ileges, and tortuous policies to which the most
accomplished villain of the age could have aspired.

[1] For a fuller account of him, see my 'Sketches in Italy and
Greece,' article _Rimini_.

It would be easy, following in the steps of Tiraboschi, to describe the
patronage awarded in the fifteenth century to men of letters by
princes--the protection extended by Nicholas III. of Ferrara to Guarino
and Aurispa--the brilliant promise of his son Leonello, who corresponded
with Poggio, Filelfo, Guarino, Francesco Barbaro, and other
scholars--the liberality of Duke Borso, whose purse was open to poor
students. Or we might review the splendid culture of the court of
Naples, where Alfonso committed the education of his terrible son
Ferdinand to the care of Lorenzo Valla and Antonio Beccadelli.[1] More
insight, however, into the nature of Italian despotism in all its phases
may be gained by turning from Milan to Urbino, and by sketching a
portrait of the good Duke Frederick.[2] The life of Frederick, Count of
Montefeltro, created Duke of Urbino in 1474 by Pope Sixtus IV., covers
the better part of the fifteenth century (b. 1422, d. 1482). A little
corner of old Umbria lying between the Apennines and the Adriatic,
Rimini and Ancona, formed his patrimony. Speaking roughly, the whole
duchy was but forty miles square, and the larger portion consisted of
bare hillsides and ruinous ravines. Yet this poor territory became the
center of a splendid court. 'Federigo,' says his biographer, Muzio,
'maintained a suite so numerous and distinguished as to rival any royal
household.' The chivalry of Italy flocked to Urbino in order to learn
manners and the art of war from the most noble general of his day. 'His
household,' we hear from Vespasiano, 'which consisted of 500 mouths
entertained at his own cost, was governed less like a company of
soldiers than a strict religious community. There was no gaming nor
swearing, but the men conversed with the utmost sobriety.' In a list of
the court officers we find forty-five counts of the duchy and of other
states, seventeen gentlemen, five secretaries, four teachers of grammar,
logic, and philosophy, fourteen clerks in public offices, five
architects and engineers, five readers during meals, four transcribers
of MSS. The library, collected by Vespasiano during fourteen years of
assiduous labor, contained copies of all the Greek and Latin authors
then discovered, the principal treatises on theo