[1] The armorial bearings are: Argent, a bend sable. Crest, a dexter arm in pale proper clothed gules holding an antique shield sable charged with a mullet or. Supporters, dexter, a lion gules armed and langued azure; sinister, an antelope argent, unguled and horned or. Motto: Adversa virtute repello.

[2] The account given above of the life of James Dennistoun has been drawn from Some Account of the Family of Dennistoun of Dennistoun and Colgrain (Glasgow: printed for private circulation by James MacLehose and Sons, 1906), kindly lent to the Editor by J.W. Dennistoun of Dennistoun, Esq.

[3] I speak of the first edition of his Italy; the reprint of 1848 is enlarged but not improved.

[4] Better evidence of the deficient information hitherto accessible could hardly be desired than the fact that Roscoe, in his Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, ch. viii., entirely mistakes the family name of the first dynasty of Urbino.

[5] Daniel ii. 32.

[6] Giovanni della Casa, translated by James Glassford.

[7] The most recent, and among the most interesting authorities for Urbino, is Passavant's Life of Raffaele, an admirable article upon which by Sir C.L. Eastlake, in vol. LXVI. of the Quarterly Review, suggested the present work. Had that biography been accessible to me at an earlier period, it might have assisted my labours, and perhaps modified some of my views; but I had no opportunity of consulting it until my own pages were nearly ready for press. It is the fruit of successful German industry, sweetened by candid and intelligent criticism, and its remaining still untranslated into any language is among the remarkable anomalies of literary history. I may be allowed here to mention that the accuracy and success with which Lord Lindsay and Mrs. Jameson have cultivated the field of Christian and legendary art, enable me to dispense with much regarding a subject which would otherwise have been more prominent in these volumes.

[8] The case is stated by Roscoe in his Preface to Leo X., and we approve of his decision, notwithstanding the objections taken to it in vol. VII., p. 356, of the Edinburgh Review.

[9] By an elaborate process, founded upon very complex facts, Cibrario concludes that, with reference to the value of wheat in Piedmont, the florin is now worth only about double what it was in the fourteenth century; but this does not seem a fair test to the relative power of money even in Italy; and in a work intended for English readers, it appears necessary to bring out an estimate applicable to present prices in this country, not in Southern Europe, where money still goes much further than with us.

[10]

"L'aquila grifagna Che per più divorar due becchi porta." Luigi Alamanni.

[*11] This may be, and indeed is so; but see Lanzani, St. d. Comuni Italiani dal. Orig. al 1313 (Milano, 1882), lib. I., passim. Nevertheless, the relation of all the Dukes and Signori to the Empire or to the Church was absolutely feudal as I understand the term, as in essence was, in turn, the relation of a city to its contado. Cf. D. Winspeare, St. d. Abusi Feudali (ed. 1883), to which is added as appendix an article by F. de Coulanges on the feudal régime. See also C. Cantù, St. d. Italiani (Torino, 1854), tom. III., cap. LXXIV., pp. 224-39. C. Calisse, St. d. Diretto Italiano (Firenze, 1891), vol. II., parte II. e III.

[*12] For the malaria in Italy in the Middle Age, see Aquarone, Dante in Siena (Siena, 1889), p. 47-9.

[*13] I doubt a true democratic element anywhere; perhaps for a few decades in Perugia.

[*14] So far as the Malatesti are concerned this is absolutely untrue. Carlo Malatesta went to infinite trouble to legitimise Galeotto and Sigismondo, his brother's illegitimate children. See Edward Hutton, Sigismondo Malatesta (Dent, 1906), p. 19.

[*15] The Malatesti were, without doubt, just as great and beloved as the Montefeltri. Sigismondo was as great and enthusiastic a patron of the arts, and in contemporary opinion a greater soldier than Federigo di Montefeltro. See Edward Hutton, op. cit., p. 86 note 1.

[16] This was written under Gregory XVI. Time will show how far the more enlarged and generous policy essayed by his successor can abate long and deeply rooted prejudices on the one hand, without fostering undue expectations on the other. As yet (1850) the experiment has signally failed.[*A]

[*A] As we know, it succeeded ten years later.

[17] Mariotti's Italy, II., p. 298, first edition.

[*18] The story of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino in Gubbio, which begins in this year, is a long one, lasting to 1632. Some of the sources of information may perhaps here be given.

Croniche di Gubbio di Ser Guerriero, di Fra Gir. Maria da Venezia e di Don Francesco (per cura del Prof. Giuseppe Mazzatinti), R.I.S., tom. XXI., parte IV. (Città di Castello, 1902).

V. Armanni, Stor. della famiglia de' conti Bentivoglio da Gubbio (Bologna, 1682).

B. Tondi, I Fasti della Gloria (Venezia, 1684).

M. Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis (Pisauri, 1755).

R. Reposati, Della Zecca di Gubbio ecc. (Bologna, 1772).

Simon Paolo, Diario detto di Marcello Cervino (Gubbio, 1848).

G. Mazzatinti, Cronaca di ser Guerriero di Ser Silvestro Berni, in Arch. Stor. per le Marche e per l'Umbria (Foligno), vol. I., pp. 195 e 385.

G. Mazzatinti, Di alcune leggi suntuarie eugubine, in Bollettino per l'Umbria (Perugia), vol. III., pp. 287-301.

F. Ballerini, Le feste di Gubbio per la nascita di Federico Ubaldo, dei duchi d'Urbino, in Il Muratori, vol. I., fasc. II. e segg. (1892, Roma).

O. Scalvanti, Il Mons Pietatis di Perugia con qualche notizia di quello di Gubbio (Perugia, 1892).

F. Ranghiasci, De' palazzi municipali ecc. di Gubbio, in Arch. St. It., ser. VI., vol. VI., p. ii.

A. Pellegrini, Gubbio sotto i conti e Duchi d'Urbino, in Bollettino per l'Umbria, vol. XI., pp. 135-246 e 483-535, e vol. XII., pp. 1-50.

[19] It was first given to Oddantonio, in 1443, but lapsed a few months later by his death.

[20] The Carpegna arms were azure, three bends argent. The Montefeltri of Urbino had their bends or, impaled with the eagle as feudatories of the empire.

[*21] This was the detection of a plot against Frederick. Cf. Ugolini, Storia dei Conti e Duchi d'Urbino (Firenze, 1859), vol. I., p. 12.

[*22] He had been excommunicated for the third time in 1288 for defending the Pisani. He was finally reconciled to the Church, October 1, 1294. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., vol. I., p. 81 et seq. Muratori (Annali ad ann. 1295) says: "Guido conte di Montefeltro rimesso in grazia del papa, venne in quest'anno a Forlì...."

[23] Dublin Review, vol. XI., 1841, p. 505. Brit. and Foreign Review, vol. XIII., 1842, p. 415.

[*24] The authorities for the life of Count Guido il Vecchio of Montefeltro are the Cronaca Riminese and the Cronaca Estense, in Muratori, R.I.S. Cf. also Villani, Cronaca, especially lib. VII., caps. 81, 128, and Rodolfo Honig, Conte Guido di Montefeltro (Bologna, 1901). Cf. also Rizzoli, I Sigilli nel Museo Bottacin di Padova (Padova, 1903), p. 51, tav. 6, where a seal of Guido is described and illustrated.

[25] Yet the denial of this imputation by Muzio and Baldi may be ascribed rather to sycophancy than to historic research, especially as the latter, in his Encomio della Patria, has gravely maintained that Guido was placed in the Inferno, not for his misdeeds, but as the only modern warrior worthy to be the associate of Ulysses!

[*26] Convito, IV., 28, 61 seq. "Il nobilissimo nostro Latino Guido Montefeltro."

[27] Riposati, Zecca di Gubbio, I., p. 408.

[*28] There was never a Montefeltro chapel in the Lower Church of S. Francesco at Assisi. Guido died in 1298, and the first two chapels were only founded about 1310 by "due prelati di Casa Orsina, cioè Gian Giordano e Napoleone ambedue cardinali. Fece il primo far la cappela di S. Giovanni Battista in capo al braccio meridionale, e il secondo quella di S. Niccolò rimpetto alla menzionata, cioè in testa al baccio settentrionale della croce del sotterraneo." P. Giuseppe Fratini: Storia della Basilica di S. Francesco in Assisi (Prato, 1882), p. 94. What Dennistoun possibly means, is that Guidantonio in the first half of the fifteenth century commissioned the painting of the Cappella dei Pellegrini in Via Principe di Napoli in Assisi from Mezzastris and Matteo da Gualdo. Cristofani: Storia d'Assisi (Assisi Tip. Metastasio), p. 198. Dennistoun errs again when he suggests that Guido was buried in S. Francesco. Cristofani (op. cit., p. 124) tells us he was buried "nel luogo degli Angeli. D'onde il figlio Federigo fe' poi trasportarne le ossa nella chiesa di S. Bernardino a picciola distanza dalla città d'Urbino." Cf. also Ugolini, op. cit., vol. I., pp. 88-90.

[*29] For Guglielmo Durante, see Mazzatinti, Il Card. Albornoz nell'Umbria ecc., in Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. IV., p. 466 et seq., and Filippini, La riconquista dello Stato della Chiesa per opera di Egidio Albornoz 1353-57, in Studi Storici (Pisa e Torino, 1897), vol. VI., fasc. I., et seq.

[*30] According to Guerriero, op. cit. (see supra, note *1, p. 22), Antonio arrived on March 31, 1384, with 2000 foot and 400 horse—to the cry of "Viva el Conte Antonio"—"con più suoi gentiluomini e provisionati, e con ottocento some di vittuaglia e fece molto onore alli consoli. Ebbe le guardie della rocca della città, le chiavi delle porte.... Mandò alli nostri gentiluomini, e molti tornarono, e incominciò ad invilire il prezzo del grano a 20 ancone la mina." Cf. Simon Paolo, op. cit. (see supra, note *1, p. 22).

[*31] He went to Perugia in the latter part of 1392 while the Pope was there. Ghinolfo Conti, a Roman baron, administered justice in Perugia (without respect to the factions and with little satisfaction to the nobles greedy of privileges) in the name of the Pope "cui consigliava a trovar modo di rimettere i fuorusciti nella città. Allo stesso pietoso officio intendeva il conte Antonio da Urbino venuto a Perugia con 200 cavalli." Arch. St. It., ser. I., vol. XVI., part I., p. 254 and note 3.

[*32] The treaty was signed February 1, 1375. Cf. Sommi Picenardi, Trattato fra Bernabò Visconti, ecc. ecc., in Miscellanea di Storia Italiana, vol. XXIII. (Torino, 1885).

[*33] Annal. Foroliviens, in Muratori, R.I.S., tom. XXII. See also Sozomenus Chron., in R.I.S., tom. XVI.

[*34] Anna married Francesco Brancaleoni. Cf. Ugolini, op. cit., I., 191. Later she is said to have married a Malatesta.

[35] Bibl. Oliveriana, MSS. No. 454. Vat. Urb. Lib., No. 3212, f. 128. Also a MS. in the Chigi Library. See, as to the writings both of Malatesta and his daughter-in-law, Tiraboschi, VI., part II., p. 164, and Crescimbeni, III., pp. 214, 265.

[36] A very curious contract, preserved in Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, and dated 29th May, 1419, secures to her the exercise of her own religion and native usages during the marriage, and in case of widowhood, permits her return to Italy.

[*37] The Chronicle of Gubbio tells us that Cardinal Maramaldo, legate of the Pope in Umbria, had been promised the lordship of Assisi for his services, and that at this time he was in secret treaty with the Perugians to deliver Assisi to them. "Di che accortisi," says Cristofani (op. cit., p. 213), "i cittadini di Gubbio poco mancò, che non lapidassero il legato. Certo poi egli ebbe in seguito Assisi e la resse con titolo di vicario della Chiesa. Difatti in una sentenza registrata in forma pubblica a dì 18 di agosto 1413 in favor del monastero di S. Apollinare contro l'altro di S. Paolo si legge: nobilis ac potens comes Riccardus de ... gubernator Assisii pro illustri ac potenti domino Guidantonio comite montis feretri Assisii et Umbriæ pro S.R.E. Vicario" (Archivio di S. Apollinare in Assisi). The domination of Guidantonio in Assisi is much better confirmed by a series of letters at various times directed by him to the public officials of Assisi that are given in the Riformagioni, lib. H, VII. One of these is given dated, 29 July, 1415, from Gubbio, by Cristofani (op. cit., p. 214, note 1).

[*38] About 1416 the power of Braccio was very great. The Perugians had lost to him nearly all their fortified places; for this cause they hired Carlo Malatesta of Rimini, who was at the head of some 2000 horse and 800 infantry in Assisi; others, too, flocked to him. Towards the middle of July Carlo and his nephew Galeotto, half-brother to the famous Sigismondo, fell into the hands of Braccio, as some say, after the battle of S. Egidio, near Bastia, between Perugia and Assisi. The ransom was 120,000 ducats. See Cristofani, op. cit., p. 215, and Edward Hutton, op. cit., pp. 17-18.

[39]

"Papa Martino Non val' un quatrino!"

[*40] But see L. Fumi, Guidantonio e la Città di Castello, in Bollettino per l'Umbria, vol. VI., pp. 377-401.

[*41] Cf. L. Bonazzi, St. di Perugia (Perugia, 1875), vol. II., p. 641.

[*42] The Golden Rose was conferred not infrequently on others besides royalty. Sigismondo Malatesta had it later.

[*43] It was in January.

[*44] Her name was Elisabetta.

[*45] Guidantonio died on February 21, 1443, according to the inscription on his tomb; but the Chronicle of Gubbio (Berni, in Muratori, R.I.S., tom. XXI., p. 981) gives the date as in the text. The library at Urbino was begun by him.

[46] Regarding this daughter, who was born in 1428, we have some curious particulars to offer. After her father's death, she was carried to Rome, to be educated by her uncles the Colonna. There she married Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, in 1448, an alliance rather of policy than of affection, and was received in his capital with all demonstrations of joy by her new subjects. Her husband, fully occupied with war and business, soon after set off for Lombardy: and in sooth her charms are described, even by her enthusiastic eulogists, as very homely, and little adapted to fix the roving tastes of her lord, whose dissolute and brutal conduct exceeded even the licence of that age. After patient endurance of his outrages during twelve years, she fled to the convent of Corpus Domini, of the Franciscan order of Sta. Chiara, at Pesaro, which she enriched with 7500 ducats out of her dower. That she did not leave behind all mundane tastes may be concluded from a curious inventory of paraphernalia which she took into the cloister, printed by the Abbé Olivieri from the original in her own hand, and contained in II. of our Appendix.[*B]

But even the sacred precincts of her cloister afforded to the unhappy Sueva no adequate sanctuary from her cruel husband, who, abandoning himself to a profligate connection with Pacifica, a fair damsel of Pesaro, sought by renewed persecutions to extort from his wife an entire release from his matrimonial tie. Her just complaints procured the interposition of the Colonna; but these were answered by false charges against her connubial fidelity, which, overawed by the menaces of Alessandro, that he would consign the monastery and its inmates to the flames, she tacitly admitted. Thus cut off from human succour, the afflicted lady had recourse to the support of religion, and whilst prostrated before a crucifix, her faith was reassured by the conviction that the figure upon it had turned towards her with compassionate words. For such woes the world had no asylum. The outraged wife became the spouse of Christ, by taking the final vows as Sister Serafina, and sent back to her oppressor the ring that had been the token of their ill-starred union. His restored liberty was immediately used to marry Pacifica, whom his cruelties within two years consigned to a premature tomb. Finally, repenting of his long criminal career, he sought forgiveness of Serafina, and richly endowed the convent, of which she had become abbess. After an age of peace, such as youth, and the world with its gauds, had failed to afford her, her body was deposited in the cathedral of Pesaro, where it is revered as a sacred relic, its spirit having, in 1754, received the honours of beatification, and been associated with Sta. Michelina and S. Terenzio, as a protectress of that city. I had the good fortune, in 1843, to discover in the Oliveriana Library there, and to rescue from neglect, a curious piece of furniture that had belonged to the Corpus Domini, on which were portraits of the Beata Felice who founded that monastery, and of the Abbess Serafina. They were executed in distemper, with much of the feeling of Pinturicchio, and the latter of them has been rudely but faithfully engraved for Olivieri's Life of Alessandro Sforza.

[*B] Cf. Feliciangeli, Sulla monacazione di Sueva Montefeltro-Sforza (Pistoia, 1903).

[47] The remote origin of the Ubaldini is curiously illustrated by an inscription, which is among the earliest known records of armorial bearings. It was inscribed in Gothic characters upon a stone, originally placed on one of their Apennine castles, but brought to Florence by a branch of their race, where it was long regarded as an heirloom. It has been published in Borghini's Discorsi Toscani, II., p. 25, and the following literal translation from its barbarous Latino-Italian rhymes may be acceptable to our readers. It was intended to commemorate the erection of the castle, and exhibits, in rude carving, the Ubaldini arms, a stag's head antlered.

"For this boon Thanks I render to Christ, Completed on the fête of the gentle St. Mary Magdalene; Ah! do Thou specially pray To God for me a sinner. In this my chant, From the most veritable narration I in nothing deviate. In the year one thousand Of Christ's salvation, and a hundred Eighty-four, Chased by hounds Furiously, I, hard by the Coppices in Mugello, a stag By the horns stopped,— Of old the genius of the Ubaldini, Subjects of the holy Empire; Where, rushing on at speed, I grappled with my hands At his horns all the while. The mighty Sir Frederick, Who observed him thus cumbered, Having come up, slew him outright. Thereupon he gifted me with The forehead, beautifully horned, And honourably branched; And desired that it should be Of my race The accepted cognisance. My father was Ugicio, And my grand-sire Guarento, Son of Ugicio, son of Azo, Son of Ubaldino, Son of Gotichino, Son of Luconazo. Q.D.A.A.D.V."

[Thus read]

"Who shall sway the Apennines? The favoured house of Ubaldini."

After many a conflict with their neighbours of Florence, the Ubaldini of Val di Mugello paid the penalty of their Ghibelline principles, by expulsion from their native fiefs, and were scattered throughout Central Italy. A branch of them retired to the more distant fortresses of Umbria, and after lording it for a time over Città di Castello, found an eventual home on the mountains north of Gubbio, which they are supposed to have had in dowry with a daughter of the Brancaleoni, about 1280. Her descendant,

In a lengthened sketch of his character, Giovanni Sanzi, the metrical chronicler of Federigo's reign, tells us that his native excellences were amply developed at the court of Filippo Visconti, where he was brought up under that Duke's immediate eye. During many years he was chief minister and treasurer of his uncle, to whose interests he devoted himself with unwearied zeal, discharging his duties with singular dignity and discretion. Nor did he, amid the cares of state, forget the improvement of his intellectual gifts. Francesco Filelfo dedicates a work to him, as a man of great weight and learning. Porcellio, who had probably shared his bounty, calls him an indefatigable reader of the poets; and Sanzi thus extends the catalogue of his acquirements:—

"Well versed he was in classic literature, And mastered readily theology, Whilst music's gentle art his pastimes shared: The secrets of astrology to him Seemed nature's lesson. Never man than he A heart more trusty or more leal could boast; A shrine of truth his bosom. Friend of peace And justice, merit's steady patron still, Painters and sculptors solace found in him, Their almost father."

Berni, the chronicler of Gubbio, applies to Ottaviano and to his father the epithet Magnificent, a not unfrequent euphuism in Italy, although with us applied exclusively to Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1473 he had from Sixtus IV. in special guerdon the privilege of using at his devotions a portable altar, and authority to legitimise bastards. When Federigo set forth with sad forebodings on his last fatal campaign of Ferrara, he confided to Ottaviano the guardianship of his boyish heir Guidobaldo, and the government of his state, trusts which appear to have been faithfully and judiciously fulfilled. Yet Bembo has perpetuated what was probably a vile slander, or at best the suggestion of ignorant drivelling, that the alleged impotence of Duke Guidobaldo was occasioned by magical arts resorted to by his guardian, who had been named next heir of his state. Ottaviano breathed his last at Cagli in 1498, leaving by his wife Angela Orsini, an only son Bernardino, on whose early death the estates and townships of La Carda, Mercatello, Sassocorbaro, S. Marco, Rampugnano, Sta. Croce, La Merola, Lamola, Cargine, and Pecchio devolved upon Duke Guidobaldo. Two contemporaries of his name are mentioned, but I have not traced their relationship; Guidantonio Ubaldini, who in 1464 married Altadonna, daughter of Bartolomeo Contarini; and Pietro, whom Duke Federigo sent to England in 1475, as proxy at his installation as Knight of the Garter, and who was killed at La Stellata in 1482. In 1648 there remained to this ancient house but a wreck of their great estates, including Massa Vaccareccia, but in compliment to their descent and connection with the Montefeltri, they retained precedence over the nobles of Urbino. The Counts of Pecorari and Montefiori were branches of the same stock.