like the frogs in the fable, that they had gained a worse master. As a specimen of the papal legates of his day, we may mention Guglielmo Durante,*29 a predicant friar, who presided over the ecclesiastical territories in Romagna, about the beginning of that century, giving his name to a town in the duchy of Urbino which he rebuilt, and which long afterwards became Urbania. His tomb is in the church of the Minerva at Rome, one of those fine monuments where architecture and sculpture unite to perpetuate the dead, and over which mosaic throws the magic of rich colouring. The inscription, after enumerating his legal and liturgical works, thus celebrates the energetic qualities of this mitred warrior: "Savage as a lion against his foes, he tamed indomitable communities, he put church rebels to the sword, and reduced the vanquished to servitude." No wonder that the citizens of Urbino preferred to such pastors a return under their hereditary lords. Nor was Umbria the only theatre of Feltrian prowess. Among the republics, Pisa was as devotedly Ghibelline, as were these counts among the great feudatories. Intimate political relations were the natural result, and the Pisans were seldom without one of that race as their seigneur to maintain the common cause against their Guelphic rivals of Florence and Lucca.
Antonio Count of Montefeltro and Urbino, eighth or ninth in descent from Antonio first Lord of Monte Copiolo. His family having for some years been expatriated, and their state a prey to intestine broils, the harassed citizens recalled him in 1377 as representative of their ancient chiefs; and from that time we can follow with tolerable certainty the generations and history of the Montefeltri. The imperial party in Italy was now reduced to a mere name, fitted rather for a cry of faction than to be the rallying point of international feud. The authority lost by the emperors in Central Italy had passed to the pontiffs, and Count Antonio, emancipating himself from the spell that had bound his race to a falling cause, gave to his posterity an example of loyalty to his over-lord the Pope. He is mentioned in a chronicle of 1384 as introducing certain reforms in the administration of justice, which before publication were submitted for approval by the municipal council of Urbino, and eight years thereafter he put forth various amended statutes and constitutions. His good sense was rewarded by peace at home and acquisitions abroad. Cagli and Gubbio drove out their domestic tyrants the Ceccardi and the Gabrielli, in order to welcome his sway,*30 and he conquered Cantiano from the latter after a nine years' struggle. Benedict IX. welcomed him as an obedient son of the Church, and established him by new investitures in these towns, as well as in the former holdings of his family.*31 His bitter strife with the Malatesti was with difficulty appeased by mediation of that Pontiff and of the Venetians. Allied with Florence, Siena, and Milan,*32 he gained the fame of a gallant captain, whilst his exertions to govern his people with humanity and justice established his reputation as a mild, generous, and benignant prince. His prudence, high counsel, and lofty spirit are lauded in an old chronicle of Forlì;*33 and a sonnet, inspired by religion rather than poetry, and ascribed to his pen, will be found in the Appendix I.
The death of Count Antonio was announced to the government of Siena by his son, in terms which, exceeding the formal expression of ceremonious regret, afford a pleasing specimen of official intercourse in early times. The original, in rude Latin, is preserved in the Archivio Diplomatico at Siena.
"To the mighty and potent Lords and special Fathers, the Lords Priors, and Governors of the people and city of Siena.
"Mighty and potent Lords, special Fathers; I should gladly communicate news more pleasant both to your magnificences, whose true and unwavering son I am, and to myself; but whatever they may be, they ought to be freely reciprocated where there exists true strength of affection, and intact purity of friendship, in order that such guileless amity may rejoice with a friend in prosperity, and may sustain, support, sympathise with, or even defend him in misfortune. And being made aware by information from others, as well as by personal experience, of the sincere affection and mutual interchange of favours continued between your progenitors and my own, I have decided, with tearful words, bitter sighs, and sad wailings, to inform your magnificences, to whom I faithfully commend myself and state, how, on the 29th of last April, the potent Lord my father, of unfading memory, yielded his noble spirit to the Almighty Creator of all, paying the timely but, alas, unavoidable debt, and separated from the flesh by force of fever, after disposing of his worldly affairs, and receiving the holy eucharist and other sacramental rites of our religion, with a mind distinct to his last hour. Ah me! wretched and afflicted, doomed to such distress! Dearest fathers, the loss of such and so great a parent torments and agitates me; what and how eminent a son have you and your community lost in him. It is indeed beyond the power of nature herself to replace to your magnificences one of greater or even equal affection, or to supply such a father to me who fain would imitate him. For he curtailed my cares, relieved my sighs, appeased my fears, cleared my entanglements. One only consideration soothes and mitigates my mental affliction, and the grief that envenoms my heart, that since fate has bereaved me of such a parent, it may find for me another in you, magnificent fathers, whom I heartily beseech to assume a paternal care of me your child, and of my state, and to counsel me in my affairs as a steady son, who will in no way abandon these recollections, and my paternal associations. Prepared for all compliance with your wishes, your magnificences' son,
"Guido Count of Montefeltro and Urbino.
"Urbino, 9th May, 1404."
Count Antonio died in April, 1404, and by his wife, a daughter of Ugolino Gonzaga, left,
1 Count Guidantonio, his successor.
2 Anna, who died unmarried in 1434.*34
3 Battista.
Upon the last of these sisters we must dwell in some detail, for she was conspicuous among the ladies of high birth, whose acquirements gave illustration to her age. By contemporary authors, her talents and endowments are spoken of in most flattering terms, whilst her character is celebrated for piety and justice, benignity and clemency. She corresponded with many of these writers, and employed her pen in theology and poetry. Among other moral treatises, she is said to have written upon human frailty, and on the true faith. In such exercises she found a resource amid the large share of public and domestic calamities which shadowed her lot. Her marriage was celebrated in 1404, when about twenty-one years of age, with Galeazzo Malatesta, heir of the seigneury of Pesaro, a spiritless creature entirely devoid of the martial qualities of his race, and whose incapacity so disgusted his subjects that, after two years, he was driven out. He subsequently sold his birthright by a transaction which we shall describe in our fifth chapter, and, forsaking his wife, consoled himself in old age with another mate. Battista, with her only child, fled from her rebellious subjects to Urbino, and at the court of her brother found a ready welcome. When the Emperor Sigismund arrived there, on returning from his coronation at Rome in 1433, she was selected to pronounce, in his honour, a Latin harangue, which is published, but now possesses little interest. Her poetic vein had been encouraged by her father-in-law, who, anticipating the literary tastes which prevailed among the Italian princes later in this century, gained the surname of Malatesta degli Sonetti, from his success in that class of compositions. Several of the Italian sonnets and canzoni which passed between them are preserved in manuscript, as well as some of her letters in Latin.35 Specimens of both are printed in the Appendix No. I., including a letter of Battista written for an interesting purpose. Cleofe, her husband's youngest sister, had married Teodoro, eldest son of an emperor of Constantinople, and despot of the Morea, but this splendid alliance was embittered by persecutions on account of her faith, which at length induced her thus to state the case to Martin V. The result of this appeal does not appear, but the subject of it is believed to have outlived his Holiness about two years.36
The ill-starred and virtually widowed lady of Pesaro eventually took the veil, by the name of Sister Gerolima, in the Franciscan convent of Santa Lucia at Foligno, where she died in 1450. Another monastery of the rigorous order of Sta. Chiara, dedicated by her at Pesaro to the Corpus Domini, had in 1443 received her daughter Elisabetta, whose lot was scarcely less unfortunate. Her husband, Pietro Gentile Lord of Camerino, fell a victim in 1433 to fraternal jealousy, leaving an only child Costanza, whom we shall subsequently notice as first wife of Alessandro Sforza, the supplanter of her grandfather in the seigneury of Pesaro, and as mother of Battista Countess of Urbino.