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 ride out 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]
[Footnote 276: Vat. Urb. MSS., No. 907, f. 28, 30. The Minio
despatches are full of details of this conspiracy unknown to Roscoe.]
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 dignity of cardinal to his son, if he would deliver up Francesco
Maria alive or dead.[278]
[Footnote 277: Rymer, vol. IV., p. 135. On the 21st of December
Lorenzo de' Medici had written to thank the King of England for his
good wishes conveyed through the Bishop of Worcester, then resident
at Rome. See a curious letter of the following June, from Wolsey to
the usurping Duke, Appendix VI.]
[Footnote 278: Centenelle, Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 907.]
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 through
intercepted 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,
leaving eight 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 at Fermo 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 supper as 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 perceive that 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.
[Footnote 279: These anecdotes are preserved by Baldi, to whom, and
to Minio Centenelle and Giraldi, we owe many new details of this
campaign. Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 906, 907; Ottob. 3153.]
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 Italian soldiery 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 their escape,
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:--
"A horrible war [raged] in the state of Urbino,
In fifteen hundred and seventeen,
[With] many troops brave and chosen
Led by the Duke Lorenzino,
When Francesco Maria into his duchy
Was returned, with capital troops,
Spaniards, Mantuans, and other clans,
Each one a paladin in arms;
Urbino then, and all the district,
Being in great peril and dread.
Oh, Virgin Mother! ever kind to us,
Often did the host approach our walls,
And God alone it was who defended them:
Therefore has been dedicated to thee this image by thy worshippers
Of Maciola, with their grateful vows."
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 never have 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 of Catherine 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 of _Urbino 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 liberating himself 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 natural heritage, 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 of their 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 withdrew to 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.
[Footnote 280: MOLINI, _Documenti di Storia Italiana_, I.,
pp. 122, 135.]
[Footnote 281: Oliveriana MSS. No. 375; I., pp. 51, 75.]