On his father’s death in 1501, Francesco was brought to the court of his uncle Guidobaldo, who secured for him a renewal of the Prefecture and superintended his education. In THE COURTIER he appears as “my lord Prefect.” During the Borgian usurpation of the duchy, he found refuge at the court of Louis XII; and soon after the fall of the Borgias and his uncle Julius II's accession, he was adopted as Guidobaldo’s heir, while through the mediation of Castiglione a marriage was arranged for him with Eleanora, daughter to the Marquess of Mantua and niece to the Duchess of Urbino. He now resided chiefly with his uncle, acquainting himself with his future subjects and duties. Although he possessed many of the good qualities ascribed to him in THE COURTIER, his temper was ungovernable, and before reaching the age of eighteen he slew one of the members of the court, who was accused of seducing his sister. Having become duke in 1508, he was married on Christmas Eve of that year. In the following spring he commanded the papal forces in the League of Cambray, and despite the obstacles put in his way by his colleague Cardinal Alidosi (see note 268), he soon reduced the Romagna towns, the recovery of which from Venice was Julius II's chief object in forming the league. In a later campaign against the French, Bologna was lost to the Church (1511) through the treachery of Alidosi, who craftily contrived to have the blame fall upon Francesco, and was murdered by the latter at Ravenna. After a long trial before six cardinals, in which ample proof of the dead man’s treason was presented, and an eloquent appeal made by Beroaldo (see note 235),—the young duke was acquitted and restored to the pope’s favour. Although both Francesco and his predecessor had generously befriended the Medici during their exile from Florence (1494-1512), Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici) seized his duchy in 1516, to bestow it on a nephew, Lorenzo de' Medici. It is needless to speak here of Francesco’s restoration in 1521, of his failure to relieve Pope Clement VII when Rome was sacked in 1527, or of his later life. While small in person, Francesco was active and well formed. His manners were gentle and his character forgiving, in spite of his fiery temper. Strict in religious observances and an enemy to blasphemous language, he was also creditably intolerant of those outrages upon womanly honour with which war was then fraught. He was famous chiefly as a soldier, and by so competent a judge as the Emperor Charles V was regarded as master of the military science of his day.