James Dennistoun

The Prince’s marriage—The Duke entrusts to him the government and retires to Castel Durante—His dissolute career and early death—Birth of his daughter Vittoria—The Duke rouses himself—He arranges the devolution of his state to the Holy See—Papal intrigues.

THE anxiety of Francesco Maria for continuance of his line, and for the maintenance of his state against the risk of a minority, led him to select a match of policy for his son while yet a mere infant. In October, 1608, he sent a confidential adviser, Count Francesco Maria Mammiani, to attend on his behalf the marriage of Cosimo Prince of Tuscany; and during its prolonged festivities, a negotiation was happily concluded for the betrothal of Princess Claudia, youngest daughter of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. to Prince Federigo. The death of her father, soon after, did not delay the ratification of an engagement so advantageous to all parties, and on the 24th of April following, it was publicly announced,—the united ages of the childish couple amounting to eight years and a half, and the Princess being the elder by eight months. In November, she sent to "her husband" the appropriate presents of a nicely accoutred pony, a poodle taught to leap, a jackdaw, and an inkstand in the form of Mount Calvary containing various conveniences. In honour, probably, of the same auspicious occasion, was a gift of jewels from Philip III. of Spain to the Duke and Duchess in 1609, consisting of a girdle, necklace, and brooch of gold; the girdle containing twenty-eight, and the necklace eighteen links, studded with a hundred and twenty-six diamonds; sixty gold buttons enamelled in white and red, each with three diamonds; and a string of two hundred and twenty-six pearls of various sizes.[101]

Federigo

FEDERIGO, PRINCE OF URBINO

From the picture once in the possession of Andrew Coventry of Edinburgh

The long and friendly intercourse of the Dukes of Urbino with the crown of Spain had moulded their court to a tone of Spanish gravity, and a certain severity of manner, which the cold character, reserved habits, and strict morals of Francesco Maria had served to confirm. To this the conduct of the youthful Prince soon offered the strongest contrast. Wilful in all things, and impatient of control, he endured no constraint upon his gratifications. These were generally of the most trifling and childish description; and in one respect alone, and that an unfortunate one, did he exhibit any manly quality. His precocious gallantry was a scandal to the staid manners of the court, and proved ruinous to his own constitution. Too late was his father made aware of follies and vices which he had allowed to attain a dangerous height; and to the counsels of his advisers, that even yet a decided check should be applied, he weakly replied, in the subtleties of a false philosophy, that restraints now imposed would but irritate his son, and surely lead to greater excesses so soon as they could be removed or burst. In truth, the old man shrank from the exertions which his interference would require, and selfishly calculated on being removed from the scene ere the mischief was fully matured. But, whatever may have been the Duke's motives, his refusal to interfere was quickly reported to the Prince, who, thus secured against control, was emboldened to new excesses.

Finding that years only confirmed those vicious symptoms which the Prince had manifested from childhood, and which a bad education had not even attempted to eradicate, his father thought fit to try the experiment of sending him forth to see the world, where, in the intercourse of courts, and in contact with men of distinction, he might observe those qualities which mankind deem worthy of honour, and might learn the reputation acquired by his ancestors. This plan, which had more good sense than most of those which Francesco Maria was in the habit of forming, unfortunately failed, and brought about results exactly the reverse of those which had been anticipated.

On his journey through Romagna towards Florence, Federigo's evil genius brought him into the company of some strolling comedians returning from Venice. Delighted with their loose manners, he threw himself among them without reserve, and a taste for their pursuits was formed at first sight, which disgracefully occupied the few remaining years of his life. Such is the account given by Passeri; and two entries in the Duke's Diary mention that the Prince set out to visit Florence on the 1st and returned on the 22nd of October, 1616. During the following month the Grand Duke Cosimo II. arrived from Loreto on a visit to Pesaro, with his brother the Cardinal; they travelled with a large suite partly in coaches and six, partly in litters, or on horseback, escorted by a guard of cuirassiers, being in all not less than six hundred persons. The Prince met and welcomed them at the head of a hundred mounted gentlemen, and accompanied them on a hunting party. They stayed six days at Pesaro, and thence proceeded to Rimini, leaving many presents, among which the Grand Duke gave Federigo a beautiful little office-book in a case, worth 1000 golden scudi. Regarding his youthful irregularities the Journal maintains a uniform silence, and the few notices of amusements at court scarcely afford us any index of his tastes. It would seem that up to his marriage he rarely left his parents' residence. During that time we find but two theatrical representations mentioned. In the carnival of 1617 nine couples of knights fought within a barrier, where there were also two chariots, one of Pallas, the other of Venus. The following year a wild boar, caught near Mondolfo, where it had attacked various peasants, was baited in the palace-yard at Pesaro with large dogs and spears; and some days thereafter the Prince, with five others of his age, held a mimic tourney in the great hall.

The melancholy turn which the Prince's folly had taken determined his unhappy parent at once to conclude his marriage, which, even should it unhappily fail in rescuing him from a disgraceful career, might at least secure the continuance of his family. The Princess had a character for high spirit, not free from hauteur, but accompanied with decided talent; qualities that seemed likely to influence her destined husband, or, at all events, to maintain his dignity against the debasing tendency of dissolute habits. An intimate alliance with so powerful and so close a neighbour was in every view politic, but especially at a time when the duchy of Urbino had become a more than ever desirable adjunct to the Papal States. If any further inducements were wanting to render this the most advisable marriage for the Prince, it was supplied by the dowry of 300,000 crowns of gold. But an arrangement so eligible seemed fated at every step to be thwarted by the unsparing hand of death. When all was ready for publishing the betrothal, the bride's father was, as we have seen, called away; just as the nuptials were on the eve of celebration, thirteen years later, her brother, the Grand Duke Cosimo II., died on the 28th of February, 1621. The urgent and advantageous circumstances of the connection again superseded the formality of court etiquette, and an early day was fixed for the marriage.

On the 19th of April the Prince sent on a confidential envoy with the following letter to his bride[102]:—

"To the Princess Claudia, Consort of the Prince of Urbino.

"Most serene Highness, my Lady, and most affectionate Consort,

"Giordani precedes me, and will give your Highness certain assurance of my arrival next week, by the favour of God. I beseech your Highness to accompany me on this journey with the favour of your good wishes and prayers; and meanwhile I, with all my heart, kiss your hands. From Pesaro, the 16th of April, 1621.

"Your Highness's most affectionate servant and husband, who loves you more than himself,

"The Prince of Urbino."

The same day Federigo went to visit his father, and on the 22nd left Castel Durante. At the Alpine frontier he was met by a guard of honour, under whose escort he arrived on the 25th in Florence, where, after a pompous entrance into the city, the Villa Baroncelli was assigned for his reception. The ceremony was performed on the 29th, the respective ages of the parties being sixteen and seventeen.[*103] The public joy felt in the duchy at a step which promised to secure the continued succession of the ducal house, and with it the nationality of the state, was proportioned rather to the importance of those objects than to the merits of Federigo. As yet, however, his faults had been shown to but a limited extent, and by most of those who were cognisant of them were generally believed the exuberant but passing growth of boyish folly, which time, and, above all, a respectable marriage, would surely eradicate. The Duke was willing to second the manifestation of these feelings, and the festivities wherewith the event was celebrated at Pesaro were consequently very elaborate. Among the most striking novelties was a device by which discharges of artillery were so regulated as to harmonise, or rather to beat time with the military bands, and the great hall of the palace was fitted up as a theatre for the performance of entertainments similar to what we have lately described.[104]

The Prince preceded his bride, and, after passing a day with his father at Castel Durante, reached Pesaro on the 15th of May. On the 21st, she set out on her ill-fated journey, and on the 26th was met at Lamole by her husband. Although it is only within the last few years that the Apennine range has been there opened up by a road equalling in convenience any of the celebrated Alpine passes, a hasty effort was made to render her route practicable for a carriage from the frontier to her new capital. In the communal records of S. Angelo in Vado, I noticed an instruction that the town should bear its portion of the repairs of the way from Borgo S. Sepolchro, preparatory to her passage, and should contribute towards the public rejoicings, triumphal arches, and other complimentary demonstrations. Among the ingenious devices adopted in honour of the occasion, was the construction in wood of a colossal equestrian figure of the Prince on horseback, part of which still remains in the public hall of S. Angelo. Tradition ascribes it to Frederico Zuccaro, but his death in 1609 places him beyond the suspicion of executing what seems to have been little creditable to the artistic skill of his townsmen. The bridal party, after sleeping at Mercatello, proceeded by easy journeys to Pesaro, spending only a forenoon at Castel Durante with the Duke, who, unequal to the journey, had deputed his principal courtiers, escorted by a hundred gentlemen on horseback, to receive the Princess on the Apennines, and conduct her home. Among the deputations which on this occasion attended to welcome her to her future dominions, was one from S. Leo, the ancient capital of the original fief of the Feltrian race, bringing a donative of twelve silver cups valued at 500 scudi, to whom she returned the following answer:—

With infatuation unequalled perhaps in the long catalogue of parental errors, Francesco Maria now gave the finishing stroke to a system which had trained up his only child to become the scourge of his people and the ruin of his house. We have seen him deprecate a minority as a national misfortune; we have now to witness him anticipating all its evils, by voluntarily entrusting the reins to one whom youth, education, inexperience, and follies combined to render utterly inefficient for their management. That this plan had long been cherished as a favourite speculation, may be gathered from those instructions to his son which have been already quoted; that its most attractive feature was the escape it secured to him from the business and duties of his station, admits not of a doubt. Flattering himself that, in providing the Prince with an honourable and eligible match, he had done his utmost to retrieve past errors and secure a prosperous future, he hurried the execution of his scheme, apprehensive perhaps that delay would render its absurdity more glaring, or bring to light some new disqualification in Federigo. In absence of any rational explanation of such a step, it has been supposed a secret stipulation with the Grand Duke at the time of the marriage, but of this there is not a shadow of evidence. The motive imputed by Gozzi, that it was a device of the Duke to prevent his son from longing for his death and for the delights of sovereignty, seems quite reconcileable with the false philosophy by which he so perversely regulated his general conduct. We turn with interest to the Diary at a moment thus important to his history and that of his state, but find it here more than usually meagre, alluding neither to the fact of his abdication, its manner, nor its motives.[106] Like King Lear, the old man already felt—

and his Memoirs abruptly conclude with the negotiation for the Prince's marriage. From Passeri's investigations, we only learn that he one day called round him his son and principal officers, and, after addressing to both a long exhortation on the new duties about to be devolved upon them, made over to the former the reins of government.[107] Reserving for his own use one-third of the private revenues of his family, which from various documents seem to have amounted to about 300,000 crowns, he shut himself up more closely than ever in his—

Among the Oliveriana MSS. I found a list of his court taken to Castel Durante, which, though undated, probably refers to the arrangements made at this period.

Yet the theoretical tendencies of his mind had not prevented him from establishing, in the early portion of his reign, many practical regulations conducive to the acceleration of business, and to the due order of public affairs. His sway had been upon the whole a mild one; and on a retrospect of two centuries, the government of his predecessors must be pronounced to have promoted, in a degree rarely paralleled, general happiness and public decorum, and at the same time the true glory of their state. But all this was now to be changed, and the brilliant dynasty of Urbino was doomed to expire, exhaling a vile and loathsome odour. That court which the refined tastes of the Feltrian Dukes and the polished pen of Castiglione had rendered a model to the world, which the literature and conduct of its later sovereigns had maintained in like honourable distinction, was about to present a melancholy spectacle of unexampled degradation. To enumerate the debasing excesses successively introduced by Federigo is a sad and sickening task, which it were well briefly to go through. His fancy for music was indulged, to the exclusion of more serious avocations. His casual acquaintance with the company of Venetian comedians was ripened into an intimacy, which gradually monopolised his time and thoughts, and was followed out with frenzied enthusiasm. These persons, belonging then to the vilest classes, and treated accordingly, became the Prince's associates in public and in private. Conforming his morals to theirs, he admitted the actresses into his palace in daring defiance of decency, and openly established one, named Argentina, as his mistress, fÊting her publicly in Pesaro, and lavishing upon her large sums. Advancing from one extravagance to another, this petty Nero of a petty court delighted to bear a part in their dramatic representations before his own subjects, generally choosing the character of a servant or a lover, as most congenial to his degraded capacity. His people, imbued with respect for the traditionary glories of their former Dukes, and accustomed to the gravity of Spanish manners, stood in consternation at such spectacles. But they scarcely dared express their feelings or hope for redress, for, whilst he thus

the Prince had adopted the most severe precautions to prevent his father becoming cognisant of what was passing.

But, however he might succeed in blinding one who was probably too happy to shut his eyes and ears against all that occurred beyond the limits of his favourite park and convent at Castel Durante, those who owed the youthful tyrant no allegiance of apprehension carried rumours of his doings to Florence. The family of the Princess anxious to interrupt a career so disgraceful to her husband, so miserable for herself, invited Federigo to visit them; and we find from the Diary so often quoted, that he went to Florence on the 12th of September, and returned on the 3rd of December, 1622.

The Princess still fondly hoped (for women's hopes when fed by their wishes die slowly) that the case was not desperate; she accordingly received her husband with the joy and affection of a faithful wife, and ordered a salute of a hundred cannon to welcome him back. But her trust was doomed to a grievous disappointment. The recent restraints of a foreign residence were speedily compensated by new indulgences, more scandalous, if possible, than before. The buffoonery he had learned on the stage was carried into the streets, through which he sallied in some low disguise, insulting all and sundry, and striking them with the flat of his sword, till frequently obliged to discover himself to the astonished spectators. The time which he could spare from such ribaldry, and from his comedians, was devoted to the stable. Besides driving his own horses, an occupation in those stately days exclusively menial, he performed about them the vilest offices of farrier and stable-boy. At length, in executing a feat, unattempted, perhaps, by subsequent Jehus, that of driving eighteen horses in hand, he galloped over a poor child. This outrage, having reached his father, provoked him, in a fit of passionate indignation, and in forgetfulness of his abdicated powers, to pronounce sentence of exile from Pesaro against the Prince,—an order which, of course, was not enforced. The reserved inanity of the Diary throws no light whatever on the Duke's knowledge or feelings in regard to such occurrences, though the following notices are scarcely reconcileable with his ignorance of one excess of his son's headstrong career.

"1623, February 24. The Duchess went to Urbino for the comedy represented there the following day, and returned on the 26th.

"——, —— 27. The comedy was performed in Castel Durante."[108]

Resuming Passeri's Memoir, to which, although incorrect in many details, we are mainly indebted for this portion of our narrative, we find that the Prince moved to Urbino early in the summer, the company of actors forming the strength of his court, and there nightly performed with them, amid the acclamations of a rabble audience. With a view to conciliate his mother-in-law, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, whose interference in behalf of her insulted daughter he had too good reason to anticipate, he prepared a magnificent coach and six costly horses as a present to her. On the 28th of June he acted as usual on the stage, the part which he sustained on this occasion being (according to Galuzzi) the degraded one of a pack-horse, carrying about the comedians on his back, and finally kicking off a load of crockery with which he was laden. About midnight he retired to rest, worn out by this buffoonery, after giving orders for a chasse next day at Piobbico near Castel Durante. At dawn, hearing the clatter of the horses which were setting out for Florence, he rose and gave some orders from the window in his night dress. In the morning his attendants, surprised at not being summoned, and fearing he would be too late to attend mass before noon, knocked in vain at his door. Three hours passed away in doubts and speculations, and at length two of the courtiers burst open the door, exclaiming "Up, your Highness, 'tis time for the comedy!" But for him that hour was past; the well-known and welcome words fell on an ear whose silver cord was broken. His body was under the icy grip of death; his spirit had fled to its awful account.

The body was discovered on its back, bleeding at the nose and mouth, the left hand under the pillow, one leg drawn up, and the mattress much discomposed. The Prince always slept alone, and locked himself in, without retaining any attendants in the adjoining apartment. Six strangers, with the Tuscan accent, had been observed about the palace the day before. From these circumstances, and from his odious character, suspicions of foul play were entertained; but most of the accounts which I have seen attribute his death to apoplexy, resulting probably from premature and excessive dissipation. The body was opened, and no traces of poison were detected; but a small quantity of water was found upon the brain, which the medical report attributed to over indulgence in athletic sports, and to the bushy thickness of his hair, which he greatly neglected. The most probable explanation of this catastrophe was that of the astrologer Andrea Argoli, who, after an elaborate calculation of the Prince's horoscope, pronounced him to have died of an epileptic fit, induced by the chill of the morning air; a conclusion dictated, no doubt, by medical experience, rather than by the study of those malignant planetary influences which the quack thought fit to quote as decisive of the question.

On the first alarm the Princess had rushed to the room, breaking through all opposition, and exclaiming, "What! my Lord is ill, and am I not to see him?" but finding him dead, she fainted. The chief anxiety of all was how to break the dire news to the "way-worn and way-wearied" Duke, who was suffering from a severe fit of gout, in his wonted retirement. At length, the Bishop of Pesaro, nominally head of the court, undertook the painful mission. Having arrived at Castel Durante, he sent in by a chamberlain a sealed note, containing the words "The Prince is dead." This the Duke at first desired to be laid aside till later, with his other letters; but on being told that the Bishop was in attendance, he read it without emotion, and exclaimed in Latin, "The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." This Christian stoicism might seem inexplicable, but from the context of the narrative, which states that to the lamentations of his attendants, he without a sigh or tear supplied consolation, assuring them that the event was irremediable, and one for which he had long been prepared; and adding, with Sancho Panza-like resignation, "He who lives badly comes to a bad end, and one born by a miracle dies by violence." He then with perfect self-command gave directions necessary for the funeral, and for the exigencies of the government; and at supper ordered the reading of Italian and Spanish books of edification to be continued as usual.

In an age when omens were observed with a heathenish superstition, the people began to take note of these before they considered the recent event in its practical and political bearings. It was now recollected that the journey of the Prince and Princess, on their return from their marriage, had been interrupted, before they reached Pesaro, by an extraordinary tempest, which flooded their capital, and delayed their public entry. On the day month preceding Federigo's death, a flight of brown moths passed over Urbino towards the sea, darkening the air for hours. Again, during the fatal night, a strange and threatening cloud was seen by many to cast its gloomy shadow over that city, and, after successively assuming the forms of the eagle of Montefeltro, and the tree of Rovere, to disperse and vanish in the direction of Rome. Others saw serpents and similar monstrous apparitions wrestling in mid-air, and contributed their quota to the strange saws and marvellous instances which fed the popular craving for prodigies. It is scarcely necessary to observe that these facts, or at all events their application, had called for no remark until men's minds were filled with the catastrophe of which they were then interpreted as the precursors. But it may be thought singular that those who busied themselves in finding out ominous coincidences omitted to note a circumstance chronicled by the often-cited Diary, that, on the 21st of August, 1604, nine months before the Prince's birth, lightning struck the Duke's chamber at Castel Durante. Thunder on the left was hailed by the Roman augurs as lucky, but this visitation seems too violent for a good omen.

The honours of a royal sepulture were lavished on one whose life had been thus unworthy of his station; and such was the magnificence displayed in the trappings of death that, besides many overcharged narratives of the funeral, portraits were multiplied of the Prince laid out in his richly-silvered robes. He was deposited in a tomb which Francesco Maria had destined for himself in the grotto or crypt of the metropolitan cathedral, with an inscription to the following purport:—

In this tomb,
Prepared for himself by
Francesco Maria II., Last Duke of Urbino,
Rest the ashes of
His son Federigo,
Who was cut off by a sudden death,
On the 29th June, MDCXXIII.,
Aged XVIII. years.

On a tablet in the church of Sta. Chiara, his fate is thus touchingly commemorated:—"The waning day saw Federigo Prince of Urbino, in whom sank the house della Rovere, sound in health, and pre-eminent in every gift of fortune; the succeeding dawn beheld him struck down by sudden death, on the 29th of June, 1623. Stranger! pass on, and learn that happiness, like the brittle glass, just when brightest is most fragile."[109]

The first year of the Prince's marriage had given him a daughter, born at Pesaro, on the 7th of February, 1622, whose advent, as we learn from her grandfather's Diary, was marked by the appearance of three suns in the heavens. She was baptized Vittoria, and was hailed by the Duke and his people with joyful anticipations of a fruitful union, which were destined never to be realised. Francesco Maria's age and infirmities cut off all hopes of a new alliance, and the male line of the Rovere race, to whom were limited the ducal dignity and state, was obviously doomed to extinction in his person. It was true that a similar failure of rightful heirs had, in the preceding century, been supplied by a substitution of the heir-general to this very fief; but that transaction was, in fact, a new investiture, dictated by papal nepotism, and scarcely veiled under the guise of a heritable title. The spirit of the papacy had, since then, been greatly changed in the ordeal of the Reformation; and the ambition of its successive heads, purified from selfish motives, had been long concentrated upon advancing the spiritual and temporal supremacy of the Holy See. But here the question rested not merely on such general principles of law and policy. The foresight of Paul V. had interposed a barrier clause in the marriage contract of Federigo, whereby the Grand Duke's solemn renunciation of all pretensions in behalf of the female issue of that union was distinctly recorded.

As soon as the widowed princess had rallied a little from an advent which, however shocking to her nerves, could not be supposed very long to weigh upon her feelings, she despatched a courier to Florence with the news, and soon prepared to leave for ever a country which she had adopted with bright hopes, quickly turned to bitter experience. After paying a brief visit to the Duke, in whose hands she left her child at Castel Durante, she returned to her family, to forget the troubled dream of the last two years. That she succeeded in banishing it from her thoughts may be presumed from her remarriage, three years after, to the Archduke Leopold of Austria; and it is interesting to notice that the latest jotting in the Diary of her former father-in-law, long after its regular entries had ceased, runs thus:—"On 26th March, 1626, Count delle Gabiccie was sent to Florence to visit Donna Claudia, Archduchess of Austria."

The situation into which Francesco Maria found himself thrown by the Prince's death was one requiring the support of all that philosophy which it had been the chief pursuit of his life to attain. His house was desolate; his line suddenly extinguished; his sovereignty about to lapse. But these crushing blows were accompanied by aggravating circumstances, which called for immediate exertion. The brief reign of Federigo had proved equally detrimental to his state and ruinous to himself. The government was falling to pieces, the finances were in hopeless confusion. Thus was the literary retirement which the Duke had thought to secure from the residue of his life rudely interrupted, and the cares of sovereignty he had shaken off were thrown back upon him, more inextricable than ever. The good order at home and influence abroad, from thirty-seven years of prudent and popular sway, had, in two brief years, been scattered, and there remained to the old man but the choice of recommencing the labours of a lifetime, or abandoning the reins of government now thrust back into his unnerved hands. Judging from his dispositions and past history, it would not be difficult to conjecture which of these alternatives had the greater attraction; yet at this juncture, sense of duty for a time triumphed over the dictates of inclination, and Francesco Maria showed himself every inch a monarch.

After consulting for a few days with the Bishop of Pesaro, Count Francesco Maria Mammiani, his favourite, and Count Giulio Giordani, a friend of forty years' tried service, he thus matured his measures. The papal chair being vacated by the death of Gregory XV., on the 8th of July, he sent to the College of Cardinals an official intimation of his son's death, and a full assurance of dutiful devotion. He accompanied the like notification to his subjects with an injunction for the election of a new council of eight, to whom he proposed to commit the administration of civil and criminal justice, for the burden of which his years were incompetent. To the widowed Princess he made every overture which affectionate sympathy could suggest. Finally, he resumed the ducal mantle, and the functions which he had so unfortunately devolved; and, dismissing the whole administration which his son had employed, he entered upon the government, with the assistance of a small but select cabinet. His first thoughts were bestowed upon the destiny of his orphan granddaughter, and, notwithstanding the suggestion of his counsellors, that he should keep her as an instrument whereby the policy of neighbouring powers, who would doubtless aspire to so eligible a match, might be made subservient to strengthen his relations abroad, he insisted upon some immediate arrangement, which would relieve him from the apprehension of leaving unprotected a prize so tempting to papal or princely ambition. The question was brought to a speedy solution by a well-timed offer from the Grand Duke Ferdinand II. of Tuscany, to receive and educate in his family his niece, and eventually to make her his consort, on condition of her being declared heiress of all the Duke's allodial and personal property. To secure the intimate alliance and support of the Medici had, as we have seen, long been the cherished policy of Francesco Maria, and the importance of a connection sufficiently powerful to maintain the rights of the Princess, in that revolution which must succeed immediately upon his death, was self-evident. But there was another consideration equally cogent, for, on the extinction of her father's family, nature and law pointed out her maternal cousin as the most suitable guardian of her childhood and education. Having decided in favour of a proposal at once advantageous to his granddaughter, and releasing him from one of the greatest anxieties of his position, the Duke lost no time in sending her to the court of Tuscany, under protection of Count and Countess Mammiani. Indeed, these arrangements were all concluded within four months of his son's death.

On the 6th of August, the conclave elected Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, of a family originally Florentine, who had only attained his fifty-fifth year; a man respectable at once from his talents, his habits of business, and his moral character. It was observed that, during the sittings of the conclave, a hive of bees swarmed under one of their windows, an incident rendered notable from the Barberini carrying that insect in their arms. On ascending the chair of St. Peter, the first business which occupied Urban VIII. was the important accession to the ecclesiastical state promised by the Prince of Urbino's death. There was no legal doubt that the fief, limited to the male line of Guidobaldo II., must lapse on that of the old Duke; but the struggles whereby church vassals had formerly supplied, by steel or gold, similar defects of constitutional title, were not forgotten, and the College of Cardinals looked upon the infant Princess as a subject of keen interest.[*110] It was, therefore, not without jealousy that they learned her sudden betrothal to so powerful a sovereign; and the Pontiff's remonstrances, though avowedly grounded on the conclusion of that important transaction without enabling him to display his friendly respect for the parties, were probably intended to keep the arrangement open for after cavil. A brief interval supplied new grounds for anxiety, on the arrival of a messenger from Francesco Maria with tidings of an overture on the part of the Emperor Ferdinand II., directly at variance with the pretensions of the Holy See. Ferdinand had accompanied his condolence with a proposal that the Duke should recognise the imperial title to the countships of Montefeltro and Castel Durante on his death, as being original fiefs of the empire, and offered to renew the investiture of these in favour of the infant heiress. But, faithful to his ecclesiastical allegiance, the Duke courteously declined availing himself of a favour which seemed more likely to reawaken the slumbering controversies (though scarcely now the conflicts) between Guelph and Ghibelline, than to secure any available benefit to Princess Vittoria. Pleading a disinclination to open up questions that might disturb the peace of his declining years, he left it to the Emperor, when these should close, to transact any such arrangement directly with the Holy See; a reply which pleased neither him nor the Grand Duke.

The Emperor being uncle of the Grand Duke, his proposition could not be viewed in any other light than as an attempt to establish a legal basis for whatever claims on the states of Urbino it might suit the husband of Vittoria hereafter to make. It was accordingly met by Urban with very decided measures. He delegated three prelates of tried fidelity to the circumjacent provinces of the Church, with instructions to watch closely the affairs of the duchy, and, in case of any movement adverse to the ecclesiastical interests, to march troops at once across the frontier. He then made a formal appeal to the Duke, as the faithful and devoted adherent of the Holy See, to resign into its safe custody S. Leo, which, besides being considered the most impregnable fortress in Italy, was capital of the countship of Montefeltro, and formed part of the mortgage assigned by Clement VII. to the Medici, in security for alleged debts, still unsettled since the usurpation of Lorenzo de' Medici. This unceremonious proposition was accompanied by a distinct avowal of the Pope's resolve to make sure of the devolution to the ecclesiastical state of every morsel of the dukedom; and an intimation that any refusal would necessitate military demonstrations at Rimini and CittÀ di Castello. So decided, indeed, was his Holiness to abate nothing of the renown which he anticipated from effecting this important accession to the pontifical temporalities, that he is said to have avowed his resolution to fall under the walls of Urbino, or be hanged on its battlements, rather than yield one tittle of his demands.[*111]

But this precipitation failed in its object. The Duke was startled by what seemed at best a harsh return for the leal and true faith towards his ecclesiastical over-lord which had actuated his conduct. His suspicions thus aroused placed him on the defensive in his interviews with the legate Pavoni, whose persuasions were coldly repelled, and whose tone of menace called up all the old man's pride. He briefly and indignantly replied that death alone should deprive him of a sovereignty which he was fully able to maintain; that the extinction of his family was a dispensation of God; but that the Pontiff's demand was an insinuation against his good faith, which was far beyond question; finally, that his Holiness would do well to await the close of his few remaining days, when he would obtain everything in the due course of nature. To show that he spoke in earnest, he the same night despatched a reinforcement to the garrison of S. Leo; and his jealousy being thoroughly awakened, he refused to perform the alternative which the Legate had, with modified tone, suggested as a satisfactory solution of the difficulty, by writing a formal acknowledgment that his entire state was held under the Church, and a promise to do no act that might compromise or prejudice her rights over it. Monsignor Pavoni, interpreting some hasty expression of the Duke into a dismissal, was about to set out for Rome the same night; but, having remained till morning to allow time for cooler consideration, he obtained, under the hand of his Highness, such a declaration as he had suggested. On his return, he met Cardinal Cennino, another ambassador whom the impatient anxiety of Urban had despatched to insist with still greater urgency on the original terms. It were useless and irksome to follow the thread of diplomatic intrigue now brought to bear on the poor bereaved Duke. He felt himself demeaned even by the document which he had consented to give; but when he found it was but a prelude to new demands,—when he ascertained that a war establishment was ready along the ecclesiastical frontier to pounce upon his territory on the slightest pretext,—and when he was actually called upon to administer to the governors of his principal fortresses, and to the officers in command of his militia, an oath ensuring their allegiance to the Pope from the day of his own death, accompanied with a promise on his part not to appoint any one to those situations who had not taken a similar oath, indignation brought on an attack of illness which had nearly put an end to all difficulties by carrying him to the grave. This new misfortune, far from obtaining for the old man relief from these persecutions, stimulated the papal emissaries who surrounded him to fresh importunities. Urban's apprehensions were augmented by measures which Francesco Maria had taken for garrisoning his principal fortresses with troops from Tuscany and Naples, and by rumours of a new intrigue for transferring the hand of Vittoria to Leopold, son of the Emperor, thus giving to the latter a direct interest in this already involved dispute, which Philip IV. of Spain, jealous of the prospective aggrandisement of the Church, showed every disposition still further to complicate. The Pope, in order to forward his views upon the duchy, had, without consulting the Duke, promoted Monsignor Paulo Emilio Santorio from the see of Cesena to be Archbishop of Urbino, a man of violent temper and coarse manners, whose nomination was regarded as an insult by Francesco Maria, and who injudiciously substituted threats for conciliation in his intercourse with the Duke. This example was followed by subordinate agents who surrounded his sick bed, and wore him out by alternately working on his irritable disposition, his avarice, and his superstitious belief in astrology. Every turn of his malady was watched, and reported to Rome as matter of hope or fresh anxiety, whilst his palace was beset by troublesome and meddling spies.

Nor were his negotiations with the Pontiff the only sources of irritation which daily accumulated upon the unhappy Francesco Maria. The cares of state, from which he had of late escaped, returned more irksomely than before. The brief misgovernment of the Prince had thrown upon him a greatly aggravated burden of anxiety and labour in the direction of these affairs; and his old favourites and tried counsellors were dropping around him, just at the crisis when he most required their services. His constitution, impaired by years and broken by gout, gave way under his agony of mind, and a paralytic seizure made fresh breaches upon his system. With a frame thus enfeebled, a mind thus disgusted, he sent for Antonio Donato, a noble Venetian long resident at his court, who had been at various times employed in political affairs, and addressed him in words which his Narrative of these events has preserved to us:—

"Your Lordship sees to what a condition God has reduced me. My house he has left unto me desolate: he has taken from me my dominion, my health, and my honour. I have sold myself to one skilful in profiting by my misfortunes: I am reduced to the shadow of sovereignty, and continually exposed to new inroads. To await death in so miserable a plight is impossible, to anticipate it were a crime: unable to recover what is gone from me, all now left me is to die without disgrace, after living for seventy-six years with nothing to regret. To you I would impart my ideas, that we may consider whether, by surrendering what remains, I might mitigate my vexations. I think of entreating the Pope to send me any one he pleases, who may govern this country, dependent upon me and by virtue of my authority, which I shall delegate to him as fully as it is vested in my person. Thus may his Holiness more effectually secure the return of these states after my death under the sway of the Church, and thus will he be enabled to liberate me from the restraint of obligations and oaths, no longer necessary when his own deputy is invested with the government, leaving me, in these my last hours, time to think of death, and to prepare myself suitably to meet it, as I well know it cannot be distant.... And perhaps this plan, which I own is hard to digest, may be less irksome in practice than it now seems in discussion; for in truth, I am no longer what I once was, nor ought I at this juncture to think but of my people's peace and my own. After all that has occurred, this ecclesiastical governor may prove the least annoying expedient; at all events it will free me from the irritation and slavery which past events have brought upon me."

After having at first argued against the measure thus suggested, Donato was at length induced to carry the proposal formally to the Pope, without previous consultation with any one else. Suspicious perhaps of so sudden a change in the sentiments of Francesco Maria, the Sacred College raised difficulties in order to gain time for deliberation; but when, with his wonted impatience, he proposed to recall Donato and reconsider the matter, with a view to some other measure, the proffered devolution was accepted without further delay. The papal brief to that effect was dated the 10th December, 1624, and on the 20th, the Duke executed a blank warrant, making over his whole sovereign authority to the governor who might be named, and reserving only the empty name of his subject's allegiance.

The Devolution was effected on the following terms. Along with all sovereign rights, there were conveyed to the Holy See the various fortified places in the duchy, and the residences at Urbino, Pesaro, and S. Leo. The Camera was allowed a preference in purchasing such warlike instruments, ammunition, and stores, as these places might contain, and was to pay to the Duke 100,000 scudi in name of expenses and ameliorations. To him and his heirs were reserved the furniture and movables in these three residences, and the whole allodial possessions of the family, including the palaces of Castel Durante, Sinigaglia, Gubbio, Cagli, Fossombrone, Novilara, and Della Carda; the palazzetti or villas of Imperiale, Montebello, Monte Berticchio, Mirafiori, Velletta, and Barchetto, the three last being at Pesaro; many parks, forests, vineyards, houses, and particularly thirty-two mills. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was a party to the deed of devolution, which was executed on the 30th April, 1624, and he therein specially renounced for himself and his family all claim to the dukedom and states.[112] The assertion of Muratori, that Francesco Maria often regretted this step is not borne out by any authorities I have consulted.

In these arrangements the party most immediately interested had no voice, for the consent of the governed was then little studied in such transactions. Though the eloquent historian of the Italian republics maintains, upon true Guelphic principles, the blessings of the ecclesiastical sway compared with that of the petty seigneurs,[*113] those who have read the preceding chapters may hesitate ere they apply this doctrine to the duchy of Urbino. Four times have we seen the people throw off the transient rule of the Church, and recall their native princes to maintain that microscopic nationality which, to an Italian, is far dearer than personal liberty. Guicciardini admits that those who, under the princes, were maintained in ease with little personal exertion, generally hated papal domination. But under the popular dynasty of those dukes whose lives we have endeavoured to sketch, the loyalty implanted by selfishness was watered by affection, until its mature growth overshadowed the land. The extinction of their race was therefore bewailed by a grateful people, whose degradation to provincialism was felt as a still greater, and, in the circumstances, an irremediable misfortune.

It is but justice to Urban to contrast his conduct on this occasion with the eagerness displayed by many of his predecessors for the aggrandisement of their own houses, by investing them with the lapsed fiefs of the Church. The obstacles to such an arrangement were no doubt increased by the altered spirit of the age, by the curtailed influence of the papacy, by the watchful jealousy of the great powers, and by numerous bulls directed against such alienations. Yet other ambitious pontiffs had trampled upon parchments, had braved public opinion, and had deluged Italy in blood for less tempting baits, and Muratori hints that such an attempt might, in the present case, have been sanctioned by Spain. Whilst, therefore, we blame the discourteous manner in which his Holiness made the aged Duke feel, with unnecessary acuteness, his bereaved and enfeebled position, we give him credit for a self-denying policy becoming the head of a Christian church.[*114]

The first governor delegated by the Pope was Monsignor Berlinghieri Gessi, Bishop of Rimini, who took possession on the 1st January, 1625. The Duke assigned to him his palaces, and a salary of 2000 scudi, paying also the other officials, and the only internal change in the government was the dismissal of the council of Eight. Indeed, the deference shown by the people for those forms under which they had long been governed, obtained a guarantee for their continuance during ten years; and we are told that the chief innovation upon them consisted in an extension of literary academies, which had been discouraged by Francesco Maria on an apprehension of their taking a political tendency.[115] In January, 1626, the Bishop received a scarlet hat, and was succeeded as governor three years subsequently by Monsignor Lorenzo Campeggi, Bishop of Cesena, afterwards of Sinigaglia who held that office until the death of Francesco Maria.

But, though happy to escape from the personal superintendence of the government,

"The old man, broken with the storms of state,"

did not consider himself exempted from all concern in the welfare of his subjects. We accordingly find, in a collection of his letters made by his secretary Babucci,[116] a very long remonstrance addressed to Cardinal Gessi regarding certain malversations in the management of public affairs. His complaints were directed against abuses of patronage, by conferring places of trust upon young and inexperienced persons, especially in the army, where many officers were rather children than soldiers; against a laxity of manners and conversation among the women, extending even to the nunneries; against the indiscriminate bearing of arms, which had already led to numerous homicides, and to the extirpation of game in the preserves. To Campeggi, the next governor, he complains, in 1628, of an increasing expenditure with impaired revenues.