The Montefeltro Dynasty: Excommunication, Mercenary Wars, and the Urbino Court

The family originates from a branch of the counts of Carpegna. While the main branch directs its interests toward the Foglia valley, the branch that would become the da Montefeltro focuses on the Val Marecchia. In the second half of the 12th century it takes possession of San Leo (anciently Mons Feretri), an episcopal seat located in the province of Rimini, and assumes its current name. Its domains expand rapidly, allowing the family’s principal members to take command of the Ghibellines of Romagna. The da Montefeltro thus emerge in the heart of the Umbrian-Marche Apennines as one of the most tenacious Ghibelline families, and one of the longest persecuted by the Church in Italian history of the late Middle Ages. For over a century, between the end of the 1200s and the mid-1300s, its members live in a state of nearly permanent excommunication; they are declared heretics and idolaters; they are targeted by crusades against them, and yet they are always able to reconquer Urbino after every setback. Only with the gradual reconciliation with the Holy See in the second half of the 14th century does the family find a stable position, culminating in the 15th century with the transformation of Urbino, under Federico da Montefeltro, into one of the most refined courts in Italy. The family’s arc thus tells two stories in one: that of the warlike, excommunicated counts of the early period, rooted in the feuds of the Marche and Romagna, and that of the Renaissance lords who, strengthened by the profession of arms exercised in service to larger states, build a lasting state and a court civilization celebrated throughout Europe.

FEDERICO DA MONTEFELTRO (the Ghibelline)

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Count. Son of Guido and of Manentessa di Guido, count of Giaggiolo. Father of eight children, including Francesco, Niccolò, Nolfo, Galasso, and Ugolino, bishop of Fossombrone. Cousin of Speranza da Montefeltro. c. 1258 – 1322 (April)

He first appears in a prominent position in May 1295, when he is absolved of the excommunication he incurred for having assisted his father Guido, by then old and close to retiring to a monastery, in his campaigns. Federico da Montefeltro is a protagonist for over thirty years of the factional wars that bloody the Marche, Umbria, Romagna, and Tuscany between the late 1200s and the early decades of the 1300s. Podestà of Arezzo, of Cesena, and then of Pisa, he repeatedly leads the league of the “Friends of the Marche” against the Guelphs and against whichever papal rector is in office; he occupies Fano, Urbino, Cagli, and numerous other locations, often losing and reconquering them. He goes to meet Emperor Henry of Luxembourg together with his cousin Speranza and becomes one of his most trusted captains during the latter’s descent into Italy. Repeatedly excommunicated, he is ultimately declared a heretic and idolater by Pope John XXII, who calls a full crusade against him. In April 1322 Urbino rises up against his rule: attacked in the palace’s main tower, he presents himself to the crowd together with his son Francesco with a rope around his neck; they beg for mercy. Both are slaughtered by the bystanders at the instigation of the bishop of Rimini; his body, being that of an excommunicate, is buried in a pit filled with horse manure. Two other sons manage to flee, only to be captured at Gubbio; his cousin Speranza takes refuge in the castle of San Marino. Only in 1334, twelve years after his death, does Pope John XXII, at the request of his sons Nolfo and Galasso, who had survived the massacre, order a review of the heresy trial against him. According to Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri, the complete failure of his policy is due to the fragmentation of the local Ghibellines’ operational capacity in central Italy, “as well as the by-then consolidated opposition of the Malatesta family, with whom [his family] would remain — and would long remain — in radical conflict of interests.” Other, differently toned assessments of him also come from contemporary historians, ranging from “undisputed political and military leader of the region” (Francesco Pirani, in “Tyrants and Cities of the Papal State”), to a comparison with Uguccione della Faggiuola for his valor on the battlefield (“the only one comparable to Uguccione, with whom he was for a long time a friend and ally,” Carlo Cipolla, in “History of the Italian Signorie from 1313 to 1530”). “His career [finally] suggests that it is precisely in the office of podestà, when it was conferred initially for military reasons, that one can identify the roots of fourteenth-century Italian mercenary service,” writes Alessandro Barbero in “The Condottiere Lords.”

SPERANZA DA MONTEFELTRO

Cousin of Federico; uncle of Nolfo and of Niccolò. Dies in 1345.

Speranza da Montefeltro shares throughout his life the military fortunes and the excommunications of his cousin Federico, whom he accompanies in the various campaigns conducted in the Marche against the papal forces and the Malatesta of Rimini from the early 1300s onward. Also a captain of the “Friends of the Marche,” he takes part in welcoming Emperor Henry of Luxembourg and is struck several times by interdict and excommunication alongside his relative. When in April 1322 Urbino falls into papal hands and Federico is killed by the crowd, Speranza manages to save himself by taking refuge in the castle of San Marino. In the following years he returns to Urbino and shares its government with his nephew Nolfo; in 1334, incited by the lord of Arezzo, Pier Saccone Tarlati, and by the lord of Rimini, Malatesta Malatesta Guastafamiglia, he plots a conspiracy to depose his nephew and remain sole lord of the city. The plot is discovered and Speranza is forced to flee Urbino hastily, taking refuge in Arezzo, where he spends his last years alongside the Tarlati. He dies in 1345, the last protagonist of the family’s Ghibelline generation.

NOLFO DA MONTEFELTRO (Sighinolfo da Montefeltro)

Son of Federico da Montefeltro, nephew of Speranza da Montefeltro, brother-in-law of Ferrandino Novello Malatesta. Marries Giovanna Gabrielli, daughter of Cantuccio, lord of Gubbio. 1295 – 1363 (September).

The son of Federico witnesses, at just over twenty years old, the lynching of his father carried out by the rebelling population of Urbino. Having found refuge with the bishop of Arezzo, Guido Tarlati, within a few months that same populace (July 1323), weary of the abuses of the papal forces, triumphantly proclaims him lord of the city together with his uncle Speranza. As his first act he confronts in battle the troops of the Papal State led by Ferrandino Malatesta. The opponents are defeated; Malatesta barely escapes; all those responsible for the Urbino uprising of two years earlier, taken prisoner, are put to the sword. In 1334, when he discovers that his uncle is scheming against him to take sole control of the city’s government, he drives him out of the city along with his cousins. A captain of long experience, he serves Pisa against Florence, takes part in the conquest of Lucca, then enters the pay of Venice against the count of Gorizia, earning enrollment in the Venetian nobility; finally, he enters the service of the Visconti of Milan and, as captain general, opposes the Florentines and Perugians in Umbria, the Marche, and Tuscany. In his final years he reconciles with the Church through the cardinal legate Egidio Albornoz, who grants him the vicariate of Urbino, Cagli, and San Leo, formally closing, at least on paper, the long era of heresy and excommunication that had marked the lives of his grandfather Guido and his father Federico. He dies in September 1363. “A man of great valor and most shrewd,” is how Paolo Tronci describes him in his work “Historical Memoirs of the City of Pisa”; an intelligence revealed in his abandonment of the family’s old dreams of expansion, which “had proven so ruinous to the economy of a city and a mountainous district that were quite poor.” Useful for reaching his new goals instead were “his successful activities as a captain, through which Count Nolfo led his soldiers across Italy in search of fortune,” writes Gino Franceschini in “The Montefeltro.” A certain check on his ambitions is provided by the presence of the new papal legate, Cardinal Egidio Albornoz, capable of containing many lords of Lazio, the Marche, Umbria, and Romagna within their own districts.

NICCOLÒ DA MONTEFELTRO

Count of Urbino, belonging to a secondary branch of the family. His name should not be confused with a namesake, a natural son of Federico da Montefeltro and brother of Nolfo, who died in 1348. Marries his cousin Agnese da Montefeltro. Lives from 1319 to 1367 (August).

Niccolò da Montefeltro builds his career mainly as the head of a mercenary company, at whose helm he serves in the pay of Florence, Perugia, the lords of Romagna, and the Papal State. He founds the Company of the Cappelletto, some one thousand horsemen strong, mostly Italians (from Romagna, Umbria, and the Marche, but also Lombards and Tuscans, with a smaller number of men from southern Italy). At the head of this company, which also includes German and Burgundian horsemen, he ranges widely through Tuscany, causing particular damage to Sienese territory; captured in battle at Torrita di Siena, he is freed in exchange for hostages, including one of his own sons. He subsequently joins the Company of St. George under the command of John Hawkwood, becoming its chancellor; he is finally appointed by Cardinal Egidio Albornoz as captain general of the Papal State’s troops, in whose service he defeats the Perugians at the Battle of Ponte San Giovanni. His marriage to his cousin Agnese da Montefeltro seals the peace reached between the family’s different branches. He dies at the end of August 1367 in the fortress of Belriposo at Viterbo. The defeat of the Company of the Cappelletto, suffered in the Val di Chiana in 1363, is recorded in the fresco by Lippo Vanni preserved in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena. “In the history of Italian soldiery, [Niccolò da Montefeltro] would deserve a place of honor. How much ambition and self-interest influenced the varied game that brought the boldest and most capable men to the head of these mercenary companies is not entirely clear; but it is evident that Count Niccolò was well aware of bearing a great name and, more importantly, found himself needing to make use of that name as his only available resource,” writes Franceschini. His figure thus stands among the most prestigious condottieri of central Italy of the time, as also confirmed by Donato di Neri’s “Sienese Chronicle.”

ANTONIO DA MONTEFELTRO

Of Urbino. Son of Federico Novello and of Teodora Gonzaga. Father of Guidantonio, Battista (marries Galeazzo Malatesta of Pesaro), Anna (marries Galeotto Belfiore Malatesta of the Rimini branch), two other daughters (whose names are unknown; one of them marries Astorre Manfredi), and of Niccolò. Nephew of Nolfo da Montefeltro. Marries Agnesina di Vico, daughter of Giovanni. Lives from 1348 to 1404 (April).

A man of war and a highly skilled politician, he manages to insert himself authoritatively into the struggles of the major Italian states, to the point of being regarded as the true founder of the state of Urbino. He succeeds in extending his rule over Cagli, Gubbio, and Cantiano, thereby controlling a territory of about 2,000 square kilometers. Antonio da Montefeltro’s youth is marked by exile: he tries in vain to take Urbino in 1369 and takes refuge in Perugia; he later goes to Avignon to see the pope, obtains his pardon, and is gradually able to recover his domains. In December 1375, when Urbino and neighboring cities rise up against papal misrule, he marches from Città di Castello and seizes the city, placing himself at the head of a broad league of small Apennine lords. In the following years he consolidates his state, acquiring Cagli and, above all, Gubbio, a city that will remain permanently tied to Urbino. He alternates alliances with Florence, with the Visconti of Milan, and with the Papal State, holding for a time the presidency of the secret ducal council in Milan. He takes part in the Battle of Casalecchio di Reno (1402), which marks the end of the Bentivoglio lordship in Bologna. He is also the author of sonnets and a patron of men of letters and architects. He dies in Urbino at the end of April 1404 and is buried in the church of the Friars Minor Observant. Antonio da Montefeltro is one of the key figures in his family’s success, as noted respectively in the works of Filippo Ugolini and Gino Franceschini: “The count governed his people with gentle authority, and they always remained loyal to him even in adverse fortune; no act of cruelty or arrogance on his part is recorded by history,” writes the first author in his “History of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino.” “With him disappeared from the Italian political scene at the end of that century one of the most eminent figures of soldier and statesman, one of the most significant to have come from the ancient line of the Montefeltro, so rich in fearless soldiers and skilled, virtuous captains,” writes the second in his already cited work “The Montefeltro.”

GUIDANTONIO DA MONTEFELTRO

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Son of Antonio and of Agnesina di Vico. Marries first Rengarda Malatesta, with whom, over twenty-six years of marriage, he has no children. According to an unconfirmed account, from a relationship with Elisabetta degli Accomandati, lady-in-waiting to the countess, is born Federico, the future duke of Urbino. From another extramarital relationship is born Aura, wife of the condottiero Bernardino degli Ubaldini della Carda — probably Federico’s real parents. After Rengarda’s death (1423) he marries, in second nuptials (January 1424), Caterina Colonna, niece of Pope Martin V. The couple has six children: Raffaello Maria (stillborn), Oddantonio (who will succeed him as ruler of the Urbino state), Brigida (lives only two months), Violante (wife of Domenico Malatesta, who becomes a nun after her husband’s death), Agnese (wife of Alessandro Gonzaga, marquis of Castel Goffredo, Castiglione delle Stiviere, and Solferino), Sveva (wife of Alessandro Sforza; forced to become a nun, remembered as Blessed Serafina), and another daughter, whose name is unrecorded, wife of the lord of Faenza, Guidantonio Manfredi. Brother-in-law of Carlo Malatesta, Pandolfo Malatesta, and Andrea Malatesta; father-in-law of Alessandro Sforza, Domenico Malatesta, Guidantonio Manfredi, and Bernardino degli Ubaldini. Awarded the Golden Rose. Lives from 1378 to February 1443.

Count of Urbino: at various times lord of Assisi, Bastia Umbra, Cagli, Castel Durante (Urbania), Città di Castello, Forlì, Forlimpopoli, Gubbio, Lamoli, Mercatello sul Metauro, Monte Locco, Montone, San Gemini, Nocera Umbra, Ostra, Sant’Angelo in Vado, and Spello. The rule of Guidantonio da Montefeltro is the longest in the family’s history. He succeeds his father Antonio in 1404, obtaining the papal investiture of Urbino; in the following years he becomes one of the most consistently employed condottieri in Italy, holding the office of Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Naples and that of Gonfalonier of the Papal State. His campaigns take him from the Abruzzi to Lombardy. The most constant conflict of his life is with the Perugian captain Braccio da Montone, who repeatedly takes Assisi and other Umbrian territories from him, before eventually reconciling with him in Florence, where Pope Martin V awards him the Golden Rose. He is at once a man of arms and of culture, initiating the library of the lords of Urbino. He dies in Urbino at the end of February 1443 after a brief illness, and is buried in Franciscan habit in the church of San Donato. “A soft captain,” is how Neri di Gino Capponi describes him in his “Commentaries on Events in Italy from 1419 to 1456.” A similar judgment comes from another Florentine historian, Giuseppe Cavalcanti (“Florentine Histories”), who lived in the same period: “He rode with our army, and was honored by all. Yet he trusted more in the soldiery of his son-in-law [Bernardino degli Ubaldini della Carda] than in his own expertise, since he had practiced household management more than the ordering of ranks and the arming of knights; he delighted in songs and music, feared the din of trumpets, and gladly listened to and watched songs and dances. He was gentle and noble, crowned with loyalty, but was not esteemed in war.” Quite different, by contrast, is the assessment of his military worth given by eighteenth-century historians such as Bernardino Baldi (“Eulogy of Urbino”) and Rinaldo Reposati (“On the Mint of Gubbio and the Deeds of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino”): “For the nobility both of his lineage and of his spirit, he was esteemed one of the best and most valorous knights of his time” (the first); “Without flattery he can be numbered among the best and most valorous captains not only of those times, but among those who later flourished among the counts of Montefeltro and dukes of Urbino… Guidantonio was a prince of great prudence and goodness, a lover of justice, a keeper of peace and quiet for his subjects, by whom he was greatly loved and revered” (the second).

FEDERICO DA MONTEFELTRO (Duke of Urbino)

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Born in the castle of Petroio, in the municipality of Gubbio. He is officially presented as the natural son of Guidantonio da Montefeltro and Elisabetta Accominducci, lady-in-waiting to Countess Rengarda Malatesta: the act of legitimation is issued by a papal bull of Pope Martin V, uncle of Caterina Colonna, Guidantonio’s second wife. Current opinion holds that he was actually the son of the condottiero Bernardino degli Ubaldini della Carda, who was married to Aura da Montefeltro, herself an illegitimate daughter of Guidantonio. Several documents exist, including writings of Pope Pius II and Pope Sixtus IV, attributing Federico da Montefeltro’s paternity to Ubaldini. In any case, Federico himself always publicly considered himself the condottiero’s son. He marries first his cousin Gentile Brancaleoni, daughter of Bartolomeo, lord of Mercatello sul Metauro and Sant’Angelo in Vado, and then, in second nuptials, Battista Sforza, daughter of Alessandro. He has numerous children from his second marriage: a daughter who lives only three months, and the daughters Elisabetta (wife of Roberto Malatesta), Giovanna (wife of Giovanni della Rovere, duke of Sora, Arce, and Senigallia — from this couple is born Francesco Maria della Rovere, future duke of Urbino), Costanza (wife of Antonello da San Severino, prince of Salerno and count of Marsico), Agnese (wife of Fabrizio Colonna, duke of the Marsi and of Paliano, count of Tagliacozzo and Celano), Anna, Violante, Girolamo, and Guidobaldo. In his youth he also has numerous natural children, all later legitimized: Buonconte (his designated heir, who dies of plague), Antonio (count of Cantiano and rector of Sant’Agata Feltria, his lieutenant in war), and Gentile (married first to Carlo Malatesta, lord of Giaggiolo, and then to Agostino Fregoso, lord of Voltaggio). Awarded the Order of the Garter and that of the Ermine, knight of St. Peter. Lives from June 1422 to September 1482.

Over the course of six decades, Federico da Montefeltro becomes the most sought-after and best-paid condottiero in Italy, serving states such as Milan, Florence, Naples, and the Papal State. A defining feature of his career is a decades-long rivalry with the lord of Rimini, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. Held hostage as a boy in Venice and then in Mantua, where he studies at the school of Vittorino da Feltre, he loses his right eye in a tournament in 1451, an injury that leads him always to have himself portrayed in profile. In July 1444 his half-brother Oddantonio, duke for only a few months, is assassinated in a conspiracy in Urbino; Federico, who is in Pesaro at the time, rushes there overnight and has himself proclaimed lord of the city, while the conspirators are granted amnesty — a circumstance that leads many contemporaries to suspect his involvement. From this point on he methodically builds his own state, acquiring Fossombrone and Sassocorvaro; he eventually strips Malatesta of most of his domains in Romagna and in the Montefeltro region, including Fano and numerous fortresses. Captain general of several Italian leagues and of the papal armies, he leads the victory at Riccardina against Bartolomeo Colleoni (July 1467). His last command dates to April–May 1482, as commander general of the combined troops of Florence, Milan, Naples, and the Este. His rivals once again are the Venetians, now led by Roberto da San Severino. He dies a few months later (mid-August) in Ferrara of malaria, tended by his half-sister Violante, a nun in a convent in that city. He is buried in Urbino in the Franciscan church of San Bernardino, facing the tomb of his son Guidobaldo. He transforms Urbino into one of the most celebrated courts of the Renaissance, building the famous Ducal Palace and surrounding himself with artists including Piero della Francesca. Of the numerous citations on the site concerning his activity as a man of culture and a condottiero, three have been chosen, each relating to a different historical period: the first, from the sixteenth century, praises his human qualities; the second, from the nineteenth century, focuses on his court at Urbino; the third, from a modern historian, highlights his military qualities. “A truly excellent and most unconquered man… Having first been held a most valiant soldier and then a singular captain general, he was so admired in the time of our fathers that he was rightly compared to those ancient captains who won reputation and fame for singular valor: for it seemed that with the sharpest wit he imitated certain particular virtues of each of them… In him, in times both of war and of peace, one saw a mind of great gravity yet without any harshness, for he was gracious and humane toward everyone, without affectation, and never given to anger such that he would commit any villainy. He had a forceful yet well-tempered eloquence, with which, offending no one, he taught everyone modesty and goodness, never reproaching anyone with harsh words” (Giovio). “Federico maintained five hundred persons: the offices there were as complete as in any of the courts of the greater monarchies; yet nothing was wasted, everything had a purpose, and a most rigorous oversight watched over everyone. Here, in general, there was no corruption, no dissipation, because the court was meant to be, at the same time, a school of military education for the sons of other great houses” (Burckhardt). “[With his death] there departed the foremost captain of men-at-arms in Italy,” as an anonymous Volterran chronicler affirmed. Trained in the school of Niccolò Piccinino, continuer of the Braccesca tradition, he learned from it the art of measured timing and caution in decisions to be made with reason rather than instinct. Later serving under Francesco Sforza, heir to his father’s tradition, he observed and learned the tactics and strategy of a captain whose way of understanding battle was based on the force of the sudden, intelligent assault. Federico went further, developing the ability to merge the two schools and to create his own way of fighting, based on the cautious timing of the first school and the guided spontaneity of the second. He forged all of this around the power of new firearms, on which he built the greatness of a duchy that he transformed into a repository of wisdom, science, art, and culture (Staffa). One final note: nine biographies consulted directly address his activity as both a man of culture and of war.

GUIDOBALDO DA MONTEFELTRO

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Son of Federico and of Battista Sforza, who dies a few months after his birth. Half-brother of Antonio, uncle and adoptive father of Francesco Maria della Rovere, brother-in-law of Fabrizio Colonna, of Giovanni della Rovere, and of Francesco and Giovanni Gonzaga, nephew of Alessandro Sforza. Marries Elisabetta Gonzaga. Lives from January 1472 to September 1508.

Guidobaldo da Montefeltro succeeds his father Federico in 1482; he inherits a consolidated state but not, according to sources of the time, his father’s military genius: afflicted by gout from his youth, he is described as inferior to his father in arms but equal to or superior to him in civil prudence. He fights for Florence, for Venice, and for the Papal State; he is taken prisoner at the Battle of Soriano nel Cimino in 1497 and must pay his own ransom. In 1502 he suffers the hardest blow of his life: Cesare Borgia, taking advantage of a betrayal, occupies Urbino. The duke flees dramatically across the Apennines in disguise, managing to reach safety in Ravenna and then Venice. He reconquers the duchy a few months later thanks to the conspiracy of the Orsini and the Vitelli against Borgia; with the death of Alexander VI he definitively recovers his states, becoming captain general and Gonfalonier of the Papal State under Pope Julius II. Having no children of his own due to his sterility, he adopts as his heir his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere. His court, animated by his wife Elisabetta Gonzaga and frequented by Pietro Bembo and Baldassarre Castiglione — who will make it the setting of “The Courtier” — remains one of the models of courtly civilization of the Italian Renaissance. He dies of gout in Fossombrone at the end of September 1508 and is buried in Urbino in the church of San Bernardino, facing his father’s tomb. It was difficult for Guidobaldo to live in the shadow of his father’s great figure, to whom he was inferior in arms, but “equal in civil prudence and counsel, equal to or perhaps superior to him… A natural enemy of idleness, he spent his time virtuously, partly in hunting, to which he felt greatly inclined, and partly in jousting and other military exercises; and no small part of his pleasures, amid his studies of matters of war, was the delight he took in the conversation of learned men, of whom his court was always full” (Bernardino Baldi, in “Life and Deeds of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino”). “Endowed with great qualities, but a victim of perpetual infirmities and misfortunes… Guidobaldo’s court, as a school of the highest culture, was made immortal by Baldassarre Castiglione, who had his eclogue, the Tirsi, performed before that society almost as an homage to it, and who later set the dialogues of his Courtier within the circle of the most cultured duchess, Elisabetta Gonzaga” (Jacob Burckhardt, “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy”).

ANTONIO DA MONTEFELTRO (Count of Cantiano)

Natural son of Federico, half-brother of Guidobaldo, brother-in-law of Roberto Malatesta. Marries Emilia Pio, daughter of Marco. Lives from 1450 to August 1508.

A natural son of Federico, Antonio abandons his studies to follow his father in his military campaigns against the papal forces; he takes part in the Battle of Mulazzano, following which Roberto Malatesta regains the lordship of Rimini. He receives from his father the rectorship of Sant’Agata Feltria, which he holds for nearly thirty years; through his marriage to Emilia Pio he also becomes, for a decade, captain of arms for his father-in-law Marco Pio, lord of Carpi. Upon his father’s death in 1482, together with his uncle Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, he takes on the guardianship of his young brother Guidobaldo, who has just succeeded to the dukedom, and commands his military companies. He serves Siena, Florence, and Venice. His career suffers a decisive setback in 1495: at the Battle of Fornovo, commanding a squadron of nearly five hundred lances, he refuses to engage against the French forces of King Charles VIII, following orders he had previously received from Francesco Gonzaga; for this reason he is summarily dismissed by the Venetians. In his final years he supports his brother in the Casentino campaign against the Florentines. He dies in Gubbio in August 1508, according to some sources of syphilis, according to others of dropsy. He is buried in the chapel of his castle at Cantiano; he is depicted beside his father, in the guise of an angel, in the Brera Altarpiece painted by Piero della Francesca. The comments on him are brief and all attuned to his valor in war, chief among them the assessment of Filippo Ugolini in his work “History of the Counts and Dukes of Urbino”: “A gentle and valorous knight, distinguished also in war.”