. The cities of Romagna and the Marches. can seethere easily enough Count Guido Vecchio da Montefeltro,the terrific Ghibelline, who at the end of his life followedS. Francis, and forsook him at the Popes request, so thatDante found him in Hell for giving fraudulent who can picture the Duchess Leonora tripping alongthose steep, stony, narrow ways, or the fine courtierBaldassare Castiglione in a place that is all a fortress blackand burnt with war and lean with long watching ? YetUrbino has known them all, and has besides produced thesweetest and the most temperate of all Italian mas
. The cities of Romagna and the Marches. can seethere easily enough Count Guido Vecchio da Montefeltro,the terrific Ghibelline, who at the end of his life followedS. Francis, and forsook him at the Popes request, so thatDante found him in Hell for giving fraudulent who can picture the Duchess Leonora tripping alongthose steep, stony, narrow ways, or the fine courtierBaldassare Castiglione in a place that is all a fortress blackand burnt with war and lean with long watching ? YetUrbino has known them all, and has besides produced thesweetest and the most temperate of all Italian masters,Raphael Sanzio. For, astonishing though it may seem, civilization, theritual of life—life itself being, as some of those great candidminds of the Renaissance were not slow to observe, a kindof religious service—was very punctually and strictly ob-served at Urbino in the sixteenth century. Here on thehills, in this rain-swept, sun-baked place, the Renaissance, in all its liberty, beauty and splendour, Wcis played out in its 276. THE DUCAL PALACE URBINO URBINO 277 curious medley of contrasts, almost like a play. The mostlearned and refined of all the courts of Italy, the court ofUrbino gathered to itself all the wit and genius of thisimperishable Latin people, filled itself with the finest scholarsand the noblest gentlemen of Italy, while its Duke andDuchess lived a hfe that reads almost like a fairy tale, tillsuddenly Cesare Borgia blasted the place like a lightningflash and nothing was ever really quite the same again. Itmight seem that that terrible figure, so full of reality, had inthat one stroke withered the princely race so that it fell,weary at last and with only a dying mans reluctance, intothe arms of the Church, too ready perhaps to claim whatcould not be denied. It is difficult to reahze m the city wesee the life of the ducal court in all its unreal existence ofpleasure or business, but Urbino in the sunset looks still asthough Cesare had but just passed by.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcitiesofroma, bookyear1913
