"Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord," &c."I have hitherto daily informed you of what was going on, by longer or shorter letters, as time permitted. At present nothing new has transpired, except that, on the night of the 7th inst., the Duke of Urbino, captain-general of the ecclesiastical and Venetian forces, after most strenuous and gallant operations against the enemy, from which a successful issue was expected, suddenly changing his intention, notwithstanding numerous protests, drew off his army to Marignano, a town ten miles from Milan. Which, though the Duke, as usual, entangles it with numerous reasons, has exposed him to no slight disparagement from the public. I have only further humbly to commend myself to your most illustrious Lordship. From Rome, 11th July, 1526."Your most illustrious and reverend Lordship'sHumillimum manicipium,"Hič. Epš.Wigornieñ."[304]
"Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord," &c.
"I have hitherto daily informed you of what was going on, by longer or shorter letters, as time permitted. At present nothing new has transpired, except that, on the night of the 7th inst., the Duke of Urbino, captain-general of the ecclesiastical and Venetian forces, after most strenuous and gallant operations against the enemy, from which a successful issue was expected, suddenly changing his intention, notwithstanding numerous protests, drew off his army to Marignano, a town ten miles from Milan. Which, though the Duke, as usual, entangles it with numerous reasons, has exposed him to no slight disparagement from the public. I have only further humbly to commend myself to your most illustrious Lordship. From Rome, 11th July, 1526.
"Your most illustrious and reverend Lordship'sHumillimum manicipium,
"Hič. Epš.Wigornieñ."[304]
The prejudices of Guicciardini are admitted by the Venetian Paruta, who tells us that the Signory were satisfied with their general's explanations, but cautioned him for the future, to communicate his views more frankly to the papal commissioner. It is a passage of history hard to clear up, and in every view redounding little to the credit of its actors, whether we most blame the Duke's policy or the unsteadiness of his troops. Exposures so disgraceful well merited the sneer, that the swords in thatarmy had no edge; and Sismondi admits that its spiritless conduct goes far to justify its leader's dispiriting tactics.[*305]
On the 22nd of July, the confederates, having been joined by five thousand Swiss levies, again approached the city, and were met by about three hundred women and children, whom Sforza had dismissed as embarrassing his defence. Shamed by their representations, the leaders, in a council of war, decided upon a new attempt to relieve the citadel, which, however, Giovanni de' Medici, after inspecting the works of the besiegers, opposed as too perilous. Whilst they lost time in these discussions, Sforza was fairly starved out, and surrendered the fortress on the 24th. Leoni and Baldi agree in charging these dilatory and unsatisfactory proceedings upon the other generals, and the total inefficiency of the army, rather than upon Francesco Maria's tactics. They may be considered as biased, but the following anecdotes will show how far the Florentine historian had reason to be impartial.
At one of the war councils held in the Certosa of Pavia, Guicciardini having cast some doubt upon an opinion expressed by the Duke, was thus answered: "Your business is to confer with pedants." These rude words were accompanied by a knock-down blow on the face, followed by an order to get up and begone! Leonardi, who preserves this incident, adds, "Such pugilistic sport was habitual to my Lord Duke; and it was well for those who could command their temper in reasoning with him, as he was ever ready to strike any one who argued against his views with disrespect." The historian's original prepossession against Francesco Maria, is ascribed by Baldi to a vain ambition of precedence. While lieutenant-general of the papal forces he displayed it towards Guido Rangone, his superior officer, and insisted on taking rank at the council-board of the Marquis of Saluzzo, when he arrived in command of the French contingents. These absurd pretensions were at first treated with indifference, but finally brought him into a wrangle with the Duke, over whom he also claimed a similar right, from the fact of being in the papal service, waiving it only out of consideration for his sovereign rank. In that instance, also, he is said to have been struck by the choleric prince; at all events he was expelled from the council-chamber, and a strong representation of his misconduct was made to the Pope, who consequently cancelled his anomalous commission, and appointed him governor of Modena.
Sismondi, embodying Guicciardini's one-sided narrative,[*306]has thrown upon Francesco Maria the entire odium of the ludicrously slow movements of the army, averaging about four miles on each alternate day, and of their double miscarriage before Milan. The fatal tendency of such measures, however they might have originated, admits of no question, and the responsibility of their failure must fall upon the most influential leader. It is always difficult in a heterogeneous confederacy to maintain that unity of purpose which may compensate for diversity of interests, and which can only be insured by prompt action and brilliant success. But the sentiment "that reputation was neither to be gained by risks nor lost by delays," which Bernardo Tasso puts into the Duke's mouth, in describing a council of war whereat he assisted,[307]not only advocates quite a different policy, buttoo well confirms the charge brought against him as one of those
"Generals who will not conquer when they may."
When, however, he perceived victory to be hopeless, in an army distracted by the jealousies of rival leaders, he had proposed the nomination of a commander-in-chief, avowing himself ready to accord him implicit obedience. In this he was again thwarted by Guicciardini, who represented his suggestion to the allied powers as dictated by personal ambition of the post. The plan fell to the ground, and its author, fretted by the difficulties of his position, was attacked by severe illness. Of this the Proveditore availed himself to lead Malatesta Baglione, with three thousand troops, to Cremona. Like Milan, it was occupied by an imperialist brigade, who besieged in the citadel a handful of Sforza's adherents. The Duke's warnings as to its military difficulties having been received with indifference, this enterprise was on the point of miscarriage, on learning which he rose from a sick bed, and hurried with fresh forces to the scene of action. His presence infused new energy into the operations, and on the 23rd of September the town was evacuated by the imperialists upon capitulation.
This success was scarcely within his grasp when a courier arrived from Rome, with tidings which gave a new aspect to affairs. Clement, who had succeeded to the turbulence of his predecessors, without the energy of Julius, or the address of Leo, made himself a dangerous domestic foe in the Colonna,—broken, but not crushed by the rancour of Alexander VI. Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a man indifferent to religion, whose unbounded ambition aimed directly at the tiara, and whose brows better became a condottiere's casque than a mitre, forgetting his duty as one of the Sacred College, entered into treasonable correspondence with the imperialist leaders; and his brotherMarcello, having been driven from his fiefs by the Pope, threw himself at the feet of Charles V., offering to support his views upon Italy if reponed by his assistance. They also used their influence at Venice in preventing his Holiness from raising a loan to recruit his crippled resources, and, in concert with Don Ugo Moncada, commander of the Neapolitan army, strove to alienate him from the League. Don Ugo, a Spaniard by birth, was the worthy pupil of Cesare Borgia, without his reputation for success. In every important engagement his sword had been tarnished by defeat; his character and personal adventures combined each brutal attribute of a condottiere, with scarcely a redeeming trait of honour. The plan of these confederates was by a coup-de-main to dictate terms to the Pontiff; or, failing success in this, to give occupation at home for the contingent he then maintained with the allied army of Lombardy. Accordingly, the Colonna troops, who had assumed a threatening attitude in the Campagna, were suddenly withdrawn beyond the frontier; and a son of Prospero Colonna hastened to the capital to throw himself at Clement's feet, assuring him of the pacific disposition of his house, and that their levies were destined for the imperial service at Naples. The Pope, being deceived into a belief so conformable to his wishes, turned a deaf ear to the warning of more clear-sighted men, and, disappointed of his loan, thought only of reducing a war establishment he could no longer pay. But so soon as his soldiery were dismissed, the Colonna recalled their army of two thousand men, which, led by Pompeo with equal celerity and success, reached the Lateran gate ere treachery was suspected. Resistance being hopeless, they, on the 20th of September, marched through the city into the Trastevere, where they were welcomed to refreshments provided by the Cardinal's order. Thence they passed into the Borgo S. Spirito, where are situated the Vatican, St. Peter's, and the castle of St. Angelo, and within three hours had pillaged that rich quarter, sparing neither the palace nor the metropolitan church. The Pope, who had at first resolved to await death in his pontifical chair, scarcely escaped with a few valuables into the fortress, which, from unpardonable negligence, was entirely unprovisioned. To arrest these horrors, the Pontiff next day made a hasty four-months' truce, stipulating for the immediate evacuation of Rome, as the condition on which he should recall Guicciardini with the ecclesiastical troops from Upper Italy; three days, however, elapsed ere the troops withdrew, laden with a booty estimated at 300,000 ducats.[308]
Upon the capitulation of Cremona, Francesco Maria stole a few days for the society of his Duchess, and the affairs of his state, but was speedily recalled to his post by the unsatisfactory aspect of matters in Lombardy. The papal troops had been withdrawn; the garrison of Cremona, whose services the Venetians would not retain at his suggestion, had entered into new engagements with the enemy; fourteen thousandlanznechts, aliaslansquenetinfantry, under Georg v. Fründesberg, were marching from Germany by the Val di Sabbia to support the imperial cause. His first care was to check the pillage of Cremona, a service which the citizens acknowledged by presenting to him a golden vase weighing twenty pounds, and beautifully chased with appropriate devices. He found the Marquis of Saluzzo arrived with about five thousand levies from France, and that thebande nere, amounting to almost as many, had been engaged by that power, on Guicciardini's departure, whose absence proved a vast relief to him. The army is now estimated at twenty-five thousandmen by Sismondi, who, echoing the charges of that writer, severely blames the Duke for not supporting the naval attack made by the French upon Genoa, a scheme for which we have seen him contending at an earlier period. But a passage in his ownDiscorsi Militariexpressly states the Venetian force at four thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry, to keep in check both Fründesberg's lansquenets and ten thousand men at Milan; and it explains his tactics to consist in making Cremona the centre of a line of defence, embracing Bergamo on the right, and Genoa on the left, which, being vastly too extended for his force, necessitated his keeping his men together, in order to move upon any exposed point. Accordingly, considering it most incumbent to intercept the battalions of Fründesberg, he, after throwing garrisons into some important places on his right flank, pushed towards Mantua with about ten thousand men. Although sadly impeded by dreadful weather, and by difficulties of transport, the Proveditore having secured all the cattle to carry his own baggage to Venice, he came up with the enemy at Borgoforte, on the Po, and, interrupting their passage, drove their main body down the course of that river. Deep snow and mud embarrassing his evolutions, he could only hang upon their rear as far as the Mincio, where they were met by a reinforcement with artillery from Ferrara. Thereupon the Duke recalled his skirmishers, and left the Germans to pass the Po unobstructed, on the 30th of November.
In this affair fell Giovanni de' Medici, whose birth we have formerly noticed.[309]His name is consecrated to military renown by a halo which his lion-heart well merited, and which has gained no additional brilliancy from the attempts of some writers to elevate his fame at Francesco Maria's expense. In this unworthy effort—as on too many like occasions—Guicciardini has been followed bythe historian of the Italian republics. The charges of misconduct adduced against the Duke of Urbino, in his movement against Fründesberg, are by no means borne out by the more detailed accounts supplied by Leoni and Baldi. He seems to have done everything that the state of the elements would allow; and even accused himself of occasioning the death of his faithful captain Benedetto Giraldi of Mondolfo, by answering his plea, that his charger was completely knocked up, with the sarcasm,—"What! you to whom I give a hundred scudi of yearly pay, have not a fresh pair of horses at such a moment!" Stung by this reproach, the gallant officer urged his steed to new efforts, and shared the fate of Giovanni de' Medici. The brigade of the latter, out of respect for their leader, assumed those mourning scarfs which procured them the namedelle bande nere; and most of them soon after passed to Rome in the papal service.
The German lansquenets, whom Fründesberg had brought into Italy, were in fact a free company, levied by himself on a mere plundering adventure, without the pretext of pay. Alarmed at a reinforcement of so obnoxious a character, the confederates bethought themselves of renewed efforts. But disgusted with a drawling campaign, wherein no party had exhibited either good heart or doughty deeds, they had recourse to diplomacy, which, ever fluctuating between an inactive war and a solid peace, failed to create any general interest. The truce with Moncada being expired they had no difficulty in enrolling the unstable Pontiff once more on their side; but intent on his private quarrel with the Colonna, and burning to avenge the outrage lately received at their hands, he gave no co-operation to the League. His tortuous and feeble policy preferred rousing, by small intrigues, the old Angevine party at Naples against the imperial government, and sought the more sympathetic attractions of a petty strife with his refractoryvassals. Having engaged thebande nere, he let them loose to carry fire and sword into the Colonna holdings, depriving, at the same time, Cardinal Pompeo of his hat, and thundering excommunication against his whole race. As the spring advanced, he extended this inglorious warfare, with "a worse than Turkish" virulence, into the Neapolitan territory. Meanwhile, the Viceroy Lanoy, after narrowly escaping the fleet of Andrea Doria, landed ten thousand fresh troops at Gaeta, and advanced upon Rome, supported by Moncada and the Colonna. But the vengeance of God against the Holy City was reserved for other hands. After a slight check from thebande nere, at Frosinone, the Viceroy most opportunely received letters from his master, disavowing the Colonna, and breathing affectionate duty to the Pontiff. He thereupon made overtures of reconciliation, and after various demurs, prompted by the Pontiff's vacillating hopes and fears, but which, in the exhausted state of his treasury, appear the dictates of insanity, an eight months' truce was signed on the 15th of March, between the Pope and the Emperor. It provided for a mutual restitution of all conquests in Lower Italy, a restoration of the Colonna to their estates and honours, and a payment by his Holiness of 60,000 ducats towards the costs of the war. Should the French and Venetians accept of this truce, the lansquenets were to be withdrawn from Italy; at all events they and the Constable Bourbon's army were forthwith to quit the ecclesiastical and Florentine territories. Whilst intimating this arrangement to the Duke of Urbino, by a brief of the 16th of March, Clement represents it as dictated by stern necessity, the whole weight of the war having fallen upon himself, and as the sole means of saving his own existence, and preserving "all Italy from destruction."
Whilst these events were in progress in Lower Italy, the negotiations for a general peace had produced no fruits, conducted, as they were, with little good faith or honestyof purpose. The only one really interested in prolonging the struggle was Francis I., whose children were still in his rival's hands. 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. Louis XII., having removed this attainder, and restored the d'Alençon branch to their rights, incurred the deep displeasure of Bourbon, who was, however, pacified by receiving, at the age of twenty-six, the office of grand constable,—the highest dignity of the realm. He greatly distinguished himself in Francis's early Italian campaigns, but was recalled from the command at Milan in 1516, in consequence of his overbearing conduct and ambitious views. By Anna, sister of Charles VIII., whom he married in spite of a hideously deformed person, he had the dukedom of Bourbon, with an immense fortune; but his extravagant prodigality plunged him into great embarrassments, and a suit brought after his wife's death by the mother of Francis I.—whose love he was alleged to have slighted—threatened him with utter ruin, by evicting him from his wife's estates. In these circumstances, his jealous and fiery temper was ready to seize upon any pretext for entering into treasonable correspondence with the Emperor and King of England; and, on a promise of the crown of Provence, he undertook to head an insurrection in France as soon as Francis should cross the Alps. That monarch having discovered the plot, at once sought the Constable in oneof his own castles, and frankly told him what he had learned. The hypocrite had recourse to abject asseverations of innocence and fidelity, and was ordered to attend his sovereign into Italy; but, perceiving that his protestations had not removed suspicion, he fled in disguise to the territory of Charles, and was declared rebel. His perfidy and rancour now knew no bounds; he was ever after prominent and indefatigable in the wars against his country, and mainly instigated the descent upon Provence in 1524. 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. His pride was vain-glory, venting itself in capricious and ill-directed schemes, and stimulating into fury a wayward and sanguinary temper, which, when exasperated by exile and outlawry, became ungovernable.
During the war of Lombardy, the imperial generals were in a great measure left to their own resources, both as to its conduct and its supplies. Bourbon had for about a year maintained his army in Milan without pay, by merciless plunder of the townspeople, upon whom insult and outrage were unsparingly heaped. But their patience and their means were nearly exhausted, and the difficulty of recruiting his commissariat was greatly aggravated by judicious dispositions of the allied army, directed by the Duke of Urbino. A forward movement was therefore resolved upon, and as occupation and pillage were the only chances of keeping together such disorganised troops, he led them in search of both. Indifferent whether the spoils of Florence or Romagna should prove the more convenient prey, he effected a junction with Fründesberg's new levies, whose circumstances and objects exactly corresponded with those of his own forces, and on the 30th of January their united divisions passed the Po.
Our authorities are in many respects contradictory regarding these operations, and especially as to the part which Francesco Maria took in them. He seems to have been laid up at Parma, with an attack of gout and fever, from the 3rd to the 14th of January, and to have spent most of the next two months with his Duchess at Gazzuolo in the Mantuese, for recovery of his health. It is insinuated by Sismondi that this was but an excuse for abandoning the field, at a moment when it would have been scarcely possible to pursue the policy, which that author ascribes to him, of never risking in a general action the prestige of invincibility. On the other hand, Leoni asserts that, at a council of war held in Parma on the 11th of February, plans for the campaign were proposed in writing by the different confederate leaders, when that sent by the Duke was treacherously suppressed by Guicciardini. Judging from the results of the campaign, there can be no doubt that the imperialists ought to have been attacked at this juncture; and if a general onset had been ordered on the 13th of March, when they broke out into open mutiny, Bourbon being obliged to fly for his life, or, a few days after, when Fründesberg, a monster of sacrilege and blasphemy, according to the Italian historians, died of apoplexy, they would in all probability have been totally exterminated. But they were the reserved instrument of divine judgments; and it signifies little now to speculate whether the immediate motives which paralysed the League were the Duke's ill-timed caution, his anticipation that the starving band would ere long of itself dissolve, orhis personal enmity to the Pope. It is, however, important to keep in view the cold and selfish character of Venetian policy, and the hampering influence which their system ofproveditorinecessarily had upon the measures of their generals.
When Francesco Maria returned to the camp, the imperialists, who had passed the Trebbia on the 20th of February, were slowly advancing through the ecclesiastical state of Modena upon Bologna. His tactic was to place them between two hostile armies; so the Marquis of Saluzzo, with the French, ecclesiastical, and Swiss troops, preceded them, leaving garrisons in the principal places, the Duke following with the Venetians, some thirty miles in their rear. Against this plan, which Guicciardini designates a strange proceeding, and which even Baldi most justly criticises, the other leaders vainly protested, alleging, among other reasons, that whilst the army in advance must be speedily weakened by detaching garrisons, the Venetians would probably hang back when their own frontier was freed from danger. News of the truce between the Pope and the Viceroy now arrived, and the Duke, disgusted at this new proof of Clement's fickleness, and indifference to his allies' interests, withdrew his army across the Po. But the courier who brought the treaty to Bourbon at Ponte-Reno, with an order to obey its provisions, was nearly cut to pieces by his troops, infuriated at this interference with their hopes of booty, and the Constable refused to abide by it. The fresh jealousy of their unstable ally, thus suggested to the Venetians, afforded their leader a new apology for not exposing their troops in a general action for the preservation of Bologna. But when Bourbon had passed by that city towards Romagna and Urbino, somewhat more spirit was infused into his movements, as the danger seemed to approach his own frontier. He immediately sent forward two thousand men to protect the duchy, and desired hisfamily to be removed for safety to Venice. On the 5th of March he had struck his camp at Casal-Maggiore, and proceeded in pursuit of the enemy. On that day they passed under Imola, which, with the other cities, was garrisoned by detachments of Saluzzo, in accordance with tactics already explained. Bourbon now scoured the plains of Romagna in search of plunder, skirmishing occasionally with the French division. When at Meldola on the 14th he bethought him of a descent upon Siena, whose old Ghibelline and anti-Florentine preferences promised him a welcome. He, therefore, penetrated the Apennines by forced marches up the passes of the Bidente, and on the 18th reached S. Pietro in Bagno, burning and pillaging as he went.
When the Constable's refusal to accept the treaty was known at Rome, Clement, more perplexed than ever, besought Lanoy to hurry on and induce him to a halt, or at all events to withdraw the Spaniards and men-at-arms from his command. To this the Viceroy with much apparent zeal consented; but doubts have been thrown on his sincerity, for both he and Moncada, whilst professing cordial co-operation with the Pope, are suspected of having secretly stimulated Bourbon's advance upon Rome, as the only means of appeasing the troops, trusting that the grandeur of the enterprise would, in their master's eyes, readily excuse its criminality. It seems doubtful whether Lanoy actually met the Constable; and his mission was understood to have exposed him to great personal risk from the lawless and ungovernable troops. He at all events conveyed to Bourbon a proposition for the immediate payment to his army of 80,000 ducats, with 60,000 more during May, on condition of their retreat within five days; these sums to be advanced by Florence, on the Viceroy's guarantee for repayment of one-half by the Emperor. The direct object of this proposal was to divert the impending storm fromTuscany; and it was fully sanctioned by Clement, true to the policy of Medicean pontiffs, who ever regarded Florence as their patrimony, Rome as their life-interest. In the negotiations to which it gave rise there was a double difficulty. Whilst the demands of a mutinous and starving army were paramount to all other considerations, each party of the confederates struggled to throw upon another the burden of meeting them. 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. The French strove at all hazards to keep him clear of their Lombard conquests. The Pontiff, little dreaming of an attack upon his capital, was distracted between the care of Romagna and Tuscany, whilst his fickle imbecility deprived him of all sympathy at his allies' hands; indeed, in this conflict of interests, his pusillanimous tergiversations rendered him the weaker vessel, and he consequently became the chief sufferer. Nor did the Duke of Urbino escape suspicions of bad faith, for he is accused of a secret understanding not to impede Bourbon's descent upon Tuscany, which would naturally liberate his own duchy from danger. Guicciardini, indeed, not only considers revenge for former injuries of the Medici as the key to Francesco Maria's dilatory and inefficient proceedings against the imperialists, but regards his conduct as justified by the provocations received. These sentiments were at all events cherished by the soldiery of Urbino,who wrote "FOR VENGEANCE" upon the houses which they fired on their march through the Florentine territory. Nor were these provocations light, for the grudge which Leo had bequeathed was aggravated by a continued retention of the fortresses in Montefeltro, and still more by an investiture of the entire duchy, granted in 1525 by Clement, in total defiance of the della Rovere rights, to Ascanio Colonna, whose claims we have already considered.[310]This grant, though virtually annulled by the same Pope's subsequent confirmation of the reinvestiture given to Francesco Maria by Adrian VI., gave rise to renewed anxieties on his part about two years later, and it was not until 1530 that we shall see them finally extinguished by the Duke's generous hospitality to his rival.
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. This he answered by general professions, and next day, sending on the army to Incisa to intercept the approach of Bourbon, he proceeded with a band of faithful followers to the Tuscan capital. The republican faction, calculating upon his support, flew to arms and seized the Palazzo Vecchio, while once more the unpopular sway ofthe Medici trembled in the balance. But the Duke, with a nobility of purpose that goes far to absolve him from suspicion as to his good faith with the Pope throughout this campaign, rejected the temptation of avenging his many wrongs, and, by extraordinary personal exertions, succeeded in quelling the insurrection, and maintaining the established government. Thus, for the first time, the city saw its Palazzo taken without a revolution following. In gratitude for this service his fortresses were immediately given up to Francesco Maria, who in due time received also the thanks of his Holiness. The act for their restitution was signed on the 1st of May, and on the 14th S. Leo was surrendered to his lieutenant Orazio Florido.
Bourbon's head-quarters were meanwhile at Montevarchi, near Arezzo, where, seeing his approach to Florence foiled, and the dissatisfaction of his followers on the increase, he decided upon making a dash at Rome; his only alternative being to lead them to pillage, or perish at their hands. As a blind to the Pope, he sent forward a courier to demand free passage to Naples; and, after receiving some supplies from Siena, he abandoned his artillery and heavy baggage in order to lighten his march. He began it on the 26th, and, notwithstanding incessant rains and an entirely disorganised commissariat, he passed without halt or question by Acquapendente and Viterbo to Rome.[312]
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PORTRAITS OF CESARE BORGIA
THE same extremes of reprobation and flattery which alternate in notices of the Duke Valentino puzzle us as to his personal appearance. Giovio, the ardent collector of historical portraits, while describing those which he had brought together, thus comments upon that of Borgia:—"He is said to come of a plague-stricken stock and of corrupted blood; for a livid rush overspread his face, which was full of pimples shedding matter. His eyes, too, were deeply sunk, and their fierce snake-like glance seemed to flash fire, so that even his friends and comrades could not bear to look upon them; yet, while flirting with the ladies, he had a wonderful knack of playing the agreeable." The pen which inscribed these sentences was evidently charged with even more than its wonted gall; but, after every allowance, they cannot well be reconciled with a report of the Venetian envoy Capello, dated in 1500, and bearing that "the Pope loves and greatly fears his son the Duke, who is aged twenty-seven years; his head is most beautiful; he is tall and well made, and handsomer than King Ferdinand."
Nor can we attain to any more satisfactory conclusion from such pictures as are alleged to transmit his features. We have no key to identify as his any of the heads introduced by Pinturicchio into those fine but little noticed frescoes commissioned by Alexander VI. for the Torre di Borgia, now a wing of the Vatican Library. The exquisite medallists of Romagna do not appear to have exercised their skill upon his bust. Of easel portraits I am aware of six, which I mention for the curious insuch matters, although not prepared to consider any of them genuine.
1. The elegant effeminate-looking Spaniard in the Borghese Gallery, attributed to Raffaele, is now admitted to be a misnomer both of subject and artist.
2. A mean head, in the manner of Federigo Zuccaro, was purchased a few years ago at Rome by my late friend Monsignor Laureani, librarian of the Vatican, as that of Valentino, and passed from him, in 1844, to my friend the Cavaliere Campana. Its sinister and spiteful expression is not unworthy of such a monster; and allowing an artist's licence in disguising a complexion which no one would willingly represent, it might tally with Giovio's too graphic details. The figure is, however, short, while Capello describes Cesare as tall.
3. A letter from Giuseppe Vallardi to Count Cesare di Castelbarco Visconti was privately printed at Milan in 1843, in which he claims to have discovered in the Count's palace a portrait of Borgia by Raffaele, the original chalk study of which belonged to himself. From the mass of verbiage usual in similar Italian effusions of "municipal fanaticism," there may be extracted an allegation that the picture had been painted from that earlier drawing about 1508, and a bold inference is hazarded from their style that both were the handiwork of Sanzio. The lithograph, however, would entitle us to ascribe them rather to the Milanese school, and such is admitted to be the opinion of various connoisseurs. No fact is adduced to authenticate the head, or to show that Raffaele ever saw Valentino; indeed, the name seems to libel a countenance so gentle, refined, and unimpassioned.
4. Vallardi mentions in the same letter another Borgian head, by Giorgione, as in the Lochis Gallery at Bergamo, of which I cannot speak, not having seen it.
5. A handsome over-dressed youth was engraved for Gordon'sLife of Alexander VI., in 1729, from a picture said to belong to D. Giuseppe Valetta of Naples, which I entirely failed in tracing while in Italy. Neither have I discovered any authority for supposing that soulless epicurean to be Cesare Borgia.
Finally, we may include Fuseli's notice of a picture by Titian, no longer, however, in the Borghese collection, representing aconference between the Usurper of Romagna and Machiavelli. A finer subject for the pencil of that intellectual limner could hardly be found, but Valentino's prodigality was apparently never lavished on art.[313]In his eleventh lecture, Fuseli also mentions a portrait of Cesare by Giorgione, as hanging for study in the Royal Academy.
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DUKE GUIDOBALDO I. OF URBINO A KNIGHT OF THE GARTER
THE loss of all early records of the Order, in consequence of their having long been entrusted to the private and insecure custody of its successive officers, has already placed us at disadvantage in noticing the admission of Duke Federigo, but from various sources we are enabled to glean much more satisfactory notices as to the election and installation of his son to this honourable knighthood. The chapter at which he was chosen is not preserved by Anstis, but its date is known from the following letter, the original of which, in Latin, I had the good fortune to discover in the Oliveriana Library at Pesaro.[314]
"Henry, by the grace of God, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, to the most illustrious and potent Prince the Lord Guido Ubaldo, Duke of Urbino, our most dear friend, health and augmented prosperity. We wrote lately to inform your Highness that we had resolved upon forthwith summoning a chapter of our military Order of the Garter, for the purpose of creating your Sublimity a knight thereof, and by the same letters gave you tidings of such creation. We have now to signify how, in fulfilment of that our promise, we have made your Highness a Knight of that Order; and this we have done most cordially, not only on account of our old necessity, which formerly occurred to us with your father the illustrious Duke of happy memory, but also in consideration of your singular merit andvirtues. Indeed we are assured that henceforward your Highness will ever be regarded as our most attached cousin and intimate friend, which you will more fully learn from our distinguished cousin the Lord Talbot, a knight of that Order, as also from the Reverend [Richard Bere] Lord Abbot of Glastonbury, and the Venerable Sir Robert Shirbourn, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, our counsellors and ambassadors, whom we have sent to offer our catholic and filial obedience to our supreme Lord [Julius II.]. To these our envoys we have committed all the knightly insignia of the Garter, to be made over to your Highness, and our anxious desire is that you will accept them in the same spirit of cordial affection in which they are sent. We pray you further to receive these our ambassadors as accredited in our behalf, and that you will please to aid them with your favour and counsels, which will be to us peculiarly agreeable. Finally, as the Venerable Mr. Robert Shirbourn, one of these our envoys, is by our command to remain for some time as our minister at the Roman Court to transact certain affairs of ours with our Lord his Holiness, we therefore beseech your Sublimity that you will vouchsafe to assist him, as our agent, with your gracious influence, which has great and just weight with our Holy Father, and that you will extend to him such favours as he may request; by all which you will do us a singular pleasure. Further, if it be in our power any way to oblige you, freely make use of us and ours. From our palace near Westminster, the 20th of February, 1503-4.[315]"Henricus Rex."
"Henry, by the grace of God, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, to the most illustrious and potent Prince the Lord Guido Ubaldo, Duke of Urbino, our most dear friend, health and augmented prosperity. We wrote lately to inform your Highness that we had resolved upon forthwith summoning a chapter of our military Order of the Garter, for the purpose of creating your Sublimity a knight thereof, and by the same letters gave you tidings of such creation. We have now to signify how, in fulfilment of that our promise, we have made your Highness a Knight of that Order; and this we have done most cordially, not only on account of our old necessity, which formerly occurred to us with your father the illustrious Duke of happy memory, but also in consideration of your singular merit andvirtues. Indeed we are assured that henceforward your Highness will ever be regarded as our most attached cousin and intimate friend, which you will more fully learn from our distinguished cousin the Lord Talbot, a knight of that Order, as also from the Reverend [Richard Bere] Lord Abbot of Glastonbury, and the Venerable Sir Robert Shirbourn, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, our counsellors and ambassadors, whom we have sent to offer our catholic and filial obedience to our supreme Lord [Julius II.]. To these our envoys we have committed all the knightly insignia of the Garter, to be made over to your Highness, and our anxious desire is that you will accept them in the same spirit of cordial affection in which they are sent. We pray you further to receive these our ambassadors as accredited in our behalf, and that you will please to aid them with your favour and counsels, which will be to us peculiarly agreeable. Finally, as the Venerable Mr. Robert Shirbourn, one of these our envoys, is by our command to remain for some time as our minister at the Roman Court to transact certain affairs of ours with our Lord his Holiness, we therefore beseech your Sublimity that you will vouchsafe to assist him, as our agent, with your gracious influence, which has great and just weight with our Holy Father, and that you will extend to him such favours as he may request; by all which you will do us a singular pleasure. Further, if it be in our power any way to oblige you, freely make use of us and ours. From our palace near Westminster, the 20th of February, 1503-4.[315]
"Henricus Rex."
The instructions to these ambassadors, dated the 20th of February, and printed by Anstis, run thus:—
"And after due recommendacions, and presentaciones of the Kinge's lettres [to Duke Guidobaldo], firste the saide Abbot ofGlastonburye shall make a brefe oracion, wherein he shall not onlye touche the laudes of the noble Order of the Garter, and of the Kinges Highnes as sovereigne of the same, but also declare the great vertues and notable deades of the saide Duke, and how his progenitors and auncestors have been accepted thereunto, and to theyr greate honor have used the same, with the desyrous mynde that the sayde Duke is to be honored therwithal; for the which consideracions and causes the Kinge's Highness, by the assent of the Companions of that Order, have been the rather moved and induced to name and elect him thereunto, trustinge verelie that, his greate noblenesse with other of his valiant actes and singuler vertues consydered, he shall not onlye greatlye honor the saide Order, but also take greate honor by the same. Shewinge fynallye that the Kinge's Highnes, for the singular zeale, love, and affection which his Grace beareth unto hym, hath sent hym them ornaments belonginge to the sayd Order, and with as good and hartye mynde wylleth hyme to be honored therewith as anye other prince lyvinge, desyring him therefore thankfullye to accept the same, and to use and weare it in a memoriall of his Grace, and of the saide notable and auncyant Order.
"And, after the proposition so sayde, they shall present theyr commyssyon unto the sayde Duke, and cause the same openlye to be read, and so followinge, the Abbot of Glastonburye shall in good and reverent manner requyre him to make his corporall othe for the inviolable observaunce of the same, lyke as, bye the tenure of the saide estatuts, every Knight of that Order is bownde to do, in form followinge:—
"Ego Guido Ubaldus, Dei Gratia Dux Urbinatis, honorificentissimi atque approbatissimi Ordinis Garterii Miles et Confrater electus, juro ad hæc sancta Dei evangelia per me corporaliter tacta, quod omnia et singula statuta leges et ordinationes ipsius dignissimi Ordinis bene sincere et inviolabiliter observabo. Ita me Deus adjuvet, et hæc sancta Dei evangelia!
"Which othe geven, Sir Gybert Talbot shall deliver the Garter to hym, and cause the same in good and honorable manner to be put about his legge, the saide Abbott of Glastonburye sayinge audablye thes wordes followinge:—
"Ad laudem et honorem summi atque omnipotentis Dei, intemeratæ Virginis et Matris suæ Mariæ, ac gloriosissimi martiris Georgii, hujus Ordinis Patroni, circumcingo tibiam tuam hoc Garterio, ut possis in isto bello firmiter stare et fortiter vincere, in signum Ordinis et augmentum tui honoris.
"Which thinge so don, the saide Sir Gylbert shall deliver unto the saide Duke the gowne of purple couler, and cause hym to apparrell hymself with the same, the saide Abbot of Glastonburye sayinge thes wordes followinge, at the doinge on of the same:—
"Accipe vestem hanc purpuream, quâ semper munitus non verearis pro fide Christi, libertate ecclesiæ et oppressorum tuitione fortiter dimicare, et sanguinem effundere, in signum Ordinis et augmentum tui honoris.
"And then followinge, the sayd Sir Gilbert shall cause the sayde Duke to do upon hym the mantle of blew velvett, garnyshed with the scute and crosse of Saint George, and the said Abbot of Glastonburye sayinge thes wordes:—
"Accipe clamidem cœlestis coloris clypeo crucis Christi insignitam, cujus virtute atque vigore semper protectus, hostes superare, et pro clarissimis tuis meritis gaudia tandem cœlestia promereri valeas, in signum Ordinis et augmentum tui honoris.
"And when the saide Duke shall be so apperrylled with the ornaments aforesaide, the saide Sir Gylbert shall put the image of Seinte George abowt his necke, the saide Abbott saying thes wordes:—
"Imaginem gloriosissimi martiris Georgii, hujus Ordinis patroni, in collo tuo deferes, cujus fultus presidio hujus mundi prospera et adversa sic pertranseas, ut hostibus corporis et animi devictis, non modo temporalis militiæ gloriam, sed perennis victoriæ palmam accipere valeas, in signum Ordinis et augmentum tui honoris."
Hollinshed, following Hall, informs us that "Sir Gilbert Talbot, Knight, Richard Bere, Abbot of Glastonburie, and Doctor Robert Sherborne, Deane of St. Paules, were sent as ambassadors from the King to Rome, to declare to Pius the third of that name, newlie elected pope in place of Alexander the Sixt, deceased, what joy and gladnesse had entered the King's heartfor his preferment. But he taried not the comming of those ambassadors, for within a moneth after that he was installed, he rendered his debt to nature, and so had short pleasure of his promotion.... The King caused Guidebald, Duke of Urbine, to be elected Knight of the Order of the Garter, in like manner as his father Duke Frederike had been before him, which was chosen and admitted into the Order by King Edward the Fourth. Sir Gilbert Talbot, and the other two ambassadors, being appointed to keepe on their journey unto Pope Julius the Second, elected after the death of the said Pius the Third, bare the habit, and collar also, unto the said Duke Guidebald."[316]It must, however, be observed that letters of safe conduct for these ambassadors are stated to have been issued under the Privy Seal on the 22nd of February, 1504, as if but then beginning their journey. This mission was in accordance with the statutes of the Order, which provided that, within four months of the election, special messengers should be despatched to invest each foreign knight with the insignia, and that, within eight months after the investiture, he should send a proctor to England to receive installation in his name.
We learn from Burchard that the three envoys reached Rome the 12th of May, 1504. They were met by Sylvester Gigli, Bishop of Worcester, Anglican resident at the papal court, and had a splendid reception. On the 20th they had an audience, when, the minister of Louis XII. having protested against Henry taking the style of France, they were admitted as the ambassadors of England only. No details have reached us of the investiture. The authority to which we naturally turn for the circumstances attending this interesting episode of our narrative is Polydoro di Vergilio, a native of Urbino, and historian of England; but a fact, which to the writer ought to have been of peculiar importance, is passed over without details. As, however, the supposed autograph copy of his History varies considerably from printed editions, we shall here quote from it the entire passage, proving the incorrect manner in which this work is given to the public.
"Alexandro Sexto mortuo, creatus est Pontifex Franciscus, Senensis antistes, qui Pii fuit Secundi ex sorore nepos, voluitque et ipse Pius Tertius in memoria avunculi vocari. Hic amicissimus erat regis Henrici [VII.], qui, ut primus omnium Christianorum principum bono patri de adepto pontificatu congratularetur, confestim Gilbertum Talbott equitem, Ricardum Beer Abbatem Glasconiensem, et Robertum Scherburn decanum divi Pauli Londinensis oratores designavit ad ipsum pontificatum. Sed Pius non expectavit gratulationem, qui obiit sexto et vigesimo die quam sedere coeperat. Creatur in ejus locum Julianus, Cardinalis Sti. Petri ad Vincula, patria Ligur, dictusque est Julius Secundus. Huic postea illi tres regis oratores congratulatum inerunt, quos Hadrianus Castellensis episcopus Herefordensis, quem paulo ante Alexander Cardinalem fecerat, Romæ hospitio excepit. Hunc rex Henricus sub idem tempus ab Herefordensi sede ad Bathoniensem ac Wellensem transferri curavit. At Hadrianus, ut præter sua quotidiana obsequia, quæ tam regi quam Anglis omnibus libens præstabat, aliquo diuturniori memoriæ monumento relinqueret, apud omnes testatum se memorem fuisse acceptorum beneficiorum ab Henrico, atque nomen Anglicum amasse, donavit regi palatium magnificum quod ipse Romæ in Vaticano ædificaverat, ornavitque regis insignibus, ut in ea luce hominum aliquod egregium opus nomini Anglico dedicatum conspiceretur.[317]Item, iidem oratores detulerunt habitum Garterii ordinis Guidoni Duci Urbini, principi seculo nostro Latinæ Linguæ simul ac Græcæ ac militaris disciplinæ peritissimo, quem Rex paulo ante in Collegium ipsius Ordinis asciverat. Dux postea destinavit in Angliam Baldasarem Castilliorum, natione Mantuanum, equitem tam doctrinâ quam bellicâ virtute præstantem, ut suo nomine ejus Ordinis cerimonias exequeret. Fuit Baldaser ab Henrico perbenigne exceptus, atque comiter habitus; qui, finitis ceremoniis, non indonatus, postmodum ad suum Decem redivit."[318]
There is thus no authority for a statement in the printed version of this History, adopted by Hall, Baldi, and others, that the decoration was conferred in consequence of Guidobaldo's own wish to belong to an Order, of whose illustration he had become cognisant from its having been borne by his father. Perhaps the requests which conclude the letter of Henry VII. may give the most satisfactory key to the royal policy. Informed, as he no doubt was, of the state of affairs at the Papal court, he must have been aware that to conciliate the Duke was the wisest course for those who had favours to gain from the Pontiff. Be this as it may, the Garter was received by Guidobaldo at Rome in June, as became so singular an honour, and was proudly worn next St. George's day in compliance with the rules of the Order. Having resolved suitably so to acknowledge the dignity by a special envoy to London, he selected as his proctor Castiglione, the choicest spirit of his elegant court. The first we hear of this intention is from the Count's letter of 2nd March, 1505, confidently informing his mother that he would probably be sent to represent his master at his installation in England. The plan, however, remained long in abeyance. Castiglione spent the autumn at the baths of S. Casciano in Tuscany, for an old injury or wound in his foot, and, in the end of the year, went on a mission to Ferrara.[319]At length he set out, on the 24th of July, 1506, accompanied by Francesco di Battista di Ricece, and Giulio da Cagli, with their respective suites. Among the presents he was charged to deliver to the King were some falcons, three of the finest racers of the Urbino breed, and a precious little picture, by Raffaelle, of St. George as patron of the English Order, which we have already mentioned at p. 233. He was at Lyons in September, and this notice of his arrival at Dover is preserved by Anstis:—
"The 20th of Octobre, the twenty-second year of our soverain lord, King Henry VII., there landed at Dover a noble ambassadeur, sent from the Duc of Urbin, called Sir Balthasar de Castilione, whiche came to be installed in his lorde's name; whiche Duc had receyved before by the Abbot of Glastonbury and Sir Gilbert Talbott, being the King's commissionaris, the Garetier, &c., to the Ordre apperteyning. And, to mete with the said ambassadeur, was sent Sir Thomas Brandon, havyng a goodly companye with hym of his owne servants, all verely well horsed, unto the see-seyde; whiche, after they met togedre, kept contynnually compagnie with hym, and, when they approched nere to Deptford, ther met with the forsaid ambassadeur by the King's commandement, the Lord Thomas Dokara, lord of St. John's, and Thomas Writhesley, alias Gartier princypall king of Armes. Whiche lord of St. John's had in his compaignie thirty of his servaunts, all in a lyvery new, well horsed, every [one] of his gentlemen beryng a javelayn in his hand, and every yeman havying his bowe and a sheffe of arrowes, and soe convoyed hym to his lodging, and on the morrow unto London. And by the waye ther met with the said ambassadeur dyvers Italyens, as the Pope's Vicecollector, Paulus de Gygeles [Giliis], with dyvers [others]; and soe convoyed hym to the Pope's Vicecollector's hows, wher he was lodged."
Two days after Castiglione reached London he was sent for by the King, whose marked favour, whilst he stated the objects of his mission in an eloquent Latin address, is recorded in his own letters. The installation took place on the 10th of November, upon the following commission, printed by Ashmole:—
"Henry, by the grace of God, &c. Forasmuch as we understand that the right noble prince Gwe de Ubaldis, Duke of Urbin, who was heretofore elected to be one of the companions of the said noble Order, cannot conveniently repair into this our realm, personally to be installed in the collegiate church of that Order, and to perform other ceremonies whereunto by the statutes of the said Order he is bound, but for that intent and purpose hath sent a right honourable personage, Balthasar de Castilione, Knight, sufficiently authorised as his proctor, to be installed in his name, and to perform all other things for him, to the statutes and ordinances of the said Order requisite and appertaining. We, therefore, in consideration of the premises, will,and by these presents, give unto you licence, full power, and authority, not only to accept and admit the said Balthasar as proctor for the same Duke, and to receive his oath and instal him in the lieu and place and for the said Duke, but also farther, to do therein as to the statutes and laudable usages of the said Order it appertaineth; and this our writing shall be to you and every of you sufficient discharge in that behalf. Given under the seale of our said noble Order of the Garter, at our mannor of Grenewiche, the 7th day of November, the twenty-second year of our reign."
After the ceremonial was concluded, the Count visited the other knights in the name of his master. This installation by proxy has given rise to a confusion that he was himself honoured with the Garter, which Roscoe first exposed. It is probable, however, that he was knighted by Henry, a dignity he had vainly looked for at the hand of Julius II. before his departure; at all events he received from him, besides gifts of horses and dogs, a gold chain or collar of SS links, from which depended two portcullises and a golden rose with its centre of silver. This chain, long peculiar to English chief justices, is traced by Dugdale from the initials of Saint Simplicius, a primitive Christian judge and martyr; and the badge was adopted by that monarch as heir of the Plantagenets through both rival roses. The decoration, mistaken by Marliani for the collar of the Garter, was destined by the Count as an heirloom, and it accordingly surrounded his armorial coat in that dedication copy of his letter to Henry, narrating the life of Guidobaldo, which he described by Anstis. On the 9th of February, 1507, he was at Milan on his return to Urbino, where he arrived about the end of the month, charged with affectionate letters and messages from Henry, and with rich presents. His conversation, of all that he had seen in a country so imperfectly known, was greatly relished by the Duke, and his anecdotes of its court, its wealth, and its wonders long continued to enliven the palace-circle of Montefeltro.
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GIOVANNI SANZI’S MS. CHRONICLE OF FEDERIGO DUKE OF URBINO
CONSIDERING the importance of Sanzi's Rhyming Chronicle of Duke Federigo to the literary history of Urbino, and the almost total neglect in which it has hitherto lain, we shall here describe with some minuteness the only copy of it known to exist. It is a large and thick folio volume, No. 1305 of the Ottoboniana MSS. in the Vatican Library, written on paper in a firm Italian hand of the fifteenth century, expressly for the Duke Guidobaldo I., to whom it is dedicated. Some passages have been interpolated on the margin, and others are altered by pasting a new version over the cancelled lines, in a character slightly different from that of the text, of which, being probably autograph, afac-simileis given on the following page.[320]
Transcriber's Note: handwritten text; see footnote 320 above
[Enlarge]
The general title, supplied in a much later hand, runs thus:—"Historia della Guerra d'Italia nel tempo de' PP. Pio e Paolo II., del 1478, in versi di Gioṽ. Sati al Duca di Urbino"; but the Chronicle itself is thus headed, "Principio del opera composta da Giohanni Santi, pictore, nelaquale se contiene la vita e gesti de lo illustrissimo et invictissimo Principe Federico Feretrano, Duca di Urbino." A prose dedication occupies four pages, and is followed by a prologue of nine chapters in verse; the poem itself is divided into a hundred and four chapters, arranged intwenty-three books, the whole work consisting of about twenty-four thousand lines.[321]It may be not uninteresting to print the contents of these chapters, supplying the omitted titles of the two first.