These plaintive notes might still [1859] find not a few echoes along the papal coasts of the Adriatic--the focus of Italian discontent,--over-taxation to maintain a distant government being ever the burden of their song. But the question is not, in truth, one of financial administration. However open to stricture the fiscal details may be, when tested by sound principles, the amount of revenue raised is moderate in consideration of the wealth there lavished by beneficent nature, in a degree denied to other not less burdened districts of the Peninsula. Nor can the papal sway, however objectionable, be in fairness regarded as otherwise than mild. But centralisation is necessarily alien to the spirit of a people long broken up into miniature communities, as it was formerly uncongenial to their ancestors, whose personal pride, political influence, and hopes of promotion, equally turned upon the continuance of a sectional independence. Hence the popular dissatisfaction rests as much upon traditional evils as upon existing and obvious misgovernment. Four centuries ago there were above a dozen capitals, flourishing in the balmy atmosphere of as many gay courts, and basking in patronage and prosperity, all within the circuit of that province where now a few priestly legates perform the functions of sovereignty without either the taste or the means for indulging its trappings, and dwell in princely palaces without the habits or the popularity of their ancient lords. But these are not matters for casual discussion. From the accession of Count Guidantonio in 1404, till the Devolution by Duke Francesco Maria in 1624, this little state had enjoyed two hundred and twenty years of a prosperity unknown to the neighbouring communities. Her sovereigns were distinguished in arts and arms, respected abroad, esteemed at home; her frontiers were comparatively exempt from invasion, her tranquillity unruffled by domestic broils: within her narrow limits were reared or sheltered many of the brightest names in literature, science, and art; her court was the mirror of refinement, her capital the Athens of Italy. Since the Devolution, she has passed an equal number of lustres in provincial obscurity and neglect. It has been the object of this work to portray somewhat of the splendours of that former period, though the subject would require colours more brilliant, and a hand more skilled. Here our task must close, for to follow her destinies to their decline and fall were one of few attractions. "Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities, nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go!" BOOK NINTH OF LITERATURE AND ART UNDER THE DUKES DELLA ROVERE AT URBINO CHAPTER XLIX