Under a robust frame Federigo concealed the taint of a vitiated constitution, and though but entering upon the autumn of life, long exposure and fatigue, aggravated by repeated severe accidents, had anticipated the effects of age. Yet he rallied from the first attack of malaria, at all times dangerous to one of his years, and, had he yielded to the persuasions of friends and confederates by retiring to Bologna during the unhealthy season, his valuable life might have been spared. He owned the justice of their apprehensions, but, deeming his personal danger in remaining to be fully counterbalanced by the probable loss of Ferrara, which, at that juncture, he considered the key-stone of Italian policy, should he quit the army, he rejected the reiterated representations of his family and adherents, refusing on any consideration to relinquish the post of honour and duty. But, whilst he spared not himself, he ever and anon renewed to the allied powers his remonstrances against their folly in thus pitting a brave army against a noxious climate. As his saddest trial was to see fresh levies of his attached subjects prostrated by sickness on arriving from the healthful breezes of their native uplands, he sent away his son Antonio, with all whom he could spare, reserving in the camp at La Stellata but 400 of his immediate followers, whom the foggy atmosphere and putrid water soon thinned away to forty. [Illustration: _Anderson_ FEDERIGO DI MONTEFELTRO _After the picture by Justus van Ghent, once in the Ducal Collection at Urbino, now in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome_] A relapse of fever having supervened about the beginning of September, he felt that his end was approaching, and calling around him the commissioners of the League, showed them how all his repeated warnings had come true, protesting that his life was sacrificed to unflinching duty in an evil cause. After exposing to them his plan of escape from the jaws of destruction, by removing the seat of operations into a healthy part of Lombardy, he recommended to them the surrounding country and fortresses, and then formally resigned his command, thus briefly reviewing his military career:-- "To Heaven's almighty Lord my thanks are due For eight-and-forty years of manhood, spent In war's most worthy calling, though of these Three-fourths the cares of high command on me Imposed, beneath time-honoured banners, all Unstained by foreign insult, and upheld Proudly victorious. Mine the task has been To conquer further frontiers for their states, With gainful triumphs and distinctions high, Or vindicate a good and lasting peace."[198] [Footnote 198: Sanzi.]