Guidobaldo I. was succeeded in the dukedom by his nephew Francesco Maria Della Rovere, in 1508, who, incurring the resentment of pope Leo the tenth, was obliged to retire into Lombardy but was reinstated in 1517. Rome was sacked in 1527, and history accuses Guidobaldo of having permitted the horrible act without interfering to prevent it. He died from poison in 1538 at Pesaro, whither he had retired after a reverseful life and reign. His duchess was the excellent Leonora Gonzaga. She built a palace near Pesaro, known as the “Imperiale,” richly decorated by able artists among whom was Raffaelle dal Colle, whose designs were also adopted for the maiolica ware. The frequently repeated error of ascribing the actual painting, as also the making designs for this ware, to the great Raffaelle Sanzio may probably have arisen from the similarity in the Christian names of these artists. The development of the manufacture in the duchy of Urbino may be considered to have attained its culminating point about 1540, after which, for some twenty years, it continued in great excellence not only as regards the “istoriati,” but more particularly in the shaped pieces and dishes (of which we engrave an example p. 40) decorated with the so-called “Urbino arabesques” on a clear white ground; the subjects painted in medallions, surrounded by grotesques of admirable invention and execution, after the style known as “Raffaellesque.” But excellent and highly decorative as are the finer products of this period from the furnaces of the Fontana of Urbino, or of the Lanfranchi of [Illustration] Pesaro, they want to the eye of the true connoisseur the sentiment and expressive drawing, the exquisite finish and delicacy, the rich colour, and the admirable design of the earlier works produced at the Casa Pirota in Faenza, at Forlì, Castel Durante, Siena, and Caffaggiolo, in the latter years of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries, and by Mº Giorgio at Gubbio, many of which rival in beauty the exquisite miniature illuminations of that palmy period of Italian art. The service in the Correr museum in Venice, supposed to have been painted by an unknown artist of Faenza and dated 1482, is of high quality; [Illustration]