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Table of Contents

The birth of Count Federigo—Condition of Italy—His marriage and only military service—The Malatesta, his inveterate foes—He takes S. Leo—Is invested with Mercatello.

With Federigo, successor of Duke Oddantonio, commences the proper subject of these volumes, but we are met by a preliminary difficulty as to his birth and parentage, which has baffled many of his biographers. It would be useless, as well as tedious, to enumerate and examine the host of conflicting and often inconsistent authorities on this vexed question.⁵⁵ The amount of blundering and contradiction to which it has given rise is scarcely conceivable, considering that most of our authorities either frequented the court of Urbino during his own and his son's time, or had access to contemporary documents. Seven separate theories have found supporters:—1. That Federigo was son of Count Guidantonio, born in wedlock; 2. That he was his natural, but legitimated son; 3. That he was his natural son, passed off as the child of his first wife Rengarda, after a pretended pregnancy; 4. That he was son of Bernardino della Carda and his wife Anna, sister of Count Guidantonio, adopted by the latter whilst he had no son; 5. That he was their son, passed off as the child of Countess Rengarda; 6. That he was their son, passed off as a natural child of Guidantonio; 7. That being their son, and Anna or Aura being daughter of Guidantonio, he was adopted or passed off as son of the latter, though, in fact, his grandson.⁵⁶ It would follow that he might have been either nephew, brother-in-law, or son of Bernardino. All doubt on this subject is set at rest by a formal legitimation from Martin V., of 22nd December, 1424, which I discovered in the Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, in favour of Federigo, as son of Guidantonio by a maiden of Urbino. This document is alluded to by Galli, Reposati, and others; but its existence has been often denied, notwithstanding the almost equally valid evidence of that Count's testament quoted by Riposati, wherein, failing his lawful sons, he substitutes his "legitimate son" Federigo as his universal heir.

It is very remarkable that the filiation of Federigo to the Ubaldini is adopted by a majority of those writers who lived under him and his son, giving colour to a conjecture that it may have been encouraged at their court as masking the flaw in their pedigree. This, however, is but an unsatisfactory explanation. His character and brilliant distinctions could well dispense with the honours of birth; and in this century, bastardy, so far from inferring a blot on the princely escutcheons of Italy, or presenting a bar to sovereignty, seemed, as in the dynasties of Este and Scala, as well as in the Malatesta, already referred to, to constitute a preference. But in order to explain his special affection for the Ubaldini, it has been supposed that his mother was of that stock, and that he was at first brought up by them, in deference to the jealousy of Countess Rengarda. This motive soon ceased by her death, when the infant was received and cherished in his father's palace.

* * * * *

Federigo di Montefeltro is generally said to have been born on the 7th of June, 1422, and the earliest incident of his childhood was his premature betrothal.^*57 The mountain-land from whence spring the Metauro and the Foglia, including some of the loftiest Apennine summits, was then called Massa Trabaria, and had been long held in fief by the Brancaleoni. Mercatello was the petty metropolis of some twenty townlets which obeyed Bartolomeo, the last male of that race. Art has given to his merits a record withheld by history, and the few travellers who visit the church of S. Francesco in that town, a very shrine of local æsthetics, will pause to admire his Gothic tomb, beautiful even through its disguise of recent whitewash, and to read this touching epitaph:—"Joanna Aledusia during her life erected this monument of affection to Bartolomeo Brancaleone, prince of this place, her most faithful husband, and to herself." This lady was born an Alidosio of Imola, and being left with an only daughter, Martin V., to whom the fief had lapsed, conferred its interim administration upon Count Guidantonio of Urbino, as rector, with promise of a new investiture to his son Federigo, on condition of his marriage with the orphaned Gentile. They were accordingly affianced ere the boy-bridegroom had completed his eighth year, and the spouses were brought up together under the fond and judicious tutelage of the Lady Joanna.

* * * * *

The return of the popes to Rome was the beginning of a new act in the great drama of Italian mediæval history. Deserting their proper capital, they had left it for above a century a prey to faction, strife, and rapine, which there was no authority to control, nor any holier influence to modify. The example of such disorganisation spread through the Peninsula, and aggravated dissension in all its cities. In absence of the papal court, the gloom of a dark age again brooded over the ecclesiastical states, for the few sparks of learning had been carried by emigrant churchmen to Provence. But, with its restoration, Rome became once more the metropolis of Christendom, and Italy began to feel that kindling glow, which, radiating from its centre, disseminated the cheering light and healthful flush of knowledge and civilisation over the globe. In one respect, however, and that a material one, was the position of the papacy altered. The protracted scandal of recent repeated schisms had shaken men's reliance on its infallibility; the fierce bickerings between popes and anti-popes, hurling anathemas and bandying abuse, had raised in the spectators a doubt if their cause could be more sacred than their weapons. The days when an emperor would hold the stirrup for a successor of St. Peter were passed away. Nor were affairs altogether satisfactory as regarded the domestic security of the latter. The dread of again losing their sovereign court formed a convenient check upon the factious citizens of Rome; but the barons of the Campagna were restless neighbours and turbulent vassals, and though the Gaetani and Frangipani were no longer formidable, the Savelli, the Orsini, and the Colonna by turns carried fire and sword into each other's holdings, or scoured the streets of Rome itself in their forays. To assert an effectual jurisdiction over the province immediately surrounding their capital, and to maintain their waning influence abroad, became the two great objects of successive pontiffs during the fifteenth century: one of these was perhaps a painful necessity, the other originated a policy ruinous to Italy; both occasioned frequent appeals to carnal weapons, pregnant with mischief to the Holy See.

Among many anomalies in the papacy, was the inverse ratio of its foreign influence and its domestic strength. Even whilst Rome and its vicinity had been most lawless, whilst the authority of popes in preceding centuries had been most fettered by faction, or most exposed to seditious outrage, their spiritual sway attained its height, and was acknowledged over Christendom without question. The reason is obvious. The religious spirit of the age bowed to ecclesiastical domination, while the factious temperament of the Romans fretted under all restraints of order. After their long exemption from the personal control of the popes, it became more than ever requisite to curb these feverish citizens, and to break down their robber noblesse: we shall hereafter see by what unscrupulous means, and at how great a sacrifice of character, this was finally effected by Alexander VI. But the popedom, whose unity had been rudely shaken by schism and absence, began, after its return to Rome, to suffer manifest inroads from the extension of their political individualities by the chief states of Europe. In order to maintain itself against this new tendency, it had recourse to a like policy; it sought by temporal aggrandisement to compensate the decay of spiritual authority. During its antecedent struggles with the empire, the cause of the Church had been that of freedom, its rallying cry the watchword of liberty. In those days its successes were hailed as a boon by the communes of Italy. Even the feudatories, whose jurisdiction had grown up under shelter of the imperial name, were glad to confirm their title by enrolling themselves as vassals of the Holy See. But when the successors of St. Peter began to develop ulterior aims—when they descended into the arena of mere political ambition, and sought to aggrandise their territorial dominion by intrigue and arms—a marked reaction took place. The princes and republics of the Peninsula stood on their defence against a new power of discord, the most fickle in its policy, the most unscrupulous in its expedients, that they had yet been called to resist. The ultra-montane nations pressed on to cope with or to conquer those degenerate Vicars of Christ, who, abandoning their high calling as shepherds and pacificators of Christendom, became its perturbators.

The rapid sketch which we have given in our first chapter of the seigneuries and communities of Central Italy may suffice to exhibit the general condition of Umbria, the March of Ancona, and Romagna as far as the Po. In Tuscany, democratic institutions had taken deeper root, among a population addicted rather to arts than to arms, and preferring wealth earned by industry and commercial enterprise to the precarious glory and profits of the sword. Their peaceful habits permitted capital to accumulate; its increase gave them a stake in its security; leisure and consequent intelligence enabled them to mature ideas of liberty beyond those of neighbouring states. It was in Florence especially that a more perfect system of municipal institutions established communal freedom upon a firmer basis, which, amid the ceaseless convulsions of domestic factions, and even through the long atrophy of later Medicean domination, has preserved for that city a political and intellectual pre-eminence, finely acknowledged by old Sanzi in his exclamation,

"For to curtail fair Florence of her freedom,

Were to pluck forth an eye from Italy,

And cause her orb to wane."

In the adjacent commonwealths of Pisa, Lucca, and Siena, similar results sprang from somewhat analogous causes, although they were from time to time, in the words of Dante,

"O'erthronged

With tyrants, and a great Marcellus made

Of any petty factious villager,"

until, by degrees encroached on by their more powerful neighbour, they were finally absorbed in the state which owned the Arno's queen as its capital.^*58

Lombardy was no longer the emporium whence commercial wealth circulated over Europe, but her cities, surrounded by plains of unequalled fertility, gave no signs of decay, her universities were crowded by transalpine students. She had fully realised the stinging reproaches of Alighieri—

"Thy living ones

In thee abide not without war, and one

Malicious gnaws another, ay, of those

Whom the same wall and the same moat contain;"

but her Ezzelino and Can della Scala were no more, and many of her petty principalities had been merged in the wide-spreading duchy of Milan, or the mainland conquests of Venice. The Lion of St. Mark was in the ascendant during the fifteenth century, and, though we have no occasion to follow the fleets of Venice as they spread terror among the Turks, we shall in due time find her terra-firma policy complicating the relations and hampering the diplomacy of Italy. Naples, long exposed to the calamities of a disputed succession, which we shall hereafter explain, endured the feeble sway of the notorious Joanna II., by whose death in February, 1435, the crown passed to Alfonso V.—notwithstanding her death-bed recognition of the claims of the first Angevine dynasty, then represented by the good King René of Provence—and the dynasty of Aragon was continued by his illegitimate descendants until the close of this century.

Having thus endeavoured in a few pages to exhibit the condition of those Italian states with which our narrative will have to do during the life of Federigo, we must resume its interrupted thread. Martin V. was succeeded in 1431 by Eugene IV., a noble of Venice, who, eager to undo the favours bestowed by Martin on his own relations, sought a quarrel with the Colonna and their adherents, including the Count of Urbino. This misunderstanding was patched up by mediation of the Venetian signory, upon an interchange of hostages, among whom was included Federigo. It thus became necessary for him to repair to Venice, where he was received in the college or council, and acquitted himself so well that the Doge, Francesco Foscari, foretold his rise to great eminence in after life. The favourable opinion thus formed was daily confirmed by his engaging manners, and he conciliated the noble youths, who admitted him into their fashionable and very select club or fraternity of the calze, or hose, so called from their uniform.⁵⁹ The plague having appeared, he was permitted by the Doge, after a residence of fifteen months, to retire to the court of Mantua, then presided over by the Marquis Gian Francesco Gonzaga, whose marriage with a Malatesta connected him with both the wives of our Count Guidantonio. His welcome there was cordial and distinguished, and during two years he enjoyed advantages which beneficially influenced his after life. In the Marquis's children he found fellow-pupils as well as playmates, and, under their father's eye, was taught the theory of war and the practice of military exercises, until he became one of the most skilful swordsmen and equestrians of his day.

But it was to the tuition of Vittorino de' Rambaldoni da Feltre^*60 that we may ascribe his progress in those tastes and accomplishments, for which in his person and that of his son, Urbino became eminent. This Vittorino was excelled in learning by few of his contemporaries, and none of them equalled his reputation as an instructor of youth. He was born at Feltre in 1378, and sent to the university of Padua. After completing, under Giovanni da Ravenna, the training in grammar, dialectics, and philosophy which then constituted the basis of a liberal education, he learned Greek from the famous Guarino of Verona. His powerful mind being attracted to mathematics, and finding his means unable to command the instructions of Pelacane of Parma, he proffered the most menial services about his person, in hopes of picking up some crumbs of knowledge in his service. But the mercenary professor was not to be melted without gold, and the poor student was left to struggle unaided with the difficulties of exact science, until he thoroughly mastered its truths. It was in 1425 that the Marquis of Mantua induced him to move, with his already celebrated school, to that capital, for the purpose of teaching his children. The lessons of Vittorino were well bestowed on the young princes of Gonzaga, but especially on their sister Cecilia, whose name is not least remarkable among those prodigies of female learning produced in the Italian courts of that age. When but ten years old she wrote Greek with singular purity, and her life of celibacy was devoted to literature.

The peculiarity of Vittorino's system was its extending the field of his labours beyond the mere scholastic tuition of his time. Without neglecting the severer studies, he varied them by light accomplishments, and relaxations of person and mind which proved alike healthful to both, such as music and drawing, horsemanship, fencing, and all manly exercises. Its success was testified by an influx of pupils from transalpine and oriental lands, as well as from every state in Italy. These for the most part resided in his house, under the immediate influence of his training and example, which were not less admirably calculated for inculcating high moral excellence, than for the development and direction of genius. A man of more simple tastes, winning manners, and pure life was rarely found, and, by a happy blending of rigid discipline with mild temper, his influence was beneficially extended over even the least ductile of his flock. At his board, the rich acquired habits of frugality, the poor were welcomed with generous consideration. Careless of worldly gain, his earnings were freely spent in providing for their wants, and at his death in 1447, he left not enough for his funeral. No work remains from his pen, but he has given ample proof of his influence on the age, in the eminent names that issued from his academy, to illustrate Italian letters, either as sovereigns or savants. A beautiful and rare medal of him by Pisanello presents a fine allegory: the pelican baring its bosom to feed its little ones happily suggests the unwearying self-sacrifices of a conscientious instructor, whilst the legend designates him as father of all human studies. Sanzi's tribute to his character is at once happy and just:—

"Brilliant his powers of thought, unmatched his zeal,

For science in her varied walks: his life

And manners holy; yet on gentle crafts

And joyous themes right heartily intent."

NICCOLÒ PICCININO

From a bronze medal by Pisanello

VITTORINO DA FELTRE

From a medal by Pisanello in the British Museum

In the autumn of 1432, the Emperor Sigismund, while returning from his coronation at Rome, was entertained by Count Guidantonio with magnificent hospitalities at Gubbio^*61 and Urbino, and bestowed knighthood both on the Count and his son Oddantonio.^*62 On reaching Mantua, he conferred the like honour on the Gonzaga princes, and extended it to their guest the young Federigo, who was recalled home whenever his father had been restored to a good intelligence with the Pontiff. His marriage was celebrated on the 2nd of December, 1437, after he had completed his fifteenth year, and he at once entered upon the government of his wife's paternal fief.

In an age when society consisted of those who fought, those who wrought, and those who prayed, the young Count of Mercatello belonged to the first of these classes, and the duty now devolved upon him of carrying into practice those lessons of warfare which had varied the routine of his more abstruse studies. Under the military system which we have already explained, he had to choose what free captain he would serve with, until experience should qualify him to raise an independent banner. The condottieri then of greatest name were Nicolò Piccinino and Francesco Sforza, names which will soon be familiar to our pages. The first of these was of birth so humble as to own no other surname than that conferred on him in ridicule of his tiny stature, and appears to have been equally destitute of those varied talents and enlarged views which enabled several of his contemporaries to consolidate and transmit the power gained by their swords. But though unworthy of historic fame,^*63 his dwarfish body contained a daring and indomitable spirit, which, after considerable service under Braccio di Montone, the first general of his age, was rewarded with the hand of his niece; and, notwithstanding the blame of occasioning his defeat and death at the Lake of Celano in 1424, Nicolò kept together his veterans, obtaining, as leader of that gallant band, a reputation of which his own qualities were unworthy. Yet he was unable to cope with Francesco Sforza, whose first service had been under Joanna II. of Naples, but who after having, in 1441, won from Filippo Maria Visconti, rather by fear than favour, the hand of his natural daughter Bianca Maria,^*64 eventually established himself as his successor in the duchy of Milan.

The Council of Basle, opened in July, 1431, to concert measures for extirpation of the Bohemian heresy, had occupied itself in reforming alleged abuses in the Church and the papal prerogatives. A collision with Eugene IV. was the natural result, when he fled to Florence, leaving his state a prey to Sforza, Piccinino, the Colonna, and other military adventurers. As the best means of bridling these bandits, he bribed the first of them to turn his arms against the others, by offering him the vicariate of La Marca,

"That land

Which lies between Romagna, and the realm

Of Charles."⁶⁵

But by degrees all Italy was involved in the struggle, Alfonso of Naples, the Florentines, Genoese, and eventually the Venetians, supporting the Pontiff, whilst Filippo Maria Visconti, the Angevine party at Naples, and the city of Bologna sided with the Council. In this war Piccinino led the Milanese army, and among his independent captains was Bernardino della Carda, who dying in 1437, his company of 800 men-at-arms was divided between his son Ottaviano and the young Federigo di Montefeltro. In the end of May, 1438, the latter set out for Piccinino's camp, assisting at the siege of Brescia, and in the opening of the Lombard war, where the rival generalship of Nicolò and Sforza was first brought to the test, with results more interesting in a military than an historical view. It is not to be supposed that services performed by so youthful a soldier could much influence the campaign, but they appear to have been approved by his commander.

Guidantonio Manfredi, generally known by the contemptuous abbreviation of Guidaccio, had been brought up at the court of Urbino, during his father's temporary banishment from his hereditary fief of Faenza, and had married a daughter of Count Guidantonio di Montefeltro. In the division of parties which we have just explained, both these feudatories adhered to the Milanese, but as their neighbour, the Lord of Rimini, was at first a partisan of the league, and as Bologna had but recently thrown off the papal authority, Filippo Maria considered it advisable to strengthen his forces in Romagna. Federigo was accordingly ordered to join his brother-in-law Guidaccio, and acquitted himself creditably in various skirmishes with the Tuscan troops, under Gianpaolo Orsini. The only personal incident preserved of this petty war is one to which he was in the habit of alluding, with something of the superstitious dread that pervades the good Sanzi's account of it, although its character was rather grotesque than horrible. Having marched from Faenza in bright moonlight, with a party of 400 horse on a foraging expedition, a noise like the clashing of arms was suddenly heard at a distance, which immediately being repeated close at hand, the troops, with fierce and terrified aspect, rushed on each other, and for about ten minutes fought and struggled pell-mell, while their frightened horses, partaking in the panic, neighed and bolted in all directions. Dawn discovered a scene of strange confusion; the infantry mounted, the cavalry on foot, many lying wounded on the ground, not a few horses killed, others with broken or disordered harness. This senseless alarm was never accounted for, and was consequently ascribed to diabolical influence.

But he was soon recalled by home interests from under the command of Guidaccio. The Malatesta, whose descent will be found in the annexed table, had for some generations held several fiefs in Romagna and the March of Ancona, and although a bold and warlike race, the usage in their family of separating its seigneuries among various sons, legitimate or natural, prevented any of them from acquiring more than a provincial reputation or influence, until Sigismondo Pandolfo made himself famous by his struggle with Count Federigo, and by the memorials of art which embalm his otherwise detested name. The youngest of three bastard brothers,^*66 he survived to unite their territories with his own, and although connected with the Montefeltrian princes by the marriages of his aunt and brother, he became a bitter enemy to the Count of Urbino. Indeed the latter of these alliances, which we have noticed at page 48, served to foster the family feud. Violante di Montefeltro had from Eugene IV. in 1431, when a mere infant, some form of grant of her native mountain-land in vicariate, in virtue whereof, and of her assumed rights as heiress of her nephew Duke Oddantonio, in default of his male issue, a pretended title was eventually trumped up, in competition with Federigo's succession,⁶⁷ at all events as regarded Montefeltro, some townships of which had already passed in various ways to the Malatesta, with whom she intermarried. An incursion upon the territory of Guidantonio, in the autumn of 1439, accordingly commenced a strife which, with occasional brief interludes, endured above twenty years, and which Sanzi thus deplores:—

"For e'en when fortune crowns the first essays

Of reckless hardihood, a reckoning hour

Of rapine, grief, and misery impend.

Such the destruction which these rival powers

Reaped from protracted broils and savage war,

While neighbouring cities, castles, towns, were sacked,

And high-born chiefs the double risk incurred

Of death or exile. There, for twice twelve years,

Italia's flower and might contended, till, in fine,

To right, by prudence, constancy, and force upheld,

Heaven gave success; the Eagle gnawed the heart

Of the great Elephant."⁶⁸

Had Sigismondo Pandolfo possessed temper and judgment equal to his courage and ambition, he might have obtained and consolidated a powerful sovereignty, which his liberal and cultivated tastes would have rendered glorious in arts as well as arms. But deeply tainted with—

"That poison foule of bubbling pride,"

his lofty daring was sustained by no continuous impulse, his impetuous efforts were crowned by no success; the selfishness of his political aims was equalled by the vainglorious direction he gave to art; his energies were wasted in contests with Federigo, a rival against whom he had neither any just quarrel, nor any chance of success; his patronage was monopolised by poets who flattered, and medalists who portrayed himself and his favourite mistress Isotta.

The first foray of Sigismondo into the wild valleys of Montefeltro was repaid by Federigo, in a successful descent upon the richer possessions of the Malatesta; but he was checked by a serious wound, before the petty fortress of Campi, and on his recovery rejoined Guidaccio. Piccinino, having again changed the seat of war from Lombardy to Romagna, crossed into Tuscany, and during the summer of 1440, carried on an active but unsuccessful campaign in the upper valley of the Tiber, till it was closed by his complete defeat at Anghiari, leaving his baggage and half his army in the hands of the Florentines. This battle has obtained a singular notoriety, and affords a valuable test of condottiere tactics, where combats were interested calculations, not internecine onsets. Machiavelli, the opponent of that system, asserts that only one man lost his life, out of some thirty or forty thousand combatants, and he by a fall from his horse; whilst the largest calculation of slaughter on both sides gives but seventy killed and six hundred wounded. Federigo was little interested in that campaign, but ere long found occupation in the defence of his wife's rights, disputed by Alberigo di Brancaleone. This pretender had seized on Santa Croce and Montelocco, both of which the Count recovered in the autumn of 1442, after a severe action, which first tested his military skill. Sigismondo Pandolfo, having secretly abetted this onset, was punished by an attack upon S. Leo.

That small city was the capital of Montefeltro, although this honour has been claimed for Penna di Billi. Its situation is perhaps the most singular in Europe. In a country whose rugged mountains and precipitous ravines seem monuments of some tremendous primeval convulsion, there stand uptossed two isolated pinnacles, the very obelisks of nature, rising on three sides sheer from the valley. On the remaining side of each, a narrow and rapidly descending ridge connects the summit with the surrounding level, affording toilsome and precarious footing to mules and mountaineers. On either peak, a fortress commands a cluster of dwellings, nestled wherever the rocky crest afforded footing, and inhabited by men of iron hearts and stout sinews. The larger of these is S. Leo, the smaller Maiuolo, and we shall often have occasion to mention them as the chief strongholds of Montefeltro, to which they both originally belonged,^*69 though S. Leo had for some time been possessed by the Malatesta. Its loftiest pinnacle was crowned, in classic times, by a temple dedicated to Jupiter Feretrius, affording an easy etymology for Montefeltro: a later era found it sheltering a Christian hermit, whose ascetic virtues obtained canonisation, and who left his name to the township which rose around his cell. During the competition for her crown which ravaged Italy in the tenth century, and rendered that the most dismal as well as confused period of her dark ages, S. Leo became the refuge of King Berengarius, from whence he long defied the arms of his eventually successful rival Otho the Great: of its protracted siege, however, in 962–3, no incidents worthy of credit have come down to us. Its circuit is estimated at two miles, and not the least peculiar of its phenomena is a spring of excellent water near the summit, sufficient perennially to supply the mills. The accompanying engraving, from a sketch taken on the spot, will best convey an idea of this remarkable site, but we may quote Sanzi's description of it, and of its surprise by Federigo.⁷⁰

"A city yonder stands, San Leo hight,

Whose crest the sky menaces; 'gainst its strength

No force has e'er prevailed, with scathed cliffs

And rocks environed, heavenward uprearing

Its summit, by a single path approached,

Trod singly by the citizens. Earth holds

None other deemed impregnable.

To it the Count his daring aims addressed;

And, knowing that a rock, which few to scale

Would venture, jutted midway from the ridge,

At midnight's murky hour the spot he gained,

With few but agile comrades, well prepared

With ladders; then alone and stealthily

The outposts reconnoitred, slumbering all,

Like men who knew no fears save from on high.

Next scaling one by one that arduous rock,

And reaching thence the level space beyond,

The town his soldiers entered silently.

Sudden uprose their cry, with clash of arms,

And furious blows and crackling flame, the work

Befitting, whilst the startled garrison,

Knowing nor whence nor what the sounds,

No struggle made, but rushed in desperation

Or here or there, whilst others stood transfixed

To find themselves befooled. Not more surprised

Was he who gained the golden fleece, to see

From the plough's furrow armed men spring forth,

Than were these luckless denizens to find

Their stronghold carried in the sudden fray."

A. Nini, del. A. Marchetti, sculp.

SAN LEO AND MAIUOLO

From a drawing by Agostino Nini

A somewhat different account of the means by which S. Leo was taken, has been adopted by Baldi, from Volpelli's history of that place.⁷¹ Matteo Grifone, who, from being a miller at S. Angelo in Vado, became a staunch follower of Count Federigo, and subsequently a general in the Venetian service, obtained permission to attempt a surprise. Accompanied by twenty picked men, he, in a dark and rainy night, gradually made his way to an outpost which he knew to be seldom occupied, and there left all but one comrade, with whom he effected an entrance by means of scaling-ladders. Silently and stealthily they two went from house to house, fastening each door with the chain which usually hung outside. At dawn, Federigo by concert led his troops to a feigned assault, to repel which the garrison sallied down the ridge. Grifone then, hastily admitting his men, closed the gates upon these skirmishers, and displaying in the piazza eight pair of colours which he had brought, raised the cry of Feltro! Feltro! The few defenders left in the citadel, conceiving the town to have been carried, and its inhabitants (who being barred into their dwellings could offer no resistance) to have sided with the enemy, surrendered without a blow. A temporary reconciliation with Sigismondo soon followed, by the interposition of Francesco Sforza, who gave to Malatesta his natural daughter Polissena in marriage, as a means of strengthening his hold on La Marca.

The father of Sforza, whether by birth a peasant or a gentleman, had owed his fortunes to his sword, which won him wealth and honours in various Italian states, especially in Romagna and Naples.^*72 His son succeeded to these honours, as well as to the command of his veterans, and inherited talents and address of still higher quality. Availing himself of the enfeebled papacy, and the confusion into which the ecclesiastical states fell during the contest of Eugenius IV. with the Council of Basle, he overran La Marca, whilst Fortebraccio menaced Rome itself. In order to save the latter, Eugenius abandoned the former to Sforza, with the title of Marquis, and the authority of Vicar; this bribe was accepted, and the service rendered for it was the restoration of his supremacy over the rest of the papal territory. On the death of Joanna of Naples, Francesco Sforza, now the first soldier of his day, acknowledged René as her successor, and when that monarch, by withdrawing in 1442, left the kingdom to his rival Alfonso, Sforza lost his Neapolitan dignities and estates. The sacrifice was more than compensated by his marriage with the Duke of Milan's natural daughter; yet for a time this splendid alliance brought with it no good fruits. Filippo Maria had acceded to it with indifferent grace, and jealousy of his son-in-law led him, in 1443, to join Eugenius and Alfonso in a combination for wresting from Francesco the March of Ancona.

Nicolò Piccinino being again hired to serve against his old enemy, Count Federigo preferred, after his father's obsequies, joining him before Monteleone to remaining idle at home, Sanzi assuring us—

"That martial practice was his sole desire,

Ready his guard to mount by night or day,

And deeming cowardly the love of quiet."

He immediately attended his general to an interview with the King of Naples at Terracina, embarking at Civita Vecchia; and the impression made by him on that monarch is thus finely given by the same chronicler, in language splendid as his reception:—

"As its bright rays the comet's track precede,

So the Count's virtues harbingered his way.

And as Apollo scattering o'er the dawn

His plumes of gold, along the orient sky,

E'er he emerges calmly from his couch,

Bears in his brilliant orb the blazing signs

Of bounteous disposition: thus the youth

Round the king's inmost heart himself entwined

With hope's sweet fillet, and a lodgment made

Firm as the solid nail in growing tree."⁷³

After three days spent in concerting plans for an attack upon La Marca, Nicolò returned to Tuscany, but Federigo was invited by Alfonso to remain with him until the campaign should open. Ere long, however, he rejoined his troops at Viterbo, and, after a foraging march through the enemy's country, reached Fano just before Sforza, who had for some time remained there awaiting his Venetian and Florentine contingents, put Piccinino once more to the rout at Monteluro. Giovanni Sanzi, then a youth residing at Colbordolo, went forth to see the battle, which he describes with much spirit:—

"War's crash and clang were there; the horseman's charge

With shock impetuous, and with ringing cheers

That seemed the vaulted sky to scare. There, too,

Men huddled lay on earth with dismal howls,

Their drums and spears a booty: some the while

Encouraging, some eager, some dismayed.

The very air, with clouds surcharged and dim,

Seemed wailing for the slaughter of that day,

Its fierce assaults and sanguinary scenes."

The Count shared not in this defeat, but lent opportune aid to rally the broken and disorganised troops, and was about this time rewarded by Eugenius with his promised investiture of the countship of Mercatello. In July he repaired to the baths of Campagnatico, in the Maremma, to recruit from an attack of fever, but on his return found new occupation from the Lord of Rimini.

The grandfather of that seigneur was Galeotto Malatesta, whose patrimony included Rimini, Faenza, and Fossombrone, and whose elder brother, Malatesta Malatesta, had transmitted the fief of Pesaro to his great-grandson Galeazzo. This Galeazzo was a man of feeble parts and degraded character, altogether unable to maintain his authority over a disgusted people, or to cope with his bold and ambitious cousin Sigismondo of Rimini. After the defeat of Monteluro, he had reluctantly received into Pesaro some of Piccinino's stragglers, and Sigismondo availed himself of this pretext to persuade his father-in-law Sforza to seize and make over to him that city. But Francesco, intent on sustaining his interests in La Marca, soon left the affair in the hands of Sigismondo, who, although able to overrun the surrounding country, could make no impression upon the capital, held by Count Federigo, even after its poor-spirited lord had withdrawn to Forlì. Thus baffled for eighteen months, the impetuous Sigismondo, by way of cutting short the contest, sent to Federigo this insolent challenge:—

"To the Lord Federigo of Montefeltro, Captain-General of the illustrious Count Francesco Sforza.

"Mighty Lord,

"Your lordship knows the difference long existing between us, and, if you judge rightly, you will perceive the fault to lie on your side, not on mine. Patience is no virtue of mine, and so far from appearing disposed to amend them, you daily multiply your errors. Anew have you written calumnies against me to the Court of Rome, and caused ill to be spoken of me. I am determined to bear it no longer, but to show, with my person against yours, that I am a better man than you, for in sooth you are a bad one, and do amiss to affront me. I therefore send to you Signor Giovanni da Sassoferrato, my chancellor, with full authority to inquire as to the duel which by your letter you have already accepted. And although Signor Giovanni holds a public instrument of mandate, I wished to write this letter as of more ample authority, praying that you will accept it: which I feel assured you, as the brave man you avow yourself and ought to be, will do; and that you will thereupon please to send one of your people of weight, informed of your wishes as to the manner, time, and place of our fighting, so that all may be settled. I have said of weight, that he may be qualified to fix upon a place with him whom I shall send, so that we may understand each other. And that this your agent may repair hither in safety with four horses, this letter will be an ample and valid safe conduct for his freely coming, staying, and returning. And in case of your refusal, which I do not believe, I warn you that I shall proceed against you more or less, according to the usual practice, as I may see fit.

"Sigismondo Podolfo di Malatesta.⁷⁴

"Rimini, the 21st of February, 1445."

This cartel was answered as became a high-spirited knight; but, on reaching the rendezvous under the walls of Pesaro, Federigo was surprised to find his adversary absent. No explanation appears of this failure beyond Sanzi's expressive exclamation—

"Ah! foul dishonour to the recreant lord!"

and Sigismondo, covered with ridicule, was glad to patch up a truce with his cousin Galeazzo.^*75