II

The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth century.  Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in 1160.  Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an undefined authority over the district, which they afterwards converted into a duchy.  But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage.  Therefore in 1216 they sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church.  Urbino acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial and Papal deputies.  Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth century.  In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from the Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone from the Malatestas by purchase.  Numerous fiefs and villages fell into their hands upon the borders of Rimini in the course of a continued struggle with the House of Malatesta:  and when Fano and Pesaro were added at the opening of the sixteenth century, the domain over which they ruled was a compact territory, some forty miles square, between the Adriatic and the Apennines.  From the close of the thirteenth century they bore the title of Counts of Urbino.  The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante placed among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house and increased its power by his political action, at this epoch.  But it was not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal title.  This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still hangs.  He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line.  A natural son of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father’s lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello.  This was Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in 1444 as Count of Urbino.  It was not until 1474 that the ducal title was revived for him.

Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power.  He spent his youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical accomplishments.  More than any of his fellow-students Frederick profited by this rare scholar’s discipline.  On leaving school he adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined the troop of the Condottiere Niccolo Piccinino.  Young men of his own rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, sought military service under captains of adventure.  If they succeeded they were sure to make money.  The coffers of the Church and the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth of Milan and Naples was squandered on them