Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, Volume 3 (of 3) / Illustrating the Arms, Arts, and Literature of Italy, from 1440 To 1630

FOOTNOTES

[*1] The army would not hear of a truce. Bourbon, really at their mercy, as he knew before he crossed the Apennines, asked them what they wished to do. "To march on," replied the Spaniards, "even without pay." The Germans after a time, though hungry for their wage, made common cause with them. "To march on," became almost a war-cry, and Bourbon was compelled to consent. He sent word to the Pope before he got into Val d'Arno that his men "were determined to push on, not only to Florence but to Rome, and dragged him with them as a prisoner." He asked for 150,000 ducats by April 15th to pay them with, that he might lead them back. The Pope, however, who had no faith in his power or honesty, sent nothing, trusting in Lannoy and that broken reed the Duke of Urbino.

[2] The play of words applies equally in Italian and English, and the incident savours much of a carnival jest. A scarce little book of prophecies, dated 1532, has for Envoye a sonnet, foreshadowing the woes of Italy in consequence of—

"L'infando error de Sogdoma e Gomora,
Le profanate sacre binde e tempi,
L'occider Dio mille volte al hora."

[3] It is difficult to reconcile the varying accounts of the sack, for which, besides the many printed authorities, we have drawn largely upon a collection of unpublished and very minute details, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1677. It is doubtful whether Bourbon arrived on the evening of the 4th or of the 5th of May, but the assault was unquestionably made upon Monday the 6th. Many of the incidents given in that MS. are too horrible for admission into these pages. The narratives of Guicciardini and Giacomo Buonaparte, and those printed in the second volume of Eccardius, may be consulted for such; the two first, indeed, have done little beyond arranging some documents of that MS. collection. We have also consulted the Narrative of Leonardo Santori, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 2607, and Sanuto's MS. Diaries; checking the whole by minute examination of the localities. *On the 3rd May Bourbon had passed Viterbo, on the 4th he was at Isola Farnese. As to the number of men which Renzo da Ceri had at command, 3000 seems nearer the truth than 30,000. Bourbon had scaling ladders but no artillery. Cf. Guicciardini, Il Sacco di Roma, Milanesi, p. 163, and Casanova, Lettere di Carlo V. a Clement VII. (per nozze Firenze, 1894).

[*4] Cf. The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, trans. by J.A. Symonds (Nimmo, 1896), p. 656.

[5] In a set of miniatures executed by Giulio Clovio for Charles V., and illustrative of his military achievement, which were bequeathed by the Right Hon. Thomas Granville to the British Museum in 1847, Bourbon is represented falling backwards from a ladder placed against a round tower on the walls of Rome; but being composed without accurate knowledge of the localities, it throws no light upon the manner of his death.

[*6] Creighton justly remarks that this was not in keeping with Renzo da Ceri's character. The tale is from Guicciardini. Renzo da Ceri was certainly no "craven caitiff."

[*7] They were of many nationalities—Germans, Spaniards, Italians—"a horde of 40,000 ruffians free from all restraint." They gratified their elemental passions and lusts at the expense of the most cultivated population in the world. The Germans were the worst: "the Lutherans amongst them setting an example which was quickly followed of disregard of holy places." The Spaniards, however, excelled them in deliberate cruelty. For three days this barbarism went on unchecked. On the fourth the barbarians began to quarrel amongst themselves over the division of the booty. "The Germans ... turned to drunkenness and buffoonery. Clad in magnificent vestments and decked with jewels, accompanied by concubines who were bedizened with like ornaments, they rode on mules through the streets and imitated with drunken gravity the processions of the Papal Court." Cf. Creighton, op. cit., vol. VI., pp. 342-3.

[8] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1677, f. 19.

[*9] The Duke was very slow as usual. There was plenty of time for him to receive imploring letters. A career, which was a failure brought about by dilatoriness and treason, here seems to have reached its lowest point. As always, Dennistoun is too favourable in his judgment of anyone belonging to the Rovere house.

[*10] Where indeed! The Duke of Urbino had left Florence on May 3rd, but it was the 22nd of that month before he reached Isola. Strangely enough, he marched much slower than the barbarians.

[*11] This amazing route is inexplicable. The way by the Val di Chiana was, of course, a highway to Rome. The way by Perugia, "with a rendezvous at Orvieto," is inexplicable. No more fatuous proceeding can be imagined. From Florence he would keep the Via Aretina so far as Arezzo, following it indeed thence to Rigutino to Camuscia to the Case del Piano in the Perugino close to Trasimeno. If he went thence to Perugia he was merely trying to delay his march. It was off the main route, and would lead him into the valley of Spoleto. From Perugia to Orvieto there was no good road. If he wished for a road to Rome via Perugia he should have joined the Via Flaminia at Foligno and followed it directly to the Eternal City.

[*12] It is impossible to represent the Duke in a worse light than he appears. He behaved throughout the campaign like a selfish fool; he seems never to have understood the gravity of the situation or the enormity of his crime. His biographer does not seem to understand it either.

[*13] As we know, he did not reach Isola till the 22nd. Rome was then sacked. If Guicciardini delayed, as Baldi says, we know that it was for some good reason, for his integrity and his patriotism cannot be questioned. We may well doubt Baldi's tittle-tattle.

[14] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 818, f. 5. Sanuto has preserved a letter which he says gave the first authentic information of the sack to the combined leaders, and which urges them to exertion in most pressing terms. It will be found in II. of the Appendix, with two other letters detailing the principal incidents of that direful event in terms which, though in a great measure anticipated by our narrative, show the impression made by them at the time, and probably conveyed the fullest information of the catastrophe to the Duchess of Urbino and to the Emperor. See the Pontiff's brieves illustrating his feeble policy, No. I.

[15] Memoirs of Antenore Leonardi, dictated by him in 1581, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 85. Among the works dedicated to Francesco Maria II. is a Treatise on Tides by Annibale Raimondo of Verona [1589], who had served under his grandfather in Lombardy, and at this time. In the preface, a somewhat inflated testimony is borne to that Duke's military talents, arguing that his tactics were ever aggressive when unimpeded by other leaders, who in the present instance prevented him from marching upon Rome. But the author was eighty-four when he wrote a statement palpably intended for an adulatory purpose, and his feeble or partial reminiscences cannot be considered of material weight. We have thought it right, in a passage so nearly touching the Duke of Urbino's fair fame, to embrace the conflicting views of our best authorities: the narratives of Paruta and Morosini, Venetians, who had no interest in his reputation, go far to reconcile these and justify him. They tell us that the Signory, profoundly moved by the Pontiff's danger, sent pressing orders for their army to support him; and that, in compliance therewith, Francesco Maria and the Proveditore Pisani resolved to advance upon Rome and rescue Clement, even at the hazard of a general engagement, but that the other Proveditore, Vetturi, formally protested against exposing the army to so great a risk: that disgusted by the failures brought on by these misunderstandings, the Signory superseded Vetturi, and grumbled against their general: that the latter, annoyed by unmerited reflections, wished to throw up his command, and that it was only after cool consideration, and flattering advances from the senate, that he consented to remain in its service. See his formal defence, App. III. *Nothing can justify him, and it is impossible to defend him with honour. After all the only excuse for a soldier is his success, and Francesco Maria knew not what success meant. The testimony of courtiers should go for nothing. History has tried him, and the ruin of Rome bears witness to the treason of this ineffectual Signorotto. The Pope surrendered Castel S. Angelo on June 7th.

[16] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1677, f. 38.

[17] The new treaty of November 26 is printed by Molini in the Documenti di Storia Italiana, I., 273.

[18] Lanz, Correspondenz des Kaisers Carl V. See also the delightful and well-edited Lettere di Castiglione by Serassi. *Cf. also Casanova, Lettere di Carlo V. a Clement VII. (per nozze, Firenze, 1894).

[19] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1677, f. 36.

[20] Lettere de' Principi, I., 83.

[21] Lettere de' Principi, I., 71, 110.

[22] The name Clement has been remarked as unlucky for the papacy. Under Clement V. the Holy See was translated to France; under Clement VI. the metropolitan church of the Lateran was burnt; Clement VII. saw Rome pillaged by an army of transalpine heretics, and capitulated to them.

[23] Leonardi's Memoirs, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 85. Most of the preceding details have been gathered from Sanuto's Diaries.

[24] In his Discorsi Militari, pp. 7, 8, the Duke minutely criticises the French general's tactics, which exposed him to this shameful reverse; but the details have now little interest.

[25] Vol. II., pp. 420, 423.

[26] Mariotti's Italy, II.

[*27] Cf. Luzio e Renier, Mantova e Urbino (Torino, 1893) and Julia Cartwright, Isabella d'Este (Murray, 1904).

[28] Cf. Appendix XII.

[29] Discorsi Militari dell'eccellentissimo Signor Francesco Maria I. della Rovere, Duca di Urbino, nei quali si discorrano molti avantaggi et disadvantaggi della guerra, utilissimi ad ogni soldato. Ferrara, 1583. It was edited by Domenico Mammarelli, and dedicated to Signor Ippolito Bentivoglio. There is a transcript in the library at Newbattle Abbey, a. 3, 2, and a fragment of it in the Vat. Ottobon. MSS. No. 2447, f. 135. *Cf. also I discorsi di F.M.I. della Rovere sopra le fortificazioni di Venezia (Mantova, 1902). These were written 1537-38.

[*30] Cf. Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (1906), p. 61.

[31] Many details regarding these transactions have been given, vol. I., p. 411; vol. II., pp. 36, 317, 371, 419.

[*32] Cf. Feliciangeli, Notizie e documenti sulla vita di Caterina CibÒ Varano (Camerino, 1891).

[33] Cuparini's account of the war of Camerino, Vat. Urb. MSS. 1023, art. 10. Leoni says the despatch arrived after the nuptials had been solemnised.

[34] Vat. Urb. MSS., 1023, art. 1.

[*35] Cf. Viani, L'avvelenamento di Francesco Maria I. della Rovere (Mantova, 1902), and La Morte di F.M. della Rovere, in Fanfulla della Domenica, 23 March, 1902.

[36] Relazione della Legazione di Urbino, Bib. Marucc. c. 308.

[37] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 992. Gozzi's Chronicle, Oliveriana MSS., No. 324. Also Teofiles's MS. narrative, penes me.

[38] Leoni, p. 386.

[39] Trattato di Architettura di Francesco di Giorgio, vol. II., p. 67. (Turin, 1841.)

[40] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 489, f. 61. See for many of these, vol. II.

[41] See Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, art. 21.

[42] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 85.

[43] Ibid. No. 907.

[44] Oliveriana MSS. No. 375. This may, however, have been addressed by Duchess Vittoria to Francesco Maria II.

[*45] The Rovere were anything but an Umbrian family, as we have seen.

[46]

"Guidus Juliades, qui, quamquam mitis et ore
Blandus, ut ex vultu possis cognoscere matrem
Patrem animis tamen et primis patruum exprimit annis."

See as to Guido in Roscoe's Leo X., ch. xvii.

[*47] For certain details of Court life, cf. Vernarecci, Di alcune rappresentazioni Drammatiche nella Corte di Urbino in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 181 et seq., and Rossi, Appunti per la Storia della Musica alla Corte di Francesco Maria I. e di Guidobaldo della Rovere in Rassegna Emiliana (Modena, 1888), vol. I., fasc. 8; also Vanzolini, Musica e Danza alla Corte di Urbino, in Le Marche (1904), An. iv., fasc. vi., p. 325 et seq.

[48] In the Harleian MSS. No. 282, f. 63, is a letter from Henry VIII. of 28th November, in his 30th year [1538], to Sir Thomas Wyatt, his ambassador to the Emperor, proposing a marriage of the Princess Mary either to the young Duke of Cleves and Juliers, or to "the present Duke of Urbyne," and desiring him to sound "whether he wold be gladd to have us to wyve with any of them." Guidobaldo had been already wedded for four years!

[49] Correre la terra is the usual phrase for taking sovereign possession, like "riding the marches" of Scottish burghs.

[50] Ricotti, IV., p. 129, quoting Adriani Storie, lib. II.

[*51] The Theatines were a congregation of Clerks Regular, founded by Gaetano Tiene, a Venetian nobleman, in 1524. They are under the rule of S. Augustin. S. Gaetano Tiene died in 1547. In 1526 Matteo di Basso of Urbino founded a reform of Franciscan Observants, giving his followers a long-pointed hood, which he believed to be of the same shape as that worn by S. Francis. These friars became known as Cappuccini or Capuchins. At first they were merely a company of hermits devoted to the contemplative life. They remained, in fact, under the Observants till 1617. They are now a separate order governed by a general. They live in absolute poverty.

[*52] The Inquisition was revived by a Bull of Sixtus IV. in 1478. Two years later it was reinstated in Spain by the Catholic kings. In 1526 it was established in Portugal; but it was only introduced into Italy in 1546, at Naples, and came into Central Italy only with many restrictions.

[*53] It might seem that those parts of Europe securely within the Roman Empire of antiquity eventually remained Catholic.

[*54] Cf. Pellegrini, Gubbio sotto i Conti e Duchi d'Urbino in Bolletino per l'Umbria (Perugia, 1905), vol. XI., p. 236 et seq.

[55] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 934, is an elaborate exposition of the devices and mottoes displayed on this august occasion.

[*56] Cf. Fattori, Delle cause che hanno conservata la Repubblica di S. Marino (Bologna, 1887).

[57] Tondini, Memorie di Franceschino Marchetti, App., p. 16.

[*58] It was probably the work of Girolamo Genga (1476-1551) and his son Bartolomeo (1518-58). It is now the Prefettura. It has never struck me as "mean," but rather as being a somewhat imposing building.

[59] See these devices explained in No. V. of the Appendix to Vol. I. The respective importance of the ducal residences is marked by their colloquial epithets,—the corte at Urbino, the palazzo at Pesaro, the casa at Gubbio.

[*60] For all that concerns Santa Fiora and the Sforza-Cesarini, see a forthcoming work by Edward Hutton, with notes by William Heywood, entitled In Unknown Tuscany (Methuen). It deals with the whole history of Mont'Amiata and its castles and villages.

[61] Some authorities represent him as receiving this Order eleven years later from Charles V., but that Emperor died in this very year. He is said to have had knighthood from the Pope in 1561.

[62] From an account of this engagement preserved among the Oliveriana MSS., and slightly differing from that by Bernardo Tasso (II., letter 166), we learn that the pay of officers was from 15 to 40 scudi a month, that of cavalry privates 5, and of infantry 3 scudi. It appears to have been worth to Guidobaldo in all about 35,000 scudi a year, but to have been irregularly received.

[63] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 2510, f. 201.

[64] That of Mocenigo, 1570, is printed by Vieussieux, second series, vol. II., p. 97, and in the Tesoro Politico, II., 169; that of Zen or Zane, 1574, in the same volume of Vieussieux, p. 315.

[65] Of several statements as to the ducal revenue and expenditure which I have seen, none is distinct or satisfactory. The most detailed is in a MS. in the public library at Siena, K. III., No. 58, p. 240, but the sums have been inextricably blundered by the transcriber. See Appendix VIII.

[66] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3142, f. 165, and Oliveriana MSS. No. 390, p. 63.

[67] The staro or stajo corresponded to a bushel; the amount of a soma is doubtful. A quatrino is 1/5 of a bajocco, that is, of a halfpenny in present value. A bolognino was about 7 1/3 farthings. See vol. II., p. 259.

[*68] In 1562 Guidobaldo had augmented the tax on grain by leave of Pius IV. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., vol. II., p. 28, and Pellegrini, Gubbio sotto i Conti e Duchi d'Urbino in Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. XI., p. 239 et seq., and esp. Celli, Tasse e Rivoluzione (Torino, 1892), p. 39.

[69] The magistrates of Urbino were four in number, a gonfaloniere chosen from the city nobles, a prior to represent the merchants, and two priors of the trades. The general council seems to have been open to all citizens.

[70] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3141, ff. 160, 165, dated December 27, 1573.

[*71] Cf. a letter from Angelo Colocci to the Duke, printed by Morici, Due Umanisti Marchigiani in Boll. per l'Umbria, vol. II., p. 152; and for Music, Rossi, Appunti per la Storia della Musica alla Corte di Francesco Maria I. e di Guidobaldo della Rovere in Rassegna Emiliana (Modena, 1888), vol. I., fascicolo 8, and supra, p. 88, note *1.

[*72] Cf. Celli, Le fortificazioni militari di Urbino, Pesaro e Senigallia (Castelpiano, 1896).

[73] "Tal sia di loro," a phrase which may perhaps only mean "be it so."

[74] Padre Checcucci, Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Urbino, 1845.

[*75] This is a mistake. Vittoria Colonna had no children. There was, however, a Marchese del Vasto, a cousin of her husband's, whom she adopted as her son, and to whom she frequently alluded in her poems; one of her sonnets bewails his death.

[76] For the life of Francesco Maria II. our materials have been ample. His own Memoirs, extending from his birth to the marriage of his son, have been nearly all quoted verbatim. The autograph of this MS. I have examined in the Oliveriana Library (No. 384, folio 219 to 229), but have made my translations from the only printed edition, in the twenty-ninth volume of the Nuova Raccolta d'Opuscoli, known by the name Calogeriana, and published at Venice in 1776. There too will be found an account of the Devolution of Urbino to the Holy See, from the pen of Antonio Donata of Venice, by whom that negotiation was concluded on the Duke's part. In the Magliabechiana Library at Florence (class 25, No. 76) is the autograph Diary of Francesco Maria from 1583 to 1623, which I have closely searched. The rich MS. collections of the Oliveriana are stored with original correspondence and other documents illustrative of his reign, most of which have been looked into with scarcely remunerative labour, but among the matter there gleaned, his instructions to his son may be deemed of especial importance. From a vast mass of such correspondence in these two libraries, a general insight into his character and position, and those of his son, has been acquired, as well as many minute traits of both; but the Prince's brief and unhonoured span has been illustrated in a great measure from collections made by Francesco Saverio Passeri, of Pesaro, nephew of the naturalist Gianbattista Passeri, and printed in the twenty-sixth volume of the Calogeriana Collection. *Cf. also Scotini, La Giovinezza. di F.M. II. (Bologna, 1899).

[77] Tesoro Politico, II., fol. 169. Relazioni Venete, serie II., vol. II., p. 105. Litta says she was born the 16th December, 1535, making her thirteen years and two months his senior. Her sister, Tasso's Leonora, was born the 19th of June, 1537.

[78] Bibl. Riccardiana, MSS. No. 2340, art. 116-19.

[79] The word which I thus translate means literally a ship or galley commanded by a captain.

[80] The muster-roll of the armament at this time will be found in V. of the Appendix.

[81] Particulars of those intrigues in the conclave, by which Cardinal Buoncompagni prevailed over his rivals Morone and Farnese, are omitted, having no reference to our immediate subject.

[*82] Cf. Celli, Storia della Sollevazione di Urbino contro il Duca Guidobaldo, 1572-4 (Torino, 1892).

[83] The object of this plot is stated to have been the Duke's assassination at a hunting party in the manors of Orciano, to which he was invited by the conspirators.

[84] MSS. Oliveriana No. 324.

[85] Bibl. Oliveriana, No. 375, vol. XI., p. 204.

[*86] Cf. CalogerÀ, Memorie concernenti Franc. Maria II. (Venice, 1776).

[87] Rosaries, corone, and such were helpmates or promptuaries to prayer, differing in form and varying in supposed efficacy, according to the special privileges and indulgences bestowed on them by ecclesiastical gift. A specimen of the nature and powers of such indulgences will be found in the description of a corona belonging to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1666. See Appendix VI.

[*88] Cf. Reposati, Della Zecca di Gubbio, vol. II., p. 220 (Bologna, 1772-3). The date of this letter was June 7th, 1598.

[89] Above, p. 82.

[*90] Cf. Pellegrini, op. cit., in Boll. cit., vol. cit., p. 506 et seq. There seems always to have been an antagonism between Gubbio and Urbino, and now Gubbio could certainly crow. She appears to have done so. See note 2, p. 506, of work quoted. The country was not quiet after the rejoicing till May 30th, the festa being kept in all the cities. Corradi, Feste per il nascimento di un Principe nel sec. XVII. in Il Giornale di Foligno (Foligno, 1887), No. 28 et seq. describes the rejoicing in Cagli.

[91] In 1843-6, a variety of duplicates and objects of art belonging to the Vatican Library were exchanged away, with the sanction of Gregory XVI., whilst my lamented friend Monsignore Laureani, the librarian, was forming, by that Pontiff's order, from very limited resources, a most interesting series of early panel pictures illustrating the progress of Christian painting. The portrait of Prince Federigo now belongs to my friend Andrew Coventry, Esq., Edinburgh, and appears the production of a scholar of Baroccio.

[92] Oliveriana MSS. No. 375.

[93] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 818, f. 444.

[94] A comparison of this stately entertainment with the ceremonial at the baptism of Prince Henry of Scotland in 1594, as given in the Lives of the Lindsays, vol. I., 382, from a rare contemporary pamphlet, shows how Italian revels influenced the courtly displays of our ancestors, due allowance being made for the difference of climate and the somewhat more material attractions of the northern festivity.

[95] Brit. Mus., Burney MSS. No. 367, f. 64.

[96] MS. Albani Library at Rome.

[97] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3184, f. 154. The salary of 300 scudi was increased to 400.

[98] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3134, f. 158.

[99] Bibl. Oliveriana.

[*100] Cf. Pellegrini, op. cit., in Boll. cit. vol. cit., p. 509 et seq. who gives two contemporary accounts of the visit of Federigo in 1618.

[101] Oliveriana MSS. No. 375, vol. XXXI., p. 62.

[102] Bibl. Oliveriana MSS. No. 396, p. 131.

[*103] The ceremony was performed on the 28th February without any pomp. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., vol. II., p. 437.

[104] See p. 177.

[105] Marini, Saggio di S. Leo.

[106] As a specimen of the style of this most disappointing MS., and in proof of its small historical importance, I extract all the notices for August 1621, the month in which, according to Passeri, this transaction took place.

"6. News arrived of the death of the Archduke Albert, which happened at Brussels on the 13th ult.

15. Vespers began to be performed in the church of S. Rocca of Castel Durante.

21. A stag was killed, weighing fully 530 lbs.

26. Four large English dogs coursed in the park, which belong to the Prince; they killed two fallow deer."

[107] It appears that on the 25th of July the Prince arrived from Urbino, and stayed two days, during which probably this scene took place.

[108] The succeeding entry abruptly concludes the Journal:—"March 7. The Prince arrived about 10 A.M., having left Pesaro the preceding day, and returned there the 10th;" probably his last meeting with his father.

[109] See these and other monumental inscriptions of Urbino sovereigns, Appendix, No. VII.

[*110] Cf. Memorie istoriche concernenti la devoluzione dello stato d'Urbino alla Sede Apostolica (Amsterdam, 1723).

[*111] It is curious to note the shameless zeal, astuteness, and cunning of the papacy in this matter. I believe a work on the subject is promised by Professor C. Scotoni. The Pope could not have proved his right to Urbino in any tribunal. His claim was really more absurd than the claim of the Emperor.

[112] Oliveriana MSS. No. 324. Many documents regarding these transactions are printed in Riposati, vol. II.

[*113] Here I heartily agree with Dennistoun. If the people preferred the ecclesiastical sway to that of the Signori, why was the whole state of Urbino so eager to get Francesco Maria II. married? And if we want another example from more recent times, why, in 1860, did the people of Perugia turn out en masse and tear down the papal fortress, leaving a desert, which they still gloat over, in its place? The temporal rule of the Church has been bad everywhere at all times and in every way. That is why we have beggared her.

[*114] This is amusing of Urban VIII., of whom Pasquino said—

"Quod non fecerunt Barbari
Fecerunt Barberini."

[115] Brit. Mus. Lib. Add. MSS. Ital. No. 8511, art. 3.

[116] Dr. Antonio Babucci transcribed for the press a number of letters written by the Duke after the Devolution, and dedicated them to the Grand Duchess Vittoria. The MS. is preserved in the Magliabechiana Library, class xxv. No. 77, and fully bears out the commendation we have given to his epistolary style at p. 213.

[*117] An order not of monks but of friars, founded by S. Francis of Paola in Calabria in 1436. The rule is based on the Franciscan, and the religious are mendicants.

[*118] This I know not. Their present Casa generalizia is at S. Andrea delle Fratte. The basilica of S. Lorenzo is now in the care of the Franciscans.

[119] Cimarelli, Istoria dello Stato d'Urbino.

[120] Maruccelli MSS. C. No. 308.

[*121] No longer in the Tribuna, but in the Sala di Baroccio. It is the painter's masterpiece [Cat. No. 1119].

[122] Magliabechiana MSS., class viii., Nos. 60, 61.

[123] Magliabechiana MSS., class viii., No. 74.

[124] Maruccelli MSS. C. No. 308. Mercurius Gallicus, 1624.

[125] Such particulars of the wardrobe inventory as relate to objects of art are included in the last No. of the Appendix.

[126]

Alexander VII. Pont. Max.
Antiqua omnis generis omniumque linguarum
Urbinatis bibliothecÆ manuscripta volumina
Repenso cedentibus beneficio
D. tutiorem custodiam atque proprietatem
VaticanÆ adjunxit an. sal. MDCLVIII.

[127] Most of these particulars have been gleaned from the communal archives at Urbino, R. No. 30.

[*128] I am not able to state more accurately than Dennistoun the number of volumes from the Urbino collection now in the Vatican. Unhappily there is not a library in all Italy that possesses a catalogue fit to use. For the MSS. to-day existing in the library of the University at Urbino, see Le Marche, An. iv., p. 212.

[129] Maruccelli MSS. C. No. 308. See App. No. VIII. for statistical notices of this period.

[130] The state of feeling in the duchy, even under the comparatively beneficent sway of its native pope, Clement XI., may be inferred from an incident of trifling moment. Having obtained trace of a petition or remonstrance addressed to that Pontiff among the MSS. of the Bibliotheca Borbonica at Naples, I was refused a sight of it by the Archbishop then at the head of that library, on the ground of its injurious allegations against the authorities. Verily such overcaution may defeat its own end, by leaving an exaggerated impression of the mischief it would veil. So Gergorovius was turned out of the Vatican Library.

[131] Mariotti's Italy, II., p. 177.

[132] See vol. II., p. 112.

[133] Lettere di Bernardo Tasso, edit. 1733; vol. I., pp. 14-22 and 427-30.

[134] In proof of this I give in IX. of the Appendix a letter of introduction, of which I was bearer, from one of the most accomplished professori of Rome.

[135] This has also been imputed to Francesco di Giorgio, to Sanmichele, and to Bartolomeo Centogatti of Urbino.

[136] Grossi, Uomini Illustri di Urbino.

[137] It is printed in the Raccolta Calogeriana, XIX., 140.

[*138] Cf. Madiai, Il Giornale di Francesco Paciotti da Urbino in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 48 et seq.

[*139] This is the year in which the journal begins. In 1551 he tells us he left the service of the Pope to enter that of the Duke of Parma.

[140] Trattato di Architettura da Francesco di Giorgio, edited by C. Promis, Turin, 1841.

[*141] Cf. Zaccagnini, La vita e le opere edite e inedite di B.B. (Modena, 1903); Ugolini, Versi e prose scelte di B.B. (Firenze, 1859); see also Madiai, Pierantonio Paltroni e B.B. biografi di Federigo da Montefeltro in Le Marche (1902), vol. II., pp. 5-6.

[*142] Cf. AffÒ, La Vita di B.B. (Parma, 1783).

[*143] In Rome he pursued too his artistic studies; it was this sojourn which inspired the Sonetti Romani. He seems to have passed the years 1592-1609 between Rome, Urbino, and Guastalla.

[144] Spicilegium Romanum, I., xxviii., from Vat. Urb. MSS.

[145] Satius est plurima mediocriter facere, si non possis aliquid insigniter. Lib. V., Epist. 5.

[*146] Cf. Zaccagnini, Un'ambasceria di B.B. in Rassegna Crit. d. Lett. Ital., vol. VII., p. 201.

[*147] He died in Urbino, October 10th, 1617.

[*148] I record the more important. In 1575 he wrote a poem on Artiglieria, and in 1579 another on the Invenzione del bossolo da navigare; this was published by Canevazzi (Livorno, Giusti, 1901). Cf. concerning it, Provasi in Le Marche (1902), and Zaccagnini in Rass. Crit. d. Lett. Ital., vol. VII., p. 166. His masterpiece, Nautica, written between 1580-85, is a didactic poem in four books imitating the Georgics. Concerning it see Zaccagnini, Le fonti della Nautica in Giornale St. d. Lett. Ital., vol. XL., p. 366, and Provasi, Contributo allo studio della Nautica di B.B. (Fano, 1903). The Egloghe Miste were dedicated to Ranuccio Farnese in 1590, and consist of nineteen poems in various metres in a Theocritan vein. Cf. Ruberto, Le Egloghe edite e inedite di B.B. in Propugnatore (1882), and for Epigrammi, Ruberto, op. cit. An. cit. His youthful erotic poems were published under the title Lauro (Pavia, 1600), and, not to speak of other volumes, the Sonetti Romani appeared in Versi e Prose (Venice, Franceschi, 1590). His works in prose were very numerous. I note here La Descrizione del Palazzo Ducale d'Urbino (circa 1587), and the Vite of Federigo and Guidobaldo I. of Urbino, the first published in Rome in 1820 and a bad edition of the second in Milan, 1821. He wrote also a Cronaca (Urbino, 1707), a life of Federigo Comandino, the Encomio della Patria, cf. Zaccagnini, Uno scritto inedito di B.B. in Le Marche (Fano), vol. I., p. 4; and the Lettere Familiari, cf. Polidori, Lettere di Baldi (Firenze, 1854), Ronchini, Lettere di B. (Parma, 1873) and Saviotti, Lettere di B. (Pesaro, 1887).

[149] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 906.

[150] Oliveriana MSS. In 1602 the Duke instructed his resident at Venice to procure for Gian Battista Leoni access to its archives for the life of Francesco Maria I. he had commissioned him to write, which was published three years later.

[*151] On Muzio, see Giaxich, Vita di Girolamo Muzio (Trieste, 1847); Morpurgo, Girolamo Muzio (Trieste, 1893), Nomi, in Miscellanea Stor. della Valdelsa, No. 24; Nottola, Appunti sul Muzio poeta (Aosta, 1895).

[*152] The fullest collection of his letters seems to be that of Gioliti, 1551. Cf. also Zenatti, Lettere inedite (Capodistria, 1896).

[153] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1011, and No. 1023, f. 50.

[154] British and Foreign Quarterly Review, xi. 376.

[155] See above, Vol. II., cap. xxv.

[*156] How could Italy have a ballad poetry full of national sentiment before she became a nation? Her living poetry then and for centuries before, as now, is the Rispetto. Cf., for the Poesie Popolari generally, D'Ancona, La Poesia Popolare Italiana (Livorno, 1906); for the Marche especially Gianandrea, Canti Popolari Marchigiani (Torino, Loescher, 1875).

[*157] I shall not attempt to give a bibliography, however scanty, of Ariosto. He has really nothing to do with Urbino, and the work done concerning him would fill a library. The best life after those of Baretti, Campori, and Baruffaldi is that of Cappelli prefacing the Lettere (Hoepli, Milano, 1887). The best edition of his poems is that of Papini (Firenze, Sansoni, 1903). For Bibliographia Ariostesca, see Ferrazzi (Bassano, Pozzato, 1881). For the controversy, Ariosto-Tasso, see Vivaldi, La PiÙ Grande polemica del Cinquecento (Catanzaro, CaliÒ, 1895). Consult also Edmund Gardner, Dukes and Poets at Ferrara (Constable, 1904), a charming and a learned book.

[*158] Ariosto has told us in great part his own life in his Satire; best edition that of Tambara (Livorno, 1903).

[159] Part of this third Satire will be found translated in Roscoe's Leo X., ch. xvi., where the demands of nepotism upon his Holiness are playfully exposed.

[*160] Cf. Satire II., vv. 1-24, 85-93, 97-114, 217-231, 238-265, and III., 1-81.

[161] See above, pp. 255-6.

[162] Bernardo Tasso, Lettere, II., No. 165. In a privilege of copyright granted in very complimentary terms by Leo X., the Orlando is pedantically described by Bembo as "a work in vernacular verse regarding the feats of those called knights-errant, composed in a ludicrous style, but with long study, and the laborious application of many years."—Bembo, EpistolÆ nomine Leonis X., Lib. X., No. 40.

[*163] A good edition of the Lettere of Aretino was published under the care of Vanzolini and Bacci della Lega, in four volumes, in Bologna, 1873-75. The best edition, now very rare, of I Ragionamenti is that of Florence, 1892. See also Fabi, Opere da P.A., Milano, 1881. For his life, consult Luzio, P.A. nei primi suoi anni a Venezia e la corte dei Gonzago (Torino, 1888); Gauthiez, L'Aretin, 1492-1556 (Paris, 1895); and Sinigaglia, Saggio di uno studio su P.A. con scritti e documenti inediti (Roma, 1892). It was, I think, Mr. Claude Phillips who wittily called Aretino not the scourge but "the screw of princes." Nevertheless, those who knew Aretino best will appreciate him most. Titian was wise enough to have him for a friend, and, indeed, he was capable of many very human and even beautiful actions, as when he would daily throw wide his doors at nightfall and take the lost and the beggars into his house. After all, those he blackmailed were blackmailers themselves. He made even the Pope fear him.

[164] Orlando Furioso, XLVI., st. 14.

[*165] These designs have lately been found and photographed and published in Paris. They are impossible, but extremely vigorous and lovely. The verses are even more terrible than the drawings, but splendid too, with a sort of fullness of joy.

[*166] His writings have much of the undoubted fascination of the daily paper, but are on the whole less vulgar and probably less harmful and enervating.

[*167] This is sheer hypocrisy. Aretino's intercourse with Urbino was so slight as to be easily ignored, and Dennistoun, as a fact, says next to nothing of it.

[168]

"Qui giace l'Aretino, poeta Tosco,
Che d'ognun disse male fuorchÈ di Christo,
Scusandosi col dir—'Non lo conosco.'"
"Qui giace Francescon, poeta pessimo,
Che disse mal d'ognun fuorchÈ del asino,
Scusandosi col dir—che egli era prossimo."

[*169] For the life of Vittoria Colonna, see Campori, Vittoria Colonna in Atti e Mem. della Dep. di St. Pat. dell'Emilia, N.S., vol. III., (Modena, 1878). Luzio, V.C., in Rivista St. Mantovana (1885), vol. I., p. 1 et seq. On her mother, Agnese di Montefeltro, cf. Casini-Tordi, in Giornale Vittoria Colonna, vol. I., No. 10. On her poems, cf. Mazzone, V.C. e il suo Canzoniere (1900). She was born at Marino in 1492. She was married 27th December, 1509, in Ischia, to Ferrante d'Avalos Marchese di Pescara. Miss Maud Jerrold has published recently (Dent, 1907) a work in English on Vittoria Colonna which should be excellent.

[*170] See, on this subject, Rodocanacchi, V.C. et la RÉforme en Italie (Versailles, 1892), and Tacchi-Venturi, V.C. fautrice della riforma cattolica (Roma, 1901).

[*171] For her relations with Michelangelo, see Raczynski, Les Arts en Portugal (Paris, 1846, pp. 1-78).

[*172] For her writings, see Ferrero e Muller, Il Carteggio di Vittoria Colonna (Torino, 1859), with the supplement (1892) of Tordi, who has also published (Pistoia, 1900) Il codice delle rime di V.C. app. a Margh. d'AngoulÊme, and some unpublished Sonetti (Roma, 1891).

[*173] Cf. Pasolini, I Genitori di T. Tasso (Roma, 1895).

[*174] He went in 1528 to Paris on behalf of Conte Guido.

[*175] Cf. Capasso, Il Tasso e la sua famiglia a Sorrento (Napoli, 1866).

[176] On the 11th of March, 1544; Bernardo was born the 11th November, 1493.

[*177] 1547.

[*178] For the life of Torquato Tasso, see Solerti, in three volumes (Torino, 1895). The first contains the Vita; the second, Lettere inedite e disperse di T.T. e di diversi; the third, Documenti e appendici. See d'Ancona's review in Rass. Bibl. Lett. Ital., vol. IV., p. 7 et seq. The most complete modern edition of his works is Rosini's, in 33 vols., 8vo. (Pisa), and of the Rime, that of Solerti, in 3 vols. (Bologna, 1898-99).

[179] Byron's Lament of Tasso.

[*180] See on the Rinaldo, Proto, Sul Rinaldo di T.T. (Napoli, 1895).

[*181] Cf. d'Ovidio, Di una antica testimonianza circa la controversia della Crusca con Tasso (Napoli, 1894) and Vivaldi, La piÙ grande polemica del Cinquecento (Catanzaro CaliÒ, 1895). Solerti reviewed this last in Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital., vol. XXVII., p. 426.

[*182] It was in September, 1576. Tasso had in July thought himself insulted by Ercole Fucci and his brother MaddalÒ; he boxed Ercole's ears. Then, in September, they met him and assaulted him. There was no duel. Only Solerti has found out the truth.

[*183] He was placed under restraint in S. Francesco, in Ferrara, in fact.

[*184] On the whole subject of Tasso's madness, see Corradi, Le InfermitÀ di T.T. in Memorie dell'Istit. Lombardo (1880), vol. XIV.; Roncoroni, Genio e Pazzia in T.T. (Torino, 1896); and Gaudenzi, Studio Psicopatol. sopra T.T. (Vercelli, 1898); and Solerti, op. cit., supra.

[185] At p. 303 above.

[*186] On the Court of Ferrara, cf. Campori e Solerti, Luigi, Lucrezia e Leonora d'Este (Torino, 1888), and Solerti, Ferrara e la Corte estense nella secunda meta del sec. XVI. (CittÀ di Castello, 1899).

[*187] Cf. d'Ovidio, Il carattere, gli amori e le sventure di T.T. in Studi Critici (Napoli, 1879); see also Campori e Solerti, op. cit., supra, p. 229, note *1.

[188]

"Liete danze vegg'io, che per me sono
Funebri pompe ed un istessa face
Nell'altrui nozze, e nel mio rogo È accesa."

[189] "Lascia Imeneo Parnasso, e qui descende."

[*190] Cf. Mazzoni, preface to his edition of Rinaldo e l'Aminta (Firenze, Sansoni, 1884).

[191] "La man ch'avolta in odorate spoglie:" and—"Non son sÌ vaghi i fiori onde la natura."

[192] At pp. 153, 154 above.

[193] Glassford, p. 203.

[194] The letter is taken from an old transcript, No. 430, of the Oliveriana MSS., p. 210, but it has been printed at vol. IX., p. 104, of the Venetian edition of Tasso's works.

[195] With that constitutional coldness we have seen in his life, the Duke spares but one line of his Diary to notice Torquato's death.

[*196] Cf. d'Ancona, T.T. ed Ant. Costantini in VarietÀ Storiche e Letter. (Milano, 1883), vol. I., p. 75 et seq.

[*197] This, of course, is nonsense. Leopardi, at any rate, was yet to come, and in our own day we have heard the eager and noble voice of Carducci in verse that, it might seem, is not less great than Tasso's and far more in touch with life.

[*198] For Guarini, consult Rossi, B. Guarini ed il Pastor Fido (Torino, 1886). See also Campori, in Giorn. St. d. Lett. Ital., vol. VIII., p. 425, etc.

[199] Oliveriana MSS. 375, vol. XV. 104. The poem was his Pastor Fido, of which the twentieth edition, with the author's note, appeared at Venice in 1602.

[*200] I do not understand what this means. The "Byzantine period" was not the starting point of anything, but rather a decadence; and how can anything be the starting point of something "stationary"? Christian art comes to us in the first centuries as absolutely dependent on Roman pagan work. It did not contrive a new force of expression, but very happily used the old. For the history of art is continuous, and in Byzantine work we see merely a decadence, not something new. The Renaissance in painting is based on Roman art of pagan times in the work of the Cosmati and the Cavallini, from whom in all probability Giotto learned all he could learn. It is the same with sculpture. NiccolÒ Pisano is a pupil of the ancients, a native of Apulia. The northern influence came later.

[*201] Yes? In Duccio's work, for instance. But the hand of man cannot achieve anything finer than the work of these early men—than the Annunciation of Simone Martini, for instance. That they preferred a decorative convention to a realistic does not accuse them of incompetence. Dennistoun would have said that the Japanese could not draw. It was not that "the hand failed to realise the aims of the mind," but that the mind saw things from a standpoint different from ours. It is easy to talk of the "truths of nature." What are the truths of nature? It is a question of appearance, of a manner of seeing, of an attitude of mind, of soul, toward nature and toward itself. Simone Martini was as great an artist, in the true sense of the word, as Raphael, in his own convention. Raphael's convention is still ours, but we are already passing out of it. Is it not so?

[*202] Yes; an age of realism. It is as though one preferred a Roman work of the best period to a Greek work of the fifth century B.C. What came was the tyranny of the body, without the old excuse, for we no longer believed in the body; we no longer believed in anything but unreality. It is not that the earlier men were "right" and the later "wrong," but that both are equally right and wrong where right and wrong do not count since only beauty may decide. Dennistoun speaks as he does because he could not possibly have spoken otherwise. He is wrong not so much in what he asserts as in what he denies.

[*203] Here, again, I do not understand. How can an artist's ideas exceed his means of expression?—I do not say his power of expression. What means of expression did Dante lack that Milton enjoyed, or Sophocles? In what was Donatello poorer than Michelangelo or NiccolÒ Pisano than either? Giotto had the same means of expression as Apelles or Leonardo, for the work he undertook, and before a new means of expression was invented, he could not have conceived the use of it.

[*204] Their aim was perhaps rather the realistic imitation of life than the expression of it.

[*205] They never sufficed.

[*206] Too strong. Michelangelo was always master of the weapons he used, however destructive they may have been to his disciples.

[*207] Nothing is dangerous to genius, not even mediocrity.

[*208] This term applies to the science of medicine, not to Æsthetic.

[*209] Titian can be seen to advantage only in Madrid, Paris, Vienna, or London. In Venice he is almost absent.

[*210] After all, Dennistoun is on the side of the angels—though a little unctuously.

[*211] One of the sad days. Cf. vol. II., p. 95, note *1.

[*212] An undue sense of right seems to have led Dennistoun to the brink of an absurd precipice. Why should not the orgy or crime of a worthless man, make as good a picture as the orgy or crime [or the good deeds either, for that matter] of the worthy man? Poetry surely would seem to confound him here.

[*213] Art does not desire more than nature, but more than an imitation of nature. The artist should create life, not imitate it.

[*214] Francesco Maria may have called, but Titian did not come to Urbino. The first commission he had from the Duke was in 1532, when he was asked to paint as good a portrait of Hannibal as he could and a picture of the Nativity. They were delivered in 1534. The Duke wanted then a portrait of the Duchess, and asked Titian to paint it on his way to Naples. This journey, however, never took place. If Titian had any sittings, it was at Murano during the Duke and Duchess's sojourn there in the autumn of 1537.

[*215] I know nothing of this oratory, and cannot find it.

[216] See p. 49.

[217] He left some valuable works in the upper valley of the Metauro, now almost destroyed. Such are his Prophets and Sybils in ten lunettes round the Corpus Domini at Urbania, with two Nativities in the same church, one in fresco, the other on canvas. An altar-piece, in the church of the Servites at S. Angelo in Vado, is very inferior to his Madonna and Saints in S. Francesco of Cagli. Some frescoes at Gubbio, lauded by Lanzi, and dated 1546, are among his best works.

[218] Vol. III., p. 444.

[219] Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 816, f. 64-72.

[220] In referring to the Annals of the Artists of Spain, it is a sincere pleasure to bear my feeble testimony to the merits of that excellent work. It is replete with information new to the English reader, and is enriched by apt and copious illustrations selected from a wide range of literature and Æsthetics.

[221] In reference to appropriate lights, Baroccio entirely condemns the use of stained glass, as darkening the interior, and injuring, by coloured rays, the effect of paintings. Zuccaro, however, recommends the introduction of a tinted armorial bearing, surrounded by a wreath of fruits and flowers, as likely to mellow without obscuring the chapel.

[222] Lettere Pittoriche, vii., p. 513.

[223] Vol. II.

[224] Carteggio, III., pp. 529-35. This medallion is now removed from the library door to the first landing-place of the great stair. It may have been by the medallist, Clemente of Urbino, mentioned in vol. II.

[225] There is a copy of it in the Magliabechiana Library, class viii., No. 1392, to which Gaye has from other sources supplied the date of 6th March, 1542. Carteggio, II., 289-309. From him, Ciampi, Vasari, and Condivi, we have condensed the very confused details respecting the monument of Julius which have come down to us.

[226] A favourite workman of Buonarroti, often met with under the patronymic Urbino, was Francesco Amadori di Colonello, of Castel Durante, who lived with him from 1530 to 1536. See Gualandi, Nuovo Raccolta di Lettere sulla Pittura, I., 48-52.

[*227] No? Consider then the PietÀ of S. Pietro in Vaticano, the unfinished PietÀ of S. Maria del Fiore. All that Dennistoun says of Michelangelo is full of misunderstanding. For instance, he never "startles" though he may terrify one. It would be ridiculous to defend him. His work is beautiful, with the beauty of the mountains in which he alone has found the spirit of man. His figures, half unveiled from the living rock, are like some terrible indictment of the world he lived in: an indictment of himself too, perhaps, of his contempt for things as they are; it is in a sort of rage at its uselessness that he leaves them unfinished. In him the spirit of man has stammered the syllables of eternity, and in its agony of longing or sorrow has failed to speak only the word love. All things particular to the individual, all that is small or of little account, that endures but for a moment, he has purged away, so that life itself may make, as it were, an immortal gesticulation almost monstrous in its passionate intensity—a shadow seen on the mountains, a mirage on the snow.

[228] See Gaye, Carteggio, II., 83-109, sub anno 1506.

[*229] Cf. J.A. Symonds, The Sonnets of Michelangelo.

[*230] For Titian, consult Gronau, Titian (Duckworth, 1904). By far the best handbook on the painter.

[*231] As before stated, the first works that Titian painted for Francesco Maria were a portrait of Hannibal, a Nativity, a figure of our Lord. The Duke writes him concerning them in 1533 as follows (cf. Gronau, op. cit., p. 91):—

"Dearest Friend,—

"You know through our envoy how much we wish for pictures ... and the longer we have to wait the more eager we are to have them ... and so we beg you to satisfy us as soon as possible. Finish at least one of the pictures, that we may rejoice in something by your hand."

The portraits were begun in 1536, in which year (October) Aretino wrote a sonnet on that of the Duke. They were finished early in 1538. Of the earlier pictures, the figure of Christ is probably that in the Pitti Gallery (228); the others apparently have perished.

In 1536 the Duke wrote again asking for a Resurrection for the Duchess, and begging Titian to finish the "picture of a woman in a blue dress as beautifully as possible." This latter is probably the Bella of the Pitti Gallery (18), which some have thought to be Eleonora Gonzaga, Francesco Maria's wife. She was then forty-three years old, and her portrait was painted at this time by the same master (Uffizi, 599) as a companion for that of the Duke (Uffizi, 605).

Duke Guidobaldo, while yet but Duke of Camerino, had sat to Titian, and had bought from him the picture of a "Nude Woman" (Gronau, op. cit., p. 95). In March, 1538, he sent a messenger to Venice, who was instructed not to leave the city without them. He got one, but the other had not been delivered in May of that year. The Duke wrote to him to beware lest it passed elsewhere, "for I am resolved to mortgage a part of my property if I cannot obtain it in any other way." This picture was probably the Venus of the Tribune (Uffizi, 1117) who is so like the Bella. Now if we are right in supposing the pictures alluded to in the letters—the lady in the blue dress and the nude woman—are the pictures we know (which came from Urbino), it seems obvious that they cannot have been portraits of the Duchess. And, again, we have the Duchess's portrait painted at this time, in which we see a woman of forty-three, which was in truth her age.

In June, 1539, Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino now, received three portraits, of the Emperor, the King of France, and the Turkish Sultan, from Titian. Vasari speaks of them, but they have been lost. In 1542-44 he painted a banner for the Brotherhood of Corpus Domini at Urbino—the Resurrection and the Last Supper. The pictures were shortly afterwards framed, and are now in the Urbino Gallery (10). Then in November, 1546, Duchess Giulia Varana of Urbino writes impatiently to Titian, sending at the same time some sleeves he had asked for, and hoping that he will not delay longer to finish "our portraits" (Gronau, op. cit., p. 99). And letters of Aretino in 1545 confirm the fact that Titian was painting portraits of the Duke and Duchess. Then in February, 1547, one of the courtiers of Urbino sent Titian a dress of the Duchess, adding that "a handsomer one would have been sent if he had not wished for one of crimson or pink velvet"; a damask one was sent of the desired colour. The portrait by Titian in the State Apartments of the Pitti Palace, discovered only a few years ago, is said to be of Catherine de' Medici, by Tintoretto. It is, however, certainly Titian's (Gronau, op. cit., p. 100), and is probably the missing portrait of the Duchess Giulia. It is unfinished, and the dress is of rose colour. It is one of his finest portraits.

There were two portraits at least of Guidobaldo by Titian, one of 1538 and one of 1545; one of these is said to have been in Florence in the seventeenth century. Gronau suggests that the "Young Englishman" of the Pitti Gallery (92), the finest portrait even Titian ever painted, may be one of them. But I cannot persuade myself that that figure is other than English. Yet if it be, it might well companion the Bella.

In 1545 Titian, on his way to Rome, travelled by Ferrara and Pesaro, where Guidobaldo, who had accompanied him, entertained him and made him many presents, sending a company of horse with him to Rome. There follows an interval of twenty years, in which their friendship seems not altogether to have been forgotten. Then between 1564 and 1567 Titian painted several pictures for Guidobaldo, among them a "Christ" and a "Madonna"; in 1573 he apparently had another commission. It is impossible to say what these pictures may have been.

[232] The style of Aretino was often rugged, wayward, and unintelligible, like his character. He seems to imagine that, of the three batons placed behind the Duke, one, bearing acorns and oak leaves, alludes to his successful campaigns on his own account, for recovery of his states. Lettere Pittoriche, I., App. No. 29. The force of colour peculiar to this, above all Titian's works, cannot be fully given by the burin, especially not by the mezza macchia style in which it has been engraved for this volume. Our frontispiece, though accurate as a likeness, is accordingly among the least effective illustrations in our work. No other original portrait of the Duke has fallen under my observation; and if the slight youthful figure introduced by Raffaele into the Disputa and School of Athens really was meant for him, no resemblance can be traced in it.

[233] The zebellino on the Duchess's knee was the fashionable bag or reticule of that day, made of an entire sable-skin, the animal's head, richly jewelled, forming its clasp. Giulia della Rovere d'Este commissioned such a one from a jeweller at Bologna in 1555, and paid him forty-six dollars to account.

[*234] Apparently he only went to Pesaro. Cf. note *2, p. 390.

[*235] It seems unlikely that the Flora was ever in Urbino. At any rate, in the seventeenth century it was in the collection of the Spanish ambassador at Amsterdam (cf. Gronau, op. cit., p. 289).

[*236] Pitti Gallery, No. 67. We know nothing of this picture save that it must have been painted about 1530-35, and that Vasari saw it in the Guardaroba of the Palace of Urbino.

[237] Carteggio d'Artisti, vol. III., 540.

[238] We have had frequent occasion to notice the encouragement given at Urbino to the exact sciences, and the consequent success of those arts most depending upon them. Thus the Baroccio family were celebrated for the accuracy of their mathematical instruments and timepieces, while watchmaking attracted great attention from all the della Rovere dukes. Their family portraits very generally exhibit a table-clock of some eccentric form, and their gifts to princes and royal personages were often chronometers made in their state. One of these, sent to Pius V., exhibited the planetary movements and other complex revolutions of the solar system; another, worn by his Holiness in a ring, marked the hours by gently pricking his finger. In 1535, Francesco Maria I. presented to Charles V., at Naples, a ring wherein a watch struck the hours; and many similar notices occur in the correspondence of his grandson, the last Duke. Guidobaldo II. was especially fond of such mechanical curiosities. Having received from one Giovan Giorgio Capobianco of Vicenza, the Praxiteles of tiny chiselling, a ring which held a watch, whereupon were engraved the signs of the zodiac, with a figure that pointed to and struck the hours—he interfered to save the artist's life, when condemned to death for an assassination at Venice. In gratitude for this favour, the latter made for the Duchess a silver chessboard contained in a cherry-stone; nor should we omit to add that he displayed the same ingenuity on a wider field as an architect and engineer. So, too, Filippo Santacroce, of Urbino, and his sons, are celebrated by Count Cicognara for their minute carvings on gems, ivory, and nuts.

[239] The subject has since met with more attention, but no other work has been expressly dedicated to it. We may refer to Vasari, Lanzi, and Gaye, passim; Ricci, Notizie delle Belle Arti in Gubbio; Kunstblatt, No. 51; Montanari, Lettera interno ad alcune Majoliche dipinte nella collezione Massa in Giornale Arcadico di Roma, XXXVII., 333; Brongniart, TraitÉ des Arts Ceramiques; Marryat, History of Pottery and Porcelain. It is both an advantage and a pleasure to refer readers unacquainted with this interesting art, to the charming and accurate representations of azulejo, Robbian ware, and majolica, given in the last of these works. It is greatly to be desired that Mr. Marryat may, in continuation of his subject, and with access to English collections unknown to me, supply much information which this slight sketch cannot include.

[240] We enter not upon the contested question of the origin of these productions; wherever made, they prove the taste of those who owned and appreciated them. Besides, the ruder varieties were certainly indigenous to Central Italy from an early period. Neither need we trace the analogy between majolica and enamel. The latter was not unknown to the ancients, though brought by them to no ornamental perfection. During the dark ages, it was used as an accessory of metal sculpture for many purposes of religious art, and was even introduced into large works, such as bronze doors. The splendid reliquary at Orvieto, enamelled on silver at Siena by Ugolino Vieri in 1338, as well as the paliotti of Florence and Pistoja executed in that and the following centuries, show to what perfection this art had attained, ere the painting of porcelain was practised in Italy.

[*241] For all that concerns the Della Robbia, cf. Maud Cruttwell, Luca and Andrea della Robbia and their School (Dent, 1904).

[*242] The finest collection of Italian majolica in the world is probably that in Pesaro in the possession of the Municipality.

[243] Archiv. Dipl. Urbinate at Florence [1845].

[244] Gaye, Carteggio, I., p. 304. He was probably Roberto Malatesta, who served the Florentines in 1479, and died 1482; so Gaye's date of 1490 seems erroneous.

[245] See vol. II.

[246] In 1845, the Canon Staccoli at Urbino showed me a plate equally feeble in design and colour, signed F.M. Doiz Fiamengo fecit, a proof that it was no despised production of the time.

[247] The rules of syntax are in these often overstepped, and conjecture left to eke out the sense. My reading is literal, of basta la fe del povere sevedore, which is intelligible, and rhymes, as is not the case with basta la fede, e 'l povere se vedo, the version of Passeri. This author tells us of a certain coy or mischievous Philomela who pierced her lover's present with holes and made of it a mouse-trap! Also of an exquisite Gubbian plate, portraying the Daniella Diva, who displays a wounded heart with the legend OimÈ! "Ah me." A drug-bottle in Mr. Marryat's collection, and engraved in his work, has the portrait of a lady whose squint is given to the life.

[248] In order to finish our notice of mottoes, a few others may be here added. 11. Massa collection; a female portrait, on whose breast are the arms of Montefeltro: Viva, Viva il Duca di Urbino. 12. Rome, Kestner Museum; another female portrait: Ibit ad geminos lucida fama pollo (?). 13. Kestner Museum and that at the Hague; St. Thomas probing the Saviour's wound: Beati qui non viderunt et crediderunt, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 14. Spoleto, Tordelli collection; a beautiful female resisting a crowd of armed soldiery: 1540. Italia mesta sottosopra volta, como pei venti in mare le torbid'onde, ch'or da una parte et hor da l'altra volta. "1540. Dejected Italy, tossed like the wind-lashed waves, turning now hither now thither." 15. Rome,—satire on the sack of Rome; a warrior in antique armour strikes with a two-handed sword at a naked woman stretched in a lascivious posture, behind whom five others tremblingly await their fate: it is inscribed behind, 1534. Roma lasciva dal buon Carlo quinto partita a mezza. Fra Xanto a. da Rovigo, Urbino. "Rome, the wanton, cut up by the good Charles V.; by Brother Xante of Rovigo, at Urbino." This plate, glowing with iridescence, contradicts Passeri's opinion (already quoted) that stanniferous glaze was never practised in the Urbino workshops, as does the tile introduced three pages below. 16. Rome; a grandly draped female, sitting in desolation over a dead child: Fiorenzo mesta i morti figlii piange, "Disconsolate Florence weeps for her lifeless offspring," in the plague visitation of 1538. Though with the most brilliant ruby and gold lustre I ever saw, it has in blue the cipher X, probably also of Xante in Urbino.

[249] A magnificent pair of triangular fonts in the same collection brought at the sale 168l.

[250] The ancestors of Giorgio Vasari were surnamed from their occupation of vase-makers (vasari), at Arezzo. The Ginori establishment near Florence is comparatively modern.

[251] Pungileoni quotes a demand made in 1683 of 50 scudi (about 11l.) for a plate reputed to have been painted by Raffaele; this, at thrice the present money value, would give 32l. as its price.

[252] Sanuto Diarii MSS. Bib. Marciana, xlv. f. 132.

[253] This letter, though inaccurate in several details, the author writing at a distance from the events, affords curious evidence of the consternation generally occasioned by the sack of Rome.

[254] Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 2607.

[255] As a specimen of the very loose diction even of public despatches in this age, and of the obstacles which a translator has to encounter, we shall render literally the next sentence, or rather half page, sentences not being divided in the original. "And so the fourth day of the present month of May, which was Saturday, the foresaid army made his lodgment at seven miles from Rome, in a place which is called the Isle; Monsieur di Borbone and all the principal persons were filled with much wonder that the Pope and so many cardinals and all Rome, being disarmed, should wait for such an army and great danger, without sending to the said Monsieur di Borbone an ambassador to make some parley, nor letters, or answer to his letters which the said M. di Borbone had formerly written, and the Viceroy, to his Holiness about the affair of the agreement."

[256] Sanuto Diarii, xlv. 352.

[257] A condotto, or military engagement, was usually for so many years certain, and one or two more at the option or beneplacito of parties.

[258] Vat. Urb. MSS. 816, fol. 144-5.

[259] From a league between Count Antonio, of Urbino, and Barnabo Visconti, of Milan, in 1376 (MSS. Oliveriana, No. 374, vol. I., p. 1), we gather an isolated notice. Free import from the territory of Urbino into Florence was stipulated for all sorts of grain, fruit, and vegetables, the customary duties being paid upon wheat, oats, and barley.

[260] Series II., vol. II., p. 337, from a MS. in the Siena Library, K. iii. 58: it is dated 1579, but contains posterior entries.

[261] The word used is colte, which might mean crops.

[262] Fabbriche might mean only shops.

[263] Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 935.

[264] Ibid.

[265] Vat. Ottob. MSS., No. 3135, f. 279.

[266] Ibid., f. 277, 321.

[267] Vol. LXVI., pp. 3-10.

[*268] The Pitti portrait is an inferior replica of that in the Tribune of the Uffizi.

[*269] Gronau thinks this portrait may be the so-called "Young Englishman" of the Pitti Gallery (No. 92). Cf. Gronau, op. cit.

[*270] This picture is not by Titian, but by Marco Vecellio.

[*271] This picture no longer hangs in the Pitti Gallery.

[*272] No. 619, Uffizi, I suppose. It is by Palma Vecchio.

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