Rome, and the dwellers in Ausonia's lands,
Whose bootless passions, pitiably wrecked,
In suicidal outrage spend themselves,
With benefit to none. While time remains,
Oh, Sire! this fatal error shun, nor choose
A course which all your merit tarnishes!"
The game in which Sixtus had engaged was one of selfish ambition and nepotism, and he played it boldly, unmoved by this appeal, or by the straits to which he was reduced by his lawless barons. In the words of the same old chronicler—
"Hapless was then the holy Father's case,
Each house in Rome a garrison, each street
Alive with armed escorts; e'en by day
Rapine was rife as in the lonely wood,
And unredressed, while cardinals
Were seized in full consistory; for now
Colonna's and Savelli's bands were up;
The Pontiff's power at discount."
Under a robust frame Federigo concealed the taint of a vitiated constitution, and though but entering upon the autumn of life, long exposure and fatigue, aggravated by repeated severe accidents, had anticipated the effects of age. Yet he rallied from the first attack of malaria, at all times dangerous to one of his years, and, had he yielded to the persuasions of friends and confederates by retiring to Bologna during the unhealthy season, his valuable life might have been spared. He owned the justice of their apprehensions, but, deeming his personal danger in remaining to be fully counterbalanced by the probable loss of Ferrara, which, at that juncture, he considered the key-stone of Italian policy, should he quit the army, he rejected the reiterated representations of his family and adherents, refusing on any consideration to relinquish the post of honour and duty. But, whilst he spared not himself, he ever and anon renewed to the allied powers his remonstrances against their folly in thus pitting a brave army against a noxious climate. As his saddest trial was to see fresh levies of his attached subjects prostrated by sickness on arriving from the healthful breezes of their native uplands, he sent away his son Antonio, with all whom he could spare, reserving in the camp at La Stellata but 400 of his immediate followers, whom the foggy atmosphere and putrid water soon thinned away to forty.
Anderson
FEDERIGO DI MONTEFELTRO
After the picture by Justus van Ghent, once in the Ducal Collection at Urbino, now in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome
A relapse of fever having supervened about the beginning of September, he felt that his end was approaching, and calling around him the commissioners of the League, showed them how all his repeated warnings had come true, protesting that his life was sacrificed to unflinching duty in an evil cause. After exposing to them his plan of escape from the jaws of destruction, by removing the seat of operations into a healthy part of Lombardy, he recommended to them the surrounding country and fortresses, and then formally resigned his command, thus briefly reviewing his military career:—
"To Heaven's almighty Lord my thanks are due
For eight-and-forty years of manhood, spent
In war's most worthy calling, though of these
Three-fourths the cares of high command on me
Imposed, beneath time-honoured banners, all
Unstained by foreign insult, and upheld
Proudly victorious. Mine the task has been
To conquer further frontiers for their states,
With gainful triumphs and distinctions high,
Or vindicate a good and lasting peace."198
The commissioners at length, by affectionate persuasions, induced the invalid to leave his army in charge of the Lord Giulio Orsini, and withdraw to Ferrara, where a villa of the Duke was prepared for his reception.199 But it was too late. The disease rapidly gaining ground, he set himself to prepare for death like a Christian hero, and, by the grace of God, was permitted to do so in full exercise of his mental powers. "Having arranged all matters pertaining to the succession of his son, he began to attend to his soul's salvation, and after confessing himself repeatedly, as a faithful and good Christian, he set in order all that seemed to him tending to his future welfare, and took, in their prescribed order, the sacraments of the Church. It was graciously vouchsafed him from on high to perform all this with a mind amply prepared by full examination, so that nothing was omitted that behoved a faithful Christian; and this favour was granted him by God for his perseverance through life in the habitual exercise of virtue, for on every occasion his clemency entitled him to the appellation of father of the miserable, and protector of the afflicted."200
Among the friends who tended his last hours was his secretary, Comandino Comandini, to whom he gave instructions for his funeral; but his son, Count Antonio, having come from the army to visit him, was, according to Sanzi, received with this reproof:—
"How! wouldst thou thus my gallant comrades quit,
In time of need, to gaze upon a corpse?
Far other course the urgent hour demands!
The sacred church's all-consoling rites,
Like staid and thoughtful Christian, then he sought:
Nor did they fail his latest pangs to cheer.
Few were the watchers round his lonely couch,
To whom, in sadly soothing words, he spoke
Of gentle kindness, and to God his soul
In peace committed, spurning mundane moils.
* * * * * * *
Just as a locust by the sun struck down,
With holy zeal his last behests were told
In charity and love; and, having touched
The hand of each in turn, with tears bedewed,
That lofty and unvanquished spirit sped;
Whilst on his lips, with pious fervour, late
Lingered the names of God and of our Lady,
Giving good hope, if man such signs may read,
That to a glorious home its flight was winged."
Veterani, another laureate of Urbino, composed a touching sonnet on his patron's death, which begins thus:—
"With ever-welling tears I weep for him,
On him I call, of him I nightly dream,
And to my lips his cherished image strain,
Till by my stains of grief its smile grows dim.
To it my verse I vow, it living deem
For solace of my stricken soul, in vain!"
The Duke died on the 10th of September, within a few days of the premature decease of Roberto Malatesta of Rimini, his son-in-law, and successor in command of the papal troops.*201 Aided by the factious barons of the Campagna, the Duke of Calabria had gradually penetrated to the gates of Rome, when Roberto, on the 21st of August, dispersed his army in a pitched battle, and returned in triumph as saviour of the Eternal City. His death supervened in a few days, in consequence of a draught of cold water, or, as some thought, of poison administered by the jealous Count of Forlì; and Sixtus, to testify gratitude or remove suspicion, forthwith erected a monument to his general in St. Peter's, with an epitaph testifying that his life had been attended by valour, his death by victory.202
Although character is usually best estimated by the evidence of contemporaries speaking from personal knowledge, some allowance must be made for the language of adulation applied to princes by their subjects or favourites. Yet in reference to one whose elevated qualities are