cortegiano (Firenze, 1894).
  • Opdycke, The Book of the Courtier (New York, 1901).
  • Bottari, Studio su B.C. e il suo Libro (Pisa, 1874).
  • Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino (Torino, 1893).
  • Cian, in Giornale Stor. d. Lett. It., vol. XV. fasc. 43 e 44.
  • Cian, Un Codice ignoto di Rime volgari app. a B.C. in Giornale cit., vol. XXXIV., p. 297, XXXV., p. 53.
  • Serassi, Lettere, 2 vols. (Padova, 1769-71).
  • Renier, Notizia di Lettere ined. di B.C. (Torino, 1889).
  • Mariello, La Cronologia del Cortegiano (Pisa, 1895).
  • Joly, De B.C. opere cui titulus Il Cortegiano (Cadomi, 1856).
  • Tobler, C. und sein Hofmann, in Schweizer Museum, 1884.
  • Valmaggi, Per le fonti del Corteg., in Giornale cit., XIV., 72.
  • Gerini, Gli scrittori pedagog. ital. d. Sec. XVI. (Torino, 1897), p. 43.

[*28] In the Lettera Dedicatoria. Cf. Ed. Cian, op. cit., p. 4.

[*29] This is the opening of the Lettera Dedicatoria to Don Michel de Silva, Bishop of Viseo.

[*30] Opening paragraph of first book. Ed. Cian, p. 11.

[*31] Concerning Elisabetta Gonzaga. Cf. Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino, Isabella d'Este, ed Elisabetta Gonzaga (Torino, 1893).

[*32] This lady was the inseparable companion of the Duchess Elisabetta. She was the daughter of Mario Pio, of the Lords of Carpi. Early the widow of Antonio of Montefeltro, natural brother of Guidobaldo, she remained at Urbino. She died, as it seems, a true lady of the Renaissance. "Senza alcun sacramento di la chiesa, disputando una parte del Cortegiano col Conte Ludovico da Canosso." Cf. Rossi, Appunti per la storia della musica alla Corte d'Urbino, in Rassegna Emiliana, Ann. I. (fasc. VIII.), p. 456, n. 1.

[33] See below, p. 57.

[34] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, art. 21. There is a copy of this MS. in the library of Newbattle Abbey, Scotland.

[35] Castiglione was related through his mother to several of the Urbino stars,—the Fregosi, Trivulzio, and Emilia Pia.

[*36] For the biography of Castiglione, see Marliani in the Cominana edition of the Opere Volgari (Padua, 1733), and Serassi, in Poesie volgari e latine del Castiglione (Roma, 1760), as well as the following works:—

  • Mazzuchelli, Baldassare Castiglione (Narducci, Roma).
  • Martinati, Notizie Stor. bibliogr. intorno al Conte B.C. (Firenze, 1890). Cf. on this Cian, in Giorn. St. della Lett. It., XVII., 113.
  • Bufardeci, La vita letter. del c. B.C. (Ragusa, 1900). Cf. on this Giorn. St. della Lett. It., XXXVIII., 203.
  • Cian, Candidature nuziali di B.C. (Venezia, 1892, per nozze Salvioni-Taveggia).

[*37] He was educated at Milan, where he probably learned Latin from Giorgio Merula, and Greek from Demetrio Calcondila, and cultivated at the same time the poesia volgare (see Cian, Un Cod. ignoto, cited on p. 44, note *1). While he was still very young he was attached to the Court of Il Moro. His father died in 1499 from a wound got at the battle of the Taro. He returned to Casatico on the fall of Sforza, and then joined Marchese Francesco.

[*38] He was in England in 1506. Guidobaldo died in 1508. It was to Duke Francesco he attached himself on his return.

[*39] On the various designs for Castiglione's marriage, see Cian, op. cit., p. 46, note 1.

[*40] He died on February 7th, not 2nd.

[*41] Giuliano was not so bad a poet himself. Cf. on this subject Serassi, in the Annotazioni to the Tirsi of Castiglione at stanza 43, and the five sonnets contained in Cod. Palat., 206 (I Cod. Palat. della Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, vol. I., fasc. 4), and the six of Cod. Magliabech. II., I., 60 (Bartoli, I manoscritti della Bib. Nazionale di Firenze, tom. I., p. 38).

[*42] Serassi, in Poesie volgari e latine del B.C. aggiunti alcune Rime e Lettere di Cesare Gonzaga (Roma, 1760), gives a full notice of his life, and Castiglione, in the Fourth Book of the Cortegiano, speaks affectionately of him.

[*43] Cf. Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. (ed. Class. It.), vol. VIII., p. 3.

[*44] For a splendid account of Bembo, cf. Gaspary, Storia della Lett. Ital. (Torino, 1891), vol. II., part II., pp. 60-7, and the Appendice Bibliographica there, pp. 284-5.

[*45] This is altogether unfair, uncalled for, and untrue. Dennistoun is not to be trusted where a Borgia is concerned; like Sigismondo Malatesta they hurt the Urbino dukes too much.

[*46] Cf. Morsolin, P. Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia, in the Nuova Antologia (Roma, 1885), and Bembo, Opere (Venice, 1729), vol. III., pp. 307-17; also Cian, in Giorn. Stor. della Lett. Ital., XXIX., 425.

[*47] For all concerning this play and its performance at Urbino in 1513, see Vernarecci, Di Alcune Rappresentazioni Drammatiche alla Corte d'Urbino nel 1513 in Archivio Storico per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 181 et seq. The original prologue, by Bibbiena, was only recently made known by Del Lungo, La Recitazione dei Menaechmi in Firenze e il doppio prologo della Calandria, in the Arch. Stor. Ital., series III., vol. XXII., pp. 346-51. Machiavelli's estimate of Bibbiena will be found in Lettere Famil. di N. Machiavelli, Firenze, 1883, p. 304, "Bibbiena, hora cardinale, in veritÀ ha gentile ingegno, ed È homo faceto et discreto, et ha durato a' suoi di gran fatica."

[*48] On the Unico Aretino Bernardo Accolti, see especially d'Ancona, Studi sulla Lett. Ital. de' primi secoli (Ancona, 1884), in the essay, Del Seicentismo nella poesia cortigiana del Secolo XV., pp. 217-18. He professed an extraordinary devotion for the Duchess of Urbino.

[*49] For Canossa, cf. Luzio e Renier, op. cit., p. 87, and especially Orti-Manara, Intorno alla vita ed alle gesta del Co. Lodovico di Canossa (Verona, 1845), and Cavattoni, Lettere scelte di Mons. L. di Canossa (Verona, 1862).

[*50] The books, pamphlets, poems, and stories, both contemporary and subsequent, dealing with the position, beauty, learning, dress, etc., of women would fill a library. I shall content myself by naming a very few among them under a few headings for the entertainment of the reader. The list of works I give is, of course, in no sense a bibliography. The best source is Castiglione himself—for the sixteenth century and for court life, at any rate. But the picture he paints, remarkable as it is, was by no means altogether realistic, as a consultation with the following works will show. I have included a few dealing with earlier times, and have only quoted works with which I am familiar.

GENERAL LIFE.

Cecchi, La Donna e la famiglia Italiana del Secolo XIII. al sec. XVI., in Nuova Antologia (new series), vol. XI., fasc. 19-20.

Frati, La Donna Italiana secondo i piÙ recenti studi (Torino, 1889).

Varconi, La Donna Italiana descritta da Scrittrici Italiane in una serie di Conferenze (Firenze, 1890).

Velluti, Cronica Domestica (Firenze, 1887).

Dazzi, Alcune lettere familiari del sec. XIV. in CuriositÀ Letterarie, fasc. XC. (Bologna, 1868).

Anon., Difesa delle Donne (Bologna, 1876).

Biagi, La vita Italiana nel Rinascimento (Milano, 1897).

Biagi, La vita privata dei Fiorentini (Milan, 1893).

Del Lungo, La Donna Fiorentina del buon tempo antico (Firenze, 1906).

Guasti, Lettere di una gentildonna Fiorentina del sec. XV. (Firenze, 1877).

Liborio Azzolini, La Compiuta Donzella di Firenze (Palermo, 1902).

Zdekauer, La vita privata dei Senese (Conf. d. Com. Sen. di St. Pat.), (Siena, 1897).

Casanova, La Donna Senese del Quattrocento nella vita privata (Siena, 1895).

Frati, La vita privata in Bologna (Bologna, 1900).

Belgrano, La vita privata Genovese (Genoa, 1866).

Braggio, La donna Genovese del sec. XV., in Giornale Linguistico, Ann. XII. (1885).

Molmenti, St. di Venezia nella Vita Privata (Torino, 1885).

Cecchetti, La donna nel Medio Evo a Venezia in Arch. Ven. Ann., XVI. (1886).

THEIR BEAUTY AND ADORNMENT.

In Florence, Siena, and Venice certainly there were regulations of the fashions; but not in Naples.

Firenzuola, The two discourses, Delle bellezze delle donne and Della perfetta bellezza d'una donna, in ed. Bianchi, Le Opere (Firenze, 1848).

Morpurgo, El costume de le donne con un capitolo de le XXXIII. bellezze (Firenze, 1889).

Zanelli, in Bolletino di St. Pistoiese, vol. I., fasc. II., p. 50 et seq.

Aretino, Il Mareschaio, atto ii., sc. 5, and I Ragionamenti.

Cennino Cennini, Trattato della Pittura, cap. clxi. Warning against the general use of cosmetics.

L.B. Alberti, Opere Volgari (Firenze, 1849) (Del Governo della Famiglia), vol. V., pp. 52, 75, 77. How a wife ought and ought not to adorn herself.

Franco Sacchetti, Novelle, 99, 136, 137, 177. "Formerly the women wore their bodices cut so open that they were uncovered to beneath their armpits! Then with one jump, they wore their collars up to their ears! And these are all outrageous fashions. I, the writer, could recite as many more of the customs and fashions which have changed in my days as would fill a book as large as this whole volume," etc. etc., with a long description of the dress of the women of his time. Consult all the novelists.

Dante, in Il Paradiso, XV.

Gio. Villani, Cronaca, lib. X., caps. x., xi., and cl.

Matt. Villani, Cronaca, lib. I., cap. iv.

Boccaccio, De Casibus virorum illustrium, lib. I., cap. xviii. He gives a list of the arts of the toilet of women.

Biagi, Due corredi nuziali fiorentini (1320-1493). (Per nozze Corazzini-Benzini, Firenze, 1899.)

Carnesecchi, Donne e lusso a Firenze nel secolo XVI. (Firenze, 1903).

Allegretto, in Muratori R.I.S., XXIII., col. 823.

Diario Ferrarese, in Muratori R.I.S., XXIV., cols. 297, 320, 376 et seq., speaks of the German fashions—"Che pareno buffoni tali portatori."

Gentile Sermini, Le Novelle (Livorno, 1874), Nov. XXI.

Marchesini, Quello si convenga a una donna che abbia marito (Firenze, 1890, per nozze). And Dialogo della bella creanza delle donne (Milano, 1862), pp. 30, 31.

ON WATERS FOR THE FACE, AND PERFUMES.

Falletti Fossatti, Costumi Senesi (Siena, 1882), p. 133 et seq.

Pelissier, Le Trousseau d'une Siennoise en 1450, in Boll. Senese, vol. VI., fasc. 1.

Sansovino, Venetia cittÀ nobilissima e singolare (1663), fol. 150 et seq.

Yriarte, La vie d'un Patricien de Venise au 16me siÈcle (Les femmes À Venise) (Paris, 1874), and see rare authorities there quoted. In Venice, the prescribed bridal dress seems to have been that of Titian's Flora—the hair fell free on the shoulders. The Proveditori alle Pompe were established in Venice in 1514.

On the whole subject see, for earlier time, Heywood, The Ensamples of Fra Filippo (Siena, 1901), cap. iii.; and for later time, Burckhardt, op. cit., vol. II., part V., caps., ii., iv., v., vii.

[*51] She died in 1528, not as Serassi, whom Dennistoun follows, says, in 1530.

[52] Her maiden surname, Pio, was habitually punned into Pia.

[*53] Cf. Il Cortegiano, lib. I., cap. vi.

[54] Dolce, in the Instituto delle Donne, mentions a lady who, being asked to name some pastime at a party, sent for a basin and towel, that all of her sex might wash their faces, she being the only one present without paint.

[55] Sanuto strangely ascribes his death to mal Francese, an example of the way in which that ill-understood scourge was then assumed as the origin of many fatal maladies.

[56]

"Una stagion fu giÀ, che sÌ il terreno
Arse, che 'l sol di nuovo a Faetonte
De' suoi corsier parea aver dato il freno:
Secco ogni pozzo, secco era ogni fonte,
Gli stagni, i rivi, e i fiumi piÙ famosi,
Tutti passar si potean senza ponte."
Ariosto, Satira iii.

*Cf. Madiai, Diario, in Arch. cit., vol. cit., p. 455.

[57]

"Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo
Cocyti, tardaque palus, inamabilis unda,
Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet."
Virg. Georg. iv. 478.

[58] What are we to make of the words of Fregoso (as preserved by Bembo)—an archbishop who, in describing to the Pope his uncle's death, mentions his partaking of the last sacraments from the Bishop of Fossombrone, in these terms, "Quiquidem Deos illi superos atque manes placavit"? Such idioms will not bear retranslation. The expression employed by Castiglione, though tinged with the cold formality of classicism, is less startling: "Ut ungeretur more sanctÆ matris ecclesiÆ rogavit." But a pagan taint may often be sadly traced upon the devotion of this age. In the first volume of Vaissieux's Archivio Storico d'Italia, the last hours of a convict, condemned at Florence in 1500, are thus narrated by an eye-witness:—Pietro Paolo Boscoli, a political reformer of the school of Savonarola, thirsted in his dying moments after the living waters of evangelical truth, and sought some better solace than the cold formalities of an ordinary viaticum. Refusing to be shriven by any but a friar of St. Mark's, he adjured an attendant friend to aid in getting Brutus out of his head, in order that he might make a Christian end. Nor was this heterodoxy exclusively Italian. Cervantes, in a recently recovered fragment, El BuscapiÉ, says, "I dislike to see the graceful and pious language befitting the Christian muse mingled with the profane phraseology of heathenism. Who can be otherwise than displeased to find the name of God, of the Holy Virgin, and of the Prophets, in conjunction with those of Apollo and Daphne, Pan and Syrinx, Jupiter and Europa, Vulcan, Cupid, Venus, and Mars?"—Bentley's Mag., XXIV., p. 203.

[*59] He died, says the anonymous author of the Diario cited above (note *, p. 80), between the fourth and fifth hour of the night, that is, between 10.30 and 11.30 p.m., and it was Tuesday. The news came to Urbino on the 10th, so, according to the Anonimo, he died on the 9th.

[*60] Capilupi, whom Isabella d'Este had sent to Urbino, describes in a long letter the mourning and grief he found there. It is too long to quote. Cf. Luzio and Renier, Mantova e Urbino (Torino, 1893), p. 185.

[61] Bibl. Magliab. Class. viii., No. 68, p. 132.

[62] "Itaque multas sÆpÈ feminas vidi, audivi etiÀm esse plures, quÆ certarum omninÒ virtutum, optimarum quidem illarum atque clarissimarum, sed tamÈn perpaucarum splendore illustrarentur: in qu verÒ omnes collectÆ conjunctÆque virtutes conspicerentur, hÆc una extitit, cujus omninÒ parem atque similem aut etiam inferiorem paulÒ, non modÒ non vidi ullam, sed ea ubi esset etiÀm ne audivi quidem."—Bembo de Guidobaldo.

[63] The Italian name for those public establishments, at which small sums are lent on pledges under government superintendence. The Duchess is said to have introduced them at Urbino, and to have founded there an academy, which rose to considerable celebrity among similar weeds of literature that long flourished and still vegetate in Italy.

[*64] The secret is not far to seek, but it was inexplicably hidden from men in Dennistoun's day. The continuity of life and of art the most sensitive expression of life, is understood and acknowledged by too few among us; but that there is an historical continuity in art as in life would be easy to prove, since no part can be adequately grasped or explained save in relation to the whole. Of course, as Renan admitted, history has its sad days, but all are, as it were, a part of the year which would be incomplete and inexplicable without them. Thus there is no gulf fixed between the art of Greece and the art of the Middle Age or the Renaissance; each is an inevitable part of the whole, and the later was what it was because of the old. Burckhardt, one of the greatest students of our time, seems to have understood this also with his usual happiness. M. Auguste Gerard tells us in his notice of the life of its author, which serves as a Preface to the French edition of Le Cicerone, that "Burckhardt en vrai disciple de la Renaissance considÉrait l'Italie comme un tout continu; et dans l'histoire de l'art de mÊme que dans l'ÉnumÉration des oeuvres, il ne sÉparait pas l'Italie antique de l'Italie moderne. La section du Cicerone qui Était dÉdiÉe À l'architecture commenÇait aux temples de Paestum pour finir aux villas Napolitaines et GÉnoises des XVIIe et XVIIIe siÈcles." In that idea lies the future of all criticism.

[*65] Far from being indispensable, the democratic institutions had very little to do with the progress of the arts which were fostered by individuals, whether in a tyranny such as Urbino or in a so-called republic such as Florence.

[*66] Neither absurd nor revolting, I think, since, a little fantastically certainly, but very truly none the less, it expresses that continuity of the religious sense in Europe which is perhaps the one eternal thing to be found in it. If the saints are not in a very real sense the gods in exile, they are excellent imitations of them.

[*67] Not Plato, but Plethon. He refused the name of Plato with which he was hailed by Cosimo de' Medici. Cf. Ficino in preface to his Plotini Epitome (Firenze, 1492). "Magnus Cosimus, quo tempore concilium inter Graecos et Latinos, sub Eugenio pontefice FlorentinÆ tractabatur, philosophum Graecum, nomine Gemistum cognomine Plethonem, quasi Platonem alterum de mysteriis Platonicis disputantem frequenter audivit; e cujus ore ferventi sic afflatus est protinus, sic animatus, ut inde Academiam quandam alta mente conceperit, hanc opportuno primum tempore pariturus." Marsilio Ficino had a poor understanding of Plato.

[*68] Cf. Georgios Trapezuntios, Comparatio Platonis et Aristotelis.

[69] See vol. I., p. 297. His oration on the death of Federigo is No. 1233 of the Vat. Urb. MSS.

[70] Maestro Arrigo, of Cologne, alias Heinrich v. Coln, had then a press at Urbino. The typographic art had been introduced there about 1481, and at Cagli five years earlier by Roberto da Fano and Bernardino da Bergamo.

[*71] Francesco da Urbino, who was certainly Michelangelo's schoolmaster, does not seem to be the same as his friend Francesco Urbino, so touchingly spoken of in the following letter from Michelangelo to Vasari:—

"Messer Giorgio, Dear Friend,—Although I write but badly, yet will I say a few words in reply to yours. You know that Urbino is dead, for which I owe the greatest thanks to God; at the same time my loss is heavy and sorrow infinite. The grace is this, that while Urbino living kept me alive, in dying he has taught me to die not unwillingly but rather with a desire for death. I had him with me twenty-six years, and always found him faithful and true. Now that I had made him rich and thought to keep him on the staff and rest of my old age he has departed, and the only hope left me is that of seeing him again in Paradise, and of this God has given a sign in his most happy death. Even more than dying, it grieved him to leave me alive in this treacherous world, with so many troubles; the better part of me went with him, nothing is left to me but endless sorrow. I commend myself to you....

"Your Michael Angelo Buonarroti, in Rome.

"The 23 day of February, 1556."

See Le Lettere, No. CDLXXV., p. 539, in Brit. Museum, and Holroyd, Michael Angelo (Duckworth, 1903), p. 255.

It was this Urbino's brother who was Raphael's well-known pupil, Il Fattore. Cf. also Holroyd, op. cit., pp. 273 and 314.

[72] Many curious unedited particulars regarding him, with reference to the conspiracy against Leo X. in 1517, of which he was suspected, are contained in Sanuto's Diaries, but we have not space to notice them.

[73] The MS. is No. 497-8 of the Vat. Urb. MSS. An edition in folio was published at BÂle in 1546.

[*74] For Vespasiano da Bisticci, consult (1) his own charming and exquisite work, Vite degli uomini Illustri (Firenze, 1859), with an excellent preface by Bartoli; Frati, Lettere (Bologna, 1892-93). Rossi writes of these in Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital. (1892), vol. XX., p. 258, and vol. XXIV., p. 276. (2) Frizzi, Di Vespasiano da Bisticci e delle sue biografie (Pisa, 1887).

[75] Spicilegium Romanum, tom. I. (RomÆ, 1839). Vat. Urb. MSS. 941.

[*76] For Castiglione, see works mentioned in note *2, p. 51 supra. I understand Mrs. Ady has written a biography of Castiglione, which is shortly to appear. For Bembo, I cite here a few works more especially relating to Urbino or to his general life: Morsolin, Pietro Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia, in Nuova Autologia, August, 1885. Cf. Cian, in Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital., XXIX., p. 425. Cian, Un decennio della vita di P. Bembo (1521-31) (Torino, 1885), and Luzio, in Giornale St. d. Lett. Ital., VI., p. 270, and d'Ancona, Studi sulla Letteratura de' primi secoli (Ancona, 1884), p. 151 et seq.

[77] See above, pp. 49-50, 53-4, 58.

[78]

"Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem;
Fortunam ex aliis."
Æneid XII., 345.

Dryden has missed the point of this passage.

[79] "Quid autem ineptius quam, toto seculo renovato, religione, imperiis, magistratibus, locorum vocabulis, Ædificiis, cultu, moribus, non aliter audire, loqui, quam locutus est Cicero? Si revivisceret ipse Cicero, rideret hoc Ciceronianorum genus."—Erasmus.

[*81] On the whole subject of women, see note *1, p. 72. Their education was the same as that of their brothers. Cf. Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (1904), vol. V., p. 250, note 1, and Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance (1878), vol. II., p. 161.

[82] Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana, VI., ii., p. 317-30; Shepherd's Life of Poggio Bracciolini, passim; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, ch. i.

[*83] Cf. Flamini, Versi inediti da G.M. Filelfo (Livorno, 1892, per nozze).

[*84] Porcellio Napolitano was the laureate and secretary of Alphonso I. of Aragon and of Naples, and later the secretary and familiar of Sigismondo Malatesta. Porcellio seems to have hated Basinio, another court poet, whose works, with a long commentary, have been published (Battaglini, Basinii, Parmensis PoetÆ Opera PrÆstantiora (Rimini, 1794)). Basinio seems to have proved before the Court of Rimini that Porcellio was ignorant of Greek. "One can be a fine Latin poet without knowing Greek," he answered in a rage, but truly enough. Basinio, however, asserted that not only Virgil and all the great poets and prose writers knew Greek, but showed that while that language was forgotten Italy was plunged in darkness. But enough of such absurdities, which have besides nothing to do with Urbino or even Dennistoun's history of it.

[85] Nearly all we know of him will be found in the Scriptores, XX., 67, and XXV., 1.

[86] See vol. I., pp. 209-11. Portions of the same poem are contained in Nos. 709 and 710 of the Urbino Library, the former corrected by the author, the latter in his autograph. Some of his minor lyrics were published at Paris in 1549, along with those of two other minstrels who sang the praises of the Malatesta.

[*87] On Giovanni Santi, see Campori, Notizie e docum. per la vita di Giov. Santi e di Raffaello Santi da Urbino (Modena, 1870); Guerrini, Elogio Stor. di Giov. Santi (Urbino, 1822); Schmarzow, Giovanni Santi der Vater Raffaels, in Kunstchronik (Leipsig), An. XXIII., No. 27; Schmarzow, Giovanni Santi in Vierteljahrsschrift fÜr Kultur und Lett. der Renaissance (Leipsig), vol. II., Nos. 2-4. Cf. also Crowe & Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy, vol. III.

[88] Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi, pp. 14 and 69, etc.; Rafael von Urbino. The original and only MS. is described in III. of our Appendix.

[89] See others in vol. I., and passim in Book II.; also in IV. of the Appendix below.

[90] See a translation of these lines, vol. I., p. 269.

[91] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1293, 303, 699.

[92] Ibid., No. 368, f. 188.

[93] These three works are Nos. 736, 743, and 373.

[94] Stewart Rose's Translation, XLVI., 10.

[95] See above, pp. 65-69.

[96] See these described, vol. I., App. xiii.

[*97] Cf. Vernarecci, Di Alcune Rappresentazioni Drammatiche alla Corte d'Urbino nel 1513 in the Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 181 et seq.

[98] See also Panizzi's London edition of the Orlando Innamorato and the Furioso, vol. VI., p. 59.

[*99] This hardly needs comment: it has become universally accepted as the truth. The Prediche Volgari of Fra Bernardino afford ample evidence, as do the Novelle generally. I shall therefore confine myself to referring to two English writers who have treated of this subject: William Heywood, The Ensamples of Fra Filippo (Siena, 1902), pp. 118, 122 et seq. and 295 et seq., who gives an infinite number of authorities and is exhaustive in his evidence; Vernon Lee, Euphorion (Fisher Unwin, 1899), pp. 25-109, who treats of it in two essays, The Sacrifice and The Italy of the Elizabethan Dramatist, with exquisite understanding and the wide tolerance of a poet. Nothing is to be gained by going into this subject so casually as Dennistoun does. He speaks of the Italian genius without understanding either its strength or its weakness. He judges Machiavelli, for instance, or Cesare Borgia, as one might have judged an Englishman of the depressing age he himself lived in, and thus his judgment is at fault in regard to nearly every great man of whom he writes.

[100] Hodoeporicon and Epistola, passim.

[101] Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.

[*102] I have not deleted these pages partly because it has been thought better to give the whole text as nearly as possible as Dennistoun wrote it, and partly too because they serve to show that Dennistoun was in advance of the general taste of his day in England. But, of course, the whole of our knowledge about Italian art has been revolutionized since he wrote. It is almost hopeless to try to annotate these pages. To begin with, the author is dealing with a subject of which even to-day we know very little. And then Urbino seems to have had almost nothing to do with the rise of the Umbrian school of painting. The reader must therefore accept with care every statement which follows.

[*103] This is true in a sense, but the work in the catacombs and the mosaics (III. cent.) in S. Maria Maggiore, for instance, are based on classic models, and are often very excellent and beautiful.

[*104] The Byzantine work was not always "unskilful," only its intention seems to have been rather decorative than realistic, yet in S. Maria Antigua, for instance, we can see the models were classical.

[105] A large picture of the Glorification of the Madonna, long placed in the Belle Arti at Florence, was painted by Sandro Botticelli for Matteo Palmieri, who, in his Dantesque poem entitled La CittÀ della Vita, has advanced a theory that, in Lucifer's rebellion, a certain number of angels assumed a neutral attitude, as a punishment for which they were doomed to a term of trial in the quality of human souls. Although never printed, this work was solemnly condemned by the Inquisition after the author's death, and the picture, which had been composed under his own direction, fell under similar suspicion of heresy. On a rigid examination, the censors having discovered a sort of fullness in the draped bosoms of some angels, pronounced them females, and for this breach of orthodoxy denounced the painting. It was accordingly covered up, and the chapel where it hung in S. Pietro Maggiore was for a time interdicted; but, having escaped destruction, it was offered for sale a few years ago by the heirs of Palmieri. The opportunity for procuring for our national collection a most interesting and characteristic example of early art was as usual lost; but it was brought to England by Mr. Samuel Woodburn in 1846, and has now found a resting-place at Hamilton Palace, in one of the few collections of art which contain nothing common-place or displeasing.[*B]

[*B] This picture, now in the National Gallery [No. 1126] is by Botticini, not Botticelli.

[106] The Gospel account of St. Thomas's doubtings finds a counterpart in the Roman legend of the Madonna, after her interment, being seen by him during her corporeal transit to heaven; whereupon, his wonted caution having led him to "ask for a sign," she dropped him her girdle or cintola, which he carried to the other apostles in proof of his marvellous tale; and the fact of her assumption was verified by their opening her tomb and finding it empty.

[107] Carteggio d'Artisti, II., p. 1.

[108] Carteggio d'Artisti, II., p. 33.

[109] Ibid., III., p. 352.

[110] Stirling's Annals of the Artists of Spain, p. 848.

[111] Roscoe, who wrote without an opportunity of seeing these paintings, describes this Pope as kneeling in his pontificals before the Madonna, in whom is portrayed his mistress, Julia Farnese. In this palpable blunder he has been followed by Rio and others. It would be curious to discover on what authority Gordon, in his life of Borgia, states that a likeness of La Vanosia, another of his mistresses, hung for Madonna-worship in the church of the Popolo at Rome. The circumstance coming from such a quarter is questionable; at all events, it is no longer true. Alexander kneels before the Risen, not the Ascending Christ. *Roscoe followed Vasari.

[*112] For instance, in the work of Botticelli, I suppose, or Verrocchio, or Mantegna?

[113] Gaye, Carteggio, II., 500.

[*114] Can this be an allusion to S. Francesco of Assisi?

[115] Our reference to this quotation (made long ago) has been mislaid, but it appears perfectly consistent with Hogarth's habitual train of ideas, and quaint rendering of them. See Ireland's Hogarth Illustrated, I., p. lxix.; II., p. 194, 195; III., p. 226-40. Nichol's Anecdotes of Hogarth, p. 137. In his plate of Enthusiasm Delineated, he has actually appended a pair of duck's legs to a cherub.

[116] Art Union, January and April, 1847. We have read with regret, in a periodical justly entitled to great weight, criticisms so at variance with its wonted candour and good sense.

[*117] Evidently Chinese and Japanese art were not understood in England in 1859.

[118] Cunningham's Life of Wilkie, II., pp. 197, 506.

[119] Wordsworth's Excursion.

[*120] Cimabue raising a holy war against Byzantine mannerism is an amusing spectacle. All we know of him was that his pupil was a great painter. Whether or no he painted at Assisi it is impossible to say.

[121] Rev. M.H. Seymour's Pilgrimage to Rome, a work remarkable for accurate observation of facts, and the candid tone of its strictures.

[122] In 1843, I saw fragments of fine frescoes in two churches at Cagli which had just been cleared of this abomination; and I was assured that the small church of Monte l'Abbate near Pesaro has but recently been subjected to it, by order of its ignorant curate. The abbey church of Pietra Pertusa at the Furlo is another of many similar instances.

[*123] It still remains to be written; but see the Essay of Berenson, Central Italian Painting (Putnams, 1904), and the valuable list of pictures appended to it.

[*124] This is an example of the taste of our fathers, almost inexplicable to-day. To consider Raffaele as a greater "devotional" painter than Duccio, Simone Martini, Fra Angelico, Sassetta, or Perugino might almost seem impossible.

[*125] The Roman school was painting at Assisi in the Upper Church before Giotto. Cf. Crowe & Cavalcaselle, op. cit., vol. II., p. 4.

[*126] The Pisan sculptors were for the most part Maitani, the Sienese. Cf. L. Douglas, in Architectural Review, June, 1903.

[*127] Dennistoun says nothing of the magnificent work of Simone Martini, the Sienese, in S. Francesco, at Assisi.

[*128] Cf. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana (Milano, 1907), vol. V., 837, 1003-4, 1014, 1022.

[129] Carey's Dante, Purg. XI., 76.

[130] The Ordo Officiorum Senensis EcclesiÆ, a MS. of 1215, in the library of Siena, has been ascribed to him, by confusion with another Oderico, a canon there; it possesses no artistic merit whatever.

[*131] He refers to S. Antonio Abate, I suppose. There is nothing by Palmerucci in S. Maria Nuova, but a Madonna and Saints and Gonfaloniere kneeling are attributed to him in the Prefettura.

[*132] Cf. Mazzatinti, Documenti per la storia delle Arti a Gubbio, in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 1-48. Ottaviano was living certainly after 1444.

[133] Carteggio d'Artisti, I., p. 131. Countess Caterina, to whom it is addressed, was wife of Count Guidantonio, mentioned in vol. I., p. 42. For some notices of Ottaviano, I am indebted to a short account of him by Signor Luigi Bonfatti of Gubbio, whose zealous researches will, it is to be hoped, soon enable him to illustrate as it deserves the hitherto neglected art of Umbria. His theory that Gentile was a pupil of Ottaviano may be redargued by their ages being nearly equal, but an examination of the surviving frescoes at Gubbio has inclined me to believe that the former drew from the same school of Oderigi, as represented by the Nelli, some of those inspirations of holy pathos, and something of that playful brilliancy of tints, which he subsequently combined with new principles.

[134] Palliotto was the painting or wood-carving occasionally placed on the altar-front in early times, for which a hanging of brocade or muslin was afterwards substituted.

[*135] Some magnificent works by Allegretto Nuzi of a most surprising loveliness may be seen in Fabriano.

[136] Such testimony, from artists so antipathic to his practice, is a curious tribute at once to his merit and influence.

[*137] Gentile da Fabriano was the pupil of Allegretto Nuzi, not of Fra Angelico.

[*138] There is only one fragment of Gentile's work in the Duomo of Orvieto: a Madonna, painted in 1425.

[*139] A fine work still remains at Perugia, No. 39, in Sala V., Pinacoteca.

[*140] We do not know who Perugino's Perugian master was; but it was more likely to be Fiorenzo di Lorenzo than Bonfigli.

[*141] There is no trace of Masaccio's influence in Perugino's work. He was influenced by Signorelli, and slightly by Verrocchio.

[*142] Piero della Francesca was the pupil of Domenico Veneziano.

[*143] Piero was born in 1416.

[*144] Cf. Pichi, La Vita e le Opere di Piero della Francesca (Borgo S. Sepolcro, 1893); Witting, Piero dei Franceschi (Strassburg, 1898); Crowe & Cavalcaselle, op. cit., vol. III. Berenson, op. cit., p. 69, says: "The pupil of Domenico Veneziano in characterisation, of Paolo Uccello in perspective, himself an eager student of this science, as an artist he [Piero] was more gifted than either of his teachers." Fra Luca Pacioli, one of the finest mathematicians of his day, praises Piero, and speaks of his renowned treatise on perspective, "now in the library of our illustrious Duke of Urbino."

[*145] Cf. on this point Muntz, Precursori e propugnatori del Rinascimento (Firenze, 1902), p. 59 et seq. For his life Vita Leonis Baptistae de Albertis, by an anonymous author, believed to be Alberti himself, in Muratori R.I.S., vol. XXV., partly translated in Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (Dent, 1906), pp. 163-9. Cf. also Mancini, Vita di L.B.A. (Firenze, 1882), and Nuovi documenti e notizie sulla vita e gli scritti di L.B.A., in Arch. St. It., Series IV., vol. XIX.; also Scipioni, in Giornale St. d. Lett. Ital., vol. II., p. 156 et seq., and vol. X., p. 255 et seq.

[*146] This is a tale like so much in Vasari. Piero was never blind at all it seems. Bossi, in his work on Leonardo's Cenacolo (Milan, 1810), deals minutely with this libel.

[147] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1374 and 632. The manuscripts by him, mentioned in No. 131 of the Quarterly Review, as in the possession of his descendant, Count Marini, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, no longer exist; and a small portrait there of himself does not appear to be by his hand. As a further specimen of the Friar's ideas on this matter, we may offer an extract from his De Divina Proportione Epistola (Venice, 1509), wherein he compares perspective to music, ranking both with the geometrical sciences, since just as "the former refreshes the mind with harmony, the latter delights it greatly by correct distance and variety of colours." "Who, indeed, is there that, seeing an elegant figure with its exact outlines well defined, and seeming to want nothing but breath, would not pronounce it something rather divine than human? And painting imitates nature as nearly as can be told, which is proved to our eyes in the exquisite representation, so worthily composed by the graceful hand of our Leonardo, of the ardent desire after our salvation; wherein it is impossible to imagine greater attention than that of the apostles, aroused on hearing, in the words of infallible truth, 'One of you shall betray me,'—when, interchanging with each other attitudes and gestures, they seem to converse in startled and sad astonishment."

[*148] "He was perhaps the first," says Mr. Berenson, "to use effects of light for their direct tonic or subduing or soothing qualities." He uses light as the "plein air" school of France uses it. See a chapter devoted to his work in my Cities of Umbria (Methuen, 1904).

[*149] They are in quite fair preservation as things go.

[*150] There are two greyhounds lying side by side facing opposite ways.

[151] Passavant conjectures this group to be a satire upon three neighbouring princes who were Duke Federigo's enemies, and seems to consider the picture influenced by some Flemish master. If painted after the visit of Justis of Ghent, it can hardly represent Oddantonio. See below, ch. xxx.

[152] It is very unsatisfactorily engraved in Bonnard's Costumes du TreiziÈme au QuinziÈme SiÈcle.

[*153] None of these three belongs to Piero.

[*154] It is a curious comment on this that a man like Mr. E.V. Lucas, certainly not "a connoisseur," tells us in his book, A Wanderer in London (Methuen, 1906), that he "once startled and embarrassed a dinner table of artists and art critics by asking which was the best picture in the National Gallery. On my modifying this terrible question to the more human form—Which picture would you choose if you might have one? and limiting the choice to the Italian masters, the most distinguished mind present named at once Tintoretto's Origin of the Milky Way.... After very long consideration," he continues, "I have come to the conclusion that mine would be Francesca's Nativity. Take it for all in all, I am disposed to think that Francesca's Nativity appeals to me as a work of compassionate beauty and charm before any Italian picture in the National Collection."

[155] Such is the magnificent Annunciation in a small chapel three miles west from Pesaro, known as the Madonna del Monte, but properly the oratory dedicated in 1505 to the Madonna dell'Annunziata di Calibano, by Ludovico del Molino, alias degli Agostini. Its pure and beautiful countenances are less beatified in expression than earlier Umbrian works, but in composition and draperies it yields to none, and excels all others in gorgeous effect. The gilding is freely laid on in broad masses, and a scintillation in solid gold streams from the Almighty upon the Madonna's bosom, while the angels' wings are starred with peacock's plumage. Yet, as in Gentile da Fabriano's best works, all this glitter is subdued by an earnest and solemn feeling becoming the theme. The panel is inscribed "Ludovicho di Jachomo Aghostini merchatanti da Pesaro a fato [fare] deta tavola a di xxiv. di Decienbre, mdx." How unfortunate that the pious donor had not recorded the artist's name as well as his own! I was unable to visit an altar-piece at Montebaroccio ascribed to Fra Carnevale's pencil.

[*156] There is a predella picture by him at S. Domenico, in Siena, and another in the Uffizi Gallery. He was the pupil of Vecchietta.

[157] See vol. I., pp. 147-50, 161-3; Lettere Sanesi, III., p. 79; Carteggio d'Artisti, passim, I., pp. 255-316.

[*158] Cf. also Borghese & Banchi, Nuovi Documenti per la Storia dell'Arte Senese (Siena, 1898).

[*159] On the fortresses of the Marche generally, see Gaspari, Fortezze Marchigiane e Umbre, in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 80 et seq.

[160] MSS. in Public Library at Siena; printed in Bottari, Lettere Pittoriche I. App. No. 36, and in Gualandi, Memorie Artistiche.

[*161] See works quoted p. 138, note *1 supra.

[162] Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi; Rafael von Urbino. The few facts of importance which the AbbÉ's microscopic researches have ascertained are scarcely extricable from the confusion that prevails in his eulogy and its accompanying, or rather darkening, notes. The catalogue of Sanzi's works is useful to travellers, though sadly deficient in judicious criticism. The good Padre was more able to appreciate a mouldering MS. than a fine painting.

[164] See it already described at p. 138.

[*166] The works on Raphael would fill a library. In addition to the usual sources of information, see—

  • Branca, L'ingegno l'arte e l'amore di R. e la nevrosi del suo genio (Firenze, 1895).
  • Campori, Notizie ined. di R. tratte da docum. dell. archivio palatino di Modena (Modena, 1862).
  • Campori, Notizie e docum. per la vita di Giov. Santi e di R. (Modena, 1870).
  • Crowe & Cavalcaselle, Raphael: His Life and Works (London, 1882-1885).
  • Fua, Raffaello e la Corte di Urbino, in Italia Artistica, An. IV., p. 178 et seq.
  • Muntz, R. sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps (Paris, 1881).
  • Muntz, Raphael: His Life, Works, and Times. Edited by Sir W. Armstrong (London, 1896).
  • Alippi, Un nuovo documento int. a R. (Urbino, 1880).
  • Rossi, La casa e lo stemma di R., in Arch. St. dell'arte (Roma), An. I., fasc. I.
  • Anon., La Casa di R. in Roma, in Arte e Storia (Firenze), An. VI., No. 17.
  • Ricci, La Gloria d'Urbino (Bologna, 1898).
  • Anon., Notice of a portrait of R. in the collection of James Dennistoun (Edinburgh, 1842).

[167] We have already accounted for the change of his surname to Sanzio, at p. 216. His Christian name, in modern Italian Raffaello, seems to have been spelt by himself RaphÆllo and Raffaele. *Raphael was born on Good Friday, 28 March, 1483.

[168] British and Foreign Review, vol. XIII., p. 248.

[*170] Giovanni died when Raphael was eleven, in 1494.

[171] See above, p. 218.

[172] See above, p. 195-6.

[*173] This is not so. The first master of Raphael was Timoteo Viti, who, having left home in 1490 to enter Francia's workshop, returned to Urbino in April, 1495. Timoteo was then twenty-six years old. There is a beautiful portrait of him by himself in the British Museum. The first undoubted work of Raphael, probably painted while he was a pupil of Timoteo, is the Vision of a Knight, in the National Gallery. Having served his apprenticeship to Timoteo, Raphael entered the most famous workshop in Umbria—one of a crowd of pupils—that of Perugino.

[*174] The suggestion that Perugino was an atheist, and died without the Sacraments of the Church, rests on no good foundation.

[*175] The first independent picture which he painted after coming to Perugia was the Crucifixion, now in the possession of Mr. Ludwig Mond. This was painted in 1501 or early in 1502, because the Vitelli for whom it was painted were driven out of CittÀ di Castello in the latter year. I know nothing of any return to Urbino in 1499. He went back in 1504.

[*176] This work is a copy of Raphael's picture by Lo Spagna. Cf. Berenson, The Study and Criticism of Italian Art, vol. II., p. 1-22.

[*177] The only work of Raphael's left in Perugia is the fresco of Christ and Saints, in St. Severo, 1505.

[178] The frequent contradictions of the many writers upon Raffaele throw a doubt upon most of his movements. Our rapid sketch has been compiled after a careful comparison of authorities, which we cannot stay to criticise or reconcile. *In 1504 Raphael went to Florence. The assertion that he accompanied Pinturicchio to Siena seems a mere invention of Sienese municipal vanity.

[179] Pietro Sodarini, Gonfaloniere for life. The original in Latin is printed in Bottari's Lettere sulla Pittura, I., 1. A loose expression might lead to the conclusion that Giovanni Sanzi was still alive, though he died in 1494; and on the strength of it, Rosini raises doubts as to the authenticity of the letter, or the identity of the painter, in which we cannot join.

[*180] Now in the National Gallery.

[*181] None of these pictures save the last seems to be from Raphael's hand.

[*182] This is not by Raphael.

[183] Fea, Notizie, p. 9. Raffaele's own letter of 1514 mentions that sum for each Stanza.

[184] Quarterly Review, No. cxxxi. pp. 20, 25, 32, 42.

[*185] Far from the parallel "suggesting itself," only a disorderly mind would make it. No comparison is thinkable between work that is absolutely different. One might as well compare a valley with the sea.

[186] British and Foreign Quarterly, vol. XIII.

[187] Yet this casino, begun in 1511, is by some said to have been completed several years before.

[188] It stood in front of St. Peter's, and was removed when the piazza was extended.

[189] Passavant treats the usual legends regarding the Fornarina as after inventions, and ascribes the earliest notice of her to Puccini's Real Galleria di Firenze, I., p. 6.

[190] British and Foreign Review, vol. XIII., p. 274.

[*191] Raphael seems to us to-day to have been a supreme portrait painter. His other easel pictures, splendid as they often are in "space composition," seem to lack sincerity. His frescoes have a perfect decorative value, but little force or real contact with life. If they sum up the Renaissance, they do so only in part, with much sacrifice of truth and of that virility and assured contact of life which were its most precious possessions.

[192] See above, p. 161.

[193] "On the 4th April, 1495, my dear Timoteo went away, to whom may God grant all good and success." He seems to have been received at first into Francia's "workshop" as a goldsmith, to work for the first year without pay, the second at sixteen florins a quarter, the last to be free, working by the piece. This indenture was, however, broken by mutual consent after fourteen months, on his wish to pass into the painters' studio.

[*194] In the Cathedral sacristy is the St. Martin and St. Thomas of 1504, with the founders beside them. In the Pinacoteca there is a half figure of S. Sebastian, the figures of S. Roch and of Tobias with the Angel. The S. Apollonia, once in S. TrinitÀ is now in the Gallery. Of these, the S. Sebastian, S. Roch, and Tobias show the influence of Giovanni Santi, the other two the influence of Raphael.

[*195] Timoteo painted the Prophets above the Sibyls in S. Maria della Pace, in Rome.

[*196] The Sibyl was not exclusively Pagan. Consider the first verse of the Dies Irae, which ends—

"Teste David cum Sibylla."

[197] See the learned observations of Pungileone, in the Elogio Storico di Timoteo Vite, pp. 23-38.

[*198] He was probably the pupil of Luciano da Laurana and Piero della Francesca.

[199] See p. 214 above. In an old MS. chronicle I find, besides most of the names here enumerated, the following now-forgotten painters of Urbino, at the close of the fifteenth century:—Bartolomeo di Maestro Gentile, Bernardino di Pierantonio, Ricci Manara, Francesco di Mercatello, and in 1528 Ottaviano della Prassede.

[200] Sketches of the History of Christian Art, Letter VIII., especially part II., §§ 1, 2, 4, and part III., § 6.

[*201] But Justus de Alemania, who painted at Genoa, and Justus of Ghent, are different persons.

[*202] Now in the Pinacoteca.

[203] The coinage of Duke Federigo consisted of Bolognini and Piccioli. The former were small thin silver pieces, weighing 19½ grains, of which 3½ were copper alloy, and forty of them made a florin. The florin, a nominal coin, thus contained 63434/59 grains of pure silver, and 146½ grains of copper; and supposing pure silver worth, as now, 5s. 6d. an ounce, it would be worth 7s. 3¼d. sterling, making a bolognini 71/3 farthings. The piccioli (33/5 to a farthing) were about the size of bolognini (52 or 56 to the ounce); but were of copper alloyed with about three per cent. of silver. All this Duke's coinage seems to have been minted at Gubbio, and it is described at great length by Reposati, in his Zecca di Gubbio. See p. 41 above, and Author's Preface.

[*204] See on this subject the most excellent book by G.F. Hill, Pisanello (London, 1905); a good bibliography is there given.

[205] Riposati mistakes this for a metal weight. The French work does not venture on any conjecture as to the object represented.

[206] Mariotti's Italy.

[*207] For birth of Sixtus IV., cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. IV., p. 65, and authorities there quoted. "His father was a poor peasant in a little village near Savona, and at the age of nine Francesco was handed over to the Franciscans to be educated. He acted for a time as tutor with the family of Rovere, in Piedmont, and from them he took the name by which he was afterwards known."

[208] Most of these were buried in the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo, at Rome, where their funeral inscriptions may be found.

[209] Cristoforo and Domenico della Rovere, brothers, and successively cardinals of San Vitale, were of the Vinovo family. The former has a tomb in the Church del Popolo, the latter was distinguished for his intelligent patronage of art. I have failed to affiliate Clemente, Bishop of Mende, surnamed il Grasso, made cardinal 1503, and died next year; and Stefano, who was nephew of Julius II., and had a son, Gian Francesco, Archbishop of Turin, who died in 1517.

[210] See below, ch. xxxii.

[211] Muratori has not scrupled to adopt this opinion, for which I can discover no adequate ground, and which is inconsistent with the accepted genealogy of the Riarii.

[212] The sumptuous and lavish festivities of the age, and the extent to which art was combined with classical associations in public displays, may be estimated from Corio's elaborate description of the reception at Rome, in 1473, of Duchess Leonora of Ferrara, with her suite, including 60,000 horses. *Cf. Annalisti di Tisi, quoted by Corvisieri, q.v. in Archivio Romano, vol. I.; Il Trionfo Romano di Eleanora d'Aragona. Creighton, op. cit., vol. IV., pp. 75-77, gives a splendid sketch of his life.

[*213] Cf. Fratini, St. della Basilica e del Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi (Prato, 1882), p. 260 et seq.

[*214] "Sixtus," says Creighton, "changed the course of life in Rome because his own recklessness was heedless of decorum. Hitherto the Roman court had worn a semblance of ecclesiastical gravity.... Rome became more famous for pleasure than for piety.... The Rovere stock was hard to civilise.... Hitherto the Papacy had on the whole maintained a moral standard; for some time to come it tended to sink even below the ordinary level. The loss that was thus inflicted upon Europe was incalculable" (op. cit., vol. IV., p. 132-3).

[*215] Pinturicchio was also among them; neither can Signorelli be called a Florentine. Dennistoun is (infra) mistaken in thinking that Pinturicchio did not work in the Sixtine Chapel. The Baptism of Christ and the Journey of Moses are both from his hand.

[216] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023.

[*217] Cf. L. Siena, Storia di Sinigaglia (Sinigaglia, 1764), p. 277 et seq.; Anselmi e Mancini, Bibliografia Sinigagliese (Sinigaglia, 1905); and Marcucci, Francesco Maria I. della Rovere, Parte I. (1490-1527) (Sinigaglia, 1903).

[*218] The best contemporary account of Djem is that of Guglielmo Caoursin, Obsidimis Rhodii Urbis Descriptio (Ulm, 1496). Cf. Burchard (ed. Thuasne), I., p. 528. The amount seems to have been 45,000 ducats. See especially Heidenheimer, Korrespondenz Bajazet II.'s mit Alexander VI., in Zeitschrift fÜr Kirchengeschichte, vol. V., p. 511 et seq. As usual, Creighton's account, op. cit., vol. IV., is most excellent, written with the pen of a statesman. Heidenheimer maintains the authenticity of the letters, and Creighton agrees with him. "If the letters were forged, the forgery was the work of Giovanni della Rovere," but there is no good ground for questioning their genuineness.

[219] These papers have been printed in Bossi's Italian translation of Roscoe's Leo X., vol. IV., p. 220; but our extracts were made from a MS. in Vat. Ottobon, Lib. No. 2206, f. 17.

[220] Lettere de' Principi, II., 4.

[221] Molini Documenti di Storia Italiana, I., 23.

[222] Lettere Pittoriche, VIII., p. 23.

[223] In the Belvidere, where his frescoes have unfortunately perished.

[224] Panvinio tells us that, being received in full consistory on his arrival in Rome, he refused to kiss the Pope's toe, but only his knee.

[225] The reverse of this caricatured portrait may be found in a curious account of this unfortunate prince's romantic adventures, given by the Turkish historian, Saadeddin-effendi, and printed by Masse in his Histoire du Pape Alexander VI., pp. 382-408.

[*226] For authorities for Pope Julius II., cf. Creighton, vol. V., pp. 305-6, where an excellent rÉsumÉ is given.

[227] He had certainly two natural children, and Bernardo Capello alludes to the inroads upon his constitution, occasioned by gout and morbus Gallicus (Ranke, App., sect. i., No. 6); the latter term seems, however, to have been often in that age completely misapplied.

[228] Ranke, Appendix, sect. i. No. 6.

[*229] William Roscoe, Life of Leo X., 4 vols. (3rd ed.), 1847.

[*230] See Marcucci: Francesco Maria I. della Rovere (Sinigaglia, 1903).

[*231] She was betrothed in the same month in which her father died. The marriage had long been desired by Elisabetta. Giustiniani mentions a report of it in his Despatches (Dispacci, vol. II., p. 359) even in 1503. Mrs. Ady (Isabella d'Este, vol. I., p. 267) says the Marquis of Mantua desired it "as a means of obtaining the Cardinalate which he had been striving to obtain for his brother during the last fifteen years."

[232] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 904, f. 89.

[*233] Cf. Luzio e Renier, Mantova ed Urbino (Torino, 1893), p. 182.

[*234] The document is printed by Luzzatto, Comune e principato in Urbino nei secc. xv. e xvi., in Le Marche (1905), An. v., p. 196 et seq.

[*235] The league of Cambrai is one of the great crimes of history. The man who devised it and urged it upon Europe was the head of European Christianity, Pope Julius II. Beside this, the sensualities and murders of the Borgia go for nothing. His policy, created by hate, succeeded in so far as it established the States of the Church and murdered Italy. Yet looking back now, we may judge of the price that has been required of the Church for that treason. Beggared of her possessions, at the mercy of the new Italian kingdom, he who sits in the seat of Julius is a prisoner in the Vatican—the prisoner of history.

[*236] On the 25th of August, Francesco Maria had paid a visit to Mantua to see his betrothed. "Come," said Leonora's uncle to him, "and when you have seen Madonna Leonora and the Marchese's horses you will have seen the two finest things in the world." Francesco Maria spent two days there travelling incognito with but four persons. Cf. Julia Cartwright, op. cit., vol. I., p. 310. An amusing letter from Federico Cattaneo to Isabella d'Este, who was absent, describes the meeting of Francesco Maria and his future bride. Leonora was fourteen, and they were married at Christmas.

[*237] Cf. Luzio e Renier, op. cit.; p. 195, for the entry of the Duchess into Urbino.

[238] It is difficult to reconcile with these details of an eye-witness the statement of Leoni, followed by Riposati and others, that the marriage was privately performed at Mantua in February, 1509. In May of that year the Duke was unanimously chosen a Knight of the Garter at a chapter of that order, but for reasons which it is now too late to investigate, the nomination was not confirmed by Henry VIII. At next election he had but one vote out of ten, and his name does not again occur in the record preserved by Anstis.

[239] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 489. This is but a fragment of the life of Francesco Maria by Urbano Urbani, who was his secretary at this time. Our account of the League of Cambray has been taken from it, collated with many published authorities. Urbani's full work, which I have not discovered, has been largely drawn upon by Leoni, Baldi, and other biographers.

[*240] Little is known of the steps which led to the Council of Pisa. See some interesting letters printed in Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., p. 329 et seq.

[*241] Cf. Sanuto, Diario, vol. XI., p. 721 et seq. It was the Pope who threatened pillage. Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., p. 143.

[*242] She was the widow of the Count Ludovico of Mirandola.

[243] So say the Urbino writers. Guicciardini characterises the escape of the army as a panic-rout, in which the whole camp-equipage and colours, including the ducal standard, fell into the enemy's hands. Sanuto says that 200 men-at-arms were slain.

[244] Not only Leoni and Reposati, but the MSS. in the Urbino library, which refer to these transactions, must be so regarded. We have compared all of these, especially Baldi's life of this Duke, and the defence of him against Guicciardini, which he left prepared for the press in No. 906 of the Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 924 contains the pleading of the younger Beroaldo in favour of the Duke, when charged with the Cardinal of Pavia's murder. No. 1023, art. v., and No. 819, fol. 335, the former by Monsignor Paolo Maria Bishop of Cagli, the latter anonymous, have supplied us with some new facts. Guicciardini, admitting in other passages the Legate's bad faith and his antipathy to Francesco Maria, blames his deficiency of courage or judgment in the Bologna affair, and lashes the aggravated vices of his character. Roscoe has not here exercised his usual acumen.

[*245] The account of Paris de Granis (given by Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., pp. 305-19) somewhat differs from that given here.

[246] Several letters, quoted by Sanuto, MS. Diary, XII., 158-161, say the 23rd, being Saturday; but Saturday fell on the 24th. See Filippo Giraldi, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153, f. 90.

[247] We obtain a curious glimpse of his home-circle at this critical moment from the correspondence of Bembo, who, having just quitted Urbino on his way to Venice, wrote thus to Fregoso from Cesena, where he was waiting a passage by sea. "But what, I say, are you and your ladies, and the Duke, and the rest of you grandees about? What is my Ippolita doing? Is she entangled in the toils of Secundio or Trivulzio? Oh dull and drivelling me, who, abandoning my loves to the rapine and plunder of men of war, am here sitting on a sandy shore more pluckless and besotted than the very shells! Many salutations in my name to both their Highnesses, and to Emilia, and the lively Margherita, and to Ippolita of many admirers, and to my rival Alessandro Trivulzio." This badinage was surely ill-timed, within a month of the defeat of Francesco Maria and the Cardinal's assassination.

[*248] The battle of Ravenna is fully described by Guicciardini, Opere Inedite (Firenze, 1857), vol. VI., p. 36 et seq., in letters from his father and brother. The French had everything in their hands, the route was complete. They should have pressed on to Rome and Naples, and have reduced the Pope to terms and annihilated the Spanish power in Italy. But Gaston was in his grave. Cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., p. 168.

[249] Giraldi Dialogo, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153.

[250] The preceding account of the judicial process, and of the Duke's conduct in regard to the campaign of Ravenna, has been chiefly taken from Baldi, as his narrative is more intelligible and consistent with the best historical authorities, than the indistinct and garbled statements of Leoni and Riposati, who gloss over such facts as they cannot satisfactorily clear up. Guicciardini asserts that Francesco Maria set his peasantry upon the troops of Cardona as they fled through the duchy from the rout of Ravenna, a statement more reconcileable with that author's prejudice than with probability. The legal evidence of both the Duke's absolutions will be found in No. V. of the Appendix, and Giraldi is our authority for some minor details. We have purposely avoided mixing up with this personal narrative the more general events of the French war. They are succinctly given by Roscoe, Leo X., ch. viii. and ix.

[251] Yet Julius was reported to have left in St. Angelo, 400,000 ducats of gold, besides jewels, and no state debts. Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 1023, f. 297.

[*252] This is rather vague. We are not told what Francesco Maria did that justifies Dennistoun in saying that the election of Leo X. was his act. I can find no evidence of Francesco Maria's personal influence in the conclave. If the election of Leo was an arrangement, it was Cardinal Riario to whom it was due. The charge of ingratitude therefore falls to the ground.

[253] To inaugurate the new pontificate, and mark the contrast of Alexander and Julius with their successor,—its Maecenas, Agostino Chigi, erected a triumphal arch, inscribed,—

"Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora; tempora Mavors
Olim habuit; sua nunc tempora Pallas habet."

Venus here reigned supreme, by Mars displaced;
Our happier age by Pallas' sway is graced.

To this doggerel there quickly appeared the rejoinder,—

"Mars fuit, est Pallas, Cypria semper ero."

Once Mars, Minerva now, but Venus still.

[254] Papal brieves of Aug. 4 and April 17, 1513, in Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, and Bembo's public despatches, ii. No. 8. Roscoe has no authority whatever for representing the Duke as at this period the Pope's "formidable rival."

[*255] Henry landed at Calais August 1st, 1513; it was then in English hands, as it remained till Mary Tudor lost it in 1558. From Calais Henry advanced to the siege of Terouenne. Castiglione was, of course, in London in 1506 to receive the Garter for Guidobaldo from Henry VII.; a second journey seems apocryphal. On Castiglione at Urbino and elsewhere, cf. Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino (Torino, 1893), pp. 174, 234, 242 et seq.

[*256] Yet he seems to have suffered in the war. His long residence at Urbino may well have been due to the Duchess, who loved him sincerely.

[257] One of the shrewd agents of the maritime republic supplied a key to the policy of Leo, by observing that it consisted in immediately opening a secret understanding with the avowed enemy of whatever prince he leagued with. His intrigues in behalf of his brother and nephew are illustrated by some documents in the Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendix I., 306.

[258] See below, p. 368.

[*259] However, Francesco's record was not a very brilliant one. He failed to take Mirandola without Julius II., and the affair of Ravenna would, one might think, have ruined any soldier.

[260] Dialogo Giraldi, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153.

[*261] The defeat of the Swiss at Marignano opened the way for the long fight between Francis I. and Charles V. It decided many things—the future of monarchy in Europe, for instance, as well as the fate of the republican army "so long invincible in Italy." Cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. V., p. 243. "What will become of us," said Leo to Giorgi, the Venetian Ambassador, who brought him the news of the defeat—"and of you?" "We will put ourselves in the hands of the Most Christian King," he added, "and will implore his mercy." Cf. the Relazioni Venete, 2nd series, vol. III., p. 44, quoted by Creighton, who, as always, takes the view of a statesman, and not merely that of a scholar. Sforza surrendered Milan on October 4th. The Pope signed terms with Francis October 13th, 1515. The Pope was then in Viterbo, which he left for Bologna in November, coming to Florence on the last day of that month. In December he was back in Bologna to meet Francis. He returned to Florence and left for Rome on February 19th, 1516.

[*262] Giuliano had certainly been ailing for months. His death did not seem to have been unexpected.

[*263] So does Giorgi. Cf. Relazioni Venete, 2nd series, vol. II., p. 51.

[*264] Cf. Verdi: Gli ultimi anni di Lorenzo de' Medici duca d'Urbino, 1515-1519 (Pietrogrande, 1905).

[*265] I do not see how this was an outrage. Francesco had been already dismissed: see supra 360. Besides, he had certainly made overtures to the French. Cf. Guicciardini, Storia d'Italia, vol. XII.

[*266] Cf. Pellegrini, Gubbio sotto i conti e Duchi d'Urbino, in Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. XI., p. 221. Gianpaolo Baglioni da Perugia entered the Eugubine territory with 100 knights, 500 horse, and 3000 foot. The Duke wrote that he could not defend Gubbio. On the 31st May the Consiglio was called together, and it decided: "redire ad Romanam ecclesiam et sub regimine s. D.N."

[*267] Zaccagnini has published an unknown poem on this taking of Urbino. See Un poemetto sconosciuto sulla presa d'Urbino del 1516, in Le Marche (1906), An. VI., p. 145.

[268] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 906, 907, 928; Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153.

[269] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153, f. 115.

[*270] It was against Venice that Leo had first, in March, 1517, tried to get help.

[271] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 141. It has been printed by Leone, p. 222.

[*272] "Gli pareva gran vergogna della Chiesa che ad un duchetto basti l'animo di fare questa novitÀ; e il papa tremeva, ed era quasi fuor di sÈ." Cf. Giorgi, Relazioni Venete, 2nd series, vol. III., p. 47.

[273] This account is adopted by Leone, p. 230, by Sismondi, and by Centenelle, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 907. Baldi (Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 906) and Guicciardini say that Lorenzo, having undergone much personal fatigue at the battery, was walking away to repose himself in a sheltered spot, when a bullet from the walls hit him on the head, grazing his skull to the nape of the neck.

[274] See above, p. 325.

[275] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 1023, art. vi.

[276] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 907, f. 28, 30. The Minio despatches are full of details of this conspiracy unknown to Roscoe.

[277] Rymer, vol. IV., p. 135. On the 21st of December Lorenzo de' Medici had written to thank the King of England for his good wishes conveyed through the Bishop of Worcester, then resident at Rome. See a curious letter of the following June, from Wolsey to the usurping Duke, Appendix VI.

[278] Centenelle, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 907.

[279] These anecdotes are preserved by Baldi, to whom, and to Minio Centenelle and Giraldi, we owe many new details of this campaign. Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 906, 907; Ottob. 3153.

[280] Molini, Documenti di Storia Italiana, I., pp. 122, 135.

[281] Oliveriana MSS. No. 375; I., pp. 51, 75.

[*282] He seems to have received the news at La Magliana on November 25th. He returned to Rome at once. The illness was not considered serious till November 30th. He died on the evening of December 1st. Cf. Paris de Grassis, in Roscoe, Leo X., App. CCXII.-IV., and clerk's letters of December 1st and 2nd, in Brewer, Calendar (1824-5).

[283] Such is the opinion of a monkish chronicler who wrote in 1522. Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 297. Even in 1517 the Venetian envoy Giorgi reported him as afflicted by an internal plethoric disease, a catarrh, and fistula. Vettori discredits the rumours of poison, and Guicciardini says they were hushed up by his cousin the Cardinal, lest they should give umbrage to the French monarch, with whom it was his interest to stand well at the approaching conclave. On the whole, the opinion of most weight is that of the Master of ceremonies, who distinctly asserts that poison was detected on a post-mortem examination. Roscoe's innuendo inculpating Francesco Maria is a glaring proof of his aptitude to do scanty justice to that Duke, whose admitted hastiness of temper cannot, in absence of one contemporary or serious imputation, be considered any relevant ground for suspecting him of slow and stealthy vengeance. Another Venetian ambassador mentions, in proof of the utter exhaustion of the papal treasury, from the profusion of Leo and the greed of his Florentine retainers, that the wax lights used at his funeral had previously served for the obsequies of a cardinal.

[284]

"Sacra sub extrema si forte requiritis hora
Cur Leo non potuit sumere? vendiderat
."
Bibl. Magliabech. MSS., cl. vii., No. 345.

[285] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 921.

[*286] Fabio, not Pandolfo Petrucci. The latter died at S. Quirico, in Osenna, in May, 1512. Borghese Petrucci, his son, soon became the "best hated man in Siena." Four years after his father's death both he and Fabio were declared rebels. Leo X. put Raffaello Petrucci in Borghese's place. Raffaello died in 1522, and then some of the Nove brought back Fabio, who had married Caterina de' Medici, niece of the Pope. But after a rule of less than two years he was again an exile. "Thus," says Ferrari, "the Petrucci returned to their primitive obscurity." Cf. Langton Douglas, A History of Siena (Murray, 1902), p. 212.

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

[288] Archivio Diplomatico of Florence, May 25, 1522.

[*289] Adrian Floriszoon, the son of a ship's carpenter named Floris. His education was chiefly theological; humanism had not penetrated Louvain.

[290] Guicciardini, lib. xiv.

[*291] This account of Adrian VI.'s conclave is inaccurate and confused. Cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. VI., pp. 216-222. The Duke of Urbino seems to have had no influence in the conclave.

[292] These articles are to be found in the Archivio Diplomatico at Florence.

[293] However these pretensions may have originated, they derived a quasi warrant in 1525, from a conditional investiture of the duchy for three generations, granted by Clement VII. to Ascanio "in case it should happen to lapse to the Holy See," Agnesina being there mentioned as eldest sister. Charles V. was vainly solicited by Ascanio to render this condition eventual, or by some other means to make good his possession, and the claim did not drop until 1530. Nor was it the only one vamped up on account of Duke Guidobaldo's unfruitful marriage. In 1505 the Prince of Salerno seems to have made similar pretensions through his mother, a sister still younger than Agnesina; and in order to dispose of these, Julius II. is said to have offered him his own daughter Felice, a union which however did not take place.

[294] Odet de Foix, Seigneur de Lautrec, and the Seigneur de l'Escu were both brothers of the chivalrous Gaston de Foix.

[*295] He died on the 14th September. For details, cf. Duke of Sessa's letters in Bergenroth, pp. 597, 599.

[*296] As usual, Machiavelli is right. If the proveditori had so bad an influence (and it was doubtless bad) the results should have been earlier seen, for it was an old custom with that Republic. Francesco Maria, whom Dennistoun rates so highly as a soldier, as we have seen, was not more harassed by these spies than his forerunners, Carmagnuola Colleoni and Sigismondo Malatesta. The custom rose out of the decision to employ no citizen as a captain-general. Nor was Venice alone in this practice; Siena and Florence followed it too on occasions.

[297] Sismondi's strictures curtly express the judgment pronounced upon Francesco Maria by those who follow, without examination, the prejudiced narrative of Guicciardini. Yet, as they are founded upon admitted defects in his generalship, it may be well to lay them before the reader. "He was not deficient in military talent, nor probably in personal courage, but, taking Prospero Colonna as his prototype, he exaggerated his method. His only tactics consisted in the selection and occupation of impregnable positions; whatever his numerical superiority, he evaded fighting; no circumstance, however urgent, could bring him to a general action; and by his obstinacy in refusing to risk anything, he made certain of losing all." But in estimating the commander we should not put out of view the discouraging nature of the cause, which this author elsewhere happily describes as a war without an object. *This applies better to the petty wars of Central Italy at this time and in the fifteenth century. Waged by paid captains, they may be said to have been without an object, or rather with but one object—war itself. One and all they ended in nothing, though here and there, as with the Sforza, the condottiere managed to establish himself. There was not, save in Florence, Milan, and Venice, a sufficiently strong economic reason to cause a real war. Such as they were, these wars were due to the greed of petty princes, in which the professional armies enjoyed themselves (few being killed) in sacking towns and cities whose inhabitants, altogether at their mercy, were the only victims. To drag out the war and to avoid serious fighting as much as possible were naturally the first objects of the average condottiere.

[298] The details given by Paruta appear to bear out this statement of the Duke's policy, but establish that, in the eyes of his employers, his prudence and caution availed more than dashing gallantry, an admission important in estimating his conduct throughout the campaign of Lombardy, and throwing light upon the hesitation which marked his subsequent career. Indeed, according to this author, the orders of the Signory were to avoid fighting as much as possible.

[299] See vol. I., p. 68, for a notice of this association, so often mentioned in Venetian history.

[*300] The battle was fought on the 24th February.

[*301] So far as Julius is concerned, his one object was the absolute temporal dominion of the Church in Italy. He made the coming of an ultramontane power into Italy a certainty. His successors struggled in vain to save themselves and incidentally Italy from the consequence of his crime. But the policy of the Papacy was wise, if selfish. The only road to Italian unity lay through predominance of one power—Venice or Milan, for instance, or the Church herself. The popes successfully prevented this unity for more than a thousand years, really in self-defence—the defence of their temporal power at any rate; their international claims were destroyed by an eager and passionate nationalism. We have seen in our day how Piedmont united Italy, first destroying the Papacy, which remains merely as a spiritual power that seems in Italy to be slowly passing away.

[302] Brit. Mus. Cotton. MSS. Vit. B. VIII., f. 16, b. In f. 49, of B.V. there is a mutilated letter of compliment from the Duke to Henry VIII., in Latin, dated at Urbino 19 March, 1522.

[303] Leonardi's recollections of Francesco Maria, Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 1023, f. 85, and Baldi's defence of him from Guicciardini's charges, Ibid., No. 906, f. 214.

[304] Brit. Mus. Cotton. MSS., Vit. B. VIII., f. 93 b. In this volume are many despatches regarding the Lombard campaign, and the assault on Rome in 1526.

[*305] See Guicciardini's despairing letters to Giberti, Opere Inedite (1857-67, Firenze), vol. IV., pp. 73-146. Francesco Maria was to blame; he lost time in crossing the Adda, from whatever cause; he delayed again while the generals of the Emperor strengthened their lines round Milan—even when the allies arrived and their army numbered 20,000 against the 11,000 of the besiegers. He waited the arrival of the Swiss, he said, and went off meanwhile at the heels of the Venetian Proveditore to besiege Cremona. The Rocca of Milan fell on July 24th.

[*306] See his despairing letters cited above, p. 441, note *1. He was a true patriot and thought for Italy. The Duke's dilatory and inconclusive actions while Italy was slowly dying, and might have been saved, as he thought, disgusted and enraged him.

[307] Lettere, I., p. 28, edit. 1733.

[308] This treaty is printed by Molini, in the Documenti di Storia Italiana, I., 229. At p. 204 of the same volume is a despatch throwing valuable light on the tangled diplomacy of these times. The details of this event are often mixed up with those of the far more atrocious sack of Rome perpetrated by Bourbon a few months later; the best account of it is by Negri, an eye-witness, in the Lettere de' Principi.

[309] See above, p. 385.

[310] Above, p. 420.

[*311] He halted at S. Giovanni in Val d'Arno, where, though he ought never to have been allowed to come so far, he might have been easily crushed in that narrow pass. But if the Duke of Urbino showed now a certain activity, it was not of the sort to crush this adventure. Bourbon wheeled into the Via Francigena and marched down to Rome and death. "To Rome! to Rome!" were his dying words.

[312] Many facts regarding the war in Lombardy and the march to Rome are given by Baldi (Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 906) with a minuteness and impartiality not found in other writers. The feeble views of Clement are illustrated by his brieves to the Duke of Urbino, noticed in I. of the Appendix to our next volume.

[313] In Leonardo da Vinci he saw only a military engineer. His commission, desiring that great genius to survey and report upon all his fortresses, in the summer of 1502, is quoted in Brown's Life of Leonardo, p. 118, and accordingly Urbino was visited by him on the 30th of July.

[314] MSS. No. 374, vol. I., p. 55.

[315] It is pleasant to find the arts from time to time becoming handmaids of history as well as of religion; and the friendly feeling for England then cherished at Urbino is curiously illustrated by a bequest of Bishop Arrivabene, who, in 1504, left 400 golden scudi to be expended in decorating a chapel, dedicated to St. Martin and St. Thomas of Canterbury: the Duchess Elisabetta was one of the trustees, and the fresco ordered by them from Girolamo Genga included a representation of the English saint, and a portrait of Duke Guidobaldo.

[316] Hall quaintly says that the King intended "to stop two gappes with one bushe."

[317] The palace thus gifted to Henry is believed to have been that in Borgo, called Palazzo Giraud, in which many of our countrymen have of late received the splendid hospitalities of Prince Torlonia.

[318] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 498, f. 273. For Polydoro di Vergilio, see above, pp. 115-18.

[319] I can find nothing in support of Roscoe's assertion that he was wounded while aiding Guidobaldo to recover his duchy, and the whole facts seem to contradict it. Leo X., ch. vii., § 7, note. That usually accurate writer has fallen into the mistake of ascribing to the Count's sister his interment and monumental inscription in the church of the Minims, near Mantua, while the epitaph which he has printed, bears that Aloysia Gonzaga placed it over a worthy son, whom she unwillingly survived. Several dates in our text are supplied from Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 904, p. 43.

[320] This marginal interpolation, occurring in the dedication, runs thus:—"Pregandoti humilmente ryguardi ly gloriosi fatti del tuo famoso padre, e non la basseza del myo style [not "srypt," as Passavant reads it], ornato solo da me dy quella sincer fede che deue vn fydeli servo al suo signore."

[321] Several errors in the numeration, both of the folios and chapters, might readily deceive a superficial observer, and have misled even Passavant.

[322] This chapter being numbered XLVI. by mistake in the original, the subsequent numbers here given are always in advance by one until Cap. LXXIII.

[323] This chapter, being omitted in the original numeration, the subsequent five numbers are in advance by two.

[324] This chapter being omitted in the original numeration, the subsequent numbers are in advance by three until No. XCVII.

[325] This number being repeated by mistake in the original, the subsequent numbers are in advance by two.

[326] The notorial transumpt of this bull, verified in 1516 by three notaries in presence of the municipality of Urbino, is preserved in the Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, and the preceding abridgment was made from an authenticated extract obtained by me there in 1845. In the same archives there is another formal acquittal to the like purpose, which it is needless to quote.


Transcriber’s Errata List

Page 45, portrait caption: Now attributed to Piero del Pollaiolo.

Page 440, signature line of letter: In the original, the C and the S at the ends of these words have tildes over them, signifying abbreviations. In the absence of appropriate HTML characters, carons are used instead.

Page 471, facsimile: Handwritten text; see footnote 320.


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