On this auspicious occasion he cut off half the beard which he still wore in sign of mourning! The Duke and Duchess of Urbino made their entrance into Bologna on the same day. Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Prefect of Rome, and Captain General of the armies of the Church, was one of the most noted warriors of that time. Yet victory had rarely crowned his brows with laurels. Imitating the cautious tactics of Braccio, and emulating the fame of Fabius Cunctator, he reduced the art of war to a system of manoeuvres, and rarely risked his fortune in the field. It was chiefly due to his dilatory movements that the disaster of the Sack of Rome was not averted. He had been expelled by Leo X. from his duchy to make room for Lorenzo de'Medici, and report ran that a secret desire to witness the humiliation of a Medicean Pontiff caused him to withhold his forces from attacking the tumultuary troops of Bourbon. Francesco Maria was a man of violent temper; nineteen years before, he had murdered the Pope's Legate, Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, with his dagger, in the open streets of Bologna. His wife, Eleanora Ippolita Gonzaga, presided with grace over that brilliant and cultivated Court which Castiglione made famous by his _Cortegiano_. The Duke and Duchess survive to posterity in two masterpieces of portraiture by the hand of Titian which now adorn the Gallery of the Uffizzi. February 24, which was the anniversary of Charles's birthday, had been fixed for his coronation as Emperor in San Petronio. This church is one of the largest Gothic buildings in Italy. Its facade occupies the southern side of the piazza. The western side, on the left of the church, is taken up by the Palazzo Pubblico. In order to facilitate the passage of the Pope and Emperor with their Courts and train of princes from the palace to the cathedral, a wooden bridge wide enough to take six men abreast was constructed from an opening in the Hall of the Ancients. The bridge descended by a gradual line to the piazza, broadened out into a platform before the front of San Petronio, and then again ascended through the nave to the high altar. It was covered with blue draperies, and so arranged that the vast multitudes assembled in the square and church to see the ceremony had free access to it on all sides. On the morning of the 24th, the solemn procession issued from the palace, and defiled in order down the gangway. Clement was borne aloft by Pontifical grooms in their red liveries. He wore the tiara and a cope of state fastened by Cellini's famous stud, in which blazed the Burgundian diamond of Charles the Bold. Charles walked in royal robes attended by the Count of Nassau and Don Pietro di Toledo, the Viceroy of Naples, who afterwards gave his name to the chief street in that city. Before him went the Marquis of Montferrat, bearing the scepter; Philip, Duke of Bavaria, carrying the golden orb; the Duke of Urbino, with the