"'Soldiers and Comrades, I have assembled you here, in order that you may fully learn my mind and intentions, and that I may know yours. I therefore acquaint you that I have arranged with your leaders, who have promised, and bound themselves by articles, to accompany me into my state of Urbino, and to re-establish me in my home, and to maintain me there during life, indifferent to pay or remuneration beyond such as I may be able to give,—I confiding to them my state and person, in reliance upon your good faith. I now wish to know if you are all agreed to follow me in this enterprise; and, should this be your pleasure, I desire from you an oath never to abandon me on any contingency that may occur, and that, in case of being forced to quit me by the pressure of events without completing our undertaking, you will oblige yourselves to return to this place as a rendezvous, and, further, that you shall not desert me for any offers or bribes of the enemy. Avowing to you at the same time that, at this moment, I have not above a ducat a-piece to give you, I nevertheless feel confident our gains will be great, unless fortune be more than adverse; and I promise that all the booty will be yours, and that I shall be your comrade, never sparing my life while it lasts. If you accept these my terms, you must all swear to observe them; otherwise I shall not move from this territory of my brother-in-law.' Whereupon they all, with extended hands, took an oath never to abandon himduring life; and so they set forth in the name of God, on the 17th of January, led by Federigo di Bozzolo."
"'Soldiers and Comrades, I have assembled you here, in order that you may fully learn my mind and intentions, and that I may know yours. I therefore acquaint you that I have arranged with your leaders, who have promised, and bound themselves by articles, to accompany me into my state of Urbino, and to re-establish me in my home, and to maintain me there during life, indifferent to pay or remuneration beyond such as I may be able to give,—I confiding to them my state and person, in reliance upon your good faith. I now wish to know if you are all agreed to follow me in this enterprise; and, should this be your pleasure, I desire from you an oath never to abandon me on any contingency that may occur, and that, in case of being forced to quit me by the pressure of events without completing our undertaking, you will oblige yourselves to return to this place as a rendezvous, and, further, that you shall not desert me for any offers or bribes of the enemy. Avowing to you at the same time that, at this moment, I have not above a ducat a-piece to give you, I nevertheless feel confident our gains will be great, unless fortune be more than adverse; and I promise that all the booty will be yours, and that I shall be your comrade, never sparing my life while it lasts. If you accept these my terms, you must all swear to observe them; otherwise I shall not move from this territory of my brother-in-law.' Whereupon they all, with extended hands, took an oath never to abandon himduring life; and so they set forth in the name of God, on the 17th of January, led by Federigo di Bozzolo."
The Pontiff was taken at unawares, for, believing his enemy utterly crushed, he made light of such warnings as had reached him of a contemplated movement against the duchy; but now that the expedition was matured, he knew well the slight hold which the usurper had upon the affections of his nominal subjects. Nor was he more at ease as to the inclinations of his new allies in Lombardy, whose stipendiaries had thus suddenly turned their arms against him. His anxiety was in no way diminished by the representations of his confidential friend Bibbiena, who, actuated perhaps by some lurking kindness for the house of Urbino, urged him to abandon the Borgian policy he had in hand, until such persuasions were silenced by the threatened poignard of Lorenzo. Ere effectual precautions could be adopted in Romagna, Francesco Maria had rallied round him eight thousand infantry and fifteen hundred horse, most of them veterans, and with these he marched about the middle of January. Passing Rimini, where his rival lay "sorely perplexed and bewildered" (to use the phrase of Minio, the Venetian envoy), he advanced under every discouragement of an inclement season, his men wading through snow to the middle, and swimming frequent-swollen torrents. From the secrecy of his preparations and the poverty of his resources, his commissariat was altogether inadequate; but, on reaching his frontier, the refusal of Gradara to submit afforded his men an excuse for compensating their privations by its sack.
His subjects had been prepared by emissaries for a general revolt. On the 1st of February, Count Carlo Gabrielli raised the cry of "Feltro! Feltro!" at Gubbio, and it was enthusiastically responded to through the smaller towns. On the 5th, the Duke was within a few miles of Urbino, then held by Bishop Vitelli, with agarrison of two thousand men, who, distrusting the inhabitants, summoned their militia to muster at S. Bernardino, and closed the gates as soon as the city had thus been cleared of its able-bodied men, refusing to readmit them on pain of instant death. The excluded citizens vented their indignation at this trick, in threats and abuse of the garrison from under the very walls, which at length provoked a sortie of four hundred infantry in order to disperse them. At this juncture, a squadron of one hundred cavalry, sent on by Francesco Maria under Benedetto Giraldi of Mondolfo, for the purpose of supporting the expected rising in his favour, arrived three miles below Urbino, and, whilst breathing their horses, heard that the enemy were abroad. Benedetto immediately left his little force in charge of his brother Annibale, and rode on with but five officers to reconnoitre. The adventure which followed, equally worthy of a bold knight-errant and a Christian soldier, must be told as in the Dialogue of his nephew Tranquillo. "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. His weapon having broken, he performed prodigies with his sword, and, aided by his followers, who had not shrunk from his summons, the enemy's leaders were slain, and their whole battalion dispersed in panic through the fields, where most of them were put to death by the excluded townsfolk, who had mustered at the first alarm. I, too, came up with our squadron, in time to cut off a good many of them; but I had little cause to congratulatemyself upon that success, for, passing near my brother [Benedetto], he said to me, 'Annibale, I am killed.' Whereupon, looking towards him, I observed a cut in his face, and told him to fear nothing, as face wounds were not mortal; but he replied, 'It's worse than that, for I am run through the body by a pike.' At these words my heart seemed riven asunder; yet, in order not to alarm him, I desired him to cheer up, and commend himself to God Almighty, and to the most glorious Mother of the Saviour, and to vow his armour and horse to Loreto, adding that I too would offer a housing worth twenty-five ducats. 'I am content,' answered he, 'to give this horse, a gallant Turkish charger bestowed upon me by the Marquis of Mantua, along with these arms; but I have only one favour to ask of the Saviour of mankind, which is, that he will permit me to live long enough to confess myself.' As he said this an Observantine friar, who had on former occasions confessed him, came up, and, after thanking God for having heard his prayer, he summoned the monk, and returning to Cavallino confessed himself. There being no surgeon at hand, a gentleman of Mantua named Stigino cleansed the wound by suction, and ascertained that the bowels were not pierced, which afforded me much hope. I sent for many surgeons. The first that arrived was Maccione of Fossombrone, who dressed the wound with charmed bandages, a thing that much displeased my brother; and for conscience-sake he refused to be doctored in that way, until persuaded by a friar, who assured him there was no sin, seeing that there had been no diabolical incantation used; and, being told of numerous miracles effected by these cloths, he submitted to them, and ere long was restored to health."
The sally-party from the garrison having been repulsed by Giraldi's squadron, aided by a considerable force from Gubbio, Fossombrone, and Sinigaglia, which just then most opportunely appeared, they found little safety byreturning to quarters. The citizens still within the walls rushed to arms, even the women and children showered missiles on the retreating soldiery, and the Bishop, dispirited by the disaster, capitulated next day. But being seized with a panic, his garrison withdrew ere their safe-conduct was signed, and were beset by the infuriated troops and inhabitants, who attacked them on every side with arms, bludgeons, and stones, slaying or capturing them to a man. The Duke thus entered his capital, and was welcomed with demonstrations of joy, only equalled by those which, fourteen years before, had hailed his uncle's return in similar circumstances.
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; their head-quarters were at Montebaroccio, a very strong position midway between the upper part of the duchy, which acknowledged its legitimate sovereign, and the cities of Pesaro, Fano, and Sinigaglia, which were garrisoned by the ecclesiastical troops.
Meanwhile the Pope, trusting to time more than the sword for ridding him of an enemy destitute of all resources, had directed his nephew to leave them an open field, until his preparations for their destruction should be complete. He hastily called upon the Emperor and the Kings of France and Spain for assistance, whilst Lorenzo was mustering the ecclesiastical and Florentine militia, under Guido Rangone of Modena, Renzo da Ceri, andVitello Vitelli. No expense was spared from the papal treasury to raise an overwhelming force, and Lorenzo borrowed 50,000 golden florins from his fellow-citizens. Charles contributed four hundred Neapolitan lances, and Francis promised three hundred more, on condition of the surrender by Leo of Modena to his ally the Duke of Ferrara. By these means was levied an army of fifteen to eighteen thousand infantry, a thousand men-at-arms, and at least as many light cavalry, with fourteen pieces of artillery.
The Lord of Urbino appears to have looked without reason for reinforcements from Venice,[*270]but Minio mentions that his army now consisted of twelve thousand foot, and that he had received a money subsidy from an unknown quarter, probably his father-in-law, the Marquis of Mantua. Yet his position was in all respects critical. In an enterprise depending on prompt success, each hour lost was the enemy's gain. His present life of bootless and bootyless inaction disgusted his Spaniards, who not only murmured, but, unmindful of their vow of service, began to desert to the ecclesiastical camp, attracted by superior pay. Worst of all, the enthusiasm that had enabled Guidobaldo to win back his state for a brief interval, now languished in the cause of his nephew, whose coup-de-main had failed, and whose resources were inadequate to a prolonged struggle, the burden whereof must fall upon his loyal subjects. In these circumstances, he resorted to an expedient which relieved the dull incidents of a petty campaign by one of a novel and romantic character. Hoping to bring the war to a speedy issue, he sent Suares de Lione, a Spanish officer, and his own Secretary, Orazio Florido, with the following instructions, and message to his adversary:—
"As it is creditable to a prince warring for any cause, to endeavour that his object should be effected with the leastbloodshed and injury to the country, especially if it be his intention to become its sovereign, and as I conceive that the Lord Lorenzo must share in this sentiment, I have devised an expedient most convenient to both of us. For if he desire the acquisition of this state as ardently as appears from the late and present campaign, he will be delighted to satisfy that longing promptly, and without further burden to its inhabitants, by putting to the test his own bravery and that of his troops. I therefore empower you, Captain Suares and Orazio, to challenge him forthwith to combat in any place he likes; four thousand men against four thousand, or three, two, or one thousand, or five hundred, or one hundred, or twenty, or four, or any smaller number he may choose, provided he and I are included,—all to be on foot, with the usual arms of infantry; or lastly, if he will fight me alone with the readiest arms, so much the better, that thus, by the death or imprisonment of one of us, the victor may obtain the most satisfactory solution of his wishes, and relieve the lingering suspense of not a few."Relying on the courage of his Lordship, and many about him of not less honourable pretensions, that these so reasonable proposals will be received with pleasure, I shall await your return, promptly to prepare for whatever alternative he may accede to. I limit the answer to three days; adding that, if he prefer fighting in considerable numbers, he may do so with three hundred picked men of the light cavalry, armed with lance, sword poignard, and mace. Or, if none of the aforesaid conditions please him, which I cannot believe possible, remember to offer that, if he will engage with these three hundred light horse, and all my infantry, he may have the advantage of five hundred or a thousand foot beyond what I can bring into the field, equally armed. And the present memorandum you will deliver into his Lordship's hands."[271]
"As it is creditable to a prince warring for any cause, to endeavour that his object should be effected with the leastbloodshed and injury to the country, especially if it be his intention to become its sovereign, and as I conceive that the Lord Lorenzo must share in this sentiment, I have devised an expedient most convenient to both of us. For if he desire the acquisition of this state as ardently as appears from the late and present campaign, he will be delighted to satisfy that longing promptly, and without further burden to its inhabitants, by putting to the test his own bravery and that of his troops. I therefore empower you, Captain Suares and Orazio, to challenge him forthwith to combat in any place he likes; four thousand men against four thousand, or three, two, or one thousand, or five hundred, or one hundred, or twenty, or four, or any smaller number he may choose, provided he and I are included,—all to be on foot, with the usual arms of infantry; or lastly, if he will fight me alone with the readiest arms, so much the better, that thus, by the death or imprisonment of one of us, the victor may obtain the most satisfactory solution of his wishes, and relieve the lingering suspense of not a few.
"Relying on the courage of his Lordship, and many about him of not less honourable pretensions, that these so reasonable proposals will be received with pleasure, I shall await your return, promptly to prepare for whatever alternative he may accede to. I limit the answer to three days; adding that, if he prefer fighting in considerable numbers, he may do so with three hundred picked men of the light cavalry, armed with lance, sword poignard, and mace. Or, if none of the aforesaid conditions please him, which I cannot believe possible, remember to offer that, if he will engage with these three hundred light horse, and all my infantry, he may have the advantage of five hundred or a thousand foot beyond what I can bring into the field, equally armed. And the present memorandum you will deliver into his Lordship's hands."[271]
This step, natural to a gallant soldier of almost desperate fortunes, with neither means nor inducement for a prolonged struggle, could have no recommendation for his opponent, now at the head of an overwhelming force, backed by the papal treasury and the united arms of most European powers. Lorenzo felt nettled at a proposal which it would have been folly to accept, but which could scarcely be declined without incurring a slur; and, after answering that he could entertain no such cartel until his challenger had evacuated those places which he had forcibly seized, his temper showed itself by arresting its bearers, notwithstanding their safe-conduct. The Spaniard was speedily released; but the secretary was sent to Volterra or Rome, to be disposed of by the Pope, where, with revolting treachery and meanness, he was subjected to imprisonment and torture, in the hope of drawing from him the secrets of his master, whose vigorous resistance Leo strongly suspected to be backed by the French monarch.
The war was now carried on by manœuvres and skirmishes, which have no interest beyond the light they throw on the spirit of this unequal contest. Among the reinforcements that flocked to the papal standard was an undisciplined band which crossed the Apennines from Tuscany, carrying fire and sword through the highlands of Montefeltro. The Duke was unable to leave the low country exposed by marching in person to the relief of his faithful mountaineers, but sent into these defiles a squadron of light horse, who, falling upon the rabble at unawares, amply avenged their excesses. On the 25th of March, the inhabitants of Montebaroccio, having voluntarily admitted a body of papal troops, were visited by severe retribution as a warning to others; the place was sacked and burned by the Spaniards, seven hundred men and fifty old women being put to the sword,—a repulsive comment upon the Duke's boast, that though the walls of his towns were held for others, the hearts they containedwere all his own. These partial successes turned the tide of feeling somewhat more favourably for the della Rovere cause, and we learn from the Minio despatches, that the war, unpopular at Rome from the first, now occasioned great anxiety to the government, from the difficulty in raising funds to continue it. The Pope retired frequently to his villa at La Magliana, less from the love of field sports, than to indulge his chagrin.[*272]Such were his straits for money, that he deposited jewels in pawn with the Cardinal Riario, for a loan of 7000 ducats. This sum, with 5000 more, having been despatched to Pesaro in a convoy of waggons, was captured by the Duke, and along with it were found certain letters, written in name of his Holiness, advising Lorenzo, in the event of any suspicion attaching to the Gascons in his service, either to ship them at once for Lombardy, or to have them summarily massacred. These missives, having been circulated in the ecclesiastical camp, occasioned a prodigious ferment, and it was with the utmost difficulty that Lorenzo, by denying their authenticity, induced the French troops to remain under his command, until an opportunity offered of conciliating them by the plunder of Sta. Costanza.
After many complicated movements in the lower valley of the Metauro, attended with no decided advantage, and important only as having enabled the youthful Giovanni de' Medici to flesh that sword which soon after won him the laurels of a bright but brief career, the papal army sat down before Mondolfo. The resistance of that small town was encouraged by the state of the besiegers, and embittered by their savage reputation. The Minio despatches of this date represent them as suffering from a scarcity of provisions and a dearth of bread and wine, adding that "the captured castles envy the dead, by reasonof the cruelties practised on the survivors." Its garrison consisted of two hundred Spaniards and three hundred militia, so determinedly supported by the inhabitants, that breaches opened during the day were made up before morning, mines were met by counter-excavations, and subterranean galleries were often scenes of death-struggles. Provoked by this obstinacy, Lorenzo swore never to raise the siege until he had razed the place to its foundations, put the males to the sword, and handed over the women to the Devil's service. But in the end of March, a few days after he had uttered this savage bravado, his own career was arrested. Whilst, with more bravery than prudence, he served a battery in the dress of a common soldier, a Spaniard, to whom his person was known, marked him from the walls, and shot him as he leaned upon a cannon to take aim. The ball took effect above the left ear; and the wound extended down his neck to the shoulder.[273]He was removed to Ancona, and for above a week continued in extreme danger, refusing to be trepanned; but by the end of the month his convalescence was complete.
The Pontiff "evinced extreme grief" at so untoward an accession to the mishaps of this ill-advised and unlucky campaign. It had hitherto been conducted by Renzo da Ceri and Vitellozzo Vitelli, who were supposed to thwart the usurper from an apprehension that he might become another Cesare Borgia. The Cardinal de' Medici, however, attributed these successive miscarriages to the incapacity of Renzi, and seriously complained to the Venetian envoy that, in consequence of his reputation in the Signory's service, "we engaged him for this undertaking, and don't perceive that he has effected anything. 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.
Neither the dissatisfaction of his subjects nor the coldness of his allies inclined Leo to abandon an enterprise which exhausted his resources and bathed Italy in civil blood. Thundering forth a new and more severe excommunication against Francesco Maria and his abettors, he, on the 30th of March, despatched a cardinal legate to the camp, under whose command things went from bad to worse. The defence of Mondolfo was protracted with extraordinary resolution. Even after a large space of wall had been thrown down by two mines, the besiegers were kept at bay during ten hours of hard fighting, whilst the women supplied missiles and coppers of boiling water, and the priests, waving aloft their crucifixes, mingled absolution of the dying with prayers for the survivors. This vain struggle against fearful odds ended in an ill-observed capitulation, in defiance of which the town was sacked and set on fire. Two incidents may illustrate the undisciplined state of the troops. Before entering the place, two Spanish and a Ferrarese soldier agreed to share equally their respective booty. Whilst the Italian fought, his comrades were plundering, and eventually refused to divide the spoil according to stipulation, an evasion in which they were backed by their countrymen. The Ferrarese, with permission of his officers, challenged his faithless partners, and a ring, or rather square, having been cleared, by tying together eight pikes, he sprang into it,armed but with sword and half-shield, offering to fight them both at once, a proposal which they prudently evaded by surrendering a just portion of their plunder. After the town had capitulated, "a wrangle arose between an Italian and a German about a flagon of wine, the former raising the shout of 'Italy! Italy!' the latter responding 'Germany! Germany!' Whereupon the infantry came to blows, and many were killed on either side; and when, at the peril of his life, the right reverend Cardinal had well nigh quelled the fray, an Italian struck a German captain on the head with his musket and killed him. This made the fight rage fiercer than ever, and the Spaniards having sided with the Germans, the Italians were routed, and all their quarters pillaged, including those of Signor Troilo Savello. The army remains divided and dispersed; most of the Italians are departed, whilst the infantry have betaken themselves towards Fano, and continue thus separated." It is curious to detect in these and similar incidents[274]an undercurrent of national feeling, during that dreary age when the Peninsula was torn into sections by communal policy and dynastic ambition. Had that cry ofItalia! Italia!been then raised by her leading spirits, with earnest good faith, apart from individual ends, how different had been her after fate and present attitude!
The legate, who thus, with difficulty and personal danger, averted a general massacre, was the Cardinal Bibbiena, not de' Medici, as accidentally misstated by Roscoe. After long employing his diplomatic talents against his former friend, the Lord of Urbino, he now compassed his final ruin by exertions of the camp, for which he was less qualified. The mutinousmêléewhich he had witnessed prepared him for the discovery, that moneys raised by extraordinary exertions were ill-spent upon an army "thrice as numerous on pay-day as in action." It was, therefore,to the commissariat and finance that his chief attention was given; but, warned by the recent explosion of national antipathies, he separated the quarrelsome soldiery in various cantonments around Pesaro. The Italians garrisoned the city and Rimini, the Spaniards were encamped on the adjoining Monte Bartolo, the Germans lay on the middle of that hill around the Imperiale palace, the Corsi (Dalmatians) occupied the foot of it, and the Gascons bivouacked on the adjacent plain. The last of these were in very bad repute at Rome; and finding themselves kept for several weeks in that exposed situation, many deserted to the della Rovere camp at Ginestreto, near Montebaroccio. After letting slip an apparently favourable opportunity for striking a blow at these disorganised troops, Francesco Maria subsequently did so by a surprise, which we shall narrate in his own words, addressed next morning to the Duchess.
"To the most illustrious Lady, my Consort, my lady Eleonora di Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, &c."Most illustrious Lady, my Consort,"Since the enemy took the field I have often wished to come to action, and have used my ingenuity for this object, little heeding their superiority to my brave band, both in men-at-arms and in infantry, but all to no purpose. At length, finding that his Reverence the Legate, Renzo di Ceri, Vitelli, and their other principal leaders had retired into Pesaro, with a host of men-at-arms, whilst about three thousand foot, with the light horse and the Gascon wings, lay on the road to Fano, the Spanish lansquenets and the Corsi, to the number of at least six thousand, being quartered in the Imperiale, there seemed a chance of having at them. Accordingly, at half-past eleven o'clock last night, on ascertaining their position, and the most effective mode of attacking it, I advanced at the head of my infantry and a detachment of cavalry. After passing the Foglia, I sentthe latter to a certain spot in the plain, and, leading the rest by the hill-side to the summit of the Imperiale, I charged the enemy about two hours after daybreak, and, by God's grace and the gallantry of my men, routed them ere they could form, killing, and taking many. So sudden and vigorous was our onset over the rocks on the seashore, that they were unable to gain their houses; and, as we drove them with great loss over the hill, they were intercepted below by my cavalry, so that between the two few escaped. Some of the officers made their way into the church of S. Bartolo, and into the palace of the Imperiale, where they attempted to fortify themselves, but with a few of my people I soon captured them all. We followed the fugitives with great slaughter to the very gates of Pesaro, the garrison of which, at least five thousand strong, would neither support nor admit them, whilst the Gascons, though witnessing the rout and drawn up in battle array, equally withheld succour. Thus, without loss, we remained masters of their camp, their colours, many prisoners, and all their officers but two who were killed; and I, having taken up my quarters here, hasten to inform your Excellency of these particulars."But I must not omit to tell your Ladyship how, three days since, as Signor Troilo Savello, on his march from Rome with fifteen hundred foot and some horse, was avoiding the outpost at Sassoferrato, and attacking my castle of Sta. Abonda, he was routed and rifled by a couple of hundred infantry and a few cavalry from my garrison at Pergola, and scarcely escaped being himself taken. In Montefeltro, too, several incursions of the Florentines have been repulsed; and between Massa and Lamole seven hundred of them, who had taken post on a hill and in a very strong pass, were well beaten and driven out of it by a hundred of my people."I wished to give your Ladyship all these particulars, that you may share with me the encouragement they affordus. The favour which God has this morning vouchsafed us, and for which our gratitude is due, gives me hope that the justice of my cause will be daily advanced by new successes; and so to your Ladyship do I commend myself: from my joyous camp near Genestreto, 6 May, 1517."Consors,Franciscus Maria Dux Urbini, &c.ac Alme Urbis Prefectus."[275]
"To the most illustrious Lady, my Consort, my lady Eleonora di Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, &c.
"Most illustrious Lady, my Consort,
"Since the enemy took the field I have often wished to come to action, and have used my ingenuity for this object, little heeding their superiority to my brave band, both in men-at-arms and in infantry, but all to no purpose. At length, finding that his Reverence the Legate, Renzo di Ceri, Vitelli, and their other principal leaders had retired into Pesaro, with a host of men-at-arms, whilst about three thousand foot, with the light horse and the Gascon wings, lay on the road to Fano, the Spanish lansquenets and the Corsi, to the number of at least six thousand, being quartered in the Imperiale, there seemed a chance of having at them. Accordingly, at half-past eleven o'clock last night, on ascertaining their position, and the most effective mode of attacking it, I advanced at the head of my infantry and a detachment of cavalry. After passing the Foglia, I sentthe latter to a certain spot in the plain, and, leading the rest by the hill-side to the summit of the Imperiale, I charged the enemy about two hours after daybreak, and, by God's grace and the gallantry of my men, routed them ere they could form, killing, and taking many. So sudden and vigorous was our onset over the rocks on the seashore, that they were unable to gain their houses; and, as we drove them with great loss over the hill, they were intercepted below by my cavalry, so that between the two few escaped. Some of the officers made their way into the church of S. Bartolo, and into the palace of the Imperiale, where they attempted to fortify themselves, but with a few of my people I soon captured them all. We followed the fugitives with great slaughter to the very gates of Pesaro, the garrison of which, at least five thousand strong, would neither support nor admit them, whilst the Gascons, though witnessing the rout and drawn up in battle array, equally withheld succour. Thus, without loss, we remained masters of their camp, their colours, many prisoners, and all their officers but two who were killed; and I, having taken up my quarters here, hasten to inform your Excellency of these particulars.
"But I must not omit to tell your Ladyship how, three days since, as Signor Troilo Savello, on his march from Rome with fifteen hundred foot and some horse, was avoiding the outpost at Sassoferrato, and attacking my castle of Sta. Abonda, he was routed and rifled by a couple of hundred infantry and a few cavalry from my garrison at Pergola, and scarcely escaped being himself taken. In Montefeltro, too, several incursions of the Florentines have been repulsed; and between Massa and Lamole seven hundred of them, who had taken post on a hill and in a very strong pass, were well beaten and driven out of it by a hundred of my people.
"I wished to give your Ladyship all these particulars, that you may share with me the encouragement they affordus. The favour which God has this morning vouchsafed us, and for which our gratitude is due, gives me hope that the justice of my cause will be daily advanced by new successes; and so to your Ladyship do I commend myself: from my joyous camp near Genestreto, 6 May, 1517.
"Consors,Franciscus Maria Dux Urbini, &c.ac Alme Urbis Prefectus."[275]
To this spirited despatch little remains to be added. The assailants ascended from the Rimini side, leaving below a strong body of horse to cut off the fugitives. The troops being discouraged by the absence of Maldonato's Spaniards, who had straggled behind, and by the late hour at which, owing to blunders of their guides, they reached the mountain, the Duke encouraged them with assurances that the chances of success were greatest after daybreak, as the sentinels would be less on the alert; and for an omen of victory, and a badge to distinguish them from the enemy, he desired them to twine oak twigs, emblematic of his name, round their headgear. He led their file in person; and after a complete victory was left with eight hundred prisoners on his hands, besides the entire camp equipage and much booty. Next day the Gascons, who had not shared in the rout, came over in a body to Francesco Maria, headed by Monsieur d'Ambras, who returned to the court of Francis I., after publicly declaring that he would no longer permit his men to be sacrificed by officers that could neither protect them nor annoy their enemy, but would leave them under a prince whose tactics and discipline were a pattern even to his foes. This secession did not, however, prevent his master bolstering up the papal policy by loans of 100,000 livres Tournois to Lorenzo, and half that sum to the Pontiff, a course condemned by Sismondi in his French history.
Continuation of the ruinous contest—The Duke finally abandons it—Death of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Charles V. elected Emperor.
Continuation of the ruinous contest—The Duke finally abandons it—Death of Lorenzo de’ Medici—Charles V. elected Emperor.
ABOUT this time a serious conspiracy against Leo was discovered. The prime mover in it was Alfonso Petrucci, Cardinal of Siena, whose property having been confiscated, and his family ruined by the Pontiff, he burned for revenge, and induced one Battista, a famous surgeon of Vercelli, along with the Pope's valet, to enter into his views. Leo being ill of fistula, it was arranged that Battista, who had procured recommendations as a skilful operator, should introduce poison into the dressings. The plot was revealed in time, and the Pontiff used every art, with promises of reconciliation and renewed favour, to entice the principal culprit to Rome. Having with difficulty effected this, he imprisoned him, along with his brother-cardinals Raffaello Riario and Bandinello Bishop of Sauli, along with the captain of the Sienese troops. Cardinal Alfonso was secretly put to death; the surgeon and the valet were publicly hanged and quartered; Sauli, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, was liberated but to die; while Riario, after purchasing at a high rate restoration to his escheated dignities, spent the brief remainder of his life in voluntary exile. Cardinals Soderini and Adriano of Corneto (the latter of whom held the sees of Hereford and Bath, and was papal collector in England), having confessed in open consistory their privacy to the plot, escaped from Rome. The former was saved by chancing to rideout to the chase on a mule, instead of going as usual in his litter, which followed at some distance, and was seized by the guard in consequence of his scarlet robe being left in it, whilst the culprit, in a simple chaplain's dress, fled to the Colonna strongholds. A mystery which hung over the fate of Adriano has been partially cleared up by my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown from the Sanuto Diaries, wherein it appears that he safely reached Venice through Calabria, and that the occasion of his unaccountable disappearance was a journey to the conclave on Leo's death, not his flight from Rome in the present year, as stated by Guicciardini, Valeriano, and Roscoe.[276]
Thus baffled in the field, and betrayed in the consistory, Leo found a great effort necessary. On the 20th of June he wrote a letter to Henry VIII., which has been published by Rymer, representing, in vague generalities, and abusive terms, the outrages committed against the dignity and temporal dominion of the Church by relentless robbers and adversaries, and enjoining him to contribute assistance, in the way to be orally explained by the bearer, a predicant friar named Nicholas.[277]He also made renewed instances with his other allies for more efficient aid against his contumacious vassal in Umbria, and sent to levy six thousand Swiss. In order to raise money for these new expenses, he, on the 26th of June, created thirty-one cardinals, thus at once filling his treasury with the price of their hats, and surrounding himself by chosen adherents. Nor did he omit still more profligate expedients. He had repeatedly profited by Maldonato's perfidy in the Urbino war, and now offered him 10,000 ducats, with the dignityof cardinal to his son, if he would deliver up Francesco Maria alive or dead.[278]
After the affair at Imperiale, the Papal troops keeping close in their garrisons, Francesco Maria had recourse to a partisan warfare of sallies and surprises, which greatly harassed them, but did not give sufficient employment to his own somewhat unmanageable levies. He had now ascertained from intercepted letters the full extent of Maldonato's treason; but, ere he ventured upon making an example, he thought it well to put his troops into good humour by a foraging expedition, which should also free his own state from their burdensome presence. Gian Paolo Baglioni, Lord of Perugia, had, during the whole campaign, been in the field against the Duke with three thousand men, and his relation and rival Carlo, exiled by his intrigues from that city, besought Francesco Maria's aid for his re-establishment. No proposal could have been more opportune, and the Duke drew all his forces towards the vale of Tiber.
But his army, disorganised by the intrigues of Maldonato and one Suares (not the bearer of his cartel), broke out into tumult at Cantiano, clamouring for pay or pillage, and both of these officers, heading the mutiny, insulted and threatened their general. In this predicament, his adherents quickly collected from the neighbouring villages some money, church plate, and other valuables, which brought the refractory troops into better humour; and the opportune news of considerable booty having been obtained beyond the frontier, by the advanced guard of Gascons, induced them to move upon the Pianello di Perugia. The Spanish troops whom the Duke had brought from Lombardy consisted of two battalions, that of San Marco under Maldonato, and that of Verona under Alverado. The disaffection was confined to a portion of the former, and had for some time been detected throughintercepted correspondence of their officers. On the march through the Apennines, Francesco Maria gradually prepared their comrades of Verona for the vengeance he had in store for the traitors. When all was ready, he halted on a small plain, and, whilst the surrounding defiles were being occupied by his staunchest adherents, he formed the Spaniards into a square, with their officers in the middle, whom he thus addressed: "Gentlemen and Captains! You are aware how I entered this country under your protection, and how, in committing myself into your hands, on your promise never in life or in death to abandon me, I relied upon your long-established reputation that you never had betrayed any of your leaders. I now, however, find that some among you seek miserably to sell me, and so for ever stain your honourable name; and this I presently shall prove, if you think fit, with the double object of saving myself from assassination and you from disgrace, but on condition that you shall at once take such steps as you deem best adapted to rescue me from pressing peril, and yourselves from lasting contumely." This harangue, falling upon well tutored ears, was answered by shouts of "Death to the traitors! reveal them at once!" Proofs were then read that Maldonato had engaged to slaughter the Duke and Federigo del Bozzolo, for the bribe of a life-pension to himself of 600 ducats, an episcopal see to his son, and double pay during the whole campaign to his troops. There is said to be a standard of honour among thieves; that of the Spaniards was piqued by this melodramatic impeachment of their truth, and the opportune discovery of further treasonable documents in the baggage of Maldonato's mistress exasperated them to fury. That craven captain threw himself at the feet of Francesco Maria, whom he had recently insulted, and prayed for mercy; but the latter withdrew from the square, saying that he left the affair to the soldiery. A cry then arose, "Let the faithful officers come out!" They did so, leavingeight whose names had been denounced, and who were instantly massacred by the troops. Thus was the army saved from destruction by the coolness and decision of its leader, and the companies of San Marco and Verona, purged from the imputation of perfidy, were from that day embodied in a single battalion.
Having so happily scotched the vipers that endangered his safety, the Duke of Urbino made his descent upon Perugia. After a short siege, during which he extended his forays as far as Spoleto and Orvieto, spreading alarm to the gates of Rome, that city capitulated on the 26th of May, receiving Carlo Baglioni as its master, and paying a ransom of 10,000 scudi, which Vermiglioli, the biographer of Gian Paolo, alleges the latter, with the bad faith usual in that age, to have shared, although the money had been raised from his own adherents. The same authority now estimates the Duke's army at twelve thousand men, with which it was his intention to make a diversion into the Florentine territory. But hearing that the Legate had taken the field, he hurried back across the Apennines, though too late to save Fossombrone and La Pergola. His wish of engaging the enemy having been foiled by their retreat into Pesaro, he had recourse to his former tactics of removing the seat of war from his own state, and turned his arms against the more wealthy towns of the Marca. Many of these, including Fabriano, Ancona, and Recanati, compounded for exemption from military violence, by paying seven or eight thousand ducats each. Corinaldo was saved by a well-timed sally, but Jesi, contrary to the wish of Francesco Maria, was sacked by his Spaniards, to whom his orderly and methodical way of laying the country under contributions, and pillaging only the refractory, was far from acceptable.
The lesson he had given to these free lances appears for a time to have borne fruit, and the following report by Minio, of a conversation with the Pontiff, affords honourable testimony to their steadiness, whilst it exhibits very graphically the character of the contest at this juncture. "I afterwards inquired of his Holiness if he had any news? He told me Francesco Maria was encamped under a castle named Corinaldo, situated in the Marca, and that infantry had been detached from his Holiness's army for its defence, so he hoped not to be disappointed; a trust wherein I think the Pontiff will be deceived, as he was regarding the other places. I said to him, 'It is a good sign, his inability to make any further progress, and merely laying siege to a few inconsiderable castles;' and to this his Holiness rejoined, 'He does it to raise money, as he did by the other places.' He then told me that Don Ugo de Moncada had been with the Spaniards, but was unable to make any settlement; adding, with an air of surprise, 'I was willing to give them three arrears of pay, yet they did not choose to come away, but despatched a friar to say that should I undertake an expedition against the infidels, they are willing to accept this offer, and serve.' I answered, that if so, they were willing to fight against the infidels on the same terms for which they now served Francesco Maria against the Holy See! The Pope evinced little hope of an agreement with these Spaniards. On my observing, 'The Viceroy [Don Ugo] has quitted Naples, we know not wherefore, unless it be to come to your Holiness's assistance,' he replied, 'They do say they are coming to aid me;' and then continued, with a smile on his lips, 'See what a mess this is! The French suspect these Spaniards of playing them some trick, and the Spaniards fear lest the French, through Francesco Maria, should attack them in the kingdom of Naples.' In order to elicit something more, I said that I deemed it mere suspicion on either side; and he replied, 'It is so.' I next asked how his Holiness stood with the Swiss? and he answered, 'We shall have the Grisons, but the Cantons have not yet decided, though they were to do so in a diet; at all events,I shall have some, and I have sent them the pensions they required of me.'" On the 14th of July, two days after this despatch, Minio reports that Don Ugo had been dismissed by the Spanish troops, drawn up in three fine battalions, with the following reply: "That they did not intend to desert Francesco Maria, unless war were waged [by him] against their most Catholic King, or some attempt made to occupy the kingdom of Naples, or unless his Holiness shall commence hostilities against his most Christian Majesty; in any other event they meant to keep their faith to Francesco Maria, and would in no respect fail him."
From various passages in the same envoy's despatches, it is clear that these jealousies, though here ridiculed by Leo, were shared by himself in a high degree: his own policy being generally hollow and Machiavellian, he looked for no longer measure of good faith from his allies. Ever since interest had been made at Bologna by Francis I. in behalf of the Duke of Urbino, the Pontiff regarded him as at heart adverse to all nepotic schemes upon that principality; and, at this particular juncture, suspicion was strengthened by a variety of circumstances, singly of little moment. Among these, were the retention by his Holiness of Modena and Reggio; the apparent slight of passing, in the late wholesale distribution of cardinal's hats, over Ludovico Canossa, who, while legate in France, had gained the King's affections, more perhaps than was approved at the Vatican; the dilatory advance of those French lances long since promised to Lorenzo de' Medici; but most of all the adherence to the della Rovere banner of the Gascons, who owed at least a nominal allegiance to the French crown. Influenced by these doubts, and the apparently interminable expenses of this miserable and mismanaged contest, the Pope so far lost heart, about the end of July, as to hint at an accommodation.
The Duke of Urbino's next move was to repeat atFermo his Perugian policy of restoring an exiled faction, by expelling Ludovico Freducci, then head of the government, who after a gallant struggle suffered a complete rout, with the loss of six hundred slain. The Duke then directed his march upon Ascoli, but was recalled by learning the approach of two thousand Swiss to reinforce the papal troops. Hurrying to intercept them, he by forced marches suddenly appeared near Rimini, where he found that, simultaneously with their arrival, M. de l'Escu had at length brought up his three hundred French gens-d'-arms, with instructions from Francis to arrange, if possible, some issue to this unhappy war. Nor was the Legate disinclined to the proposal, for the Pontiff had been playing a ruinous game, which disgusted his allies, alienated his subjects, and drained his treasury.
An interview was, therefore, held at the monastery of La Colonella, between the Duke, Cardinal Bibbiena, and the French captain. A guarantee of 10,000 ducats of income in any residence he should select was offered to Francesco Maria, if he would resign his state. But he declared himself ready to die rather than so to sell it and his honour, avowing, however, that if the Pope were resolved to deprive him of his sovereignty on account of the Cardinal's slaughter, he would abdicate in favour of his infant son, and carry his army to Greece, to fight for the recovery of Constantinople. When negotiations had been thus broken off, as described by Giraldi, the smooth-tongued churchman, nothing abashed by the contrast of their early familiarity with their present circumstances, invited him to partake of a splendid collation. This he courteously declined, and retired to breakfast with l'Escu, answering the Cardinal's remonstrances by a jesting but pungent remark, that "priests kill with wine-cups, soldiers with the sword." The Duke making somewhat minute inquiries as to the Swiss reinforcements, the Legate laughingly asked, "if he destined for them such a supperas he provided for the Germans and Spaniards at the Imperiale"; to which he rejoined, "And why not, if they are my foes?"[279]Nor was the taunt lost upon him. Next night he led his men through the Marecchia, and surprised the Swiss levies who were quartered in S. Giuliano, a suburb of Rimini beyond that river. Notwithstanding a gallant resistance, they were driven into the stream, with severe loss on both sides, whilst Francesco Maria, after receiving a ball in his cuirass, dexterously withdrew from his perilous position, under cover of the smoke raised by a vast funeral pile, on which he left the bodies of four hundred slain, amid a mass of combustibles. He now resumed his projects of carrying fire and sword into Tuscany, and reached the Upper Vale of the Tiber at Borgo S. Sepolcro, but, for want of artillery, was unable to do anything against the fortified places. The Duke's whole policy in this protracted and inconclusive warfare has been severely blamed by Roscoe, and there can be no doubt that, in his circumstances, rapid and aggressive tactics were most likely to succeed. Had he, by a series of uninterrupted advantages, maintained the impression made at his first onset, or had he risked all in one engagement when his enemies had been daunted by Lorenzo's severe wound, it is clear, from the Minio despatches, that Leo might have been frightened into fair terms, at a moment when treason was rife even within the Sacred College. The like result would, perhaps, have been attained with greater certainty, had he, instead of harassing his own territory and La Marca with an exhausting civil war, carried his arms at once across the Apennines, and, by threatening Siena or Florence, made it a question whether the Medici were to lose Tuscany or gain Urbino. But we shall have ample reason, in other instances, to perceivethat procrastination was more natural to him than energy, and, in the present case, delays for a time appeared injurious to his enemies rather than to himself. It is, however, fair to admit that, whilst his biographers continually claim for him anxiety to bring on a decisive action, even the prejudiced Guicciardini never accuses him of having evaded one.
A general feeling gained ground that this weary and wasteful strife was approaching its close. The Duke's mercenaries, seeing no prospect of their pay, which was contingent on complete success, and dissatisfied with their limited opportunities for pillage, began to look out for some more profitable engagement. Their most Christian and most Catholic majesties had also combined to bring the struggle to a conclusion, by recalling their respective subjects from the army of Francesco Maria; nor did the Spaniards think it a disgrace to entertain tempting offers for their secession from a cheerless enterprise. Three of their captains accordingly went to Rome, on the 6th of August, apparently with his sanction, and offered for 60,000 ducats to place the whole state of Urbino in the hands of these two monarchs, for their award as to which competitor should be preferred. The Pontiff at first made a show of entertaining this proposition, in so far at least as regarded the duchy proper; but this was probably a pretext for gaining time until the arrival of four thousand lansquenets, whom he expected from the Emperor. Accordingly, on the 14th, in an audience with Minio, he denounced these terms as "the most brutal possible, nor could Francesco Maria send to demand of me what he does, were he the Grand Turk, and encamped at Tivoli! He wants us to give him up the places we hold, namely, Pesaro and Sinigaglia: see, by your faith, what notions he has! We really desired this agreement, that we might attend to the Turkish affairs, but these people are indeed elated and brutal." The like opinion prevailed at Rome,and the imperial ambassador deprecated the arrangement to his Holiness as disgraceful. It was therefore rejected after some delay; nor was it until the papal court had taken new alarm, on the Duke's movement into Tuscany, that the Spaniards were bought off by the auditor of the treasury, who had been sent for the purpose to their camp near Anghiari. He was met by the Duke, with his faithful partisan di Bozzolo, and the Spanish captains. After a protracted discussion, the former went forth, moved almost to tears, exclaiming, "It is impossible for me to accept these terms." In his absence it was agreed that the duchy should be given up to Lorenzo, and that the Spaniards should accompany Don Ugo de Moncada towards Naples, after receiving 50,000 ducats, under an obligation to serve in reinstating Lorenzo in Urbino, if called upon to do so.
On hearing these stipulations, Francesco Maria had an altercation with the Spanish captains, which ended in his riding over to the quarters of his other adherents, who yet remained faithful, and who were with difficulty dissuaded from falling upon the renegades. An idea now entertained, of making a last stand in the highlands with that residue, was soon abandoned, for similar influences were at work on them. But, mindful of their solemn obligation not to quit the field until victory had crowned their enterprise, they resolved to retire with honour intact. The Gascons, accordingly, by the mediation of l'Escu and Guise, obtained from the Pontiff not only an exemption from their engagement, but such a capitulation for the Duke of Urbino as he might, with due regard to his dignity, accept. In order to persuade the latter to such a course as circumstances rendered necessary, the entreaties of his friends were added to the pressing instances of Don Ugo and the French generals. The French and German troops, after receiving 25,000 ducats, were to fall back upon Milan, leaving him safely at Mantua; but the Italiansoldiery appear to have shared no part of this golden harvest.
The conditions obtained for Francesco Maria were as follows: Plenary absolution for himself, his family, and adherents, from ecclesiastical censures; permission to him and them to retire where they pleased, and to take any service except against his Holiness; leave to remove all his private property in arms, artillery, and furniture, especially his MS. library; the enjoyment of their usufructuary rights to the dowager and reigning Duchesses; a general amnesty and exchange of prisoners, including Sigismondo Varana. This convention was accepted by his Holiness on the 16th of September, and it fell to Bembo's lot, as papal secretary, to affix his signature to what he, perhaps, persuaded himself were favourable terms for his former friend and benefactor.
The conduct of the Spaniards was regarded with universal contempt and disgust. As they withdrew towards the Neapolitan territory, a formidable band four or five thousand strong, the men of Gubbio stood on their defence, but those of Fabriano, less alert, were surprised and pillaged to the value of 2000 scudi. "But if the wretches sinned at Fabriano, they did penance at Ripatrasone; for, in trying to sack it also, many of them were slain, and the survivors were taken to Gerbe, in Africa, where they nearly all died,—some from drinking too much, some from drinking too little. The former by great good luck were drowned, and the latter, marching through that country in the parching summer heats, with water scarce, and no wine, perished of thirst; so that they had better have followed the Duke to marvellous enterprises and mighty gains, rather than have left to the world a degraded name." There is something quaint in the concentrated rancour wherewith Giraldi thus dismisses these selfish adventurers; and not less so in the following rustic memorial. Grateful for theirescape, comparatively scathless, from perils which nearly menaced them, the people of Maciola, a village two miles from Urbino, placed in their church a votive picture to the Madonna, which is still inscribed with these simple verses:—
In the war thus concluded, Francesco Maria struggled for eight months, single-handed and penniless, against the temporal and spiritual influence of the Holy See, backed by all the continental powers. Unable to carry his object by a coup-de-main, he was in the end vanquished by the superior resources of his oppressor. In a parting address to his subjects, he assumed the tone of victory, asserting that he withdrew, not under compulsion, but from consideration of their interests, which a prolonged struggle must have deeply compromised. Thus retiring with honour, he promised to return to them with glory, when he could do so without detriment to their welfare. He was escorted by l'Escu as far as Cento, whence he rejoined his family at Mantua, presenting his consort with sixty-four standards, taken during this brief and unequal campaign, wherein his talents had been developed, his character strengthened, his fame extended.
We have dwelt somewhat minutely—it may be tediously—upon these events, for the contest was one of vital moment to Francesco Maria, his duchy being at once the theatre of operations and the guerdon of victory. Yet this petty war was pregnant with results of wider interest; for the enormous drain of money it occasioned so aggravated the financial difficulties of the papacy, as to bring to a crisis those abuses which finally matured the Reformation. The Minio despatches abound in proofs of the desperate state to which the treasury was reduced, and of the simoniacal expedients resorted to for ready money. One of these may be noted as compromising Bembo, who so often re-appears in these pages. He and Sadoleto had, since Leo's accession, monopolised his private brieves, which afforded them a handsome return, from gratuities and bribes, to the exclusion of the other papal secretaries. Now, however, the latter offered to their needy master a purse of 25,000 ducats, if admitted to share the spoils, which was greedily accepted, without regard to vested interests; and his Holiness was delighted to find the purchase-money of his ordinary secretaryships thereby raised at once from 6000 to 7000 ducats each. 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; and we have been so ill served by these ministers, that worse cannot be imagined: this very month we had to disburse 120,000. When we commenced the war we had some few funds, which we had not chosen to touch, but the Lord God has aided us. We should neverhave thought it possible to raise 100,000 ducats, and we have obtained 700,000; see how astonishing this is! Had we deemed it possible to obtain 700,000 ducats, we would have undertaken the expedition against the Turks single-handed."
But where was the minion for whom all this crime and misery had been perpetrated? From Ancona he paid a brief visit to the Vatican, on his way to Florence, where he slowly recovered from his severe wound, only to plunge deeper in debaucheries more congenial to his degraded character than the privations of military life. He was never named during the rest of the contest, but as soon as it was over he met his uncle at Viterbo, where, and in the neighbouring country, the papal court passed most of October in field sports. His hard-won sovereignty seems to have afforded him little satisfaction or interest; but in the following year he became an instrument for the further promotion of his uncle's ambition. His marriage having been negotiated through Cardinal Bibbiena to Madelaine de la Tour, daughter of Jean Count of Boulogne and Auvergne, a relation of the French monarch, the titular Duke of Urbino proceeded to Paris in the spring of 1518, for the double ceremonial of his own nuptials, and the Dauphin's baptism, at which he stood sponsor on the 25th of April, as proxy for the Pontiff. Both these events were celebrated with much festive merriment in the gay capital of France, and the young couple were overwhelmed by splendid dowries and wedding-gifts by the Pope and the Monarch. But their bridal joy was of brief duration. The Duchess died in childbed on the 23rd of April following, and was followed to the grave five days after by her husband, who expiated with his life the dissolute vices in which he had continuously indulged. Their child survived to be a scourge of the Huguenots, in the person ofCatherine de' Medici, wife of Henry II. of France, mother of Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III.,—in the last of whom the line of Valois and the descendants of Duke Lorenzo became extinct.
Hearing of Lorenzo's desperate state, the Pope despatched Cardinal Giulio de' Medici to maintain at Florence the supremacy of his house. The titular dukedom of Urbino passed, in terms of the new investiture, to the infant Catherine; but the territory was unceremoniously seized by his Holiness, notwithstanding the wish of its inhabitants for restoration of their legitimate sovereign. Montefeltro, with S. Leo and Maiuolo, was assigned to Florence, in security or compensation for 150,000 scudi said to have been advanced in the late war, and the remainder of the duchy was annexed to the Church. The walls of its capital, whose loyalty to its native princes amid all their reverses is finely commemorated in the current appellation ofUrbino fidelissimo, were thrown down, and its metropolitan privileges transferred to Gubbio, which had shown itself less devoted to the della Rovere interests.
We may here mention the fate of Gian Paolo Baglioni, known to us, in 1502, as one of the confederates of La Magione, who, in the quaint words of an unpublished chronicle, escaped the violin-string of Michelotto at Sinigaglia "to fall into the pit which he had digged." We have more lately seen him, in 1517, buying off Francesco Maria from the city of Perugia, with a bribe shared by himself, and have at the same time alluded to the broils there raging between various members of his family. These it would be beyond our purpose to follow; but they were attended by a series of bad faith on his part, and of suffering on that of the people, which gained for him the merited title of tyrant of Perugia. Less, perhaps, with the intention of vindicating the latter, than of liberatinghimself from a talented and unscrupulous vassal, who, long accustomed to rule supreme in that city, ill brooked and scarcely yielded that obedience to the Holy See which Julius II. had imposed on him in 1506, Leo summoned Gian Paolo to Rome in 1520, with amicable professions. There he arrived on the 16th of March, and next day sought an audience of the Pontiff in S. Angelo, the gates of which were immediately closed upon him as a state prisoner. After he had lingered for some months in mysterious durance, unconscious of the charge brought against him, a plan was formed to liberate him, disguised as a woman who visited the castellan; but at that juncture the Pope, who, according to the gossip of a contemporary diarist, had dreamt at La Magliana of a mouse escaping from a trap, sent a summary order for his execution, which took place secretly on the 11th of June.
The singular good fortune which accumulated coronets and crowns on the brows of Charles V., until he found himself sovereign by inheritance of a large portion of Europe, here demands our notice. The Emperor Maximilian had, by Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, a son Philip, who predeceased him in 1506, after marrying Joanna, daughter and heiress of Ferdinand and Isabella of Aragon and Castile. Joanna being disqualified by mental imbecility, the united crowns of Spain devolved, on the death of Ferdinand in 1516, to her son Charles, who already held the Netherlands through his grandmother, Mary of Burgundy. As representative of the house of Aragon, he was also sovereign of Naples and Sicily; but the former crown required the papal investiture, which Leo was loath to bestow, partly with a vague hope of reserving it for one of his own race, partly from aversion to the establishment of a new line of foreign rulers in the Italian peninsula. On the death of Maximilian in January 1519, without having formerly received the imperial crown, his grandson, Charles, stepped into Austria, as his naturalheritage, and sought still further aggrandisement by offering himself candidate for the throne of Germany. Little as the balance of power was then comprehended in European policy, this young monarch's rapid acquisitions called forth many jealousies. Francis had a double motive for standing forward as a competitor for the empire;—the dignity was flattering to his gallant character and ambitious views, and he grudged it to a younger rival, whose overgrown territory already hemmed him in on every side. Leo, at heart disliking them equally, as ultramontane sovereigns formidable to Italy, on the ruins of whose freedom were based the successes of either, sought to play them off against each other, so as to weaken and embarrass both. But in spite of these intrigues, Charles was elected emperor on the 28th of June, 1519, when but nineteen years of age.
The Pope had covertly supported the claims of Francis, with whom he intended some ulterior combination for expelling the Spaniards from Lower Italy. 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. The impression left by his biographers, that he maintained a cautious neutrality in the contest thus opening, is disproved by some documents in the Bibliothèque du Roi, which establish him as a retained adherent of the French monarch.[280]One of them is an undated draft of articles proposed by him, his nephew Sigismondo Varana, Camillo Orsini, the Baglioni, and the Petrucci, as conditions oftheir entering the service of Francis, with the usual pay and allowances. They stipulated for his constant protection and support in the recovery of their respective states, and for the restoration of various allodial fiefs claimed by them in Naples, as soon as Francis should, with their aid, regain that kingdom. Francesco Maria, finding it necessary to quit the territory of his brother-in-law Federigo, now Duke of Mantua, who had been named captain-general of the ecclesiastical forces, and to surrender the allowance of 3000 scudi, hitherto made by him for the Duchess's maintenance, asked a pension of equal amount from his new ally, together with 1500 scudi in hand, to meet the expense of removing his family to a place of security, probably Goito. He accompanied these overtures with a plan for very extended operations upon Central Italy, whereby, with the assistance of Venice and Genoa, armaments by sea and land were to be directed in overwhelming force, at once against Tuscany and the Papal States. The result of this negotiation does not appear, but the only one of its provisions which seems to have taken effect was the Duke's pension, for which he writes thanks to the French Monarch from the camp of Lautrec on the Taro, the 27th of September, 1521. Giraldi mentions that he suddenly quitted the French service in consequence of a slight from Lautrec at a council of war, and he appears then to have retired to Lonno on the Lago di Guarda. From that lovely spot he watched the course of events, until the wheel of fortune should bring round his turn. The ladies of his family meanwhile lived in great seclusion at Mantua, and on the 19th of July, 1521, the dowager Duchess writes him, that she and his consort frequented the convents, soliciting from the nuns their prayers that God would direct his counsels, and vouchsafe the fulfilment of his wishes.[281]As the strife approached, these distinguished ladies withdrewto Verona. Upon its progress we need not dwell. By his oppressive sway Lautrec had rendered the French name odious at Milan, and when the confederate army approached its walls, bringing with them Francesco Sforza, second son of Ludovico il Moro, and brother of Maximiliano their last native sovereign, the people hailed them as liberators, and expelled their foreign masters.