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.
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