i, 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 something
to be dryly grateful for. Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to
solitude, religious exercises, hunting, and the economy of his
impoverished dominions. He became that curious creature, a man of
narrow nature and mediocre capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of
self, is fain to pass for saint and sage in easy circumstances. He
married, for the second time, a lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged
to his own family, but had been born in private station. She brought
him one son, the Prince Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have
sustained the ducal honours of Urbino, but for