be divided between his four sons, of whom two were by his first and two by his second wife. These four brothers were summoned to a conference on business by Giovanni Vitelleschi of Corneto, but only the two younger went to the meeting, of whom Pier Gentile was murdered by Vitelleschi, and Giovanni, escaping, was murdered by his two elder brothers the same evening at Camerino. In the next year Bernardo the second brother was murdered while walking on the walls of Tolentino, and shortly after Pandolfo the eldest was murdered during mass in the Dominican church by the people, together with five of his nephews and several of their children, the 'brains of the infants being dashed out against the walls.' Only two infants escaped. Of these, Giulio was carried off by his aunt, Tora Trinci, to Fabriano, where some of her own family were reigning. After a troubled and adventurous life, he was finally strangled by a bravo in the pay of Cesare Borgia, who also murdered his three sons at La Cattolica. Such were the vicissitudes of Italian sovereignty in the Middle Ages. CHAPTER XXII. URBINO. Each (Urbino is most easily reached from the station of Pesaro. A humble diligence corresponding with the first trains from Ancona and Bologna leaves the Piazza at 9:45 A.M., and takes five hours on the way. place costs 5 frs. A one-horse carriage for three persons will perform the distance in 3 hours, and costs 20 frs. The Albergo Italia at Urbino is clean and tolerable, with very low charges, but it is a rough Italian inn.) AN N uninteresting road leads from Pesaro through the fruitful valley of the Foglia, to the foot of the hill which is crested by the walls and towers of Urbino. A handsome approach by an excellent road winds round the walls, with grand views as it ascends. On the south is the Furlo, celebrated for its pass, and then the stately masses of Monte Nerone; on the east the picturesque rocks of Monte San Simone; beyond this the mountain of the Falterone, where the Tiber has its source; to the north, on its peaked rock, is S. Marino. On the highest terrace the road passes under the tall pinnacled towers and perfectly colossal walls of the Ducal Palace. The visitor to Urbino cannot fail to be struck with the extraordinary beauty of the inhabitants, especially of the young men. Humanity flourishes here while all else is in decay. 'There is scarcely a house, a street, or a church in Urbino that does not now wear a deserted and desolate aspect; even the grand palace of the Dukes, formerly not to be outshone for brilliancy by any Court in Europe, is tenantless or given up to base uses. Yet there still remain staircases, galleries, doorways, windows, and fire-places, rich in Raffaellesque ornaments carved with a delicacy belonging less to stone than to ivory. It is by such details- sometimes a mutilated bas-relief, sometimes a broken arch or a defaced picture scattered here and there about the city—that the traveller must be content to spell out the story of a bygone splendour. Even nature appears to have fallen into days of dejection; the vast palace, which seems ready to swallow up the small city, frowns over a landscape of barren grandeur; the mountains throw their jagged crags into the sky savagely, and when the sun sinks beneath the high peaks which tower above Cagli and Gubbio the whole scene becomes inexpressibly solemn. Such was the cradle of the shadowed and sacred school of Umbria. The spirit of the spot must have been almost too sad for Raffaelle; there is nothing joyous now remaining, and we can well understand why the aspiring painter left his birthplace early and returned to it seldom.'-Saturday Review, March 1875. Palace of Urbino, The Ducal Palace-La Corte-is one of the noblest works of the Renaissance. It was begun in 1447 by the great Duke Federigo di Montefeltro, who evinced his devotion to his native place by turning the small castle which had previously existed here into a grand palace. For this purpose he surrounded himself with all the great architects and artists of the time, over whom Luciano Lauranna was the chief. To make a platform for his great work it was necessary to unite two rocks. The outer walls and windowframes are enriched with friezes of most exquisite sculpture, The entrance, from the piazza behind the palace, leads into a noble quadrangular court, the work of Baccio Pintelli, 1480. It is surrounded by inscriptions in honour of Federigo, and by colonnades, under which a collection of Roman altars, &c., is arranged. A second court was used for tournaments and theatrical displays. Ascending the staircase on the left, which is adorned by a statue of Duke Federigo, we enter vast corridors, the walls of which are now covered with a number of inscriptions and other fragments collected in the neighbourhood by Cardinal Stoppani. Hence open a series of great halls, with beautiful sculptured chimney-pieces and door-frames, and richly inlaid doors. The letters F. C. repeated upon the ceiling of the principal hall prove that it was built before 1474. The furniture, and the frescoes of Timoteo Viti, described by Baldi, have disappeared. 'The skilful hand of Ambrogio da Milano, none of whose sculptures are to be met with at Milan, was employed in carving trophies, military emblems, flowers, birds, and children, about the doors, windows, and chimney-pieces of the Ducal palace at Urbino. The utmost elegance and purity of taste is shown in these decorations. The architrave of one of the fire-places is adorned with a row of dancing Cupids, and the jambs with reliefs of winged boys holding vases filled with growing roses and carnations, whose structure and wayward growth show the closest and most loving study of Nature. In the leaves, flowers, and birds colour alone seems wanting to give life. Well may Giovanni Santi eulogise them as "Mostrando quanto che natura Perkins's Italian Sculptors.' 'Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to the houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere : their arms, three golden hinds upon a field of azure; the imperial eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a fief of the empire; the garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo; the ermine of Naples; the ventosa, or cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick; the golden oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere; the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, Inclinata Resurgam ; the cypher FEDX. Profile medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to Duke Frederick's pro fession of Condottiere. The doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in all the riot of Renaissance fancy. 'Between the towers upon the southern façade are two apartments which were apparently the private rooms of the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding staircase in one of the torricini. Adorned in indestructible or irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; friezes of bulls, sphinxes, seahorses, and foliage; with a low relief of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a small study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet connecting these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion here dwells near the temple of the liberal arts : "Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a smaller scale by armour, bâtons of command, scientific instruments, lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state robes, occupies a fourth great panel; and the whole of this elaborate composition is humanized by emblems, badges, and occasional devices of birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid wood of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of art to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank with the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by is a chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The loggia, to which these rooms have access, looks across the Apennines, and down on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and paved for the exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of the desecrated palace.'—J. A. Symonds. It is greatly to be regretted that all the old historical furniture connected with the lives of the different Dukes and Duchesses, whose faces are familiar to us from the portraits of Giovanni Sanzio, Piero della Francesca, and others, should have been long since dispersed. The court which Guido |