This Duke's brief life is shrouded in mystery; for contemporary authorities do not enable us to pronounce with certainty on the enormous vices wherewith tradition and innuendo have vaguely blackened his memory, whilst the narratives of Galli and Baldi, composed for his successors in a spirit of adulation rather than of truth, clearly overplead his defence. The testimony of Pius II. is so direct as to one atrocity, barbarous almost beyond belief, that it would be equally difficult to reject it, or crediting the tale, to limit the probable enormities of a wretch so inhuman. The accusations against him are that, intoxicated by good fortune, he cast off his early discipline, forgot the lessons of philosophy, and placing himself unreservedly in the guidance of dissolute favourites, dismayed his subjects by outrages the most licentious, and by cruelties the most revolting. The instance mentioned by Pius II. is that he had one of his pages, who had neglected to provide lights at the proper hour, enveloped in sear-cloth coated with combustibles, and then setting fire to his head, left him to the horrors of a lingering agony. The account transmitted to us by his apologists mingles pity with our blame. They say that, desirous of suitably regulating his government, he listened to the silver-toned suggestions of his crafty and covetous neighbour, the Lord of Rimini, by whose advice he employed, as confidential ministers, Manfredi Pio da Carpi, and Tomaso Agnello da Rimini, men selected by Sigismondo as fitting instruments for his ruin. That, acting upon the instructions of their principal, these agents by precept and example debased the mind and corrupted the morals of the young prince, with the view of rendering his person and rule odious, and of accelerating a popular revolution, which might peril his life, or, at least, place his territories within the grasp of Malatesta. That in prosecution of this diabolical plot, they promoted loathsome orgies and shameless debaucheries, until the leading citizens, indignant at the dishonour which daily violated their domestic circles, rose at the instigation of Serafius, a physician whose handsome wife had been seduced by Manfredi. In the riot which followed, the two favourites and their master met a tragical end, and their bodies were exposed to nameless atrocities; but whether the popular vengeance was equally merited by, and inflicted upon the three, or whether the Duke was accidentally slain without being involved in these disgraceful malpractices, is a point likely to remain at issue. It would seem probable, however, from this passage of an old chronicle transcribed in the Oliveriana Library, that political discontent had a part in the rising: "On the 22nd of July, 1444, at lauds [three o'clock a.m.], Oddantonio was slain in his own hall, and along with him his familiar servants Manfredo de' Pii and Tomaso da Rimini; and forthwith the people of Urbino in one voice