went on with dances and music, happy in her ignorance, sleeping in the intoxication of incessant prosperity. Used to the scourge of invasion, the sons of the south took up again their guitars, wiped away their tears, and sang anew like a cloud of birds when the tempest is over."* This picture, drawn in bitterness, but not apparently in irony, paints the decline of Italy in colours more attractive than any we should have dared to employ; and we extract it chiefly for the sake of contrast with the same writer's ready admission that the liberty of the old republics was cradled amid convulsions of faction, which eventually exhausted their forces, or stifled their independence. "Better to sink beneath the shock, Than moulder piecemeal on the rock," is one of those sentiments more easy to applaud in poetry than to approve in practice; and if the object of government be the greatest happiness of the masses, it seems, according to Mariotti, to have been more fully attained in Italy during the ages of foreign sway than in those of republican strife. Admitting in some degree, this conclusion, we accord a more hearty approval to the character he has elsewhere given of a state of matters worse, probably, in that land than either of these alternatives,—“ that slow and silent disease, that atrabilious phrenzy - politics which pervades all ranks, exhibiting a striking contrast with the radiant and harmonious gaiety of heaven and earth." Our notices of the court of Urbino have been suspended during a long interval from lack of materials. Indeed, the military duties of its head too well accounts for this deficiency of incident, rendering his domestic life a blank. Even the brief intervals, when he could steal from the camp to the society of his Duchess, were passed in some neighbouring town, where she met him, or at Venice, where she made a lengthened sojourn, • Mariotti's Italy, ii. forthwith addressed his request; but received for answer that the same considerations which induced him to make it rendered them resolute in retaining the services of a leader who for many years had brought renown to their arms; but that, though unable to spare himself, they were ready to place him with all their forces at the disposal of his Highness. The Emperor had employed the Duchess of Savoy's intervention in this affair, who at his suggestion cultivated a great intimacy with the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, and her pleading was on one occasion enforced by Charles in person in a well-timed visit. The establishment of this lady is described by Leonardi, who was particularly struck with the easy elegance and graceful conversation of her six girlish maids of honour, seated on cushions of tawny velvet, and gaily decked in rich jewels, plumes, and streaming ribands, chatting merrily with her guests. The Emperor, far from taking umbrage at his disappointment, sought Francesco Maria's opinion as to the person best fitted for commander-in-chief, who recommended the appointment of Antonio della Leyva. Indeed, Giraldi declares that Charles "never could have enough of his fine discourses or sententious remarks," and pressed him to name any favour he would accept of. The Duke, thus encouraged, urged the restoration of Sora, Arce, Arpino, and Rocca Guglielmi, which had been taken from him at the instigation of Leo X., a request to which Charles acceded about three years later, paying 100,000 scudi of compensation to a Flemish nobleman who had been invested with these Neapolitan fiefs. On the 22d of February, in the chapel attached to the Palazzo Publico, the brows of Charles were encircled with the iron crown of Lombardy, which, as Muratori observes, had not yet been rendered a sacred relic by the legend of its having been formed out of a nail of the true cross. Two days after, he received the imperial diadem in the church of S. Petronio, the Duke of Urbino, as Prefect of Rome, carrying the sword of state, with which the Pontiff had just conferred knighthood upon the Em peror. The populace were regaled in the Piazza with two bullocks roasted entire, whilst both the great fountains poured forth continued streams of wine, and silver largess was scattered at all hands. An accident from the fall of some scaffolding, which nearly proved fatal to the hero of the ceremonial, brought on a sharp altercation between the captain of the imperial guard and the chief magistrate of the city. To the threats of the officer, to treat the place as he had already done the larger town of Milan, the latter replied that in Milan they manufactured needles, but in Bologna they made swords. On the 22d of March, Charles departed for Germany, in order to defend his Austrian dominions from the Turks; and, nine days later, Clement set out in a litter for his capital, where he arrived on the 9th of April, after spending the 6th at Urbino, on a visit to Francesco Maria. From these transactions at Bologna there dated a new era for Italy. The long struggle of Guelph and Ghibelline was at length come to an end - the standard of her nationality was finally struck. Succeeding pontiffs were content to lean for support upon an authority which their predecessors had defied or resisted. It mattered little whether that paramount influence was held by an Austrian or Spanish imperial dynasty; so long as the two Sicilies, Sardinia, and Milan owned its dominion, the freedom of the other states was merely nominal. The Peninsula was, indeed, no longer ravaged by European wars, yet the protracted struggle did not close until the victor had riveted on her his chains. She was seldom desolated by invading armies, but she was not the less plundered by licensed spoilers. Peace was restored to her, but independence was gone. The Reformation, too, which Leo left a petty schism, had in ten years changed the faith of a large section of Europe, and Rome was no longer the capital of Christendom. The results of this change in the Church it is not the province of these pages to notice, but, in common with other Italian feuda tories, the Dukes of Urbino felt the altered aspect of their political relations. War was not now a profession demanding their services, and recompensing them with glory and profit. The trade of arms had come to an end, as regarded the old condottiere system and its frightful abuses, and was modified into the more orderly machinery of standing armies on a limited scale. We shall accordingly find these princes for the future little mixed up with the general affairs of the Peninsula, and scarcely ever taking the field, but left with ample leisure for the administration of their little principality, or the cultivation of their individual tastes. Had such been the lot of Duke Federigo or his accomplished son, their fame would scarcely have been dimmed, for theirs were virtues equally calculated to elevate a court or illustrate a camp. But it was otherwise with the two remaining sovereigns della Rovere; and the glories of the dynasty would suffer no diminution did we now draw our narrative to a close. Yet these Dukes were not commonplace men; and, making allowance for the age in which they lived, when the fine gold of literature and arts had been transmuted into baser metal, and when genius had fled from a desolation which peace without freedom was powerless to reanimate, - they were not unworthy to rule in the Athens of Italy. Those readers, however, who have thus far followed our narrative must content themselves through its remaining chapters with characters less striking, views less general, events of narrowed interest; and must bear in mind that the niche in the temple of Fame appropriated to Urbino, as well as that enshrining the Ausonian name, was earned ere the coronation of Charles V. had closed the struggles of Italy, and consummated her subjugation. After that time, according to one of the most rational as well as eloquent of the new dreamers after Italian nationality, "she underwent a rapid yet imperceptible decline; yet her sky smiled brightly as ever, her climate was as mild. A privileged land, removed from all cares of political existence, she went on with dances and music, happy in her ignorance, sleeping in the intoxication of incessant prosperity. Used to the scourge of invasion, the sons of the south took up again their guitars, wiped away their tears, and sang anew like a cloud of birds when the tempest is over."* This picture, drawn in bitterness, but not apparently in irony, paints the decline of Italy in colours more attractive than any we should have dared to employ; and we extract it chiefly for the sake of contrast with the same writer's ready admission that the liberty of the old republics was cradled amid convulsions of faction, which eventually exhausted their forces, or stifled their independence. "Better to sink beneath the shock, Than moulder piecemeal on the rock," is one of those sentiments more easy to applaud in poetry than to approve in practice; and if the object of government be the greatest happiness of the masses, it seems, according to Mariotti, to have been more fully attained in Italy during the ages of foreign sway than in those of republican strife. Admitting in some degree, this conclusion, we accord a more hearty approval to the character he has elsewhere given of a state of matters worse, probably, in that land than either of these alternatives," that slow and silent disease, that atrabilious phrenzy -politics-which pervades all ranks, exhibiting a striking contrast with the radiant and harmonious gaiety of heaven and earth." Our notices of the court of Urbino have been suspended during a long interval from lack of materials. Indeed, the military duties of its head too well accounts for this deficiency of incident, rendering his domestic life a blank. Even the brief intervals, when he could steal from the camp to the society of his Duchess, were passed in some neighbouring town, where she met him, or at Venice, where she made a lengthened sojourn, • Mariotti's Italy, ii. |