HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF PESARO
The storm which suddenly broke upon Alexander did not disturb Lucretia,
for on the eighth of June, 1494, she and her spouse entered Pesaro. In a
pouring rain, which interrupted the reception festivities, she took
possession of the palace of the Sforza, which was now to be her home.
The history of Pesaro up to that time is briefly as follows:
Ancient Pisaurum, which was founded by the Siculi, received its name
from the river which empties into the sea not far from the city, and
which is now known as the Foglia. In the year 570 of Rome the city
became a Roman colony. From the time of Augustus it belonged to the
fourth department of Italy, and from the time of Constantine to the
province of Flaminia. After the fall of the Roman Empire it suffered the
fate of all the Italian cities, especially in the great war of the Goths
with the Eastern emperor. Vitiges destroyed it; Belisarius restored it.
After the fall of the Gothic power, Pesaro was incorporated in the
Exarchate, and together with four other cities on the Adriatic--Ancona,
Fano, Sinigaglia, and Rimini--constituted the Pentapolis. When Ravenna
fell into the hands of the Lombard King Aistulf, Pesaro also became
Lombard; but later, by the deed of Pipin and Charles, it passed into the
possession of the Pope.
The subsequent history of the city is interwoven with that of the
Empire, the Church and the March of Ancona. For a long time imperial
counts resided there. Innocent III invested its title in Azzo d'Este,
the Lord of the March. During the struggles of the Hohenstaufen with the
papacy it first was in the possession of the emperor and later in that
of the Pope, who held it until the end of the thirteenth century, when
the Malatesta became podestas, and subsequently lords of the city. This
famous Guelph family from the castle of Verrucchio, which lies between
Rimini and S. Marino, fell heir to the fortress of Gradara, in the
territory of Pesaro, and by degrees extended its power in the direction
of Ancona. In 1285 Gianciotto Malatesta became lord of Pesaro, and on
his death, in 1304, his brother Pandolfo inherited his domain.
From that time the Malatesta, lords of nearby Rimini, controlled not
only Pesaro, but a large part of the March which they appropriated to
themselves when the papacy was removed to Avignon. They secured
themselves in the possession of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, and Fossombrone by
an agreement made during the life of the famous Gil d'Albornoz,
confirming them in their position there as vicars of the Church. A
branch of this house resided in Pesaro until the time of Galeazzo
Malatesta. Threatened by his kinsman Sigismondo, the tyrant of Rimini,
and unable to hold Pesaro against his attack, he sold the city in 1445
for twenty thousand gold florins to Count Francesco Sforza, and the
latter gave it as a fief to his brother Alessandro, the husband of a
niece of Galeazzo. Sforza was the great condottiere who, after the
departure of the Visconti, ascended the throne of Milan as the first
duke of his house. While he was there establishing the ducal line of
Sforza, his brother Alessandro became the founder of the ruling house of
Pesaro.
This brave captain took possession of Pesaro in March, 1445; two years
later he received the papal investiture of the fief. He was married to
Costanza Varano, one of the most beautiful and intellectual women of the
Italian Renaissance.
To him she bore Costanzo and also a daughter, Battista, who later, as
the wife of Federico of Urbino, won universal admiration by her virtues
and talents. The neighboring courts of Pesaro and Urbino were connected
by marriage, and they vied with each other in fostering the arts and
sciences. Another illegitimate daughter of Alessandro's was Ginevra
Sforza--a woman no less admired in her day--celebrated, first as the
wife of Sante and then as that of Giovanni Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna.
After the death of his wife, Alessandro Sforza married Sveva
Montefeltre, a daughter of Guidantonio of Urbino. After a happy reign he
died April 3, 1473, leaving his possessions to his son.
A year later Costanzo Sforza married Camilla Marzana d'Aragona, a
beautiful and spirituelle princess of the royal house of Naples. He
himself was brilliant and liberal. He died in 1483, when only
thirty-six, leaving no legitimate heirs, his sons Giovanni and Galeazzo
being natural children. His widow Camilla thenceforth conducted the
government of Pesaro for herself and her stepson Giovanni until
November, 1489, when she compelled him to assume entire control of it.
Such was the history of the Sforza family of Pesaro, into which Lucretia
now entered as the wife of this same Giovanni.
The domain of the Sforza at that time embraced the city of Pesaro and a
number of smaller possessions, called castles or villas; for example, S.
Angelo in Lizzola, Candelara, Montebaroccio, Tomba di Pesaro,
Montelabbate, Gradara, Monte S. Maria, Novilara, Fiorenzuola, Castel di
Mezzo, Ginestreto, Gabicce, Monteciccardo, and Monte Gaudio. In
addition, Fossombrone was taken by the Sforzas from the Malatesta.
The principality belonged, as we have seen, for a long time to the
Church, then to the Malatesta, and later to the Sforza, who, under the
title of vicars, held it as a hereditary fief, paying the Church
annually seven hundred and fifty gold ducats. The daughter of a Roman
pontiff must, therefore, have been the most acceptable consort the
tyrant of Pesaro could have secured under the existing circumstances,
especially as the popes were striving to destroy all the illegitimate
powers in the States of the Church. When Lucretia saw how small and
unimportant was her little kingdom, she must have felt that she did not
rank with the women of Urbino, Ferrara, and Mantua, or with those of
Milan and Bologna; but she, by the authority of the Pope, her own
father, had become an independent princess, and, although her territory
embraced only a few square miles, to Italy it was a costly bit of
ground.
Pesaro lies free and exposed in a wide valley. A chain of green hills
sweeps half around it like the seats in a theater, and the sea forms the
stage. At the ends of the semicircle are two mountains, Monte Accio and
Ardizio. The Foglia River flows through the valley. On its right bank
lies the hospitable little city with its towers and walls, and its
fortress on the white seashore. Northward, in the direction of Rimini,
the mountains approach nearer the water, while to the south the shore is
broader, and there, rising out of the mists of the sea, are the towers
of Fano. A little farther Cape Ancona is visible.
The sunny hills and their smiling valley under the blue canopy of
heaven, and near the shimmering sea, form a picture of entrancing
loveliness. It is the most peaceful spot on the Adriatic. It seems as if
the breezes from sea and land wafted a lyric harmony over the valley,
expanding the heart and filling the soul with visions of beauty and
happiness. Pesaro is the birthplace of Rosini, and also of Terenzio
Mamiani, the brilliant poet and statesman who devoted his great talents
to the regeneration of Italy.
The passions of the tyrants of this city were less ferocious than were
those of the other dynasties of that age, perhaps because their domain
was too small a stage for the dark deeds inspired by inordinate
ambition--although the human spirit does not always develop in harmony
with the influences of nature. One of the most hideous of evil doers was
Sigismondo Malatesta of mild and beautiful Rimini. The Sforzas of
Pesaro, however, seem generous and humane rulers in comparison with
their cousins of Milan. Their court was adorned by a number of noble
women whom Lucretia may have felt it her duty to imitate.
If, when Lucretia entered Pesaro, her soul--young as she was--was not
already dead to all agreeable sensations, she must have enjoyed for the
first time the blessed sense of freedom. To her, gloomy Rome, with the
dismal Vatican and its passions and crimes, must have seemed like a
prison from which she had escaped. It is true everything about her in
Pesaro was small when compared with the greatness of Rome, but here she
was removed from the direct influence of her father and brother, from
whom she was separated by the Apennines and a distance which, in that
age, was great.
The city of Pesaro, which now has more than twelve thousand, and with
its adjacent territory over twenty thousand inhabitants had then about
half as many. It had streets and squares with substantial specimens of
Gothic architecture, interspersed, however, even then, with numerous
palaces in the style of the Renaissance. A number of cloisters and
churches, whose ancient portals are still preserved, such as S.
Domenico, S. Francesco, S. Agostino, and S. Giovanni, rendered the city
imposing if not beautiful.
Pesaro's most important structures were the monuments of the ruling
dynasty, the stronghold on the seashore and the palace facing the public
square. The last was begun by Costanzo Sforza in 1474 and was completed
by his son Giovanni. Even to-day his name may be seen on the marble
tablet over the entrance. The castle with its four low, round towers or
bastions, all in ruin, and surrounded by a moat, stands at the end of
the city wall near the sea, and whatever strength it had was due to its
environment; in spite of its situation it appears so insignificant that
one wonders how, even in those days when the science of gunnery was in
its infancy, it could have had any value as a fortress.
The Sforza palace is still standing on the little public square of which
it occupies one whole side. It is an attractive, but not imposing
structure with two large courts. The Della Rovere, successors of the
Sforza in Pesaro, beautified it during the sixteenth century; they built
the noble façade which rests upon a series of six round arches. The
Sforza arms have disappeared from the palace, but in many places over
the portals and on the ceilings the inscription of Guidobaldus II,
duke, and the Della Rovere arms may be seen. Even in Lucretia's day the
magnificent banquet hall--the most beautiful room in the palace--was in
existence, and its size made it worthy of a great monarch. The lack of
decorations on the walls and of marble casings to the doors, like those
in the castle of Urbino, which fill the beholder with wonder, show how
limited were the means of the ruling dynasty of Pesaro. The rich ceiling
of the salon, made of gilded and painted woodwork, dates from the reign
of Duke Guidobaldo. All mementos of the time when Lucretia occupied the
palace have disappeared; it is animated by other memories--of the
subsequent court life of the Della Rovere family, when Bembo,
Castiglione, and Tasso frequently were guests there. Lucretia and the
suite that accompanied her could not have filled the wide rooms of the
palace; her mother, Madonna Adriana, and Giulia Farnese remained with
her only a short time. A young Spanish woman in her retinue, Doña
Lucretia Lopez, a niece of Juan Lopez, chancellor and afterward
cardinal, was married in Pesaro to Gianfrancesco Ardizio, the physician
and confidant of Giovanni Sforza.
In the palace there were few kinsmen of her husband besides his younger
brother Galeazzo, for the dynasty was not fruitful and was dying out.
Even Camilla d'Aragona, Giovanni's stepmother, was not there, for she
had left Pesaro for good in 1489, taking up her residence in a castle
near Parma.
In summer the beautiful landscape must have afforded the young princess
much delight. She doubtless visited the neighboring castle of Urbino,
where Guidobaldo di Montefetre and his spouse Elisabetta resided, and
which the accomplished Federico had made an asylum for the
cultivated. At that time Raphael, a boy of twelve, was living in Urbino,
a diligent pupil in his father's school.
[Illustration: TASSO.
From an engraving by Raffaelle Morghen.]
In summer Lucretia removed to one of the beautiful villas on a
neighboring hill. Her husband's favorite abode was Gradara, a lofty
castle overlooking the road to Rimini, whose red walls and towers are
still standing in good preservation. The most magnificent country place,
however, was the Villa Imperiale, which is a half hour's journey from
Pesaro, on Monte Accio, whence it looks down far over the land and sea.
It is a splendid summer palace worthy of a great lord and of people of
leisure, capable of enjoying the amenities of life. It was built by
Alessandro Sforza in the year 1464, its corner-stone having been laid by
the Emperor Frederic III when he was returning from his coronation as
Emperor of Rome; hence it received the name Villa Imperiale. It was
enlarged later by Eleonora Gonzaga, the wife of Francesco Maria della
Rovere, the heir of Urbino, and Giovanni Sforza's successor in the
dominion of Pesaro. Famous painters decorated it with allegoric and
historical pictures; Bembo and Bernardo Tasso sang of it in melodious
numbers, and there, in the presence of the Della Rovere court, Torquato
read his pastoral _Aminta_. This villa is now in a deplorable state of
decay. Pesaro offered but little in the way of entertainment for a young
woman accustomed to the society of Rome. The city had no nobility of
importance. The houses of Brizi, of Ondedei, of Giontini, Magistri,
Lana, and Ardizi, in their patriarchal existence, could offer Lucretia
no compensation for the inspiring intercourse with the grandees of Rome.
It is true the wave of culture which, thanks to the humanists, was
sweeping over Italy did reach Pesaro. The manufacture of majolica,
which, in its perfection, was not an unworthy successor of the pottery
of Greece and Etruria, flourished there and in the neighboring cities on
the Adriatic, and as far as Umbria. It had reached a considerable
development in the time of the Sforza. One of the oldest pieces of
majolica in the Correro Museum in Venice, Solomon worshiping the idol,
bears the date 1482. As early as the fourteenth century this art was
cultivated in Pesaro, and it was in a very nourishing condition during
the reign of Camilla d'Aragona. There are still some remains of the
productions of the old craftsmen of the city in the State-house of
Pesaro.
There, too, the intellectual movement manifested itself in other fields,
fostered by the Sforza or their wives, in emulation of Urbino and
Rimini, where Sigismondo Malatesta gathered about him poets and scholars
whom he pensioned during their lives, and for whom, when dead, he built
sarcophagi about the outer wall of the church. Camilla interested
herself especially in the cultivation of the sciences. In 1489 she
invited a noble Greek, Giorgio Diplovatazio, of Corfu, a kinsman of the
Laskaris and the Vatazes, who, fleeing from the Turks, had come to
Italy, and taken up his abode in Pesaro, where were living other Greek
exiles of the Angeli, Komnenen, and Paleologue families. Diplovatazio
had studied in Padua. Giovanni Sforza made him state's advocate of
Pesaro in 1492, and he enjoyed a brilliant reputation as a jurisprudent
until his death in 1541.[35]
Lucretia, consequently, found this illustrious man in Pesaro and might
have continued her studies under him and other natives of Greece if she
was so disposed. A library, which the Sforzas had collected, provided
her with the means for this end. Another scholar, however, no less
famous, Pandolfo Collenuccio, a poet, orator, and philologist, best
known by his history of Naples, had left Pesaro before Lucretia took up
her abode there. He had served the house of Sforza as secretary and in a
diplomatic capacity, and to his eloquence Lucretia's husband, Costanzo's
bastard, owed his investiture of the fief of Pesaro by Sixtus IV and
Innocent VIII. Collenuccio, however, fell under his displeasure and was
cast into prison in 1488 and subsequently banished, when he went to
Ferrara, where he devoted his services to the reigning family. He
accompanied Cardinal Ippolito to Rome, and here we find him in 1494 when
Lucretia was about to take up her residence in Pesaro. In Rome she may
have made the acquaintance of this scholar.[36]
Nor was the young poet Guido Posthumus Silvester in Pesaro during her
time, for he was then a student in Padua. Lucretia must have regretted
the absence from her court of this soulful and aspiring poet, and her
charming personality might have served him for an inspiration for verses
quite different from those which he later addressed to the Borgias.
Sforza's beautiful consort was received with open arms in Pesaro, where
she immediately made many friends. She was in the first charm of her
youthful bloom, and fate had not yet brought the trouble into her life
which subsequently made her the object either of horror or of pity. If
she enjoyed any real love in her married life with Sforza she would have
passed her days in Pesaro as happily as the queen of a pastoral comedy.
But this was denied her. The dark shadows of the Vatican reached even
to the Villa Imperiale on Monte Accio. Any day a despatch from her
father might summon her back to Rome. Her stay in Pesaro may also have
become too monotonous, too empty for her; perhaps, also, her husband's
position as condottiere in the papal army and in that of Venice
compelled him often to be away from his court.
Events which in the meantime had convulsed Italy took Lucretia back to
Rome, she having spent but a single year in Pesaro.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Memorie di Tommaso Diplovatazio Patrizio Constantinopolitano e
Pesarese, da Annibale Olivieri. Pesaro, 1771.
[36] Regarding Collenuccio see the works of his compatriot Giulio
Perticari, Opp. Bologna, 1837. Vol. ii, 52 sqq.