Dennistoun

“ Coming suddenly upon the detachment, about half a mile from the town, Benedetto exclaimed, 'Look there! as these are the first of our master's foes we have fallen in with, it would surely be a shame to let them get back to the city without a taste of us: I am therefore resolved to make a dash at them, and if you will follow me, by God's grace we shall have the first victory.' This said, he rushed into the midst of them, with vizor up and lance in rest, overthrowing many by the shock. ”

“ The Italian name for those public establishments, at which small sums are lent on pledges under government superintendence. The Duchess is said to have introduced them at Urbino, and to have founded there an academy, which rose to considerable celebrity among similar weeds of literature that long flourished and still vegetate in Italy.
[*64] The secret is not far to seek, but it was inexplicably hidden from men in Dennistoun's day. The continuity of life and of art the most sensitive expression of life, is understood and acknowledged by too few among us ”

“ When talking of absent men, the Duke told these anecdotes of Ottaviano Fregoso, a star of the Urbino circle. As he conversed with his aunt Duchess Elisabetta, holding her hand, his mind wandered to other matters, and he began to twist about her fingers as he would have done a switch, finally thrusting one of them into his nose, when a burst of laughter from the bystanders recalled his thoughts. Dining one day at the table of Julius II., he sheathed and unsheathed his poignard, jingling the handle, until the Pope, losing all temper, exclaimed, "Begone to a brothel, pox take you! ”

“ From these far-off peaks there seemed to breathe a gentle breeze, that tempered the air with bracing freshness, and, from the rustling groves of the adjacent hills, began to awaken sweet notes of wandering birds." The same golden sun continues to dawn upon Urbino, but, ere many months had passed, the bright galaxy of satellites that circled round Duke Guidobaldo was scattered, for their guiding star had gone to another sphere. ”

“ Imagine one of the awful bird-catching spiders of South America translated into human form, and endowed with intelligence just less than human, and you will have some faint conception of the terror inspired by the appalling effigy. One remark is universally made by those to whom I have shown the picture: "It was drawn from the life."
As soon as the first shock of his irresistible fright had subsided, Dennistoun stole a look at his hosts. The sacristan's hands were pressed upon his eyes; his daughter, looking up at the cross on the wall, was telling her beads feverishly. ”

“ Whether the firm of Dennistoun, Wood, and Co., of New York, or the plaintiffs, were bound to hold the said bill of lading for the shipment on the said Windsor Castle as a security for the bill of exchange described in the declaration, and whether any amount of loss arising to the said defendant from their failure to hold the said bill for the purpose of securing the proceeds of the cotton specified therein, for the payment of the bill of exchange described in the declaration, can be used as a defence against the bill, or any part thereof. ”

“ But fortune is fickle, and the breath of popular favour still more changeful. Four years and a half from this date the war-cry of "Bentivoglio" again rang through these streets; the same mob strained their brawny sinews to level the citadel which Julius had erected to curb them, and to shatter the colossal statue of him with which Michael Angelo had adorned their piazza; the same Pontiff saved himself from capture, and his legate escaped from the popular fury to fall by the dagger of a friend. ”

“ Hitherto the Roman court had worn a semblance of ecclesiastical gravity.... Rome became more famous for pleasure than for piety.... The Rovere stock was hard to civilise.... Hitherto the Papacy had on the whole maintained a moral standard; for some time to come it tended to sink even below the ordinary level. The loss that was thus inflicted upon Europe was incalculable" (op. cit., vol. IV., p. 132-3) .
[*215] Pinturicchio was also among them; neither can Signorelli be called a Florentine. Dennistoun is (infra) mistaken in thinking that Pinturicchio did not work in the Sixtine Chapel. ”

“ As it was no easy task to restrain an army so composed from reaping the spoils of victory in a way opposite to wishes and the interests of Francesco Maria, he lost no time in employing them against Fano, a town which, not belonging to his state, might with less scruple be abandoned to plunder. The assault, however, miscarried through Maldonato, a Spanish captain, whose treasonable correspondence with Rome began already to be intercepted, and was ere long exposed. After this check, the troops were dispersed among the villages, until the inclement weather should pass ”

“ He next entertained a hope of the dukedom of Milan, by Clement's sanction; but he had played away his honour in a losing game: despised by himself and his employers, the prestige of success passed from his arms. Yet his peculiar talent for courting popularity ensured him the zealous support of his troops, who knew also that a bankrupt in character and purse was the best leader for men intent upon pillage. To the single merit of a winning manner, he united many odious qualities. His unmeasured ambition was restrained by no principle, either as to its objects, or the means of attaining them. ”

“ In the confederate army there were too many conflicting interests, too many rival leaders; but it was the peculiar misfortune of the Duke of Urbino to serve a power whose jealousy exceeded all rational bounds. It was not without considerable persuasion that he obtained of the Signory sanction to cross the Adda, and unite their troops, amounting to twelve hundred horse and six thousand foot, with the forces of the League. ”

“ Yet when his wits were not a wool-gathering, this was considered the most finished gentleman in Italy, and the most ready in reply. Thus, his uncle, Duke Guidobaldo appearing one day in a violet satin jerkin of unexceptionable fit, Ottaviano exclaimed,-49- "My Lord Duke, you really are the handsome Signor!" "How disgusting are dull flatterers who thus openly display their adulation," was the stinging reply. "My Lord Duke," rejoined the courtier, "I meant not to say that you are a man of worth, though I pronounced you a fine man and a handsome nobleman;" ”

“ The difficulties of the youthful commander were increased by the inopportune arrival of four thousand Swiss mercenaries, who, finding matters in train for a pacification which would dash their hopes of booty, could scarcely be restrained from an immediate assault upon Ravenna. Their ruffianly intentions being insidiously encouraged by the Legate, it was only by great prudence and decision that the Duke prevented them from sacking that city, when evacuated on honourable terms by the Venetian authorities. ”

“ In this, his only male offspring, centred the hopes and interests of the Lord of Sinigaglia; and after his death, in 1501, the boy was carried to the court of Urbino, where his progress was watched with almost paternal anxiety by Duke Guidobaldo. His mother occasionally visited there after her widowhood, although from motives of perhaps misplaced delicacy, she resided chiefly on her husband's fiefs of Sora and Arci in the Neapolitan territory. ”

“ While he commanded a small infantry force, he appeared never to be idle for a day, yet, since he has been at the head of an entire army, he has contrived to demean himself very ill, and to show that he is not a man of great exploits." It will be curious to find this very officer afterwards employed by the Cardinal when Pope, and fully bearing out the mean opinion here expressed of him, when his present impugner had the folly to instruct him with the defence of Rome itself. ”

“ With this ulterior advancement in fancied perspective, he removed him from the management of affairs at Florence, and substituted his nephew Lorenzo, intending ere long to assert for the latter a titular as well as a virtual sovereignty, and to extend his sway over all Tuscany, Urbino, and Ferrara. These ambitious and revolutionary projects required powerful aid, which could be most readily secured by finding a sharer in the adventure. ”

“ On the 22nd of April the Constable, finding the mountain peasantry exasperated to a dangerous pitch by the merciless rigours of his lawless soldiery, and his own sanguinary nature being goaded by their ribald taunts, cut short these miserable intrigues by advancing into Tuscany. [*311] The confederate leaders, having at length decided on saving Florence, united their divisions, and on the 25th passed the Apennines near the present Bologna road. The Duke now received an offer of his fortresses of S. Leo and Maiuolo, which still remained pledged to that commonwealth. ”

“ By the energetic aid of the Colonna chiefs, he escaped to his impenetrable swamps, and hastened to accredit Ariosto as his minister to appease the Pontiff, a mission which totally failed, the poet's silver tongue having barely obtained grace for himself as envoy of a rebel. Francesco Maria marched, by order of Julius, towards the Polesine, but malaria prevailing there after recent inundations, fever ravaged his army, and their leader averted the fate of his grandfather in these fens, by a timely retreat to his mountain air. ”

“ This remarkable man, finding himself excluded by the state of parties at Genoa from all prospect of preferment, had in youth adopted the career of a condottiere. He took service with Giovanni della Rovere, distinguishing himself greatly in the campaign of Charles VIII. at Naples; after which he continued attached to the Prefect and his widow, with a hundred light horse. Seeing the case of Sinigaglia desperate, and dreading Liverotto's bitter hatred of the Rovere race, he retired, having first-4- sent off the Prefectess on horseback to Florence, disguised as a friar. ”

“ The Italian states, weary of a bootless contest, and disgusted by the feeble egotism of Clement, fell into inertness akin, perhaps, to the fascination under which the feathered tribes are said to become victims of their reptile-foe.
That foe was Charles Duke of Bourbon, son of Gilbert Count de Montpensier, who died at Pozzuoli, in 1495, by Chiara Gonzaga, sister of Elisabetta Duchess of Urbino. He was next heir to the crown of France, after Francis Duke of Angoulême, who succeeded to it as Francis I., and Charles Duke d'Alençon, whose blood had been attainted for treason. ”

“ On the 5th of July, after ten days spent in these monotonous gaieties, the Duke returned to Pesaro in his twelve-oared barge; but his repose there was brief, for the second act soon opened of that bloody drama wherein the ambition of Charles and Francis involved Italy. An incursion of imperialists into Provence under the renegade Bourbon had shifted the scene to France; but the French monarch, by a sudden movement across the Alps, transferred it once more into Lombardy, and took possession of Milan. The Signory hastily summoned their general from his duchy, to guard their frontier. ”

“ The narrative of Giraldi [269] is a safe authority as to many details of this enterprise, his uncle Benedetto having been an officer much in the Duke's confidence. We, therefore, venture to extract the harangue which he puts into the mouth of Francesco Maria, before marching from Sermene, not, of course, as his verbatim address to his followers, but as containing the understanding on both sides of their respective obligations. ”

“ The imposition of one tenth laid on the clergy, avowedly for the proposed Turkish crusade, was absorbed by this Urbino campaign, which was thought to have cost the Holy See thirty thousand men, and a million of scudi. Even Henry VIII. was applied to for a loan of 200,000 ducats, which he characteristically evaded by offering 100,000, on condition of levying for himself the clergy tenths. But let us take the Pontiff's own statement, volunteered to Minio:—"See, by your troth, what a business this is! The war costs us 700,000 ducats ”

“ The same selfishness sought individual security against the future movements of the general foe, by turning him upon some friendly frontier. The wealthy Florentines lavished their gold to send him back upon Upper Italy, which the timely distribution of a few thousand men in the Apennine gorges might have prevented him from ever quitting. The game of the Proveditore Pisani was to leave no obstacle in the way of his advance in any direction save that of the Venetian terra-firma domain, and to detain the Duke of Urbino with his army of observation as long as possible near that frontier. ”

“ Writing from Florence to his maternal uncle, on the 21st of April, 1508, he expresses his regrets for the recent death of Guidobaldo, in brief and somewhat common-place terms; and, passing to other matters, begs that the Duke's nephew and heir may be requested to recommend by letter his services to the Gonfaloniere, for employment on some frescoes then in contemplation at Florence. He desires that the favour may be asked in his own name, as essentially advantageous to his views, specially commending himself to the young Prefect as an old servant and follower. ”

“ After the death of the Lord Guidobaldo of Montefeltro Duke of Urbino, I, with several other knights who had been in his household, remained in the service of Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, his heir and successor in that state. And as the fragrant influence continued fresh upon my mind of the deceased Duke's virtues, and of the pleasure I had for some years enjoyed in the amiable society of the excellent persons who then frequented his court, I was-45- induced from these reflections to write a treatise of The Courtier. ”