e into a guerrilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517
the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live
long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of
France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by
inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria
reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522.

This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the house of Mantua.
Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the
Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was twice
married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of Camerino;
secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma. Guidobaldo
spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his subjects, whom he treated
badly, attempting to draw from their pockets the wealth which his father
and the Montefeltri had won in military service. He intervened at an
awkward period of Italian politics. The old Italy of despots,
commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his predecessors played
substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of Popes and
Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. Between these
epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy presentation on
the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen flat. As a sign of
altered circumstances, he removed his court to Pesaro, and built the
great palace of the Della Roveres upon the public square.

Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son,
Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age
which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of
Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his
Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and
superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the
Della Roveres, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of homicide,
and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, took the
form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in his life was
the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his old comrade, Don
John of Austria. His father forced him to an uncongenial marriage with
Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She left him, and took refuge in
her native city, then honoured by the presence of Tasso and Guarini. He
bore her departure with philosophical composure, recording the event in
his diary as some