interesting purpose. Cleofe, her husband's youngest sister, had married Teodoro, eldest son of an emperor of Constantinople, and despot of the Morea, but this splendid alliance was embittered by persecutions on account of her faith, which at length induced her thus to state the case to Martin V. The result of this appeal does not appear, but the subject of it is believed to have outlived his Holiness about two years.[36] [Footnote 35: Bibl. Oliveriana, MSS. No. 454. Vat. Urb. Lib., No. 3212, f. 128. Also a MS. in the Chigi Library. See, as to the writings both of Malatesta and his daughter-in-law, TIRABOSCHI, VI., part II., p. 164, and CRESCIMBENI, III., pp. 214, 265.] [Footnote 36: A very curious contract, preserved in Archivio Diplomatico at Florence, and dated 29th May, 1419, secures to her the exercise of her own religion and native usages during the marriage, and in case of widowhood, permits her return to Italy.] The ill-starred and virtually widowed lady of Pesaro eventually took the veil, by the name of Sister Gerolima, in the Franciscan convent of Santa Lucia at Foligno, where she died in 1450. Another monastery of the rigorous order of Sta. Chiara, dedicated by her at Pesaro to the Corpus Domini, had in 1443 received her daughter Elisabetta, whose lot was scarcely less unfortunate. Her husband, Pietro Gentile Lord of Camerino, fell a victim in 1433 to fraternal jealousy, leaving an only child Costanza, whom we shall subsequently notice as first wife of Alessandro Sforza, the supplanter of her grandfather in the seigneury of Pesaro, and as mother of Battista Countess of Urbino. CHAPTER III Guidantonio Count of Urbino--The Ubaldini--Oddantonio Count of Urbino--Is made Duke--His dissolute habits and speedy assassination.