Duke of Urbino

“ 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. ”

“ To Guidobaldo, son of Federigo, third Duke of Urbino, who, emulating even in minority his father's fame, maintained his authority with manly energy and success. In youth he triumphed over adverse fortune. Vigorous in mind, although enfeebled by disease, he cultivated letters instead of arms; he protected men of general eminence instead of mere military adventurers; and he ameliorated the commonwealth by the arts of peace, until his court became a model to all others. ”

“ Guicciardini reckoned the cost of the war to Leo at the prodigious sum of 800,000 ducats. The new duke of Urbino was the Lorenzo de’ Medici to whom Machiavelli addressed The Prince. His marriage in March 1518 was arranged by the pope with Madeleine la Tour d’Auvergne, a royal princess of France, whose daughter was the Catherine de’ Medici celebrated in French history. The war of Urbino was further marked by a crisis in the relations between pope and cardinals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The worthy Cardinal of Cosenza, we understand, is unwilling to pass through the territory of the illustrious Duke of Urbino.
From Foligno the journey was continued by way of Nocera and Gualdo to Gubbio, one of the most important cities in the duchy of Urbino. About two miles from that place the Duchess Elisabetta met Lucretia and accompanied her to the city palace. ”

“ The Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was elected Pope on the 11th of March, 1513, and was crowned on the 19th. The Duke of Urbino had repaired to Rome to offer his congratulations in person, and attended the solemn installation at the Lateran, with twenty-four mounted gentlemen and as many footmen; but mingling regard for the dead with respect for the living, he and all his suite appeared in-354- black velvet and satin, as mourning for his uncle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pandolfo Malatesta, on ceding to Venice his pretensions upon Rimini, after being expelled therefrom by Duke Valentino, had accepted from that republic the castle of Cittadella near Padua, with large pay in their service. His son Sigismondo availed himself of the Pope's absence, and the unsettled ecclesiastical policy, to surprise Rimini and its fortress towards the end of May. The consistory hastily mustered all their means to meet the emergency, and called upon the Duke of Urbino as their vassal to take the field. His answer was that without money he could do nothing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was a quarter of the town admirably suited to a man of the magician's studious habits. The greater streets of Urbino might tremble under the tramp of armed multitudes in those days when the Lord Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentinois and Romagna, was master of the city, and the peaceful, scholarly Duke Guidobaldo a fugitive outcast. Down that narrow, ill-paved gap of sordid dwellings came no disturbers of the peace. So that Corvinus Trismegistus was left to pursue his studies unmolested, to crush his powders, and distil his marvellous elixirs. ”

“ But the accession of strength which their sovereign thus acquired gave Leo an excuse for changing sides, an evolution grateful to his faithless nature. The struggle was once more to be made in Lombardy, and, as Charles was bent upon wresting the Milanese from his rival, the opportunity seemed tempting of recovering Parma and Piacenza for the Church by his means. To men in the Duke of Urbino's desperate position, any convulsion would be welcome, as offering the chance of better things. ”

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

“ Round his bust in armour, with the mortier cap, we read, "Of the divine Federigo Duke of Urbino, Count of Montefeltro and Durante, Royal Captain-General, and unconquered Gonfaloniere of the Holy Roman Church." On the reverse he is represented in a cuirass, mail-coat, jack-boots, and the mortier cap, mounted on a heavy war-horse in housings of mail. He moves forward, stretching forth his truncheon in the attitude of anxious command, a two-handed sword on his side. Legend, "The work of Sperandei," who was a native of Mantua, greatly patronised by the sovereigns of Ferrara. ”

“ On the death in 1631 of the last duke of Urbino, the pope was allowed to seize the duchy without the slightest opposition on the part of Tuscany. As a natural consequence the pretensions of the Roman curia became increasingly exorbitant; ecclesiastics usurped the functions of the state; and the ancient laws of the republic, together with the regulations decreed by Cosimo I. as a check upon similar abuses, were allowed to become obsolete. On the extinction of the line of the Gonzagas at Mantua in 1627, war broke out between France on the one side and Spain, Germany and Savoy on the other. ”

“ The Duke of Urbino now asserted that he too was as serene as his neighbours; and there was reason to fear that the viceroy of Naples, and even the governor of Milan, would soon be putting forth the same pretensions. He urged on the consideration of the Emperor, that "the distinction of ranks and precedences was so necessary and profoundly based in the very nature of things, that even in hell there were found to be such distinctions among the devils and the damned." ”

“ It secured them command of the Adda, and gave them a strong position in the enemy's country, from whence they could operate with equal facility against Milan, Cremona, or Pavia.
The army of the League which now mustered at Lodi is estimated by Guicciardini and Muratori at sixteen thou-436-sand foot and four thousand horse. The Duke of Urbino was commander-in-chief of the Venetians; Count Guido Rangone held the same rank in the ecclesiastical forces, which included, however, the papal and Florentine contingents, led by their respective captains-general, Giovanni de' Medici and Vitello Vitelli. ”

“ In 1475 the new tyrant celebrated his nuptials with the duke of Urbino’s daughter, and, being again taken into favour by the pope, valiantly defended him in Rome against the attacks of the duke of Calabria, and died there in 1482 of the hardships endured in the war. His widow was left regent during the minority of his son Pandolfo, who was nicknamed Pandolfaccio on account of his evil nature. ”

“ The Duke's prolonged residence in Rome, where his company became greatly prized by the Pope, was little relished by his consort or his people; so, to maintain them in good humour, his Holiness announced a plenary indulgence for all their broken vows and deeds of violence during the late usurpation, to such as should devoutly observe the Easter ceremonies. The alms collected at this jubilee, amounting to 2265 florins, were expended upon the duomo of Urbino. At length, in the end of July, 1506, he obtained leave to return home, on the plea that change of air was advisable for his health. ”

“ Tempted, however, by the unanimous support of the people, he assumed on his own account the authority he till now had held in behalf of his nephew. Julius instantly recalled the Duke of Urbino from Lugo, to commence operations for the reduction of Pesaro, with Cardinal Sigismondo Gonzaga as legate. After a brief resistance, Galeazzo surrendered the citadel, on the 30th of October, by a capitulation which insured him an annuity of 1000 scudi of gold, and the allodial holdings of his family. ”

“ In a large rectangular hall, lighted from above by windows in a dome, the Duke of Urbino is seated, wearing the robes and badges of the Garter, and resting his left hand on a-221- folio. His son Guidobaldo, a boy of about eleven years of age, or little more, stands at the Duke's knee, dressed in yellow damask trimmed with pearls. Behind them, on a raised bench with a desk before it, sit three men, one attired in the red suit of a prelate, the second in black ecclesiastical attire, and the third in secular costume. At a door, opening on a passage, stand servants and lesser courtiers. ”

“ The Duchess of Urbino has announced that she expects to come with a mounted escort of fifty persons. So far as the men are concerned, his Holiness said that there would not be many, as there were no Roman noblemen except the Orsini, and they generally were away from the city. Still, he hoped to be able to find sufficient, provided the Duke of Romagna did not take the field, there being a large number of nobles among his followers. ”

“ The mystery attending this sudden death of one in the prime of life has never been cleared up. Suspicions of poison were rife at the time, and have not been removed; they point at the Duke of Urbino or of Ferrara, whom he had grievously outraged, or at Francis I., whom he recently disgusted, as its probable but undetected author. ”

“ His collection of lives of illustrious ladies remains unedited. In the former work no memoir is so fully extended as that of Duke Federigo of Urbino, upon which we have in part drawn in our Second Book. It was inscribed to Duke-119- Guidobaldo I., in a dedication which not only testifies to his father's martial skill, and a prowess that never knew defeat, but also to the prudence of his sway, and assures us that the great powers of Italy had frequent recourse to his judicious counsels. ”

“ The only medallist of Urbino now known was called Clemente, and, besides the portrait by him to be immediately noticed (No. I.) , he is said to have ornamented the great hall of the palace with six round bas-reliefs of Duke Federigo's exploits. Seven medals of that prince have come to my knowledge, all of extreme rarity: the first five are described and engraved in the Zecca di Gubbio; the first, second, and fourth in the Trésor de Numismatique; the sixth is probably unnoticed elsewhere. The heads of all are in profile. ”

“ His fame rests, not upon his military and political achievements, but upon the beauty of his character, the variety of his intellectual accomplishments, the patience with which he endured reverses, illness and forced inaction, and upon the culture and refinement that characterized his court.
Note 3, page 1. Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, (born 1490; died 1538) , was the son of Giovanni della Rovere and Duke Guidobaldo's sister Giovanna di Montefeltro. ”

“ His dissertation on the characters of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino is written in Latin, and exhibits all those blemishes of style to which we have just referred, and which so strangely jar upon the fulsome flattery and elaborate verbiage which he labours to reduce into Ciceronian terseness. Though entitled a "Book," the whole occupies but a hundred pages in the octavo edition of his works (1567) , whereof scarcely one third is original matter. ”

“ A romantic interest has always attached to the [80] library at Urbino. The best scholars in Europe used to assemble at the palace, where Duke Federigo made such a gathering of books 'as had not been seen for a thousand years,' in the hall where Emilia and the pale Duke Guidubaldo led the pleasant debates described in the 'Cortegiano.' Federigo, the most successful general in the Italian wars, had built a palace of delight in his rude Urbino, in which he hoped to set a copy of every book in the world. ”