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In addition to the powerful army awaiting him at Spoleto, the duke had a further 2,000 men in the Romagna; another 1,000 men held themselves at his orders between Sinigaglia and Urbino, and Dionigio di Naldo was arming yet another 1,000 men at Verucchio for his service.
He severed from the ecclesiastical State, already weak and poor, the duchy of Spoleto and other wealthy properties, that he might make them fiefs to us; he confided to our weak hands the vice-chancellorship, the vice-prefecture of Rome, the generalship of the Church, and all the other most important offices, which, instead of being monopolised by us, should have been conferred on those who were most meritorious.
He advanced to meet him as far as the plains of Spoleto. When the armies came in right of each other, the soldiers of Gallus compared the ignominious conduct of their sovereign with the glory of his rival. They admired the valor of Æmilianus; they were attracted by his liberality, for he offered a considerable increase of pay to all deserters.
Thus did Pope Leo XII. signalize his solicitude and affection for the city of his birth. The appointment came not too soon. It required all the influence of a great mind to maintain peace at Spoleto. Party spirit ran high. One side clamored against abuses: the other, dreading all change, clung pertinaciously to the past. Wrath was treasured in every bosom.
At the command, or at least in the name, of a Catholic emperor, the pope, their spiritual father, had been torn from the Roman church, and either starved or murdered on a desolate island. The virtues of Belisarius were replaced by the various or uniform vices of eleven chiefs, at Rome, Ravenna, Florence, Perugia, Spoleto, &c., who abused their authority for the indulgence of lust or avarice.
Throughout the years of his youth he suffered from infirm health, but before reaching thirty he gained much in strength, and in 1827 became Archbishop of Spoleto. In 1840 he was made cardinal by Pope Gregory XVI. Gregory died June 1, 1846, and after being two days in conclave the cardinals elected their colleague Ferretti to succeed him.
Persons traveling together in a carriage are not long in becoming acquainted close companionship soon breeds familiarity. Before night, I had made a fast friend of the young soldier, learned to bear the perverse humor of the child with as much patience as its father, and even drawn looks of grim kindness from the crusty old vetturino. Our mid-day resting place was Spoleto.
Within a year the senator also had become the papal nominee, and the whole municipality was controlled by the Pope. No less complete was Innocent's triumph over the nobility of the Campagna. He drove Conrad of Urslingen back to Germany, and restored Spoleto to papal rule.
The unusual event of an excursion by Michael Angelo into the country took place in 1556, possibly with a view to avoiding the troubles feared in Rome from the Duke of Alva, Spanish Viceroy of Naples. Michael Angelo informed his nephew that he was making a pilgrimage to Loreto, but feeling tired stopped to rest at Spoleto.
After lunch we walked out to see the lions of Spoleto, and found our way up a steep and narrow street that led us to the city gate, at which, it is traditionally said, Hannibal sought to force an entrance, after the battle of Thrasymene, and was repulsed. The gateway has a double arch, on the inner one of which is a tablet, recording the above tradition as an unquestioned historical fact.
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