The Devolution was effected on the following terms. Along with all sovereign rights, there were conveyed to the Holy See the various fortified places in the duchy, and the residences at Urbino, Pesaro, and S. Leo. The Camera was allowed a preference in purchasing such warlike instruments, ammunition, and stores, as these places might contain, and was to pay to the Duke 100,000 scudi in name of expenses and ameliorations. To him and his heirs were reserved the furniture and movables in these three residences, and the whole allodial possessions of the family, including the palaces of Castel Durante, Sinigaglia, Gubbio, Cagli, Fossombrone, Novilara, and Della Carda; the _palazzetti_ or villas of Imperiale, Montebello, Monte Berticchio, Mirafiori, Velletta, and Barchetto, the three last being at Pesaro; many parks, forests, vineyards, houses, and particularly thirty-two mills. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was a party to the deed of devolution, which was executed on the 30th April, 1624, and he therein specially renounced for himself and his family all claim to the dukedom and states.[112] The assertion of Muratori, that Francesco Maria often regretted this step is not borne out by any authorities I have consulted. [Footnote 112: Oliveriana MSS. No. 324. Many documents regarding these transactions are printed in Riposati, vol. II.] In these arrangements the party most immediately interested had no voice, for the consent of the governed was then little studied in such transactions. Though the eloquent historian of the Italian republics maintains, upon true Guelphic principles, the blessings of the ecclesiastical sway compared with that of the petty seigneurs,[*113] those who have read the preceding chapters may hesitate ere they apply this doctrine to the duchy of Urbino. Four times have we seen the people throw off the transient rule of the Church, and recall their native princes to maintain that microscopic nationality which, to an Italian, is far dearer than personal liberty. Guicciardini admits that those who, under the princes, were maintained in ease with little personal exertion, generally hated papal domination. But under the popular dynasty of those dukes whose lives we have endeavoured to sketch, the loyalty implanted by selfishness was watered by affection, until its mature growth overshadowed the land. The extinction of their race was therefore bewailed by a grateful people, whose degradation to provincialism was felt as a still greater, and, in the circumstances, an irremediable misfortune.