his eldest son; on Oct. 3, 1491, Elisabetta died; Magia only survived her four days, and the little daughter a few days longer. All these events occurred in the house. Left with an only boy, Giovanni married again (in the Church of S. Agata) in the following year, with Bernardina, daughter of the goldsmith Pietro da Parte, who had a dowry of 200 florins, and who proved a very harsh stepmother to the little Raffaelle of nine years old. On August 1, 1494, Giovanni himself died, leaving the boy, then eleven, to the guardianship of two uncles, who at once placed him in the school of Pietro Perugino, then engaged on the Sala del Cambio at Perugia.

The interior of the Casa Santi can scarcely be changed. in its arrangement since the childhood of Raffaelle. On the ground-floor are the rooms used, according to Italian custom, for the keeping and selling of goods. On the first floor, or piano nobile, are three apartments en suite. The central of these is the largest, and probably served for the reception of guests--a cheerful room, twenty-seven feet square, with a brick floor and panelled ceiling. On the right of this is the chamber in which Raffaelle was born, lately decorated with furniture of his time and prints and photographs from his pictures. Here is a small fresco of a golden-haired Madonna and Child by Giovanni Santi, said to be a portrait of his wife Magia Ciarla and the infant Raffaelle. The faces are of the peculiar type which may be recognised in many pictures both by the father and son. The room on the left, with a coved roof, was the studio of Giovanni.

After his eleventh year, Raffaelle only returned once, or at the outside twice, to Urbino, and then for a very brief visit.

At the top of this street-Contrada Raffaello- on the right, is a solitary house, which was that where Timoteo della Vite lived and died. He was one of the best of the contemporary followers of Raffaelle, who had the greatest affection for him, and would willingly always have retained

his companionship at Rome. But love for his native place, and affection for his widowed mother Calliope, induced Timoteo to return while quite a young man to Urbino, where he married Girolama Spacioli, by whom he had many children. His best works are now in the gallery at Bologna and in the Brera at Milan. He died in 1524, in his fifty-fourth year.

Descending the street, on the left a side street leads to the Church of S. Spirito, which contains (hung too high up) at the sides of the high altar, two pictures by Luca Signorelli-the Crucifixion, and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. Opposite the church is a statue of Coelestine V. (the hermit Pietro Murrone), who is claimed as a native of Urbino.

Descending a little to the right from the piazza, an alley on the right leads to the small Church of S. Giovanni Battista, which contains an interesting series of frescoes of the history of the Baptist by Lorenzo di S. Severino, 1416, but they are considerably injured by restoration.

The cloisters of the now closed Church of S. Francesco contain the tomb of the Dukes Odd' Antonio and Antonio II., also of Nicajo the physician, and of Agostino Santucci, 1478. The church was built in memory of Count Carlo Pianani, ob. 1478, and to contain his tomb and that of his wife Sibilla. For the high altar of this church Giovanni Sanzio painted his great Madonna, and here he was buried August, 1494, so that all should visit this church for Raffaelle's father's sake. It was from hence that Federigo di Montefeltro used to watch the martial exercises of his squires and pages in the meadow below.

In the Church of S. Bernardino, about m. from the town (to the left in approaching), are the black and white marble tombs of the great duke, Duke Federigo III., 1482, and his son, the feeble, but refined Duke Guidobaldo I., 1536, in whose reign Urbino was sacked by Caesar Borgia, but who was restored to power on the accession of a Della Rovere to the papal throne. In returning from hence, it

will be worth while to take the road below the town to see how finely the peaked towers and huge mass of the castle rise, with the dome of the cathedral, from the dark houses at their feet, beneath which is a lofty viaduct supported upon arches.

In 1498 the famous Earthenware manufacture was introduced from Gubbio by Giorgio Andreoli, and came to great perfection in 1538 under Orazio Fontana.

'Pungileone cites a certain potter of Urbino, named Giovanni di Donino Garducci, in the year 1477, and a member of the same family, Francesco Garducci, who in 1501 received the commands of the Cardinal of Carpaccio to make various vases. Ascanio del fu Guido is also mentioned as working in 1502; but the works of all these have disappeared, or are attributed to other fabriques, and it is not until 1530 that we can identify any of the artists mentioned by Pungileone : Federigo di Giannantonio; Niccolò di Gabriele; Gian Maria Mariani, who worked in 1530; Simone di Antonio Mariani in 1542; Luca del fu Bartolommeo in 1544; Cesare Cari of Faenza, who painted in 1536 and 1551 in the botega of Guido Merlino.

'The workshop of Guido Durantino was celebrated in the beginning of the sixteenth century. About the same time flourished the distinguished "Francesco Xanto Avelli di Rovigo," whose works are so well known and appreciated. Of the same school was Niccolò di Gabriele, or Niccolò di Urbino.

'Another celebrated painter of majolica in the middle of the sixteenth century, was Orazio Fontana, originally of Castel Durante, whose family name appears to have been Pellipario.'-Chaffers.

The hills around Urbino are peculiarly bare, brown, and featureless, except during their short summer. Altogether, perhaps, Urbino presents more forcibly the appearance of fallen grandeur than any place in Italy, and here, more than elsewhere, the Italian feels the words of Leopardi :—

"O patria mia, vedo le mura, e gli archi,

E le colonne, e i simulacri, e l' erme

Torri degli avi nostri,

Ma la gloria non vedo.'

(About 13 m. east on the road to Città di Castello is the small city of Urbania. Till 1635 it bore the name of Castel Durante, as which it was (1444) the birthplace of the celebrated architect Bramante, and the seat of a famous manufactory of majolica.)

123

CHAPTER XXIII.

GUBBIO.

(Gubbio may be most easily reached from the Station of Fossato on the line between Ancona and Foligno. There, a wretched diligence, 2 frs., meets the early trains, and performs the distance to Gubbio in 3 hrs.; a carriage costs 10 frs. and takes only two hrs. ; the price must be arranged beforehand.

Gubbio may also be reached from Urbino by the Furlo Pass. A carriage costs 40 frs. and takes about 12 hrs.

The Leone d'Oro and Rosetta at Gubbio are bearable but very rough inns charges exceedingly moderate.

:

L'

EAVING Urbino, an excellent road descends the

valley of the Metaurus to the mouth of the celebrated Furlo Pass. This is the most striking point in the Apennines. Tremendous precipices of grey rock hem in the river, just leaving room for the road, which is the Via Flaminia, to creep through, except where it passes under a tunnel made in the time of Vespasian (37 metres long, 5 broad, 4 high). From the perforation or Forulus here, the name Furlo is derived. Procopius describes the spot as Petra Pertusa, and Claudian sings

'Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu,

Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis.’—‘VI. Cons. Hon. 500. So steep is the rock above the road that in wet seasons it is dangerous to pass this way, and several crosses by the wayside commemorate the fate of travellers who have been crushed by the falling rocks. Here is Il Monte d' Asdrubale, where the sanguinary battle was fought B.C. 207 between the Romans and Carthaginians, in which Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, perished.