We have dwelt somewhat minutely--it may be tediously--upon these events, for the contest was one of vital moment to Francesco Maria, his duchy being at once the theatre of operations and the guerdon of victory. Yet this petty war was pregnant with results of wider interest; for the enormous drain of money it occasioned so aggravated the financial difficulties of the papacy, as to bring to a crisis those abuses which finally matured the Reformation. The Minio despatches abound in proofs of the desperate state to which the treasury was reduced, and of the simoniacal expedients resorted to for ready money. One of these may be noted as compromising Bembo, who so often re-appears in these pages. He and Sadoleto had, since Leo's accession, monopolised his private brieves, which afforded them a handsome return, from gratuities and bribes, to the exclusion of the other papal secretaries. Now, however, the latter offered to their needy master a purse of 25,000 ducats, if admitted to share the spoils, which was greedily accepted, without regard to vested interests; and his Holiness was delighted to find the purchase-money of his ordinary secretaryships thereby raised at once from 6000 to 7000 ducats each. The imposition of one tenth laid on the clergy, avowedly for the proposed Turkish crusade, was absorbed by this Urbino campaign, which was thought to have cost the Holy See thirty thousand men, and a million of scudi. Even Henry VIII. was applied to for a loan of 200,000 ducats, which he characteristically evaded by offering 100,000, on condition of levying for himself the clergy tenths. But let us take the Pontiff's own statement, volunteered to Minio:--"See, by your troth, what a business this is! The war costs us 700,000 ducats; and we have been so ill served by these ministers, that worse cannot be imagined: this very month we had to disburse 120,000. When we commenced the war we had some few funds, which we had not chosen to touch, but the Lord God has aided us. We should never have thought it possible to raise 100,000 ducats, and we have obtained 700,000; see how astonishing this is! Had we deemed it possible to obtain 700,000 ducats, we would have undertaken the expedition against the Turks single-handed." * * * * *