WE must now return to the confederate camp at Isola, which the Duke of Urbino broke up, after having eased his conscience by sending to Francis I. the explanation of his views to which we have referred. The general feeling regarding his conduct was testified by a speedy withdrawal of many forces under his command, some deserting to the enemy, others retiring to their homes. On the 1st of June, he was at Monterosi, and thence fell back upon Viterbo and Todi, where he obtained some inglorious successes over the imperialist bands, as they fled in disorder from plague-stricken Rome. During the autumn his troops, which gradually diminished to a few thousands, led a life of disreputable pillage about the valley of the Tiber; and, after again embroiling himself in the affairs of Perugia with little credit or success, he interfered in the succession of Camerino in a way which we shall find eventually pregnant with mischief to his son. On the Pontiff's arrival at Orvieto, he hastened to wait upon his Holiness, and put forward the Venetian commissioner to make a laboured justification of his recent miscarriages. Clement, affecting contentment with what was beyond redress, received him cordially, and hinted at a union of his son Guidobaldo with Caterina, daughter of his late competitor, Lorenzo de' Medici. But ere long he reaped the fruit of his feeble policy, by hearing that he was spoken of in the most disparaging terms by the gallant Francis I., and by the French general Lautrec.

Still more mortifying to him was the distrust shown by his Venetian employers. We learn from Sanuto's Diaries that, early in May, his Duchess had repaired to Venice, with the young Guidobaldo and a suite of forty persons, while the visits passing between her and the imperial ambassador soon became matter of unfavourable comment. On the 29th of June, a guard of barges was placed near her residence, to intercept any attempt at escape; and on the envoy from Urbino questioning this proceeding, the Doge said, in explanation, "We have much reliance on our Captain from past experience, but what has been done was to satisfy the vulgar." Hearing that his wife and son were thus under surveillance, as hostages for his good faith, the Duke, on the 9th of July, penned a remonstrance and justification, somewhat similar to that which he had transmitted to the French king. It will be found in the Appendix, No. III., and, though a most inconclusive defence, it was well received by the Signory, and his family were so far released from constraint, that, early in August, the Duchess was allowed to go for health to the baths of Abano. News of her departure from such a cause were little consolation to her lord, who declared that, were she to die, he should be in despair. Remembering, however, the fate of Carmagnola, he would not venture in person to Venice, until he had twice sent his confidential friend Leonardi to reconnoitre the state of feeling there. Reassured at length, by pressing invitations from the Signory, he in the spring took ship at Pesaro with a small suite, and was met upon landing by an escort of twenty gentlemen in scarlet, who conducted him to his lodging. Next day he was admitted to the interview which he had demanded, and was received at the top of the great stairs by the Doge, followed by the principal senators. After mutual embraces, the Duke was led to a seat of honour, and had audience for an hour and a half. This being concluded, the public were admitted to see their Captain-general, who was richly decked in diamonds, with a massive bracelet of twisted gold on his left arm, and a jewelled device in his cap. On returning to his apartment, he had from the Signory the customary compliment of confections, malmsey, and wax lights. It would be hard to say how far he was indebted to his oratory for this happy extrication from his difficulties; but we are told by one of his suite that many of the nobility, who crowded to pay their respects, besought a sight of his speech to the senate, insisting that so eloquent an oration must needs have been written and committed to memory.[23]

Thinking it well to retire with flying colours, he next morning took his departure; and his party, being challenged by three of the patrol for riding armed, answered by beating them to death. The same intemperate behaviour brought him ere many days into a new dilemma with his employers. Gian Andrea da Prato, an officer of the Republic, having somewhat disrespectfully combated his opinion as to the defences of Peschiera, received from him a severe blow in the face, tearing it with a diamond ring he happened to wear, which was followed up by a severe beating with his baton of command; Leonardi adding that it was well for him the Duke was unarmed. The Venetian officers, protesting against this violence as an insult to the Signory, and as incompatible with due freedom of discussion in council, sent a complaint to the senate; but the Duke's resident minister succeeded in averting their indignation by explanations. Their satisfaction with his services under the banner of St. Mark was further testified by presenting him with a palace worth 10,000 scudi, which may fairly be taken into account as countervailing the strictures of Guicciardini and Sismondi.

The capture of Rome being known, a new coalition was hastily patched up, wherein France, England, Venice, and Florence were parties, and to which the free cardinals, in name of the Sacred College, adhered. Its avowed object was to check the exorbitant power of Charles in Italy, and to establish Francesco Sforza in Milan, then held by Antonio della Leyva for the Emperor. A powerful French army under Lautrec marched on the 30th of June, and, on its arrival in Lombardy, the Venetians recalled most of their forces from Central Italy. On the 4th of October Pavia was taken and miserably sacked, and Milan might have become an easy prey had not Lautrec preferred advancing for the Pope's liberation. But, having lost time in extorting contributions from Piacenza and Parma, he had only reached Reggio when he heard of his escape from durance. Clement, though avowing gratitude for these exertions on his behalf, declined committing himself by any overt act against the Emperor, whose troops still occupied Rome.

The year which now closed is justly characterised by Muratori as the most fatal and lamentable for Italy that history has commemorated. The horrors of war, which, during its course, were poured in accumulated measure upon the Eternal City, fell largely upon many other parts of the Peninsula. Four foreign armies were let loose upon her plains, to steep them in misery, and the enormities attending the sack of Rome were repeated at Pavia, Spoleto, and a multitude of minor towns in Lombardy and Central Italy. The furies of civil broil were meanwhile scarcely less rampant. The Campagna of Rome, the sunny shores of Naples, the towns of the Abruzzi, were ravaged or revolutionised by the arms and intrigues of the Pontiff. Florence, Siena, Modena, Rimini, Ravenna, Perugia, and Camerino changed their governments, under pressure of foreign force or domestic violence. Nor were the elements more propitious. Incessant rains destroyed the harvest, and laid whole districts under water. With an unusual demand upon agricultural produce, the supply was greatly curtailed. Famine reigned throughout the land, and pestilence desolated the population. The inhabitants, reduced to general mendicity, beset the streets and highways with their squalid children. Their murmurs by day and their screams by night met with rare responses from passers-by as needy as themselves; and at length, worn out with suffering, they laid them down to die. It was during this year of general gloom that Machiavelli closed his life; and to it specially applies that passage in his Principe (whether then interpolated or written long before) describing the prostration of his native land. "Conquered, enslaved, divided—without leader or law—beaten, spoiled, partitioned, overrun, and in every way ruined—she lay half lifeless, awaiting some one to heal her wounds, to arrest the robbery, pillage, and forced taxation of her states, to heal her long-cankering sores."

To this hideous but faithful picture one finishing touch is wanting. Alarmed by Lautrec's advance upon Naples, the Prince of Orange at length, on the 16th of February, gave orders for the evacuation of Rome. But his army, now crumbled away to some thirteen thousand men, refused to march without an advance of pay, for which a final contribution of 20,000 ducats was wrested from the Camera. Not satisfied with this, the brutal soldiery redoubled their individual efforts, by every ingenuity of torture, to screw more treasure or ransom from the wretched inhabitants. But a summary vengeance awaited them. Such of the citizens as had arms secretly left the city, and, as their relentless foes straggled heedlessly across the Campagna, laden with spoil, they, by a succession of furious charges, recovered a vast quantity of the plunder, and, stripping the rapacious soldiery of their gala dresses and rich jewels, dismissed them naked. In this state the exasperated peasantry, headed by Napoleone Orsini, the warlike Abbot of Farfa, set upon and massacred them without mercy. So signal was these miscreants' fate that, in two years, scarcely one of them is supposed to have survived.

After delaying for some weeks at Bologna, to abide the issue of many intricate negotiations which followed upon the Pontiff's release, Lautrec advanced, by the eastern coast, to attack the kingdom of Naples. His army is estimated by Muratori at about fifty thousand, though stated by others at a much higher amount. On the 10th of February, he passed the frontier by the Tronto, and at Aquila, and elsewhere in the Abruzzi, was received with open arms by the remnant of the Angevine party. On the 12th of March, the two armies were in presence at Troia; but, neither of them being anxious for a decisive result, no engagement followed. After ravaging most of La Puglia and Calabria, the French troops sat down before Naples, on the 29th of April, and continued the siege during most of the summer. Once more did that delicious land, where the ancients placed their Elysian fields, and which is the terrestrial heaven of modern Italians, prove fatal to its spoilers. Its soil, fertile in nature's choicest products; its bright atmosphere, redolent of beauty; its climate, conducive to luxurious gratifications; its volcanic air, stimulating to sensual indulgences; its breezes, wafting perennial perfumes—all invited to an excess of enjoyment, enervating to the physical, as it was fatal to the moral energies of the invaders. Their cup of pleasure was drugged, and Naples was avenged on her destroyers by her own poisons, which they greedily quaffed. A contagious pestilence swept their ranks, and, on the 15th of August, carried off their leader. Weakened and discouraged, the remnant shut themselves into Aversa, but were soon forced to a capitulation, which being violated, most of them were cut to pieces.

To counterbalance Lautrec's expedition, the Emperor had ordered more troops across the Alps, and, in the beginning of May, Henry Duke of Brunswick brought fourteen thousand Germans through the Tyrol to the Lago di Garda. On the first alarm of their approach, the Duke of Urbino made the most of a handful of troops under his command, to protect the Venetian mainland territory; and his biographers give him great credit for defensive measures which ensured their towns from attack, and obliged the invaders to move upon the Milanese. Pavia having been, about the same time, surprised by della Leyva, Lodi alone remained in Sforza's hands, and before it the Duke of Brunswick drew his lines. But the destruction of his magazines by Francesco Maria reduced his army to great straits; and a virulent epidemic having carried off two thousand of his men, the residue broke up and made their way homewards, after their first assault had been sharply repelled.

In September, the Duke of Urbino's little army was reinforced by a strong body of Swiss infantry and French lances, led by St. Pol, and it was resolved to recover Pavia. Scarcely was the siege begun when news of the desperate state of the French before Naples induced St. Pol to propose withdrawing his contingent to the succour of Genoa, which, in consequence of Andrea Doria suddenly passing over from the side of Francis to that of his rival, was placed in great danger. A brief delay was obtained by the urgent representations of Francesco Maria, who, throwing aside his accustomed sluggishness, directed operations in person. On the sixth day he effected a breach by blowing up a bastion, which placed the city at its assailants' mercy, and it was again exposed to the horrors of a ruthless sack. This success was, however, counterbalanced by a revolution in Genoa, the city declaring itself independent of France, and was followed by the fall of Savona, on the 21st of October. It might have been saved by more prompt exertions on the Duke's part, who was unjustly blamed by his French allies for its loss, being, as Paruta assures us, interdicted by the Signory from leaving their frontier exposed.

During the weary wars of Clement VII., the fluctuations inherent in human affairs were rarely counterbalanced by high principles or commanding genius. Confederacies formed upon narrow views and selfish calculations were neither sustained with persevering energy, nor directed by men of enlarged views and gallant bearing. Indeed, courage itself faltered and zeal grew languid, in contests which seemed to demoralise officers and soldiery. It cannot therefore occasion surprise that all parties were equally ready to play fast and loose; that the great powers kept themselves ever open for new combinations; and that independent captains, true to old condottiere usages, readily transferred their services to the quarter whence most substantial benefits were likely to accrue. Thus, after the great discouragement resulting to the cause of Francis, from the loss of Lautrec's army and the desertion of Doria, his allies began to waver. The Pontiff, though scarcely recovered from the alarm in which his recent misfortunes had left him, displayed an unaccountable leaning towards their author; and even Sforza, having to choose between two claimants of his duchy, began to think that the best terms might be had from the Emperor. The Venetians were as usual waiters upon providence; but they so overplayed the temporising game, that the arrangements for a double treaty between Clement, Charles, and Francis found them still in the field, and they were left to make head single-handed against the imperialists. As such a contest was necessarily a defensive one, the Duke's dilatory manoeuvres were at length well timed, and the Signory preferred thus prolonging the struggle to restoring the territory they had gained during the war, as a preliminary condition of peace. The Emperor had landed in August at Genoa, with a powerful fleet and army, and new levies arrived from Germany. St. Pol, after drawing off his troops towards Genoa, was surprised and shamefully beaten ere he could be supported by Francesco Maria,[24] who had encamped at Cassano on the Adda, in a position that menaced Milan, and commanded supplies from the Bergamese territory, whilst it effectually protected the Venetian mainland from imperialist aggression. The Duke there resisted every attempt to dislodge him, until the senate had arranged the terms of a treaty with the Emperor, which was signed on the 23rd of December.

The ostensible motives of Charles in coming to Italy were twofold; to forward arrangements for a general league against the Turks, who, after overrunning Hungary, had laid siege to Vienna; and to have the imperial diadem and the iron crown of Lombardy imposed upon his brows by the Pope. Bologna was selected for the ceremony, whither his Holiness arrived in great state about the end of October, followed on the 5th of November by the Emperor. The two potentates were lodged in the public palace, and addressed themselves to the former of these objects with so much success, that on the 23rd of December a treaty was concluded, wherein were comprehended all the Italian states except Florence. The Lombard question was settled, Sforza being left in possession of his duchy, but hampered with ruinous payments to the Emperor in name of expenses; whilst the Venetians, besides paying heavy sums under the same pretext, had to resign their acquisitions about Ravenna and on the Neapolitan coast. Florence was not included, in consequence of its de facto government being in the hands of the democratic party, who, in 1527, had availed themselves of Clement's difficulties to expel the Medici; it was now, however, replaced under their sway by the combined arms of the Pontiff and the Emperor. After ten months of obstinate defence,—the final effort of its old republican spirit, which commands our sympathy and respect far more than the struggles of faction that used in earlier times to deluge its piazza in blood,—the city was surrendered on the 12th of August, 1530, and its chains were riveted by a base bastard, who seems to have had nothing of the Medici but their name. In this siege died Philibert Prince of Orange, one of the last survivors of the invaders of Rome. Like his comrade Bourbon, he was a renegade from the service of Francis I., in disgust, as was alleged, at being turned out of his palace to make way for the imperious Wolsey, and at the ridicule to which this slight exposed him in the French court. The title passed to his nephew RenÉ Count of Nassau, who carried it from Provence to Holland, and was grandfather of William III. of England. Their leader fallen, their occupation gone, a serious alarm spread throughout Central Italy, lest the victorious soldiery should re-enact the horrors perpetrated by Bourbon's sanguinary host. These fears, however, soon subsided; indeed a century and a quarter elapsed ere that fair land was again exposed to the devastations of foreign spoilers.

These diplomatic arrangements being thus satisfactorily concluded, preparations advanced rapidly for the coronation, and many princely feudatories of Italy flocked to witness that august function. Among these was Francesco Maria, who, though summoned as Prefect of Rome, had some cause to misdoubt his welcome from the Pontiff and the Emperor. The old family grudge still smouldered in the breast of the former, and he was alleged to have lately intrigued with Charles that the Prince of Orange, after re-establishing the Medici at Florence, should seize upon Urbino for Ascanio Colonna, whose vague claims upon that duchy have been already explained.[25] Indeed, a rumour of that general's march upon his states in March, 1529, had suddenly recalled the Duke from Lombardy, in order to provide for their defence. To the Emperor he had been uniformly opposed, rather from the chances of war than upon any personal quarrel; yet he did not hesitate to repair to the coronation, arriving at Bologna about the 1st of November, and there met with an interesting incident.

As he approached the city with his suite he was met by about fifty German veterans, who addressed him in their rough transalpine tongue, and through an interpreter explained that they had come to pay to him their reverence, having served under his father in long past wars, inquiring where their old commander had died. They were told that it was himself that led them to victory; but, unaware how early he had commanded armies, they demurred to this, saying, that were their old leader alive his beard would be blanched. The Duke having assured them that their gallantry and attachment were well known and appreciated by him, they dismissed their doubts, crowding round to kiss his hands or mantle, and accompanied him to his lodging, a civility duly acknowledged by thanks and a suitable largess.

Several days having passed in visits of compliment, the Emperor arrived, escorted into the town by the Dukes of Urbino and Savoy, with their brilliant staffs. Mindful only of the renown which the former had acquired in recent campaigns, the monarch summoned him to his side, and conversed with him in friendly familiarity. He called him the first general in Christendom, and complimented his officers as worthy soldiers of a famous school, whose complexions bore the honourable scars and weather-stains of good service. Duchess Leonora became on her arrival equally the object of imperial favour, and received flattering testimony to her polished and princely manners. The purpose of these marked attentions was soon developed, in a proposal to confer upon Francesco Maria the baton, as captain-general of the imperial troops in Italy. This gratifying offer he gracefully declined, pleading an engagement to the Venetians, which prevented his listening to such proposals without consent of the Signory. To them Charles forthwith addressed his request; but received for answer that the same considerations which induced him to make it rendered them resolute in retaining the services of a leader who for many years had brought renown to their arms; but that, though unable to spare himself, they were ready to place him with all their forces at the disposal of his Highness. The Emperor had employed the Duchess of Savoy's intervention in this affair, who at his suggestion cultivated a great intimacy with the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, and her pleading was on one occasion enforced by Charles in person in a well-timed visit. The establishment of this lady is described by Leonardi, who was particularly struck with the easy elegance and graceful conversation of her six girlish maids of honour, seated on cushions of tawny velvet, and gaily decked in rich jewels, plumes, and streaming ribbons, chatting merrily with her guests. The Emperor, far from taking umbrage at his disappointment, sought Francesco Maria's opinion as to the person best fitted for commander-in-chief, who recommended the appointment of Antonio della Leyva. Indeed, Giraldi declares that Charles "never could have enough of his fine discourses or sententious remarks," and pressed him to name any favour he would accept of. The Duke, thus encouraged, urged the restoration of Sora, Arce, Arpino, and Rocca Guglielmi, which had been taken from him at the instigation of Leo X., a request to which Charles acceded about three years later, paying 100,000 scudi of compensation to a Flemish nobleman who had been invested with these Neapolitan fiefs.

On the 22nd of February, in the chapel attached to the Palazzo Pubblico, the brows of Charles were encircled with the iron crown of Lombardy, which, as Muratori observes, had not yet been rendered a sacred relic by the legend of its having been formed out of a nail of the true cross. Two days after, he received the imperial diadem in the church of S. Petronio, the Duke of Urbino, as Prefect of Rome, carrying the sword of state, with which the Pontiff had just conferred knighthood upon the Emperor. The populace were regaled in the Piazza with two bullocks roasted entire, whilst both the great fountains poured forth continued streams of wine, and silver largess was scattered at all hands. An accident from the fall of some scaffolding, which nearly proved fatal to the hero of the ceremonial, brought on a sharp altercation between the captain of the imperial guard and the chief magistrate of the city. To the threats of the officer, to treat the place as he had already done the larger town of Milan, the latter replied that in Milan they manufactured needles, but in Bologna they made swords. On the 22nd of March, Charles departed for Germany, in order to defend his Austrian dominions from the Turks; and, nine days later, Clement set out in a litter for his capital, where he arrived on the 9th of April, after spending the 6th at Urbino, on a visit to Francesco Maria.

From these transactions at Bologna there dated a new era for Italy. The long struggle of Guelph and Ghibelline was at length come to an end—the standard of her nationality was finally struck. Succeeding pontiffs were content to lean for support upon an authority which their predecessors had defied or resisted. It mattered little whether that paramount influence was held by an Austrian or Spanish imperial dynasty; so long as the two Sicilies, Sardinia, and Milan owned its dominion, the freedom of the other states was merely nominal. The Peninsula was, indeed, no longer ravaged by European wars, yet the protracted struggle did not close until the victor had riveted on her his chains. She was seldom desolated by invading armies, but she was not the less plundered by licensed spoilers. Peace was restored to her, but independence was gone. The Reformation, too, which Leo left a petty schism, had in ten years changed the faith of a large section of Europe, and Rome was no longer the capital of Christendom. The results of this change in the Church it is not the province of these pages to notice, but, in common with other Italian feudatories, the Dukes of Urbino felt the altered aspect of their political relations. War was not now a profession demanding their services, and recompensing them with glory and profit. The trade of arms had come to an end, as regarded the old condottiere system and its frightful abuses, and was modified into the more orderly machinery of standing armies on a limited scale. We shall accordingly find these princes for the future little mixed up with the general affairs of the Peninsula, and scarcely ever taking the field, but left with ample leisure for the administration of their little principality, or the cultivation of their individual tastes. Had such been the lot of Duke Federigo or his accomplished son, their fame would scarcely have been dimmed, for theirs were virtues equally calculated to elevate a court or illustrate a camp. But it was otherwise with the two remaining sovereigns della Rovere; and the glories of the dynasty would suffer no diminution did we now draw our narrative to a close. Yet these Dukes were not commonplace men; and, making allowance for the age in which they lived,—when the fine gold of literature and arts had been transmuted into baser metal, and when genius had fled from a desolation which peace without freedom was powerless to reanimate,—they were not unworthy to rule in the Athens of Italy. Those readers, however, who have thus far followed our narrative must content themselves through its remaining chapters with characters less striking, views less general, events of narrowed interest; and must bear in mind that the niche in the temple of Fame appropriated to Urbino, as well as that enshrining the Italian name, was earned ere the coronation of Charles V. had closed the struggles of Italy, and consummated her subjugation.

After that time, according to one of the most rational as well as eloquent of the new dreamers after Italian nationality, "she underwent a rapid yet imperceptible decline; yet her sky smiled brightly as ever, her climate was as mild. A privileged land, removed from all cares of political existence, she went on with dances and music, happy in her ignorance, sleeping in the intoxication of incessant prosperity. Used to the scourge of invasion, the sons of the south took up again their guitars, wiped away their tears, and sang anew like a cloud of birds when the tempest is over."[26] This picture, drawn in bitterness, but not apparently in irony, paints the decline of Italy in colours more attractive than any we should have dared to employ; and we extract it chiefly for the sake of contrast with the same writer's ready admission that the liberty of the old republics was cradled amid convulsions of faction, which eventually exhausted their forces, or stifled their independence.

If the object of government be the greatest happiness of the masses, it seems, according to Mariotti, to have been more fully attained in Italy during the ages of foreign sway than in those of republican strife. Admitting in some degree, this conclusion, we accord a more hearty approval to the character he has elsewhere given of a state of matters worse, probably, in that land than either of these alternatives,—"that slow and silent disease, that atrabilious frenzy—politics—which pervades all ranks, exhibiting a striking contrast with the radiant and harmonious gaiety of heaven and earth."

Our notices of the court of Urbino have been suspended during a long interval from lack of materials. Indeed, the military duties of its head too well accounts for this deficiency of incident, rendering his domestic life a blank. Even the brief intervals when he could steal from the camp to the society of his Duchess, were passed in some neighbouring town, where she met him, or at Venice, where she made a lengthened sojourn, partly as a safer residence during the alarm consequent upon Bourbon's invasion, but in some degree as a guarantee for her husband to the suspicious government he served. These circumstances occasioned him prolonged absences from his state, of which his consort availed herself to prepare for him an agreeable surprise.

Immediately north-west from Pesaro rises the fertile slope of Monte Bartolo, near the summit of which, but sheltered from the keen sea-breeze, Alessandro Sforza fixed the site of a villa called Casartole. The Emperor Frederick III., when returning from his coronation at Rome, in January, 1469, was magnificently entertained by that Prince, and here laid the foundation of a casino, which in compliment to him was named the Imperiale. Its dimensions were, however, unequal to that imposing name, for, on the death of Giovanni Sforza, in 1510, it was valued at only 8000 ducats. Having devolved upon the Duke of Urbino, with the lordship of Pesaro, it was selected by the Duchess for a compliment to him, which may be best explained by the inscription she placed upon the building:—"For Francesco Maria, Duke of the Metaurian States, on his return from the wars, his consort Leonora has erected this villa, in token of affection, and in compensation for sun and dust, for watching and toil, so that, during an interval of repose, his military genius may here prepare for him still wider renown and richer rewards." To carry out this idea worthily, she summoned Girolamo Genga, of Urbino, one of the best architects of his time; and under his able superintendence the casino of the Sforza, distinguished from moderate country houses only by heraldic devices and a lofty bell-tower, was rapidly transformed into a handsome palace, which the pencil of Raffaele Colle was employed to decorate with its master's triumphs.

The site of this villa was admirably adapted as a residence for the sovereign of those broad lands it overlooked. It commanded every dwelling in the little city of Pesaro, though perfectly secluded from contact with its busy streets. The vale of the Isauro or Foglia lay in verdure before it, beyond which were the gardenlike slopes of Novilara, terminating in a varied landscape of hill and dale, which carried the gazer to the blue mountains of Gubbio. To the left spread the coast of Fano and Sinigaglia; to the right the high lands of Urbino were bounded by the Apennines of Carpegna and the isolated heights of San Marino. In a word, the Imperiale scanned the whole duchy of Urbino, of which it might, not inaptly, be considered the eye. The attractions of this princely retreat have been described with enthusiasm by Ludovico Agostini, who enjoyed them in their prime, and whose eulogies remain unedited in the Oliveriana Library. But they owe to the pen of Bernardo Tasso a worthier and wider celebrity, in his letter to Vincenzo Laureo, which sums up the advantages of the Villa by declaring that no place in Italy united with a temperate and healthful climate so many conveniences and enjoyable spots.

Of many laboured and costly productions of human ingenuity little remains there but saddening ruins.

The lofty oaks celebrated by Agostini have yielded to the axe; the grove which served as a game preserve has shared the same fate; the once innumerable pines and cypresses may be counted in units; the orange and lemon trees, the cystuses and myrtles have disappeared. Though even yet of imposing appearance, the building has undergone pitiable dilapidations. Almost every morsel of the marble carving has been carried off, and fragments may be purchased from the pawnbrokers of Pesaro. The frescoes, except that representing Francesco Maria receiving the adherence of his army, which seems the poorest in execution, are almost totally defaced. But that the saloons, where Bembo talked and Tasso sang, have been found well adapted for the culture of silkworms, the desolation, begun a century ago by Portuguese Jesuits, continued by a rabble soldiery, and permitted by its present proprietors the Albani, might ere now have been complete.

But while the works of man have thus by man been degraded, glorious nature remains unchanged. A few hundred paces lead to the summit ridge of Monte Bartolo, a spot rarely equalled even in this lovely land. To the vast prospect we have but now feebly described, there is here added a marine panorama, extending from the headland of Ancona to the Pineta of Ravenna, and including a boundless expanse of the sparkling Adriatic. A wanderer on that attractive coast, it has been my privilege to visit this unrivalled spot, and listlessly to survey the swan-like sails skimming the mighty mirror, wherein was reflected the deep indigo of an Italian sky, bounded along the horizon by that pearly haze gradually dissolving towards the blue zenith, which no painter but Perugino has been able to embody.

Of Duchess Leonora we know little.[*27] Unlike her predecessor, she had no courtly pen to transmit us her praises, no Bembo or Castiglione to celebrate the beauties of her person or the graces of her mind. She enjoys, however, one advantage over her Aunt Elisabetta; for in a speaking portrait by Titian, we may read much of her character, exempt from the vague flattery of such diffuse eulogists. Painted at that trying age when female beauty has exchanged its maiden charms for mature womanhood, the grave matronly air, the stiff contours and set features, with more of comely dignity than sternness in their general expression, attest fidelity in the likeness, and tally well with what we know of her temperament, and with the trials under which it must have been formed. There we may observe a composure calculated to moderate the fiery temper of her lord, a self-possession fitted to sustain him through his varied adversities. Her dress handsome rather than rich, her pose indicative of quietude, the spaniel watching by her side, the small time-piece on her table, are accessories adapted for one accustomed to pass the long intervals of her husband's absence rather in reflective solitude than in courtly pastimes.[28] To such a disposition the cares of maternity and her children's education afforded an ever pleasing resource, which she shared with the Dowager Duchess, an unfailing companion and friend, whose once lively spirits had been chastened by affliction into harmony with her temperament; but of this solace she was deprived by her death at Venice in January, 1526. In the autumn of 1529, Leonora, who administered the duchy in her husband's absence, received Clement at Pesaro, on his way to the coronation at Bologna, with a princely welcome and magnificent presents. In a letter which his Holiness took that opportunity to address to the Duke, he expresses gratitude for these, and for the attendance of the prince, "a youth of the highest hopes from his excellent dispositions, his modesty, and his natural inclination to literature, as well as his many estimable qualities." Whilst promising much favour to Guidobaldo, he compliments his father on the mild and equitable sway whereby the Duchess maintained his state in peace and tranquillity, and concludes with an apostolic blessing on him, his consort, and his son.

Returned to his state after so long a separation, Francesco Maria found, during the next two years, ample leisure to attend to its internal administration, and to watch the progress of his promising family. The eldest of these seems to have been Donna Ippolita, for whom he soon received, through the Marquis del Vasto, an offer of marriage from Don Antonio d'Aragona, son of the Duke of Montalto. At the nuptials, which were celebrated with suitable splendour, he had a very unlooked-for guest in Ascanio Colonna, whose intrigues to supplant him in the duchy we have lately noticed, but who, finding these hopelessly foiled by the Duke's establishment in the good graces of the Emperor, sought a reconciliation through the bridegroom, his cousin, whom he accompanied to Urbino. This frankness was met in a kindred spirit by his host, and their amity was cemented by a generous hospitality.

It was now, perhaps, that Francesco Maria took opportunity to dictate the results of his long experience of war, in a series of Military Discourses, which were published fifty years later, but which, being evidently printed from loose and unrevised notes, are not fairly amenable to literary criticism.[29] They are but desultory and disjointed observations, carelessly jotted down, with little attention to order or style, and edited without emendation, or even intelligible punctuation. The matter abounds in truisms and common-places, displaying neither enlarged views nor knowledge of mankind: the style is garrulous, diffuse, and redundant. Yet, as on matters of military skill the Duke was considered a high authority, it may not be improper here to record some of his opinions.

This was his idea of a fortified town: "It ought to stand in a plain, its citadel commanded by no eminence. The rampart-wall should be three paces wide at base, supporting an earthern rampart of fifteen or twenty paces wide, with barbicans. This retaining wall should be in height about twenty feet, and have above it a curtain of nearly as many. The upper part, being most exposed to be battered, had better have an earthen facing. There ought to be a platform, rising sixteen feet over the curtain, placed half-way between each baloard and bastion. The baloards should have guns mounted only at the sides, and be of massive strength, from fifty to sixty paces in diameter, that the guns may be freely wrought. Should a baloard be taken, it will still be flanked by the adjoining platforms, a ditch drawn between each of which would in a night's time recomplete the defences. The fosse should be about twenty paces wide, and is best without water, so as to allow artificial fire to be showered down upon the enemy. There ought to be no counterscarp, seeing it generally serves as a protection to the besiegers; but, if there be one, it had better be only of earth, at a low angle of elevation. Above all, there ought to be provided many secret ports for frequent sallies, and for the easy return of the men. It has been long noticed that no fortress was ever carried but by some oversight of its defenders, and everything depends upon a judicious selection of positions for defence. Unquestionably a single sin suffices to send a man to the devil, whatever be his other good works; and, in like manner, one oversight in fortification may lose the place, as happened when I took Pavia and Cremona. In short, it is all very well to play with plans and models, but one must see to everything on the spot."

"He said, in reference to the fortresses of Legnano and Verona, that it was very ill-judged in the Republic never to carry things out as they had been planned, in consequence of frequent ministerial changes, and the system of governing from day to day, and bit by bit, without reference to any general design. By adopting an opposite method, he had completed the defences of Pesaro much more efficiently, and at a third of the outlay it would have cost any one else, simply because he was the sole head and executor, and kept in view the entire works, not the individual gates, baloards, and details; and by so completing them that it must be attacked on two or three sides, whilst provided with ten or twelve concealed sally-ports." He contended that a fortress on a hill was difficult to defend, one on a plain less so; but that the easiest and most secure was one whose defences partly extended along the level, and in part rose upon steep ground, such as Verona, which he maintained could be more easily held by five thousand men against eighty thousand, than most towns by eight thousand against half that besieging force.

In conducting a siege, the Duke dwells upon the necessity of a choice infantry, in which German solidity should be happily combined with the active troops of Italy and Spain; yet he admits that men-at-arms, when dismounted, can be turned to excellent account in an assault, and that light cavalry are of obvious value. "Above all," he says, "you require a well-supplied commissariat, and regular pay, with sufficient artillery and military machines. After choosing the most eligible spot for encampment, just without range of the enemy's guns, the first thing is to provide your baggage and supplies against sudden surprise; next to open trenches for your artillery, securing your men by a ditch wide enough for their operations, but not so broad as to be commanded from the walls, and taking care not to let too many of them at once into the trenches, so as to embarrass each other. It is an immense protection to flank your trenches with lines drawn from your principal encampment close up to the city walls, which must be strongly defended against the enemy's guns, and must contain a force adequate to check their sallies, and, if necessary, to cover the trenches, or even succour your camp."

"Should you resort to a blockade, it is best to establish your army in one or two towns ten to fifteen miles off, taking care to secure every intervening place. At that distance your own supplies are more easily procured, and your light cavalry can readily intercept the enemy's convoys, whilst the garrison cannot attack you, except at every disadvantage, and without artillery."

As for artillery, we find a recommendation of battering guns carrying from thirty to one hundred pound balls, and of field-pieces and ship's cannon from fifteen to twenty pounds. The gunpowder in Italy being bad, fifty was the average of daily discharges; but the Turks, having very superior powder, could fire as many as seventy times, which was looked upon as a stupendous performance.

Animadverting upon those tardy tactics which never anticipated a movement of the enemy, the Duke compared them to a child applying its hand to the parts successively chastised, without attempting to ward off the next blow; yet, Fabius-like, he considered that a general's talent was more shown in his selection of suitable posts than in the conduct of a pitched battle. Popular risings he held very cheap, believing them utterly contemptible when not supported by disciplined troops, and instancing his own experience at Florence in 1527, when, with eighty soldiers, he put down an insurrection, and maintained the ascendancy of the Medici.

With reference to the respective merits of various nations whom he had seen in the field, he said that "a good Italian and a good Spanish soldier are equal. The Swiss at the outset are an excellent force; but, in a protracted campaign, they deteriorate, and become good for little. The Germans sustain an onset of men-at-arms most valiantly, and, during these Italian wars, have become in other respects expert, especially at skirmishes, either in cover or in the open country. The Turks, being unskilled in war, have hitherto owed their victories rather to the deficiencies of their opponents than to their own superiority. He ascribed the success of French armies against the Italians to an absurd practice of the latter, who always fought in squadrons of twenty-five men-at-arms, each squadron engaging another, so that the battle was made up of many separate skirmishes; and, in the end, the most numerous army generally carried the day. Charles VIII., on the contrary, formed in three battalions,—the van, centre, and rear,—and, with his force thus concentrated, bore down the detached tactics of his opponents. Yet the Duke did not consider this French disposition as invariably efficacious, preferring in many cases that an army should act in one body, even at the risk of leaving its baggage and artillery in the rear, and comparatively unprotected. But, on this and similar points, his maxim was not to adhere to any invariable rule."

Regarding the construction of an army, we find this passage:—"In preparing an expedition, the commander ought to imitate the process by which nature creates a living body, forming first the heart; then the vital members, such as the liver, lungs, blood, and brains; next the skin; and, finally the hair and nails. In like manner, the foundation of an enterprise should be the general, who is its heart, and in whom should be united varied capacity, with perfect rectitude and justice. Then his officers should be strenuous, experienced, and implicitly obedient, for such captains are certain to recruit soldiers of the same stamp. Next, let him look to his commissariat and military chest, and see that his arms and accoutrements are adapted to his enemy and the country. Lastly, let him regard all extraneous and casual aid as mere skin, hair, and nails, relying mainly on his own well-disciplined troops." The Duke considered that "men-at-arms are by no means so useless as they are sometimes regarded, and that, although infantry is the basis of an army, nevertheless it would not do to have only that force in the field; just as, although in the human body it is the eye alone which sees, the hand which works, the head which guides, yet man would not be so perfect or beautiful a creature with but eyes, hands, or head, as he is with all these various members. Hence he would wish to have soldiers of all sorts in his camp,—men-at-arms, light cavalry, a German brigade, and a full complement of Italians."

But whilst the theory of warfare thus occupied his thoughts, he was not neglectful of its munitions; and it was his special concern to provide for his veterans, horses, arms, and accoutrements of a quality which gained them general admiration. After nearly three years of peace the Venetians, fearing that their swords might become rusty, ordered a muster of their forces on the mainland, and an inspection of their frontier defences. The reviews were conducted by their Captain-general in person, who spent several months of 1532 in Lombardy with the Duchess, leaving the government of his state in the hands of his son Guidobaldo, now eighteen years of age. From thence he was called to Friuli, on the approach of a disorganised mass of Italian soldiery, who were returning home from the Turkish war, burning and plundering as they went. By firm and temperate measures he kept them in check, and constrained them to resume an orderly march. The only immediate result to the Peninsula from campaigns in Hungary was an alarm along the Adriatic coast of a Turkish descent, which was made a pretext by Clement for seizing upon Ancona, and annexing that republic to the papal states.