Election of Leo X.--His ambitious projects--Birth of Prince
Guidobaldo of Urbino--The Pontiff's designs upon that
state, which he gives to his nephew--The Duke retires to
Mantua.
The Duke's influence, as head of the della Rovere family, was
paramount in the conclave, composed as it was of relations, friends,
and creatures of the late Pope in overwhelming majority. The election
was therefore to a great degree in his hands, and when it fell
upon the Cardinal de' Medici, he rejoiced in the elevation of a
personal friend. He and his brother Giuliano, their nephew Lorenzo,
and their cousin Giulio, afterwards Clement VII., had been welcome
guests at Urbino, during their family's long exile from Florence.
Indeed, we have noticed Giuliano as one of the most brilliant
ornaments of Guidobaldo's court, where he resided so long that the
apartment devoted to his use still bears his name in the palace. The
restoration of the Medici to supremacy in their native city had been
the doing of Julius; the choice of their cardinal as his successor
was the act of his nephew.[*252] Thus was the bond of friendship
confirmed by ties of gratitude. But from such fetters princes are
often prone to assume an exemption, and Francesco Maria was destined
to experience that they are not more binding upon pontiffs.[253]
[Footnote *252: This is rather vague. We are not told what Francesco
Maria did that justifies Dennistoun in saying that the election of
Leo X. was his act. I can find no evidence of Francesco Maria's
personal influence in the conclave. If the election of Leo was an
arrangement, it was Cardinal Riario to whom it was due. The charge of
ingratitude therefore falls to the ground.]
[Footnote 253: To inaugurate the new pontificate, and mark the
contrast of Alexander and Julius with their successor,--its Maecenas,
Agostino Chigi, erected a triumphal arch, inscribed,--
"Olim habuit Cypris sua tempora; tempora Mavors
Olim habuit; sua nunc tempora Pallas habet."
Venus here reigned supreme, by Mars displaced;
Our happier age by Pallas' sway is graced.
To this doggerel there quickly appeared the rejoinder,--
"Mars fuit, est Pallas, Cypria semper ero."
Once Mars, Minerva now, but Venus still.]
Leo X. has been one of the most fortunate of men. His all but
sovereign birth was still more distinguished by the merit of his
family, to which history has done the amplest justice. His natural
talents and tastes were not only of a high order, but were perfectly
adapted to the golden age in which he lived, and to the high career
for which he was destined. His rapid and premature advancement to
the first dignities of the Church stimulated instead of relaxing his
mental discipline. He obtained the triple tiara at the unprecedented
age of thirty-seven, and wore it during the brightest period of the
papacy. Though cut short in the flower of manhood, he lived long
enough to link his name with the most splendid era of modern history,
and although his measures accelerated the crisis of the Reformation,
he died ere their seed had borne that dreaded fruit. In fine, his
eventful life has been celebrated by at least one biographer worthy
of the theme. On the wide field which such a character opens we shall
have little opportunity to expatiate. Our narrative has to do with
its darker shadows, and to hold up this Pontiff as the implacable
foe of a dynasty which had singular claims upon his favour and
consideration.
[Illustration: _Anderson_
LEO X
_After the picture by Raphael in the Pitti Gallery, Florence_]
The general estimate of Julius and of his successor has been shrewdly
conceived and tersely expressed by Sismondi. "The projects of the
former had prospered beyond the ordinary calculations of policy;
his impetuosity, by surprising his enemies and throwing all their
plans into confusion, had often availed him more than prudence
could have done; he had also extended the temporal possessions of
the Church beyond what any of his predecessors had effected. Yet he
had caused so many mischiefs, he had occasioned such vast bloodshed,
he had so swamped Italy with foreign armies, even while he pretended
to rid her of the barbarians, that his death was hailed as a public
blessing, and the cardinals responded to the feeling of Rome, Italy,
and all Christendom in desiring that his successor should in no
respect resemble him. As he had been old, restless, impatient, and
passionate, they sought to replace him with one less aged, and whose
tastes were for literature, pleasure, and epicurean indulgences....
Leo was quite the opposite of his predecessor; his temperament
was far less stern, irascible, or unforgiving. Towards intimate
associates his manners were singularly cheerful and gracious. The
protection he extended to letters and arts, the favours which he
lavished upon savants, poets, and artists, drew from all Europe a
chorus of commendation. But, on the other hand, his character fell
very short of that of Julius in frankness and elevation; all his
negotiations were stained by deceit and perfidy. Whilst he talked
of peace he fanned the flame of war; no pity for the inhabitants of
Italy, crushed by barbarian hosts, ever influenced his conduct. His
ambition, nowise inferior to that of his predecessor, was not veiled,
even to himself, by motives equally respectable. His object was not
the independence of Italy, nor the aggrandisement of the Church, but
the advancement of his own family."
The Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, second son of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, was elected Pope on the 11th of March, 1513, and
was crowned on the 19th. The Duke of Urbino had repaired to Rome
to offer his congratulations in person, and attended the solemn
installation at the Lateran, with twenty-four mounted gentlemen
and as many footmen; but mingling regard for the dead with respect
for the living, he and all his suite appeared in black velvet and
satin, as mourning for his uncle. The device worn on the Pontiff's
liveries at this pageant, was in harmony with his previous character
and present professions: under a golden "yoke" was inscribed the
word _suave_, meaning something more winning than the scriptural
phrase "easy," from which it was borrowed. When two more years had
gone by, Francesco Maria was an outlaw, crushed under that gentle
yoke, and stripped of his all; whilst the Duke of Ferrara, the next
great feudatory of the Church who followed in the procession, could
scarcely maintain himself by French aid, until the death of his
pontifical oppressor enabled him to parody on his medals another
and more appropriate text, in memory of his escape, "Out of the
LION'S mouth." At this coronation there was witnessed an
unwonted spectacle, the fruit of Alexander's aggressions on the
Campagna barons. The humbled chiefs of Colonna and Orsini walked side
by side, and their reconciliation was commemorated by a rare medal,
on which the crowned column of Colonna is fondly hugged by the Orsini
bear, with the motto, "For their country's safety." Francesco Maria's
reception was as cordial as distinguished, for the promptings of
ambition had not yet transformed Leo's naturally bland and gracious
nature into unrelenting and bitter hate. He was accordingly confirmed
in his dignities, and retained for a year as Captain-General of the
Church, with 13,844 ducats of pay, besides 30,000 of allowances for
his company of two hundred men-at-arms, and a hundred light cavalry;
nor could words exceed the kindness of the letter in which Bembo
intimated this to him on behalf of the Pope.[254]
[Footnote 254: Papal brieves of Aug. 4 and April 17, 1513, in
Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, and Bembo's public despatches, ii.
No. 8. Roscoe has no authority whatever for representing the Duke as
at this period the Pope's "formidable rival."]
When the coronation fêtes were over, he returned home to enjoy one of
those brief intervals of repose which rarely fell to his lot. His
almost continual absence on military service had indeed been greatly
felt in his capital, and most of the distinguished men who frequented
it under Duke Guidobaldo were now dispersed. Some of them, however,
had continued towards his nephew their friendship and services,
either under his own banner or in diplomacy. Among these was
Baldassare Castiglione, to whose good offices the reconciliation of
Francesco Maria with Julius has been partly attributed. In the affair
of the Cardinal of Pavia, the Count warmly espoused his part, and
invented for him, as a deprecatory device, a lion rampant proper on
a field gules, holding a rapier, and a scroll inscribed, _Non deest
generoso in pectore virtus_, "Worth is never wanting in a generous
breast"; but this emblem was seldom used, being odious to the college
of cardinals, as approving a sacrilegious precedent. Castiglione's
elegant endowments were especially qualified to gain him the ear of
a prince whose pride it was to emulate his predecessors, as much
in the grace of their court as in the fame of their arms; and the
preference for so small a state shown by him whom monarchs would
have delighted to honour, was fit subject for gratitude, independent
of the real services which the Duke derived from the friendship of
one so well versed in business. It is stated, although on doubtful
authority, that he went upon a mission from Urbino, to urge on Henry
VIII. a descent upon Calais,[*255] in the hope of such a diversion
recalling Louis from Italy. If so, it was probably in arranging the
treaty of Malines on the 5th of April of this year. In the prospect
of adding Pesaro to his dominions, Francesco Maria had promised to
Castiglione a fief in his dependencies, and in September, 1513, a
charter was granted to him of Novillara, erected into a countship.
The letter of donation specially mentions the faithful, sincere,
and acceptable services of Baldassare; his elegance in the Latin
and Italian languages; his skill in military and civil affairs;
and confers upon him this favour rather in earnest of future and
more ample benefits, than as a reward of the fatigues, perils, and
anxieties which he had already undergone for the Duke.[*256] Of this
grant he received a willing confirmation from Leo X., to whom, on his
elevation, he had borne Francesco Maria's first congratulations. The
brief to this effect dwells on the peculiar satisfaction with which
the Pope thus testified, from long acquaintance, his high merits, his
distinguished birth, his literary acquirements, his military fame,
and his exemplary devotion to the Holy See.
[Footnote *255: Henry landed at Calais August 1st, 1513; it was
then in English hands, as it remained till Mary Tudor lost it
in 1558. From Calais Henry advanced to the siege of Terouenne.
Castiglione was, of course, in London in 1506 to receive the Garter
for Guidobaldo from Henry VII.; a second journey seems apocryphal.
On Castiglione at Urbino and elsewhere, cf. LUZIO e RENIER, _Mantova e
Urbino_ (Torino, 1893), pp. 174, 234, 242 _et seq._]
[Footnote *256: Yet he seems to have suffered in the war. His long
residence at Urbino may well have been due to the Duchess, who loved
him sincerely.]
The estate thus associated with Castiglione is generally said to owe
its name to its "noble air"; and certainly upon the Italian principle
that a healthful atmosphere must be sought in high places, that of
Novillara ought to possess unusual virtues. But the learned Olivieri
has corrected this vulgar error, and has derived its denomination
from the Latin _nubilare_, which he renders as an open shed for the
housing of grain,--a grange, as it might be called. He has traced
it back to the twelfth century, and to the fourteenth ascribes
an imposing tower of three commodious stories built here by the
Malatesta. Hither was conducted, on her first arrival, Camilla of
Aragon, bride of Costanzo Sforza Lord of Pesaro; and its inaccessible
situation did not prevent a splendid manifestation of the general
joy, in fêtes and pageants, commemorated in a volume of excessive
rarity, which seem more proportioned to the affectionate gallantry of
her husband and subjects, than to the resources of their state, or to
the conveniences of this palace. Representations of the community
of Pesaro induced Francesco Maria to obtain from Castiglione a
restitution to them of this Castle, in 1522, under promise of
replacing it by an equivalent, which was never redeemed. Years passed
away, notwithstanding repeated remonstrances on the part of Camillo,
son of the Count, in which he even induced the Emperor to join. At
length, in 1573, Guidobaldo II. conferred a tardy compensation, by
granting to Count Camillo the Castel del Isola del Piano. This Duke
had previously built an addition to the palace of Novillara, with
elaborate decorations never completed. At his son's marriage with
Lucretia d'Este, this fief, then worth 500 scudi a year, was settled
upon her, but rarely occupied. It subsequently caught the young
prince Federigo's fancy, who had planned for its beautiful gardens
and frescoes, when untimely death cut short his schemes, and brought
the nationality of Urbino and Pesaro to a close.
In the present day Novillara consists of about a hundred houses,
huddled together, threaded by narrow alleys, and walled in by
terraces. It overlooks Pesaro and Fano, the valleys of the Isauro
and Metauro, with the hilly land which separates them. Northward the
eye rests on Monte Bartolo, but southward it roams as far as Loreto,
and in clear weather the Dalmatian coast may be discerned. The tower
of the Malatesta, which formed a landmark to the whole surrounding
country, fell in 1723, and the dilapidated fabric of the della Rovere
now harbours a few squalid families, adding another to the melancholy
wrecks of departed grandeur too frequent in this fair land. Yet
Novillara will pass down the stream of Italian literary history as
the title of its courtly lord, and its magnificent panorama may well
repay the traveller who has leisure and strength to scramble to its
summit.
The early policy of Leo was entirely pacific. The leading aim of his
diplomacy was to soothe those irritations which his predecessors had
fomented throughout Europe, and to heal the wounds thence resulting
to Italy. His only aggressive measures during 1513 had been directed
against the French, with the patriotic view of thwarting renewed
attempts upon the Peninsula, in which they were seconded by Spain
and Venice. In this object he was successful, but as the various
and complicated transactions by which it was effected are foreign
to our immediate purpose, we refer the reader for details to the
tenth, twelfth, and thirteenth chapters of Roscoe's delightful work,
although naturally representing them in the lights more favourable to
the Pontiff's motives than we are prepared fully to approve. Power
is, however, a dangerous draught, often exciting the thirst it seeks
to slake. Before the Keys had been many months in Leo's possession,
the establishment of his own family in the two fairest sovereignties
of Italy became the object for which he was to
"Cry havock, and let slip the dogs of war."
Anticipating changes which might occur upon the death of Ferdinand
II. of Spain, he conceived hopes of throwing off foreign domination
in Naples, and providing for it a king of Italian birth, in his own
brother Giuliano the Magnificent. With this ulterior advancement
in fancied perspective, he removed him from the management of
affairs at Florence, and substituted his nephew Lorenzo, intending
ere long to assert for the latter a titular as well as a virtual
sovereignty, and to extend his sway over all Tuscany, Urbino, and
Ferrara. These ambitious and revolutionary projects required powerful
aid, which could be most readily secured by finding a sharer in the
adventure. Such a one readily occurred in Louis XII., whose consent
to copartnery could scarcely be doubted, when his long-cherished
acquisition of the Milanese was offered as his share of its gains.
It was no serious objection to this scheme that it inferred a total
subversion of Leo's anti-gallican policy; and, intent only upon his
new views, he secretly negotiated with the French King to bring once
more into Lombardy those troops which, but the year before, he had
been the chief means of ignominiously chasing beyond the Alps. Should
this move place the great powers in general collision, there was all
the fairer chance for papal ambition in the scramble; and it mattered
little that Italy should again be laid in ashes, and saturated with
blood, so that the Medici became arbiters of her destiny.
With a view to these arrangements, Giuliano was betrothed in the
following year to Filiberta of Savoy, maternal aunt of Francis, heir
to the French crown. But a fatality seems to have attended most
papal diplomacy: based upon nepotism or personal ambition, it was
generally thwarted by its own fickleness or imbecility. Doubtful of
the success of his scheme upon the crown of Naples (which Louis was
little disposed to gratify, although prepared to concede to Giuliano
the principality of Tarento), or impatient perhaps of waiting for
its becoming vacant, the Pontiff turned his views upon Parma and
Piacenza, as a convenient interim state for his brother, to be
aggrandised by the purchase of Modena from the Emperor for 40,000
golden ducats. But here he was met by a difficulty of his own recent
creation, for the establishment of Louis at Milan must have proved
dangerous to the proposed principality of Giuliano; so, once more
shuffling the cards, he prepared some new combinations for preventing
the French expedition into Italy. One of these was an intrigue to
detach the Venetian republic from the party of Louis, for which
purpose he sent thither his adroit secretary Bembo, whose memorial
to the senate has been printed by Roscoe. This attempt, however,
entirely failed, and the King's death, on the 1st of January, alone
prevented the detection of his faithless ally.[257]
[Footnote 257: One of the shrewd agents of the maritime republic
supplied a key to the policy of Leo, by observing that it consisted
in immediately opening a secret understanding with the avowed enemy
of whatever prince he leagued with. His intrigues in behalf of his
brother and nephew are illustrated by some documents in the _Archivio
Storico Italiano_, Appendix I., 306.]
In returning from Venice, Bembo paid one more visit to the Feltrian
court, now at Pesaro, rejoicing in the recent birth of an heir to
the Dukedom. There he found many changes. The gay and accomplished
circle, in whose lighter or more pedantic pastimes he had borne a
willing part, was scattered, many of its members like himself to hold
appointments of trust and dignity. But it was a sincere satisfaction
to him again to meet the Duchess Elisabetta, now recovered from the
deep despondency he has so touchingly described, and enjoying the
society of her accomplished niece and successor, as well as of her
former mistress of the revels, the merry Emilia Pia. In company
of these ladies, the diplomatist forgot during a brief interval
the cares of state, and lingered for two days on the excuse of
indisposition, until he thought it necessary to explain his delay
in a letter to Cardinal Bibbiena of the 1st of January, 1515.[258]
The fatigues of riding post a hundred and forty miles from Chioggia
in two days and a half required this repose, and induced him to
continue his journey in less hot haste. Yet Bembo, with all his
accomplishments, was but a sunshine courtier, as we shall see some
fifteen months later.
[Footnote 258: See below, p. 368.]
It would seem that, at the time of Giuliano's marriage, the idea
of providing for him large additions in Romagna to his Lombard
principality was the leading motive of his brother's policy,
and that the Dukes of Urbino and Ferrara were already viewed as
stepping-stones to his exaltation. The command of the pontifical
troops was accordingly bestowed upon him as Gonfaloniere, on the
24th of June, 1515, at once an injustice and an insult to Francesco
Maria, in whose hands its baton remained unsullied.[*259] The fair
professions with which the Duke was superseded were vague and
unsatisfactory, and he received warning from various quarters of
the sinister designs whereof he was the destined victim. These,
however, being as yet immature, the Pontiff maintained professions
of unwavering favour, and, in a brief dated on the 16th of August,
he assures the Duke that he will readily regard certain services as
entitled to the largest and most liberal remuneration in his power.
[Footnote *259: However, Francesco's record was not a very brilliant
one. He failed to take Mirandola without Julius II., and the affair
of Ravenna would, one might think, have ruined any soldier.]
Yet Giuliano must be acquitted of the ingratitude and perfidy
shown to his former friend by the Pope and his nephew Lorenzo. The
hospitalities of Duke Guidobaldo had in his case fallen upon no
arid soil. His fondest recollections of lettered intercourse and
of youthful love were centred in Urbino. He remembered that it was
Francesco Maria who, six years before, had interposed to screen him
from the jealousies of the late Pontiff, and who had warmly urged the
restoration of his family in Florence. He therefore firmly refused
to acquiesce in any projects which would aggrandise himself at the
Duke's cost; and, in token of good will, while on his way to France,
made a detour to visit him at Gubbio, where he thus addressed him:
"I have heard, my Lord, that it has been represented to you how the
Pope has a mind to take your state from you, in order to give it me;
but this is not true, for, on account of the kindness, favour, and
benefits I ever have received from your Excellency and your house,
I should never consent to it, however much desired by his Holiness,
lest other princes of your rank should resolve, in consequence, never
again to give such refuge at their courts as was granted to me and
mine. Be assured, therefore, that, whilst I live, you not only will
receive no molestation on my account, but will be ever regarded by
me as an elder brother."[260] Upon these assurances, Francesco Maria
not only suspended the defences of his duchy, which he had begun
to put in order, but accepted an engagement for himself, with two
hundred men-at-arms and a hundred light horse, under Giuliano, the
pontifical captain-general. To secure himself, however, against all
contingencies, he applied to the Pontiff for leave to bring into the
field a thousand infantry, in addition to his usual following. The
scruples of Giuliano did not in any way soften his brother, whose
intrigues against Urbino are prominent in the curious despatch of his
secretary Bibbiena, which Roscoe has printed under date the 16th of
February.
[Footnote 260: Dialogo Giraldi, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153.]
Louis XII. died on the 1st of January, 1515, and was succeeded by
his second and third cousin, Francis I. This event changed not the
projects of Leo in behalf of his brother, whose marriage to the
Princess of Savoy was solemnised in February, and who was received
by the French monarch with kindness and distinction. To render his
position fully worthy of the match, the Pope invested him with Parma,
Piacenza, and Modena, yielding a revenue approaching to 48,000
ducats. He likewise settled a large pension upon the princess, and
provided for the pair a magnificent palace in Rome, to which they
were welcomed with a pomp unusual even in these days of pageantry.
Leo's position with reference to Francis I. was in many respects
embarrassing, and the defence of his policy, elaborately undertaken
by Roscoe, has established the writer's bias rather than the
Pontiff's rectitude. That monarch was steadily pursuing those
schemes upon the Milanese which Leo had the year before suggested
to his predecessor; and the amicable relations established with
the Medici by Giuliano's marriage gave him additional reason to
rely upon the Pontiff's support in the struggle which must follow
his descent upon Italy. But to restrain the French beyond their
Alpine barrier was the favourite, as well as the natural policy of
his Holiness, and it was that which tended most to the security of
his brother's newly-acquired Lombard sovereignty. He therefore,
in July, after some months of anxious vacillation, avowed his
adherence to the league of the Emperor with the Kings of England
and of Spain, to which Florence, Milan, and the Swiss were parties.
Yet he was far from hearty in the cause, and, during the brief
campaign which succeeded the arrival of a French army in Lombardy,
the ecclesiastical contingent limited their efforts to watching the
safety of Parma and Piacenza. Nor did the other allies show much
more zeal, excepting the Swiss, whose impetuous valour brought on
the pitched battle of Marignano on the 13th of September, and lost
them the prestige which had stamped their infantry as invincible. The
costly victory there gained by the French was speedily followed by a
surrender of his claims upon Milan by Duke Maximiliano Sforza, who
was content to enjoy for the remainder of his life a home and pension
provided by his conqueror.[*261]
[Footnote *261: The defeat of the Swiss at Marignano opened the way
for the long fight between Francis I. and Charles V. It decided many
things--the future of monarchy in Europe, for instance, as well as
the fate of the republican army "so long invincible in Italy." Cf.
CREIGHTON, _op. cit._, vol. V., p. 243. "What will become
of us," said Leo to Giorgi, the Venetian Ambassador, who brought him
the news of the defeat--"and of you?" "We will put ourselves in the
hands of the Most Christian King," he added, "and will implore his
mercy." Cf. the _Relazioni Venete_, 2nd series, vol. III., p. 44,
quoted by Creighton, who, as always, takes the view of a statesman,
and not merely that of a scholar. Sforza surrendered Milan on October
4th. The Pope signed terms with Francis October 13th, 1515. The Pope
was then in Viterbo, which he left for Bologna in November, coming to
Florence on the last day of that month. In December he was back in
Bologna to meet Francis. He returned to Florence and left for Rome on
February 19th, 1516.]
The principal object of Francis being thus effected, he was not
indisposed to reconciliation with the Holy See, for which Leo had
sedulously retained an opening by keeping Ludovico Canossa throughout
the contest as an accredited agent at the French head-quarters. But
the Pontiff met the usual reward of trimmers. The tardy accommodation
offered by his envoy came too late to save Parma and Piacenza, for
which alone he had become a party to the war. The French monarch
would not hear of renouncing what he insisted were intrinsic
portions of the Milanese, but offered to meet with the Pontiff and
arrange in person a lasting amity, Bologna being named for the
interview. Upon the diplomatic arrangements which there occupied
these potentates in the end of the year we need not touch, further
than to notice that the intercession of Francis in favour of the
Duke of Urbino, which the latter had hastened, after the battle of
Marignano, to bespeak by means of a special envoy, proved quite
ineffectual. It obviously was dictated less by any interest in the
Duke's welfare than by the wish to thwart a favourite project of his
fickle ally, and it at once was met by reference to an article which
the Pope had adroitly inserted in the treaty, that Francis should in
no way interfere for the protection of any undutiful vassal of the
Holy See. From Bologna Leo proceeded to Florence, where he remained
most of the winter, maturing his schemes for the ruin of Francesco
Maria.
The death of Ferdinand of Spain in January, 1516, soon reawoke the
ambitious hopes of Francis, by reminding him of his predecessor's
dormant claims upon the Neapolitan crown. But a new combination of
circumstances gave another turn to his thoughts. The efforts of the
Venetians to recover Verona and Brescia from Maximilian brought the
latter into Lombardy at the head of fifteen thousand Swiss troops,
by whom Lautrec, the French general, was for a time hard pressed,
and Leo, ever anxious to conciliate a conqueror, hastily sent
Cardinal Bibbiena with reinforcements to the Emperor's camp. Yet the
storm, passing off suddenly and harmlessly, left few traces besides
jealousy, which the prudence of that wily legate scarcely prevented
from arising in the mind of Francis towards his slippery ally.
These vacillations on the part of Leo have been slightly touched
upon, in order to clear the ground for displaying his ambitious
nepotism in its proper field,--the duchy of Urbino. This, his
prevailing weakness, had met with many disappointments. No opening
occurred for its exercise in the direction of Naples. Parma and
Piacenza had passed from his grasp, by reluctant surrender to a
professing ally. But, worst of all, his favourite brother Giuliano,
the object in whom centred most of his schemes, had been removed
by death on the 17th of March, not without surmise of poison from
the jealousy of his nephew Lorenzo.[*262] Although his great
popularity favoured the ambitious views which were thrust upon him
by the Pontiff, his mind lay rather towards elegant pursuits and
splendid tastes, than to such high aspirations. Indeed, the Venetian
ambassador, Capello, represents his dying request to Leo as in favour
of Urbino[*263]; but the Pope waived the discussion of a point upon
which his resolution was taken. Lorenzo, his successor in the papal
favour, was a much more willing, though less conciliatory, instrument
of his Holiness's designs.
[Footnote *262: Giuliano had certainly been ailing for months. His
death did not seem to have been unexpected.]
[Footnote *263: So does Giorgi. Cf. _Relazioni Venete_, 2nd series,
vol. II., p. 51.]
Lorenzo de' Medici was eldest son of Pietro, the first-born of
Lorenzo the Magnificent.[*264] He was born on the 13th of September,
1492, and his youth was passed amid many trials. His father, after
ten years of exile from Florence, had been drowned in the Garigliano,
in 1504, and, four years thereafter, his sister Clarissa's marriage
with Filippo Strozzi involved him in a second banishment. He was of
good person and gallant presence, endowed with a stirring spirit,
but destitute of generous or heroic qualities. Giorgi, another
Venetian envoy, even considered him scarcely inferior in cunning and
capacity to the redoubted Valentino. The government of Florence was
committed to him by Leo, on his uncle Giuliano being called to a
higher destiny, and feeling his advancement restrained by the prior
claims, as well as by the moderation of the latter, he is believed to
have removed him by poison; at all events he was immediately named to
succeed him as gonfaloniere of the Church.
[Footnote *264: Cf. VERDI: _Gli ultimi anni di Lorenzo de'
Medici duca d'Urbino, 1515-1519_ (Pietrogrande, 1905).]
This renewed outrage upon Francesco Maria's military rank,[*265]
and the death of the only individual of the Medici upon whom he had
any reliance, warned him of the approaching crisis in his fate. The
influence of Alfonsina degli Orsini in favour of her son Lorenzo
stimulated the Pontiff's projects, unwarned by a prediction of
Giuliano that, by following the courses of the Borgia, he would
probably suffer their fate. The immediate pretext, adopted for
outpouring the accumulated vials of papal wrath, was the Duke's
declining to march his troops into Lombardy under Lorenzo as
gonfaloniere, in consequence, as Giraldi informs us, of information
that his death was resolved upon should he trust his person within
his rival's power. Accordingly, Leo was no sooner returned to Rome,
than, affecting to consider this refusal, as the act of overt
rebellion by a subject against his sovereign, he issued a severe
monitory against his feudatory, summoning him thither to answer
various vague or irrelevant charges, one of these being the Cardinal
of Pavia's slaughter, of which he had already received no
"Ragged and forestalled remission,"
on a report subscribed by Leo himself. Various diplomatic
functionaries at the papal court vainly interceded that he should
appear by attorney, instead of surrendering in person; and he
meanwhile garrisoned Urbino, Pesaro, and S. Leo. The Duchess Dowager,
whose arms had frequently received and fondled the infant Lorenzo,
while her husband's court sheltered the elder members of his house,
hastened to Rome as a mediatrix; but it was with difficulty she
made her way to the Pope's presence, and she obtained no mercy for
her nephew, nor protection for her own alimentary provisions out
of the duchy, his Holiness refusing to listen to any propositions
until the Duke had obeyed the monitory by appearing at Rome before
the 2nd of April. In consequence of his failure to do so, a bull of
excommunication went forth on the 27th, depriving him of his state,
and all dignities held of the Holy See, and absolving his subjects
from allegiance, on pain of ecclesiastical censures. By a gratuitous
exercise of malevolence, the papal influence was employed with the
King of Spain for confiscation of Sora, and his other patrimonial
holdings in Naples, thus visiting him with instant beggary. On the
18th of August, his dukedom and ecclesiastical baton were conferred
upon the unworthy Lorenzo, who, in the following month, was also
invested with the prefecture of Rome.
[Footnote *265: I do not see how this was an outrage. Francesco had
been already dismissed: see _supra_ 360. Besides, he had certainly
made overtures to the French. Cf. GUICCIARDINI, _Storia
d'Italia_, vol. XII.]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
LORENZO DI PIERO DE' MEDICI, DUKE OF URBINO
_After the picture by Bronzino in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_]
The value of political gratitude is strikingly illustrated in the
fact, that these outrageous measures were adopted, in a consistory
composed for the most part of creatures of the della Rovere family,
with the single dissentient voice of Cardinal Grimani, of Venice,
Bishop of Urbino, whose independence earned him an exile from Rome.
Nor was this the only painful lesson of the worth of courtier
fidelity now taught to that illustrious house. Even the civilities
of Bembo to the Duchess Dowager sank to a low grade, as he thus
acknowledges in a letter to Bibbiena of the 19th of April:--"The Lady
Duchess of Urbino, whom I visited yesterday (a duty which I, however,
very rarely perform), commends herself to you, as does also the Lady
Emilia. On these dames the Signor Unico [Accolti] dances attendance.
He is more than ever in the heat of his old passion, which he
declares now numbers five lustres and a half; and he has better
hopes than heretofore of at length obtaining the consummation of his
desires, having been asked by the Lady Duchess to _improvisare_, by
which means he trusts to move that stony heart to tears--at the
least. He is to rehearse in two or three days, and as soon as he
does so, I shall report to you: would that you could be here, as he
is sure to do it right well." It can scarcely be doubted that this
innuendo was meant to apply to the more exalted of these ladies.
Whether as a caustic sneer, or a current scandal, it comes ill from
such a quarter, and only adds a new proof of the poet's inordinate
conceit. Nor did it go unpunished, for we find such vain effrontery
thus lashed by Gandolfo Porrino, a contemporary satirist:--
"In such affairs the palm he gives to one beyond all gold,
Urbino's Duchess dowager, your cousin scarce yet old.
Long at that court Lord Unico had paragoned her face,
With words and pen, in wondrous phrase, to angels' matchless grace.
Till, gazing on those saint-like eyes, while tears bedimmed his own,
The secret of his passion thus he breathed to her alone:
'All goddess fair! my love for thee all other loves exceeds,
No Launcelot, no errant knight, its lightning course outspeeds!
Prithee with me participate the boon that cannot cloy,
And share in mutual confidence a bliss without alloy.'
Unlike those artful hypocrites who evil speeches spurn,
But wink at acts, the prudent dame thus answer did return:
'Remember that we hapless wives must each their lord obey,
Tyrant or kind, his dread behests we never may gainsay;
Mine is the Duke, to whom your wish propose, should he assent,
As well I wot, right readily your whim shall I content.'
Confounded by her sarcasm the carpet-knight was left
Poor victim of his vanity, of self-respect bereft."
The now inevitable war was opened by a simultaneous movement upon the
duchy from three several quarters. Renzo, that is, Lorenzo da Ceri,
accompanied by Lorenzo de' Medici and a powerful army, advanced from
Romagna; Vitello Vitelli marched upon Massa Trabaria; and, on the
12th of May, Gianpaolo Baglioni seized on Gubbio.[*266] The force
thus poured upon the state amounted to seventeen thousand foot,
above a thousand men-at-arms, and near two thousand light horse.
That which Francesco Maria could bring into the field numbered about
nine thousand men, and being averse to entail upon his subjects the
miseries of an unavailing struggle, he authorised their surrender,
excepting the citadels of Pesaro, Urbino, S. Leo, and Maiuolo, which
he garrisoned for resistance. His attempts to obtain the mediation
or support of foreign powers entirely failed. Their sympathy and
condolence were freely doled out to him, but none gave hope of
efficient aid, except Maximilian, whose promises, on this as on all
other occasions, proved quite worthless. It only remained to bow, as
his uncle Guidobaldo had done, before the storm, and await happier
times. On the 31st he sent off from Pesaro his consort, in an ailing
state, his infant son, and the dowager Duchess to their relations at
Mantua, with such valuables as they could transport in six or eight
vessels, and, speedily following them, he embarked at midnight and
reached that city in disguise.
[Footnote *266: Cf. PELLEGRINI, _Gubbio sotto i conti e
Duchi d'Urbino_, in _Boll. per l'Umbria_, vol. XI., p. 221. Gianpaolo
Baglioni da Perugia entered the Eugubine territory with 100 knights,
500 horse, and 3000 foot. The Duke wrote that he could not defend
Gubbio. On the 31st May the Consiglio was called together, and it
decided: "redire ad Romanam ecclesiam et sub regimine s. D.N."]
Pesaro, after an eight days' siege, capitulated on honourable terms,
in breach of which Tranquillo Giraldi, the commandant, was hanged
upon a vague accusation of bad faith. Urbino having, by order of its
sovereign, been surrendered without a blow on the 30th of May,[*267]
the community, on the 16th of June, sent deputies to kiss the Pope's
feet on taking possession of the state, in hopes of obtaining
relaxation of the interdict; but his Holiness raised it only for
such as adhered to the existing order of things. He committed the
government of the town to its new bishop, Giulio Vitelli, who
intrigued at all hands to induce the magistracy to follow the example
set them in other places, of petitioning his Holiness to give them
an independent sovereign, in order that the exaltation of his nephew
to the dukedom might seem a popular measure. On the 16th of June
the interdict was removed from all the duchy except S. Leo, which
alone held out; but, faithful to the proverb of hating him whom he
had injured, the Pontiff was deaf to all entreaties for restoration
to church privileges of his victim, who consequently remained in
hiding at Goito near Mantua, apart from his family, that he might
not involve them in excommunication, and giving out that he had fled
across the Alps, in order to baffle those who sought his life.
[Footnote *267: ZACCAGNINI has published an unknown poem
on this taking of Urbino. See _Un poemetto sconosciuto sulla presa
d'Urbino del 1516_, in _Le Marche_ (1906), An. VI., p. 145.]
The example of Guidobaldo kept alive his hopes of regaining his
sovereignty, as that Duke had done, by means of S. Leo. But ere he
could organise measures for a descent, he had the grief of learning
its fall. As there is always something of romantic adventure in
the surprise of a place impregnable by ordinary expedients, we may
dwell for a moment on the third and last successful leaguer of this
fortress. The garrison consisted of a hundred and twenty men, one
tenth of whom had fallen in its defence. After three months spent in
hopeless assaults, a Florentine carpenter, named Antonio, observing
from the opposite heights the absence of sentinels over one of the
most precipitous parts of the rock, attempted to make his way up the
face of it, sometimes aided by plants and bushes in the clefts, but
generally driving iron spikes into their crevices, and fastening
ropes, ladders, or beams, as he advanced. After four nights of this
perilous toil he reached the wall, which he found, as expected,
without defenders. Having reported the way accessible, a number of
light infantry were entrusted to his guidance, whom he ordered to
strip their headgear and shoes, and to strap upon their backs their
shields, swords, and hatchets. On the 30th of September, under cover
of a wet and foggy night, he conducted these safely to the summit,
accompanied by a drummer and four pair of colours. At daybreak,
an alarm was given from the watch-tower of an assault upon the
gate, towards which the besiegers had sent a party; and, whilst the
defenders hurried in that direction, Antonio, with some fifty men,
cleared the walls, displayed their colours, and beat to arms. Ere the
garrison had recovered their presence of mind, the gate was opened by
the escalading party to their comrades, and the place was carried.
The citadel was held for twenty-five days longer by a handful
of desperate men, but they at length surrendered to one Antonio
Riccasoli of Florence, who placed upon the castle a vainglorious
inscription, claiming for himself the genius of another Dedalus. The
fortress had been commanded by Sigismondo Varana, Count of Camerino,
the Duke's young nephew, assisted by an experienced captain of the
Ubaldini; and the good treatment experienced by the garrison gave
rise to a suspicion of treachery on their part, Sigismondo alone
being sent to Volterra as prisoner of war. Much of the Duke's
treasure was taken, and the loss of S. Leo proved a serious blow to
his interests.[268]
[Footnote 268: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 906, 907, 928; Vat. Ottob. MSS. No.
3153.]