Such is the passage that has given a celebrity to Count Guido, which neither his prowess nor his alleged treachery could have conferred.[*24] Yet there are not wanting doubts as to the fidelity of this picture of his latter days; indeed, the whole charge against him in the affair of the Colonnas has been considered apocryphal by the apologists of Boniface VIII., and is rejected by Franciscan writers. Villani, whilst confirming the fact that the chiefs of that lawless race were cajoled by the Pontiff into a surrender of "their noble fortress" upon terms which were shamefully violated, drops no hint that Guido was a party to the fraud. Nor is there any reason to suppose his Holiness in want of a prompter, such faithlessness being then in usual practice for political ends, and the old chronicler expressly tells us that the conscience of Boniface was very readily stretched for gain to the Church, under cover of the axiom that the end justified the means. Against these authorities the vision can scarcely be deemed of historic weight, especially as such breach of good faith was, probably, in the eyes of Dante, a less heinous offence than his reconciliation with the Guelphs.[25] Indeed the poet in the Convito ranks him with those noble spirits, "who, when approaching the last haven, lowered the sails of their earthly career, and, laying aside worldly pleasures and wishes, devoted themselves to religion in their old age."[*26] Of the merit or efficacy of such sacrifices at the dread tribunal, it belongs not to erring man dogmatically to judge: for our purpose it is more appropriate to notice the following brief of Boniface to the Franciscan superintendent of La Marca, as remarkable evidence of the devotional zeal which actuated the Count in assuming the monastic vows, and which "When joy of war and pride of chivalry Languished beneath accumulated years, Had power to draw him from the world." [Footnote *24: The authorities for the life of Count Guido il Vecchio of Montefeltro are the _Cronaca Riminese_ and the _Cronaca Estense_, in MURATORI, _R.I.S._ Cf. also VILLANI, _Cronaca_, especially lib. VII., caps. 81, 128, and RODOLFO HONIG, _Conte Guido di Montefeltro_ (Bologna, 1901). Cf. also RIZZOLI, _I Sigilli nel Museo Bottacin di Padova_ (Padova, 1903), p. 51, tav. 6, where a seal of Guido is described and illustrated.] [Footnote 25: Yet the denial of this imputation by Muzio and Baldi may be ascribed rather to sycophancy than to historic research, especially as the latter, in his _Encomio della Patria_, has gravely maintained that Guido was placed in the Inferno, not for his misdeeds, but as the only modern warrior worthy to be the associate of Ulysses!] [Footnote *26: Convito, IV., 28, 61 _seq._ "Il nobilissimo nostro Latino Guido Montefeltro."]