NOTES TO THE DEDICATORY LETTER
fighting in the service of Pope Alexander VI in 1497, he was taken prisoner and forced to pay a ransom of 30,000 ducats, a sum then equivalent to about twice that number of modern pounds sterling, and raised only at the sacrifice of his duchess's jewels. In 1501 he aided rather than opposed Louis XII's invasion of Naples.
In 1502 the pope's son Cesare Borgia treacherously seized the Duchy of Urbino. To spare his people bloodshed and ruin, Guidobaldo fled in disguise to his brother-in-law at Mantua, and after a vain appeal to Louis XII, found an honourable asylum at Venice. In the same year he regained his dominions for a short time, but was again forced to take flight. On the death of Alexander VI (August 1503), Cesare's power crumbled, Guidobaldo easily recovered his duchy, and his position was soon assured by the election of Julius II, who was not only his personal friend, but also the brother of his sister Giovanna's husband. In 1504 he formally adopted as his heir this sister's son, Francesco Maria della Rovere, and (as we have seen) took into his service the future author of The Courtier. His learning, amiability arid munificence attracted choice spirits to his court, which came to be regarded as the first in Italy. Pope Julius was splendidly entertained there on his way both to and from his Bologna campaign, and the Courtier dialogues are represented as taking place immediately after his departure for Rome in March 1507.
Long an invalid, Guidobaldo became more and more a martyr to his gout, which was aggravated by a season of exceptional drought and cold and brought him final relief from suffering in April 1508. His fame rests, not upon his military and political achievements, but upon the beauty of his character, the variety of his intellectual accomplishments, the patience with which he endured reverses, illness and forced inaction, and upon the culture and refinement that characterized his court.
Note 3, page 1. Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, (born 1490; died 1538), was the son of Giovanni della Rovere and Duke Guidobaldo's sister Giovanna di Montefeltro. Giovanni was a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV (who had made him Prefect of Rome), and a younger brother of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, afterwards Pope Julius II.
On his father's death in 1501, Francesco was brought to the court of his uncle Guidobaldo, who secured for him a renewal of the Prefecture and superintended his education. In The Courtier he appears as "my lord Prefect." During the Borgian usurpation of the duchy, he found refuge at the court of Louis XII; and soon after the fall of the Borgias and his uncle Julius II's accession, he was adopted as Guidobaldo's heir, while through the mediation of Castiglione a marriage was arranged for him with Eleanora, daughter to the Marquess of Mantua and niece to the Duchess of Urbino. He now resided chiefly with his uncle, acquainting himself with his future subjects and duties. Although he possessed many of the good qualities ascribed to him in The Courtier, his temper was ungovernable, and before reaching the age of eighteen he slew one of the members of the court, who was accused of seducing his sister.
