DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0344
WAR WITH VENICE
278
failures. All through we realize that he was perfectly
content to live at Urbino in the Duke's service and
in the company of the Duchess and Madonna Emilia,
and that he only listened to the importunities of
the friends who begged him to marry, because of his
anxiety to be free from debt.
Meanwhile war in Lombardy between the League
and Venice was still being waged with varying
results. The Venetians had succeeded in recovering
Padua, and the capture of the Marquis Francesco,
who was surprised and made prisoner at a farm near
Legnago on August 9, had filled both the courts of
Mantua and Urbino with consternation. While the
Pope ' blasphemed horribly,' and Isabella moved
heaven and earth to obtain her husband's release,
the Duchess Elisabetta was hardly less distressed.
' This capture of the Lord Marquis,' wrote Bembo
to his father, the old Venetian patrician, ' is the most
fortunate thing that could have happened ! It has
troubled the Duke greatly, and more than anything
else has grieved the Duchess, who is distressed beyond
measure to think of her brother's confinement.' He
proceeds to tell his father how the Duchess's sym-
pathies have been with Venice all through the war,
since she never forgets the kindness which she and
her beloved lord received from the Republic in the
days of their exile, and ' now weeps over these mis-
fortunes.' ' And although it is true,' he continues,
' that the Pope is by nature very hard and intract-
able, he loves his nephew tenderly, and looks on him
as the one remaining branch of the old oak, while
there is no living person for whom he has so much
regard as the Lady Duchessd As yet, however, ' the
first cause of all our troubles,' as Bembo calls the
i P. Bembo, ' Lettere/ ii. 528.
von. i.
18
278
failures. All through we realize that he was perfectly
content to live at Urbino in the Duke's service and
in the company of the Duchess and Madonna Emilia,
and that he only listened to the importunities of
the friends who begged him to marry, because of his
anxiety to be free from debt.
Meanwhile war in Lombardy between the League
and Venice was still being waged with varying
results. The Venetians had succeeded in recovering
Padua, and the capture of the Marquis Francesco,
who was surprised and made prisoner at a farm near
Legnago on August 9, had filled both the courts of
Mantua and Urbino with consternation. While the
Pope ' blasphemed horribly,' and Isabella moved
heaven and earth to obtain her husband's release,
the Duchess Elisabetta was hardly less distressed.
' This capture of the Lord Marquis,' wrote Bembo
to his father, the old Venetian patrician, ' is the most
fortunate thing that could have happened ! It has
troubled the Duke greatly, and more than anything
else has grieved the Duchess, who is distressed beyond
measure to think of her brother's confinement.' He
proceeds to tell his father how the Duchess's sym-
pathies have been with Venice all through the war,
since she never forgets the kindness which she and
her beloved lord received from the Republic in the
days of their exile, and ' now weeps over these mis-
fortunes.' ' And although it is true,' he continues,
' that the Pope is by nature very hard and intract-
able, he loves his nephew tenderly, and looks on him
as the one remaining branch of the old oak, while
there is no living person for whom he has so much
regard as the Lady Duchessd As yet, however, ' the
first cause of all our troubles,' as Bembo calls the
i P. Bembo, ' Lettere/ ii. 528.
von. i.
18