The exact sciences, which were encouraged at the court of Urbino, took there, as elsewhere, the tendency most easy in an age of prevailing superstition. Maestro Paolo, a noted German adept, was accordingly retained by the Duke, and taught him astrology along with the kindred branches of geometry and arithmetic. Yet Cortesio tells us that, although he always had about him a number of soothsayers, and, in deference to the notions current among his soldiery and subjects, pretended to rely upon their prognostics, he utterly despised all kinds of divination. The only notice of the subject I have discovered among his letters is contained in one addressed to Ant---- Nar----, which may have been written during the siege of Monte Sansovino, or possibly from the leaguer of Colle, eleven months later. The reader will judge how far it ought to be received with the gloss suggested by Cortesio. "I observe in your former longer letters that you wish to draw auguries of futurity, which you announce to be pregnant with events of the highest moment, saying that now is the time to gird ourselves for great things; indeed, such words seem to point at some loftier issue. It would, therefore, be agreeable to us that you should again acquaint us by letter, whether that augury really infers any imminent result. For, if perchance you allude only to this siege, we acknowledge to have undertaken a difficult business, and that the town is by nature or art amply provided; yet do we hope, through the grace of the eternal God, to effect that which we have taken in hand. But if you refer to something else, it will be not less gratifying to have from you some explanation, and to know if it rest on your own or another's opinion. Farewell."[189] [Footnote 189: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1198.] The leaguer was protracted by an incident mentioned by Sanzi, who dwells at considerable length on a portion of his hero's life scarcely touched by other biographers. The army suffering from scarcity and sickness, natural results of its prolonged stay in a narrow and unhealthy country, the dispirited troops sighed for winter quarters. It happened that, during a skirmish, two of the Orsini, relations, but banded under opposite banners, met and interchanged mutual wishes for a truce. These aspirations, reported to the Duke of Urbino, were promptly and publicly refused. The garrison, misled by this apparent anxiety to continue hostilities, proposed a suspension of arms, the very measure most fatal to their safety. This was accepted for ten days, during which the besiegers obtained rest and forage, and, when thus recruited from their languor, quickly reduced the place: it surrendered on the 8th of December, whereupon the army fell back on Bonconvento to pass the winter.