runs a frieze of military engines and ensigns,
trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to Duke Frederick's
profession 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.

This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to
show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing
in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that "in the opinion of many it is the
fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with all
things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace than
a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels of
silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, and
such like furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble
statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts.
There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to be
seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large number
of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all of which
he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest treasure
of his spacious palace." When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as conqueror
in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of 150,000
ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. Vespasiano,
the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of the formation
of the famous library of MSS., which he valued at considerably over
30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these deserted halls, we seek
in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of art. The books have been
removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no man knows whither. The plate
has long been melted down. The instruments of music are broken. If
frescoes adorned the corridors, they have been whitewashed; the ladies'
chambers have been stripped of their rich arras. Only here and there we
find a raftered ceiling, painted in fading colours, which, taken with
the stonework of the chimney, and some fragments of inlaid panel-work on
door or window, enables us to reconstruct the former richness of these
princely rooms.

Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers
upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of the
Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding
stairc