il terreno
a molte miglia non dava il cammino.

"E da chi alberga fra Garonna e Reno
vidi uscir crudelta, che ne dovria
tutto il mondo d'orror rimaner pieno."

The League of Cambray had succeeded in breaking the real security and
confidence of Venice; the death of Gaston de Foix, "the hero boy who
died too soon," destroyed the energy of her ally, the French army, in
Italy; and the battle of Novara, as I have said, in 1513, inducing
that ally to withdraw from the peninsula, left the republic to be
menaced by Cardona, who failed only to take Venice itself.

Nor was that great government more fortunate in the long struggles
which followed between Francis I. and Charles V. In 1523, seeing that
the French were failing, Venice came to terms with the emperor, by
that time the real arbiter of Italy. In 1527, though then in alliance
with pope Clement VII, she seized once more Ravenna and the Romagna,
but the emperor intervened, and by the peace of Cambray in 1529, which
on payment of a fine confirmed Venice in her Lombard possessions as
far as the Adda, she was compelled to restore Ravenna and the Romagna
to the pope.

The treaty of Cambray had so far as Ravenna was concerned a certain
finality about it. Thenceforth the popes ruled the city through a
cardinal legate, and an era of a certain social and artistic splendour
began; the city was adorned with at least one new church, S. Maria in
Porto, with many monuments and palaces, and some great public works
were undertaken.

So Ravenna in the arms of the Church slumbered till, in 1797, the
great soldier of the Revolution descended upon Italy in that
marvellous campaign which so closely recalls the achievement of
Caesar. Ravenna then became a part first of the Cispadan and later of
the Cisalpine republic. Then, as we know, came the Austrians who took
Ravenna from the French, but were in their turn expelled in 1800, when
the city was incorporated into the short-lived kingdom of Italy. But
it was again attacked by the Austrians, and later restored once again
to the pope. A period of uncertainty and confusion followed in which
various provisional governments were established for Ravenna, but at
last in 1860 the city and its province were, by a vote of the people,
included in the kingdom of United Italy.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF GASTON DE FOIX]

XVIII

RENAISSANCE RAVENNA

CHURCHES AND PALACES

The period of the Renaissance which saw the papal governme