Not with the Saracens or Jews (his foes
All Christians were, nor against Acre one
Had fought, nor trafficked in the Soldan's land),
He his great charge nor sacred ministry
In himself reverenced, nor in me that cord
Which used to mark with leanness whom it girded.
As in Soracte Constantine besought,
To cure his leprosy, Silvester's aid;
So me to cure the fever of his pride
This man besought. My counsel to that end
He asked, and I was silent, for his words
Seemed drunken: but forthwith he thus resumed:
'From thy heart banish fear; of all offence
I hitherto absolve thee. In return,
Teach me my purpose so to execute,
That Palestrina cumber earth no more.
Heaven, as thou knowest, I have the power to shut
And open, and the keys are therefore twain,
The which my predecessor meanly prized.'
Then yielding to these forceful arguments,
And deeming silence yet more perilous,
I answered, 'Father, since thou washest me
Clear of that guilt wherein I now must fall—
Large promise with performance scant right sure
Shall make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.'
When I was numbered with the dead, then came
Saint Francis for me; but a cherub dark
He met, who cried, 'Wrong me not! he is mine,
And must below to join the wretched crew,
For the deceitful counsel which he gave:'
E'er since I've watched him, hovering at his hair.
No power can the impenitent absolve,
For to repent and will can ne'er consist,
By contradiction absolute forbid.
Oh misery! how I shook myself when he
Seized me and cried, 'Thou haply thoughtst me not
A disputant in logic so exact!'
To Minos down he bore me, and the judge
Twined eight times round his callous back the tail,
Which, biting with excess of rage, he spake,
'This is a guilty soul that in the fire
Must vanish!' Hence, perdition doomed, I rove,
A prey to rankling sorrow in this garb."
Carey's Inferno, xxvii.
Such is the passage that has given a celebrity to Count Guido, which neither his prowess nor his alleged treachery could have conferred.*24 Yet there are not wanting doubts as to the fidelity of this picture of his latter days; indeed, the whole charge against him in the affair of the Colonnas has been considered apocryphal by the apologists of Boniface VIII., and is rejected by Franciscan writers. Villani, whilst confirming the fact that the chiefs of that lawless race were cajoled by the Pontiff into a surrender of "their noble fortress" upon terms which were shamefully violated, drops no hint that Guido was a party to the fraud. Nor is there any reason to suppose his Holiness in want of a prompter, such faithlessness being then in usual practice for political ends, and the old chronicler expressly tells us that the conscience of Boniface was very readily stretched for gain to the Church, under cover of the axiom that the end justified the means. Against these authorities the vision can scarcely be deemed of historic weight, especially as such breach of good faith was, probably, in the eyes of Dante, a less heinous offence than his reconciliation with the Guelphs.25 Indeed the poet in the Convito ranks him with those noble spirits, "who, when approaching the last haven, lowered the sails of their earthly career, and, laying aside worldly pleasures and wishes, devoted themselves to religion in their old age."*26 Of the merit or efficacy of such sacrifices at the dread tribunal, it belongs not to erring man dogmatically to judge: for our purpose it is more appropriate to notice the following brief of Boniface to the Franciscan superintendent of La Marca, as remarkable evidence of the devotional zeal which actuated the Count in assuming the monastic vows, and which
"When joy of war and pride of chivalry
Languished beneath accumulated years,
Had power to draw him from the world."
"Our beloved son, the noble Count Guido of Montefeltro, has repeatedly conveyed to us personally, and through credible informants, his wish, desire, and intention, after communing with his own heart, to end his days in God's service, under the monastic habit, as a means of effacing his sins against Him, and the mother Church of Rome; and this with the full assent of his wife, who is said to be willing to take upon herself the vows of perpetual chastity. We, therefore, commending in the Lord his devotional aspirations, which seemed disposed in all prudence to admit the spirit of counsel, and in order to the more free fulfilment of his vow—will that his household be paid out of what movables he possesses, and that he assign to his wife from his real estate as much beyond the amount of her dowry as may give her a hundred pounds in Ravenna currency yearly, during her life, a divorce having been first duly pronounced between them, in the form customary and becoming when a vow of chastity has been undertaken. And we further desire that all such personal effects as may remain, after remunerating his attendants, shall be securely deposited, and lie in the hands of responsible persons in the meantime, until we shall come to further resolutions regarding the real and movable property which he now has. And further, as the advanced age of his consort places her beyond suspicion, it is our will that she have leave to remain in her present position, if she cannot be persuaded to a monastic retirement." After conferring on the Superintendent the authority requisite for carrying these resolutions into effect, the Pope concludes by desiring that it be left to the Count's unbiassed decision, whether he will enter one of the military orders, or adopt the more rigid rule of the friars minor of St. Francis. This letter is dated from Anagni the 23rd of August, 1296.27 The option thus given him in no way shook his intention of conforming to the ascetic rule of "poverty and Francis:" and although his Countess Costanza did not follow his example by assuming the monastic vows, she passed the eight remaining years of her worldly pilgrimage in the not less strict seclusion of Santa Chiara at Urbino, a convent especially favoured by her posterity, and of such rigid discipline that the nuns went barefoot and wore no linen, rising habitually at midnight, and but once a year permitted to approach the grating in order to see their nearest relatives. Her lord's remaining life was of shorter span, as he died at Assisi on the 27th of September, 1298, and is said to have been interred in the church there. That his courage was not unmingled with cunning seems established rather by some incidents in his life than by the bitter lines of the Ghibelline bard; that his piety was shadowed by superstition is a conclusion suggested by the closing scenes of his life, and still more by his most stirring years having bent to the slavish control of astrological quackery to a degree exceeding even the darkness of his age. His zeal founded the family chapel, which may yet be seen in the lower church at Assisi—its frescoes cruelly defaced; and the devotion of his family was long after specially directed to the service of St. Francis and Santa Chiara.*28
During the next century, the pedigree of the Montefeltri, and their feats of arms against rival seigneurs, such as the Brancaleoni, the Malatesti, and the Ceccardi, are involved in confusion which we need not stay to extricate. Heroes they were, but in fields which the wide glance of history has overlooked: they found no Thucydides to depict their gallant deeds, no Froissart to chronicle their fame. Fighting under Ghibelline colours, their victories were followed by papal vengeance, affording a pretext for new risings of their urban subjects, in one of which Count Federigo and his son were torn to pieces about 1322. But though Guelph was then the ordinary watchword of freedom, and though all who desired self-government were wont to rally round the Church, they often