Pietro Bembo: Lover, Linguist, Cardinal 9780773571921

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pi etro b emb o

Pietro Bembo Lover, Linguist, Cardinal CARO L K I DWE LL

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston · London · Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2004 isbn 0-7735-2709-5 Legal deposit fourth quarter 2004 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kidwell, Carol Pietro Bembo : lover, linguist, cardinal / Carol Kidwell. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-7735-2709-5 1. Bembo, Pietro, 1470–1547. 2. Authors, Italian – 16th century – Biography. 3. Humanists – Italy – Biography. 4. Cardinals – Italy – Biography. I. Title. pq4608.k53 2004

858′.309

c2004–900955–9

Typeset in 10/12 Sabon with Bembo display by True to Type

To my grandchildren India, Elsa, Felix, Sebastian, Jasper, Mylo

Contents

Illustration Credits / ix Abbreviations and Translations / xiii Acknowledgments / xv 1 Early Life / 3 2 Maria Savorgnan / 24 3 Pietro and Lucrezia / 71 4 Gli Asolani / 99 5 Bembo the Courtier / 113 6 Rome / 151 7 Retirement and Domesticity in Padua / 193 8 Le Prose and the Question of Language / 218 9 Troubled Times / 238 10 Man of Letters / 269 11 In a Changing World / 298 12 Cardinal Bembo / 322 13 Last Things / 359 14 Conclusion / 386 Appendix

Bembo Iconography / 391 Notes / 395

Bibliography / 493 Index / 523

Abbreviations,Translations and Illustrations Credits

D Dionisotti, Maria Savorgnan – Pietro Bembo, Carteggio d’ Amore T Travi, ed. Bembo, Lettere, 4 vols. All translations are by the author unless otherwise indicated.

illustrations credits The celebration of the return of the Bucintoro. G. Franco, Habiti d’huomini et donne venetiani. Venice. 1610. By permission of The British Library, 1269i25, no page number / 2 Cà Bembo, the pink gothic palace of the Bembo family on the Grand Canal near the Rialto bridge. Photo: C. Kidwell / 5 Aldus’s printing house and seat of the New Academy, 2311 San Polo, rio terrà secondo di San Agostino, Venice. Photo: C. Kidwell / 14 Giovanni Bellini, “Portrait of a Young Man” [Pietro Bembo]. Hampton Court, the Royal Collection, © Copyright 2003 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / 30 Girl with a dog reading a letter in her bedroom. Polifilo [Francesco Colonna], Hypnerotomachia Polifili. Venice: Aldus 1499. By permission of The British Library, ib24499, p. Eiv / 34 Campiello del Magazen 1372. Photo: C. Kidwell / 47 The western half of de’ Barbari’s map of Venice, 1500. By permission of The British Museum / 54

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Illustration Credits

An example of a cavana, a shelter for gondolas, and an indication of the structure of a fifteenth-century Venetian house on the water. From G. Mansueti, “A Miracle of the Relics of the Holy Cross,” in P. Molmenti, La storia di Venezia nella vita privata. By permission of The British Library, 9168.v.9, vol. 2, 363 / 58 Lucrezia Borgia as St Catherine, Pinturicchio, Borgia apartments, Vatican. Lucrezia would have been about fourteen, the time of her first marriage, when Pinturicchio painted this fresco. F. Ehrle, SJ, Gli Affreschi del Pinturicchio nel Appartamento Borgia del Palazzo Apostolico Vaticano. Rome 1897. By permission of The British Library, 1899.f.6, tav. LXV / 72 A country villa in the Veneto. Crescentio, De agricultura, 1496, in P. Molmenti, La storia di Venezia nella vita privata. By permission of The British Library, 9168.v.9, vol. 2, 389 / 74 The Strozzi palace, piazza Ariostea, Ferrara. Photo: C. Kidwell / 81 The Este castle at Ferrara. Photo: David Mather / 92 Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara, presents her son, Ercole, to St Maurelio. Engraving on silver by Giovanni Antonio da Foligno, 1512. Photo: R. Kidwell / 97 Modern Asolo. Photo: C. Kidwell / 101 The palace of the dukes of Urbino, Pesaro. Photo: C. Kidwell / 117 The tenth-century hermitage of Santa Croce at Fonte Avellana on Mount Catria. Photo: R. Kidwell / 119 The castle of Urbino. Photo: R. Kidwell / 126 Francesco Maria della Rovere. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid / 130 The port of Rome. A. Bartoli, Monumenti antichi di Roma. By permission of The British Library, 1899.m.5, vol. 5 tav. cdxxxii fig.787 / 147 Rome 1550. Hendrik van Cleef, A. Bartoli, Cento vedute di Roma antiqua. By permission of The British Library ktc. 38.b.21 tav. A / 152 Fireworks at Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome. Hendrik van Cleef. By permission of The British Museum / 155

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Bull fight, Monte Testaccio, Rome, 1520. Hendrik van Cleef. By permission of The British Museum / 157 Old St Peter’s in Bembo’s day. Hendrik van Cleef. By permission of The British Museum / 169 Part of Trajan’s Forum. Hieronymus Cock, in A. Bartoli. Cento vedute di Roma antiqua. By permission of The British Library, ktc.38.b.21 tav. XL / 172 Cà Corner-Contarini dei Cavalli on the Grand Canal, Venice. Photo: C. Kidwell / 180 An ambassador before the doge and his cabinet, the Collegio. G. Franco. Habiti d’huomini et donne venetiane 1610. By permission of The British Library, 1269 i.25, p. 29 / 181 Bembo’s Abbey of Villanova, “S. Pietro Apostolo,” Bonifacio, Verona. Photo: R. Kidwell / 196 Bologna, Piazza Maggiore. Photo: R. Kidwell / 197 Bembo’s villa Noniana, the poet writing by the Piovego. Bembo, Opere, 1729. By permission of The British Library, 663.1.3, vol. 4, 153 / 206 The University of Padua in the sixteenth century. P. Molmenti. La storia di Venezia nella vita privata. By permission of The British Library, 9168.v.9, vol. 2, p. 274 / 215 The house Bembo bought in Padua, 59 via Altinate. Photo: C. Kidwell / 240 Bembo, Valerio Belli medal 1530–32. By permission of The British Museum / 275 The Libreria Marciana. Photo: C. Kidwell / 280 The Porta Portella in Padua. Photo: R. Kidwell / 286 Gianmatteo Bembo’s house, Campiello di Santa Maria Nova 5999, Venice. Photo: R. Kidwell / 290 The Arsenal, Venice. Photo: C. Kidwell / 292

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Illustration Credits

A doctor’s visit, Libro d’oro Borromeo. Copyright: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan / 295 Cardinal Bembo, Cellini. By permission of The British Museum / 302 Cardinal Bembo, Titian c. 1539. The National Gallery, Washington. Photo: Charles Maddison / 320 The residential quarters, Sant’ Apostoli, Rome. Photo: C. Kidwell / 338 The courtyard, Sant’ Apostoli. Photo: C. Kidwell / 339 Villa Imperiale, Genga’s new courtyard. Photo: R. Kidwell / 348 Stoney Gubbio, the road leading up to the cathedral and the ducal palace where Bembo lived in the winter of 1543-44. Photo: R. Kidwell / 350 The Palazzo Baldassini, via delle Coppelle, Rome. Photo: C. Kidwell / 378 The entrance to Palazzo Baldassini where Bembo’s horse smashed him against the wall. Photo: R. Kidwell / 379 Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome. Photo: R. Kidwell / 380 The basilica of Sant’ Antonio of Padua. Photo: Chris Tarbet / 382 Bembo’s tomb. Photo: C. Kidwell / 384

Acknowledgments

I should like to thank Dr Cecil H. Clough for his encouragement, for the meticulous reading of my typescript, for his many valuable suggestions, and for generously sharing bibliographical information. I should also like to thank the architectural firm Clarke Kidwell for the gift of a redundant computer as well as computer orientation, Dr Iris Hauswirth for computer help, and for checking databases on the Internet, and my son, Dr Charles Maddison, for picture research in Budapest, Naples, and Washington. Above all, I must thank my husband, Raymond Kidwell, qc, for his unfailing support and for dedicating our holidays to following in the footsteps of Bembo and photographing Bembo sites throughout Italy. I am also glad to have this opportunity to thank all those who facilitated my education: Queen’s University for a Province of Ontario and other scholarships, the Canadian Federation of University Women for a travelling scholarship, the Johns Hopkins University for a president’s and other scholarships, the American Council of Learned Societies for an advanced graduate scholarship, and the Canada Council for a post-doctoral fellowship and for various grants-in-aid of publication.

pi etro b emb o

The celebration of the return of the Bucintoro, the doge’s gilt barge, after the symbolic wedding of the sea. G. Franco.

1 Early Life

Pietro Bembo was born in the golden age of Venice, on 20 May 1470, into the old nobility. The Bembo family had been one of the first to settle on the mud flats in the northwest Adriatic in the middle of the fifth century at the time of Attila’s invasion of the Roman Empire. According to tradition the family originated in Bologna.1 What made Venice one of the great powers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the long-standing commitment of the entire population to the building and maintenance of the city state’s preeminence, their shared sense of responsibility for their own well being. From the very beginning all members of this community on, as it were, life rafts at sea, had worked together to survive and to build a secure refuge against the barbarians. In the sixth century the Roman historian Cassiodorus described the Venetians as boatmen living on sand bars in houses “like aquatic birds” with ships “hitched like animals to their walls.”2 Of necessity fishermen and traders for many of their basic needs, the Venetians became expert seamen, dominating the Adriatic. They established trading posts which gradually evolved into colonies with a proper legal structure. Their maritime empire expanded from the Adriatic to the Greek islands, even to the Black Sea, and they supplied Europe with luxury items from the east as well as with wheat and salt. They grew rich and spent their wealth embellishing their island home, building great churches and palaces, only later acquiring property on the mainland. The Byzantine basilica of St Mark, Venice’s patron saint, became one of the wonders of the world with its golden mosaics and marble floors, its rich tomb of the saint, and its jewel-encrusted, golden altar screen.3 In 1494, Philippe de Commynes, the emissary of the French king Charles VIII, described the Venice in which Bembo grew up. He was thunderstruck by the marvels of the city at sea, so many spires, monasteries, dwellings in the water, with 30,000 boats instead of horses for transportation! The

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Grand Canal was the most beautiful street in the world with the best houses, very big and tall, the old ones of good stone, all painted; those built in the previous hundred years had façades in white marble from Istria, many with big pieces of porphyry and serpentine on the front. Inside, most had gilt ceilings, rich chimney mantelpieces of carved marble, gilt and painted bedsteads, and fine furniture. The seventy monasteries for men and women were very beautiful and rich as were their gardens. Remarkable gardens also adorned the seventy-two parishes in the city. Venice was “the most triumphant city which I have ever seen ... which governs itself more wisely and where the service of God is most solemnly made. And although they may well have other faults I believe that God helps them for the reverence that they bring to the service of the Church.” Commynes also commented on his astonishment at seeing people queueing to pay taxes. Elsewhere there was difficulty collecting a minimal amount. In Venice the collector could not keep pace with the payments! Venice had a truly dedicated population.4 Cà Bembo, the imposing Venetian gothic palace by the Rialto bridge, still testifies to the contribution of the Bembo family to the city’s prosperity and power. Venetian nobles, on coming of age, were expected to be either merchants in command of ships which were both traders and warships – cargoes had to be protected from pirates and Turks – or public servants who dedicated themselves to the administration of the Republic and its colonies.5 Sabellico’s History of Venice, completed in 1504, records the administrative and ambassadorial appointments of past members of the Bembo family, as well as the achievements of those who served, and sometimes died, at sea. One Bembo, also called Pietro, was commemorated by a ravelin in the splendid Venetian fortress of Modon (Methoni, in modern Greece, at the southwestern tip of the Peloponnese) where he had been commanding officer.6 The Bembo family had agencies in Constantinople, Damascus, Palermo, Lyon, Bruges, and London,7 a residence in Trani in the Kingdom of Naples, where they had a thriving grain and salt export trade,8 and a castle in Istria in modern Croatia.9 Over the centuries the Bembo fulfilled their duty to the Republic. Pietro’s father Bernardo (1433–1519) epitomized the ideal of service to the state. Although he had considerable intellectual and scholarly interests, it never occurred to him to pursue his private enthusiasms and personal development, as his son was to do. He served the Republic until he was eighty and sought to introduce Pietro to the same way of life. But Bernardo’s career in fact revealed to Pietro, in Florence and Ferrara, Urbino and Rome, the seductive temptations of the many-faceted intellectual ferment of the Italian Renaissance. Bernardo Bembo10 began his studies in Venice with an Averroist teacher at the Rialto school.11 Then, in 1450, at the age of seventeen, he went to

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Cà Bembo, the pink gothic palace of the Bembo family on the Grand Canal near the Rialto bridge.

study in Vicenza, where he began buying manuscripts.12 He moved to Padua, the seat of the university of the Venetian Republic, and received his first degree there in 1455. That same year he was chosen to accompany the Venetian delegation to Rome to congratulate Calixtus III on his elevation to the papacy. Bernardo continued his studies in canon and civil law in Padua, continued collecting manuscripts, and scribbled in the margin of one of them of his love for a girl he called Tisbe.13 She was presumably the Magdalena who gave him a son, Bartolommeo, in 1457. Bernardo kept this son with him and he was brought up with the later legitimate children, Pietro, Antonia, and Carlo.14 In 1458, in Florence, Bernardo fell in love with another beautiful girl,15 but in 1462 he did his duty and married a member of the Venetian aristocracy, Elena Morosini. She was the mother of Pietro and the two other legitimate children. There is a suggestion that she may have been Bernardo’s second Venetian wife, that he may have married a girl of the Marcello family who died soon after the marriage.16 Pietro’s letters

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certainly reveal a closeness to the Marcello family which seems to go beyond his later, and not wholly happy, relationship with his brother-inlaw Sebastiano Marcello. After receiving his doctorate in canon and civil law from the University of Padua in 1465, Bernardo Bembo was elected ambassador to the king of Castille in 1468. He sailed to Seville and won commercial concessions for Venice which pleased the Senate. He was then elected ambassador to Burgundy and served there between 1471 and 1474, establishing an anti-Turkish alliance with Charles the Bold which was sealed by the Treaty of Peronne in 1472. He was also instructed to mediate between the dukes of Austria and Burgundy in 1474. Again the Senate was pleased with his conduct of his mission.17 It appears that Bernardo bought a Memling, which Pietro later possessed, while he was in Burgundy. He also collected manuscripts on his trip home through France.18 However, he was financially hardpressed in Burgundy, since ambassadors were expected to pay their own expenses19 and Bernardo was not a wealthy member of the Bembo family. He was forced to write to his brother asking him to intervene with the Senate for financial assistance.20 Bernardo Bembo’s next ambassadorial appointment was to Florence, in 1475-76. Here his instructions were to consolidate the commitment of the Florentines to the Peace of Lodi, a twenty-five year league among Venice, Milan, and Florence, later joined by Naples and the Papacy, to defend Italy against foreign intervention. Bembo’s priority was to maintain Florentine hostility to the Turks, who were shortly to invade southern Italy. The renewed alliance between Florence and Venice was marked by the famous tournament in Florence on 28 January 1475 which Poliziano celebrated in his Stanze per la giostra. Another poet who was in Florence at the time, Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli of Rimini, dedicated his Latin poetry about the tournament to Bernardo Bembo. He also praised Bembo in a number of epigrams, as did the Florentine poet Alessandro Braccesi.21 Bernardo took Augurelli into his household22 where he probably became one of Pietro’s teachers. Augurelli wrote Petrarchan lyrics and must have exerted considerable influence on his young charge considering Pietro’s later career. During his first tenure as Venetian ambassador to Florence, Bembo established a warm relationship with Lorenzo de’ Medici and his family23 and with the Florentine Neoplatonic clique headed by Marsilio Ficino, who wrote that he gloried in having come into the world in the same year and on the same day as Bernardo Bembo.24 Ficino introduced Bembo into his Theologia Platonica in a discussion on the immortality of the soul.25 Bernardo Bembo also appears in Cristoforo Landino’s Latin lyrics, as the Platonic lover of Ginevra de’ Benci, a newly married beauty of less than half his age whose portrait he may have commissioned from Leonardo da

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Vinci.26 Landino tells Ginevra how fortunate she is to be loved by so great a man, no one nobler in the Venetian Senate, a man in the prime of life, strong and good looking, who is a fitting mixture of gravity and gaiety. In another elegy Landino praises Bernardo’s fine qualities, his prudence and learning, eloquence and wisdom, and lauds his great achievements in various cities. Age makes him a brother, but reverence a father.27 Landino also dedicated to Bembo a sequence of Latin love poems called Xandra, the name of Landino’s mistress. In his dedication Landino praises Bembo as a Venetian senator, a man of probity, a distinguished scholar, and one who loves nothing earthly because it is earthly but because of its reflection of the divine28 – a Neoplatonic conversion, if true. In 1476 Bernardo was sent to Ferrara to congratulate Duke Ercole d’Este on the birth of his heir, Alfonso.29 In 1477 he was elected a member of the Council of Ten, the main Venetian judicial body, for the term October 1477 to September 1478.30 In 1478 he was offered a second embassy to Florence,31 then at war with the pope and Naples over the Florentine execution of the Pazzi conspirators, who included an archbishop. This time he took his young son, Pietro, with him. Pietro was already showing great promise32 and his father, who had bought manuscripts of Dante and Petrarch, wanted his son to learn Tuscan, while maintaining his Latin studies.33 Florence was the ideal place. Pietro’s friend and biographer, Ludovico Beccadelli, gives a delightful snapshot of eight-year-old Pietro, with his father in a palace outside Florence, overlooking the road from Lombardy. Looking down, Pietro saw someone leading a very beautiful white horse: “I’d be lucky if I had that little horse, I’d be happy, and I wouldn’t want anything else in the world,” he said. When they returned to the city, one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s servants arrived with the horse. A Lombard lord had given it to Lorenzo, and he wanted to pass it on to Bernardo’s little son.34 Undoubtedly the beleaguered Lorenzo wanted to ingratiate himself with the representative of the most powerful state in Italy. Later Bernardo was criticized, then exonerated, by the Senate, for his closeness to Lorenzo, which could be thought to compromise his attachment to Venetian interests.35 It appears from Lorenzo’s writings that he genuinely liked and respected Bernardo Bembo and was not just after political support.36 Nothing is known of Pietro Bembo’s early education, whether he was educated by a private tutor at home, a private tutor with other boys in one of their houses or in some school set up by a master.37 The two most famous teachers in the north of Italy in the fifteenth century, Guarino Guarini and Vittorino da Feltre, had set up flourishing schools in Venice in the early fifteenth century,38 elementary schools teaching grammar and morals were widely scattered throughout the city, and the Senate had established two free schools at the advanced level. The Senate school at the

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Rialto was based on the teaching of Aristotle and emphasized logic, mathematics, and science (natural philosophy); the other, at San Marco, stressed rhetoric and the humanities.39 For two years in the 1480s, the leading Venetian humanist Ermolao Barbaro40 lectured on Aristotle at his house on the Giudecca (which is still there today).41 Since Pietro would have been fourteen and fifteen, an appropriate age, and since he states, in what has been dubbed the dullest dialogue in the sixteenth century,42 that his father loved Barbaro and that he, Pietro, regarded him as a father, it has been presumed that he was Pietro’s teacher.43 It seems probable that Bernardo would have sent his promising son to the most highly regarded teacher in Venice, yet there is no evidence that he did. In a letter of 13 January 1505, Pietro refers to Barbaro as one of the truly great men of the past age (T I, 198) and, in another letter in his old age, he mentions his very happy memory of him (T IV, 2466), but nowhere does he call Barbaro his teacher. Wherever he was educated Pietro’s school year would have begun after the feast of St Luke (18 October), and would have continued throughout the year with some seventy holidays (i.e., holy days, religious festivals) but no long vacations. The Venetians felt that vacations were bad for boys and set back the learning process. School days were Monday to Friday, though Saturday was occasionally included, and the day varied with the season. It ran from sunrise to one hour before sunset in the winter and two hours before it in the summer, with a good break for the midday meal and a snack during the long summer afternoons. The schoolday, then, lasted six to seven of our standard hours in the autumn and winter and ten hours in the spring and summer. Schools stressed competition and reward and shunned physical punishment. Schools taught Latin, and ultimately inspired by Cicero, emphasized the art of writing letters.44 After his assignment in Florence and renewed responsibilities in the administration in Venice, Bernardo Bembo was appointed podestà, governor, of Ravenna for 1482–83, with both civil and military authority.45 While there, at his own expense, he restored Dante’s tomb and erected a statue of him, employing Pietro Lombardo as sculptor.46 Bernardo’s honouring of the great Florentine exile brought an immediate response from Cristoforo Landino, who sent Bembo a copy of his newly published commentaries on Dante, which is now in the British Library, with a handwritten note praising his action and regretting that he had not heard of this in time to include a tribute in his work. All Florence was grateful.47 Landino later wrote an epigram on Bembo’s restoration of Dante’s tomb.48 There is no suggestion that Pietro interrupted his studies in Venice to accompany his father to Ravenna. In 1483 the Great Council elected Bernardo Bembo ambassador to England, with which Venice had considerable trade.49 He attended several meetings discussing the aims of the embassy, which was then cancelled, per-

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haps because of the unstable political situation in England where Richard III was facing considerable opposition. In 1485 Venice sent Bernardo Bembo to congratulate Innocent VIII on his elevation.50 The Senate offered members of the delegation funds to buy an appropriate wardrobe. Only Bernardo, who never had the personal resources to maintain the state of an ambassador, accepted, and was granted one hundred ducats.51 On this occasion he took fifteen-year-old Pietro with him for his first view of the fallen capital of the world, now capital of the Church.52 Bernardo wrote on the guard sheet of his manuscript of Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius two elegiac couplets which Pietro composed when one of the delegation was reciting Petrarch as they rode to Rome: “Arise, father Francesco, a boor is squandering your honours; alas, your magnificent riches are being torn to shreds. Who would believe that these were your lyrics which Gerard hoarsely intones?”53 The Bembo were in Rome from the end of May to the beginning of July, so Pietro had some opportunity to explore the city.54 Bernardo’s financial problems led to a motion of censure against him in the Senate in 1487. He was accused of improper behaviour in negotiating a loan of 300 ducats from Lorenzo and his brother, Giuliano de’ Medici, in 1477 when he was head of the Council of Ten. Bembo maintained that this in no way compromised his conduct of his duties. It was merely a private bank loan and was guaranteed by Giuliano de’ Medici. Since Giuliano was murdered in the Pazzi conspiracy of Easter 1478, the loan predated Bembo’s reappointment as ambassador to Florence by many months. In the modern world he would undoubtedly have been accused of sleaze for not declaring a possible conflict of interest and disqualifying himself from the Florentine appointment. However the Senate investigation found no evidence of betrayal of Venetian interests and Bembo was exonerated. For Bembo, borrowing money was not unusual. He had taken an earlier loan from the famous Venetian condottiere Colleoni.55 Cleared of allegations of impropriety Bernardo was sent on a second embassy to Rome, to Innocent VIII, in 1487. Pietro, who had to remain in Venice to represent the family in a legal case, was unable to accompany his father. This case had a dramatic conclusion which Pietro recounts in a letter of 26 July 1512 (T, II, 317). Giuliano de’ Medici, Lorenzo’s son, was interested in dreams and had asked Pietro to tell him about a prophetic one his mother had had: In 1487, when Pietro was seventeen, his father was involved in a case against one Simon Goro. The case came up for hearing on a date when Bernardo had to be in Rome. He therefore asked Pietro to represent him. It happened that Simon Goro had also sent a young man, his nephew, Giusto Goro, to represent him. During the hearing Giusto snatched the Bembo papers from Pietro’s hand and ran off. Later the two young men met at the Rialto. Giusto, with a strange expression on his face,

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mocked Pietro. Then, as they left the loggia of the Rialto Giusto, who was left-handed, suddenly drew his dagger and struck Pietro’s right hand, almost cutting off his index finger, which was never quite right again. The previous night his mother had dreamed that something like this would happen and she had begged Pietro not to go to the Rialto that day and not to speak to Giusto Goro. Unfortunately he had disregarded his mother’s dream and suffered the consequences. After this accident Pietro joined his father in Rome where they spent the best part of a year.56 Father and son took advantage of the opportunity to visit sites important in Roman history. Bernardo noted in his manuscript of Alberti’s treatise on architecture, De re aedificatoria, that they visited Lake Nemi together.57 On their return to Venice, during the first half of 1489, Bernardo served as one of the judges in the criminal court, the Quarantia Criminale. His next appointment abroad was in 1489–90 when he was podestà, governor, of Bergamo.58 Again Pietro went with him.59 Now Pietro resumed his formal studies and seems to have divided his time between Padua and Venice.60 He was in Venice in June 1491 when the Florentine humanists, Poliziano and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, spent three weeks there searching for manuscripts. Pietro helped Poliziano collate the fourth century manuscript of Terence’s plays Bernardo had bought in his student days with an early printed edition derived from another manuscript61 Pietro was also in Venice in the winter of 1491. He describes the long cold spell with its heavy snowfalls when the lagoons froze so that peasants could bring their produce to Venice on horseback and the stratioti, Greek mercenary horsemen whom the Venetians employed as light cavalry, were able to organize a tournament on the Grand Canal.62 But in the spring of 1492 Pietro left both Venice and Padua to further his studies of Greek in Sicily with the famous professor, Constantine Lascaris, whose grammar he knew (T I, 1). Venice, with its ancient Byzantine connections and its trading posts throughout the Greek world, recognized the importance of Greek philosophy, science, and literature, and hence of the Greek language. Before its fall many Venetians went to Constantinople to study Greek and returned with Greek books.63 Later Greek scholars, fleeing the Turkish advance with their manuscripts and their knowledge of ancient thought, arrived in Venice where a Greek quarter with an Orthodox church already existed and where the Greek language had been taught from the first half of the fifteenth century.64 Cardinal Bessarion (c. 1403–1472), the representative of the Orthodox Church at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–39) which was aimed at the reunification of the two major branches of Christianity, left his library to Venice rather than to Florence or Rome, laying the basis for the Biblioteca Marciana and helping to make the Republic the great study centre of Renaissance Italy.

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How much Greek Bembo had learnt in Venice or Padua is not known but, in the spring of 1492, he wrote to his Latin teacher Alessandro Urticio in Padua that he was determined to learn more. With the enthusiastic support of his father, he was leaving for Messina to study with the most renowned teacher of the age, Constantine Lascaris, a scholar from Byzantium, where the purest Attic had been preserved. It was best that he should go to Sicily, away from the distractions of family, the Republic, and friends. He had persuaded his school friend, Angelo Gabriele, to go with him. The boat sailed tomorrow (5 April 1492) to Chioggia, whence they would proceed on horseback (T I, 1).65 The journey turned out to be more difficult than Bembo had imagined, though he had already travelled twice to Rome. But then he had been a member of an official Venetian delegation when someone else had taken care of the logistics and people like his father were usually put up in palaces. Now he and Gabriele had to manage on their own and the trip turned out to be both costly and dangerous. On 30 May 1492 Pietro wrote to his father from Messina that they had had to abandon their plans to ride to the tip of Italy because of the lack of inns in the kingdom of Naples and the primitive nature of those which did exist. They had therefore sailed from Naples on a very uncomfortable ship which had taken ten seasick days to reach Messina. However their warm welcome from Lascaris compensated for all their misery. He was like a father to them, a humane and saintly old man. Further, Messina has an excellent site, on the sea with a large and safe harbour and the climate is wonderfully temperate. All kinds of food were cheap and excellent. They were going to enjoy it there. Pietro sent greetings to his mother, Helena, his brother, Carlo, his sister, Antonia, and to the best of fathers (T I, 2). In De Aetna [On Etna], which he wrote on his return, Bembo told his father that he and Angelo had worked on Greek for fourteen months without taking a single day off. His father replied, “That’s why you looked so thin and pale on your return. I put it down to the sea voyage.”66 In fact, the return had been more comfortable than the outward voyage. Bembo and Angelo had planned to board the galleys returning from Britain, and the family in Venice expected them on the galleys from Spain, but the youths got an earlier passage to the Venetian colony of Corfù67 and then on to Venice, so that their arrival was a surprise and, for that reason, even more welcome (T I, 7). While in Sicily Bembo had begun his literary career with a Latin translation from the Greek of Gorgias’s oration on the rape of Helen, which he dedicated to Ferrante Acunio, Aragonese viceroy of Sicily, as “the first fruits of my studies.”68 He also found there the youth who was to become his private secretary, general factotum, and life’s companion, Nicola Bruno, called Cola. In a letter sent in September 1494 to a friend who had

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remained behind in Sicily, Bembo asked him not to forget to bring Cola with him or, if he was staying on, to send him. “If he is with me he will have as much opportunity to learn as he wants and he will lack nothing; he will have lots of teachers, books, leisure.” Bembo tells his friend that he has been buying Greek books and that he and Angelo are going to Padua to study philosophy (T I, 7). This same letter reports on the political situation. The French and Neapolitan armies are camped sixteen miles apart in the Romagna, but he thinks that they will not fight. In De Aetna, which is set in this period, Bembo has his father say that he is glad that he is back home if there is going to be a war, rather than in distant Sicily, where he has no family or friends.69 Bernardo Bembo was by this time one of the close advisors to the doge (T I, 7, 11, 12). War did break out, but the French forces assiduously avoided Venetian territory. In November 1494 Bembo, now a student in Padua, wrote to a friend in Venice, thanking him for the honey and cakes he had sent with his letter or, rather, for his honeyed letter with the cakes. “You’re laughing? ... it’s true ... how? ... The letter fell into the honey, I think because the boy had it in his hand when he was eating” (T I, 10). In addition to his philosophical studies in Padua Bembo now began writing. His first work, the Latin dialogue De Aetna, records a conversation with his father at the family villa outside Padua in September 1494 on his return from Sicily. Although Bembo attempts to be realistically chatty, De Aetna seems strained and forced compared with his later dialogues, a work of humanist apprenticeship in which the young scholar parades his learning, larding the text with classical allusions, some abstruse. His account of the actual ascent of Etna, on the other hand, the first holiday that he and Gabriele took in Sicily after fourteen months of hard work, is interesting. Here he is writing from personal, not bookish, experience. He describes three zones on the mountain: the heavily cultivated and very fertile lower reaches; a forested middle area; and the bleak and dangerous summit with its two craters, sulphurous fumes, hissing streams of hot lava, rolling rocks, and final approach to the upper caldera, where he crawled on crumbling ledges in a fierce wind. He complains of bruised knees. Bembo’s descriptions of the unfolding panoramas from the various levels – the straits of Messina, the whole island of Sicily, the coast of Italy even as far north as Naples – convince with their manifest excitement. This is the immediacy of personal discovery with the learned authorities left behind. The learning appears again in the explanation for volcanic activity which he and his father discuss. De Aetna reads like the first literary work of a promising post-graduate student. It did, however, launch Bembo on his literary career. Aldus published it in 1496, in a new type face derived from Roman inscriptions henceforth called Bembo,70 and Pietro was welcomed into humanist circles in Venice.71

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Petrarch, who was in and out of the Republic from his student days, brought humanism to Venice. As a distinguished scholar, he was given the use of the Navagero palace on the Riva degli Schiavoni with its magnificent view of the harbour, and later received a villa from the Lord of nearby Padua, where he died.72 It was only in the late fifteenth century, however, that Venice surpassed Florence as the leading humanist centre. It has been argued that Venice was not so easily attracted to Latin humanism as other parts of Italy because it did not see itself as ever having been part of the Roman empire. It was a new foundation, after the fall, had no evocative Roman ruins, and its connections were with the Greek Byzantine empire in the east which survived the western empire for 1000 years. Commynes, who writes in an adulatory tone of Venice in his Memoirs, noted that the Latin writer the Venetians held in highest regard was Livy, because he acquainted them with the defects of Roman government and helped them avoid them. In Venice Greek studies were considered more important than Latin.73 However, with the invention of printing in the fifteenth century and the revived international interest in ancient thought and culture, the wealth, favourable conditions for trade, and political stability of Venice attracted publishers and scholars.74 Venetian men of action respected the humanists, supported the publishers, steeped themselves in ancient philosophy and science, and collected fine libraries.75 Some even lectured at the Rialto and San Marco schools and at the state university in Padua.76 In most of the rest of Europe the nobility lived on country estates, hunting, fighting, and exploiting the peasantry, although second sons might enter the Church, become literate, and grab power that way. But in Venice there was no snobbery supporting boorish idleness and ignorance. The patricians worked, created the Republic’s wealth, administered its laws, and promoted its culture. Printing was introduced into Venice in 1469.77 By 1473–74 the city was full of books. By 1500, 150 printers in Venice had published 4000 titles. The production was polyglot, in Greek, Latin, Venetian, Provençal, Tuscan. Special interests were medicine, history, and geography.78 Venice more than any other centre exploited this new technology and the revolution in human communication. By the 1490s there were bookstalls along the Merceria, the main shopping street in Venice running from the Rialto Bridge to the Piazza San Marco, and printers had taken over the neighbouring parishes of San Zulian and San Paternian.79 The great scholar-publisher of Renaissance Italy, Aldus Manutius, often called Aldus Romanus because he was born in Bassiano, a small mountain village southeast of Rome, felt that there was a need for better quality books than those currently available. Venetian humanists like the aristo-

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Aldus’s printing house and seat of the New Academy, 2311 San Polo, rio terrà secondo di San Agostino, Venice.

cratic Ermolao Barbaro encouraged him to establish a publishing house in Venice. He arrived in 149380 and soon gathered around him a circle of enthusiastic young men who called themselves Philhellenes. He formed them into a kind of dining club, after Plato’s Symposium, where intellectual problems were discussed in an atmosphere of conviviality.81 In 1501 this became the New Academy.82 The language spoken was Greek and any lapse was punished with a fine.83 Bembo became a member of this circle on his return from Sicily and gave Aldus, who was at that time wholly devoted to Greek scholarship, Lascaris’s Greek grammar which he and Gabriele had used in Messina.84 Aldus published it in February 1495, lamenting in the preface the wars raging all over Italy, which he saw as God’s punishment for our sins.85

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Aldus’s publishing house was not in the booksellers’ district but on the other side of the Grand Canal, in the centre of the modern San Polo district, near the church of Sant’ Agostino.86 As an address it was described as “next to the baker’s.”87 The house itself seems to have been a mixture of workshop, boarding house for employees, and research institute.88 Some of the greatest scholars of the age worked there for Aldus at different times, including Erasmus and the English physician Thomas Linacre, Oxford don, tutor to Tudor princes, and later Henry VIII’s doctor.89 Aldus’s printer, Andrea Torresani, had a bookshop near the Rialto bridge, at the sign of the tower.90 Book publishing was costly. Aldus was subsidized by members of the Venetian aristocracy91 and authors put money up front for their books. Even Erasmus, already famous, had to pay for the first 200 copies of his translations of Euripides’s Hecuba and Iphigenia. 92 Aldus was a pious man, with a puritan work ethic. In the introduction to his Latin grammar he wrote that young people must learn good morals along with good letters, and if a choice has to be made it is more important that they should learn morals than letters, “for I prefer them to be illiterate, but principled, than knowing everything, but immoral.”93 Aldus describes his working day in his introduction to the 1512 edition of Lascaris’s Greek grammar. He says that he is so busy that he has no time to eat, relieve himself or wipe his nose.94 Erasmus, when he worked for Aldus and was writing a second edition of his bestseller, Adages, in Aldus’s printing room, handing over pages to the compositors, said that he was kept so busy that he could not scratch his ears.95 On average four presses were at work simultaneously with three men per press, the compositor, operator, and inker. With this staff Aldus could produce 1000 books per month.96 He rented warehouse space to store his books in Cà Foscari on the Grand Canal, now the seat of the University of Venice. From there the books were easily ferried across to the booksellers on the Merceria.97 Venetian austerity did not appeal to Erasmus. From about March to December 1508, he lodged in Venice in the house of the printer Andrea Torresani, Aldus’s partner and, since 1505, father-in-law. (After his marriage to Torresani’s daughter, Maria, the bankrupt Aldus had moved into his house.) The house was near San Paternian, in the San Marco district, the main centre for the book trade, and appears to have had a workshop downstairs and living quarters upstairs.98 It was here that Erasmus was working on his Adages. In later years Erasmus was attacked in writing for drunkenness in Venice. He was outraged and believed that the source of the story was a Venetian scholar, Girolamo Aleandro, who had been with him at Aldus’s in 1508, and who had then, on Erasmus’s advice and with his recommendation, gone to Paris to launch himself on an academic career.99 Erasmus therefore hit back with a nasty attack on Venice and the Aldus-Torresani household:

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For three whole months the north wind blew for eight days at a time, with only an eight hour interval of calm. In the house there was only one little smokey fire made from damp wood which gave out no heat. The summer was worse, with fleas and bedbugs so one could not sleep. The sour wine was watered and killed people with kidney stones. The household consisted of thirty-three people, the rich man and his wife, sons, daughter, son-in-law, workers and servants. For bread they used spoiled wheat and added one third clay. They made bread only twice a month, even in summer, so that it was like stone. A bear would break his teeth on it. There was no breakfast. Dinner at one o’clock consisted of a soup called minestra, a pot of hot water with very hard buffalo cheese [dried mozzarella] thrown in, a little meat from an old cow boiled fifteen days ago or three small fish for seven or eight people. Supper consisted of a plate of bean flour, seven small lettuce leaves floating in vinegar for nine people, cheese and, on good business days, three bunches of fresh grapes. Sometimes cockles served as a dessert.100 The women and children ate the left-overs.

After this brutal attack a sense of fairness seems to have compelled Erasmus to add that, despite the fact that they ate so badly and drank little, the Venetians were physically healthy and had a good colour, rosy cheeks, and bright eyes.101 For his books Aldus abandoned the medieval model of a text surrounded by commentary. He wanted to provide people with the most accurate text and leave the interpretation to them. He worked with his scholarly assistants on comparing manuscripts and early printed editions from other sources to establish critical editions.102 He made books more convenient to handle, publishing in either quarto or octavo rather than folio, the octavo inspired by manuscripts of classical texts in the Bembo library.103 With the octavo he virtually created pocket books to make the works of classical or contemporary authors as portable as prayer books. He also gave his attention to the type face, to make books agreeable to read. He employed an outstanding designer to create roman letters from ancient inscriptions for Latin works104 and italic letters from the best chancery script for Italian, possibly again adapting it from works in the Bembo library.105 Erasmus considered the italic script the most beautiful in the world.106 Aldus’s Greek font, based on fashionable Greek script of the fifteenth century, a flamboyant cursive full of ligatures, contractions, and abbreviations, is elegant to look at, but hard to read.106 Bembo worked with Aldus off and on between 1497 and 1505,108 and according to tradition gave Aldus a Roman coin from the family collection with a dolphin, an anchor and the proverb “Festina lente,” “Make haste slowly,” the Greek equivalent of which Aldus adopted as the emblem of his firm and printed on the title page of all his books.109 While Bembo’s companion in Sicily, Angelo Gabriele, retained his passion for Greek and persuaded Aldus to publish Lascaris’s treatise on rhetoric,110 Bembo, although

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he had made a speech in Greek at the University of Padua on his return from Sicily,111 was already developing a dominant interest in the spoken language, the vulgar tongue. The Bembo family possessed two fine manuscripts of Petrarch and Dante that Bernardo had bought in his student days. They persuaded Aldus to use these as the basis for new and more accurate editions of the two poets. Pietro’s brother, Carlo, took the manuscripts to Aldus and paid for the publication while Pietro worked with the printer on the text and introduced punctuation.112 The modern reader thinks of Petrarch as an Italian poet who wrote of his love for a married woman called Laura. In fact, the bulk of Petrarch’s writing was in Latin; he undoubtedly believed his real contribution to literature to be weighty intellectual works rather than beautiful, melodious outpourings to the inaccessible Laura. Yet he did write in De ignorantia, while he lived in Venice, that eloquence and poetry were supreme forms of human expression, “truth in the shape of beauty,” a statement reminiscent of Keats.113 But this was written in Latin and referred above all to Latin, the universal language. Therefore the Aldus-Bembo edition of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, songs and sonnets, was called Le cose italiane [The Italian Things]. In his introductory letter to the reader Aldus says that his text is derived from Petrarch’s own handwritten manuscript, now in the possession of Pietro Bembo. He comments on Petrarch’s spelling and advises the reader to study Tuscan before tackling the book, a warning which would not be necessary today because Bembo established the Tuscan of Petrarch and Boccaccio as standard Italian. Aldus also tells the reader to expect Dante soon. Petrarch’s Italian Things was Aldus’s first book printed in italics and it employed the punctuation Bembo had invented and which was first used in his De Aetna: the full stop, comma, and apostrophe.114 Dante’s Commedia [Divine Comedy], again based on a Bembo manuscript, with Bembo assisting Aldus on the readings and proofs, was published in 1502.115 The second edition, of 1515, which was dedicated to the poetess, Vittoria Colonna, is especially interesting in that it contains etchings of both the Inferno and Purgatorio, showing the different divisions and the sins punished there, as well as giving a diagrammatic analysis of the sins, with subdivisions illustrating their various forms of expression. Injury, for instance, may be done through violence or fraud and may be directed at one’s neighbour, oneself, God, against the person or his possessions, etc. The etchings and the diagrams analyzing sin are said to be Bembo’s own work.116 The Divine Comedy was in the handy pocket book size. In 1503 Bembo wrote a work not published until 1530 which illustrates the philological methods of Aldus’s circle. It is the dull dialogue already mentioned, a discussion of textual problems in the pseudo Vergilian Culex [The Gnat], and Terence’s plays, both manuscripts Bembo possessed. The speakers are the Venetian humanist, Ermolao Barbaro, whose technique

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Bembo may be illustrating, and the Roman scholar, Pomponio Leto (1428–98), whom he is likely to have met, even studied with, on his second trip to Rome with his father in 1487–88.117 The Culex, with Bembo’s emendations, was published in Lyon in 1535 in Vergil’s Opuscula, minor works. In June 1497 Bernardo Bembo was appointed visdomino of Ferrara.118 Ferrara, though theoretically an independent state, had been under Venetian economic domination from 1310.119 The visdomino was both an ambassador to the duke, who tried to persuade him to follow a policy favourable to Venetian interests, and the judge in commercial disputes between Ferrarese citizens and Venetians resident in the duchy. It was a very prestigious position which required a good deal of tact, imagination, and sensitivity, since Venice and Ferrara were frequently at loggerheads and had actually been at war between 1482 and 1484.120 Pietro Bembo joined his father in Ferrara toward the end of 1497 and remained there for two years, continuing his Latin studies with the well-known scholar Nicolà Leonicino and joining in the brilliant artistic life of the Ferrarese court.121 The court at Ferrara sparkled. It was crowded with poets and scholars, musicians and artists, and elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen who joyously celebrated the good life.122 The very administrators of the duchy were famous poets,123 the ducal family played musical instruments,124 the duke worked with artists and architects125 and sponsored classical and contemporary drama,126 and beyond the court, and closely related to it, was a distinguished university founded by the ruling family in 1391.127 Printing was introduced early, at the very beginning of the reign of the current duke, Ercole d’Este (1471–1505).128 In the middle ages Ferrara had welcomed Provençal troubadours and, through close contacts with France, its traditional ally, the romances of Charlemagne’s paladins and Arthur’s knights of the Round Table were popular.129 Although Ferrara responded to the Latin humanist revival130 – the prestige of a Renaissance court depended upon the Latin style of its functionaries and emissaries – and even became conscious of the surviving Byzantine empire with the arrival of John VIII Palaeologus pleading for western help against the Turks at the Council of Ferrara in 1438, aristocratic circles still participated in debates reminiscent of those of the medieval French Courts of Love.131 Meanwhile the Petrarch-inspired vernacular lyric flourished in Ferrara to praise lovely ladies who could be expected to respond to adulation only in the mother tongue.132 And so it was that, in the heyday of Latin humanism, two great romantic verse epics were written in Ferrara, Boiardo’s Orlando inamorato [Orlando in Love] and Ariosto’s Orlando furioso [Orlando’s Madness]. So Bembo, back from studying Greek with Lascaris in the Athens of the west, and from working on humanist textual criticism with Aldus in

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Venice, found a court where the age of chivalry lived on. At the university and at the court he made many friends, the most famous of whom were the father and son Tito and Ercole Strozzi, both magistrates and Latin poets, and Ludovico Ariosto, a young poet writing in both Latin and Italian who was to continue the romance of the newly dead Boiardo and create one of the best sellers of all time, Orlando furioso. Apparently Bembo took advantage of Ariosto’s friendship, not only sharing his house, his table, his servants, his clothing, but also his mistress, for which Ariosto scolded him in a good-humoured Latin elegy.133 The duke, meanwhile, was impressed by Bembo’s good looks, dedication to scholarship, charm, and elegance and invited him, in 1498, to stay for several months at his country palace, Belriguardo, at Voghiera, nine miles southeast of Ferrara, so that he could study Aristotle in tranquillity.134 Bembo showed his gratitude in a sonnet to the “grave, wise, courteous, lofty lord, light of this, our dark age, who awakens the world and calls it to liberty from servitude and to its ancient honour, son of Jove, the only refuge in the lengthy wandering of the nine abandoned Muses, friend of uprightness, through whom the good lives and evil struggles and dies, Ercole, labouring for our repose, you who have won fame on earth and a place with the gods in heaven, shed your heavy cares and come here where the grass, the river, the birds, the breeze call you to delight and play” (Rime, XXI). Belriguardo, a favourite retreat of Ercole d’Este, was one of the great palaces of the Italian Renaissance, a truly royal palace with as many rooms as the days of the year.135 Sabadino degli Arienti described it in 1497 as “a habitation of the most splendid and marvellous beauty, and of the most beautiful architecture that ever could be built by engineer’s art.” It was situated in a fine fertile plain and surrounded by a high wall crowned with battlements painted with arms and ducal devices. Beside the wall was a broad fish pond the length of the palace. The fish came to be fed at the sound of a bell and ladies enjoyed catching these tame fish with hooks and harpoons.136 On the bank were tall thick poplars to give good shade. The palace grounds included many gardens and a stable for 500 horses. In the palace itself there was a ramp for horses so the duke and his guests could ride up to the piano nobile. Here the great halls were decorated with frescoes, one commissioned by Ercole himself telling the story of Cupid and Psyche, which was regarded as an allegory of the human soul. An anteroom was frescoed with Sibyls, another room with a fresco of Ercole and his courtiers. The upper loggia had beautiful windows to shut out the winds, rains, and snows, and the rooms must have been kept warm when in use since Sabbadino comments on the fine chimneys.137 Belriguardo was not the only country palace where the Este entertained. To the northeast of the city was Belfiore, which was included within the

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walls in Ercole’s expansion of the city in one of the first examples of town planning since the days of the Roman Empire.138 It was a smaller palace, built in the late fourteenth century in a small wooded area as a hunting lodge. There was the usual impressive entrance, a central courtyard, a large colonnaded loggia opposite with a cycle of frescoes showing Alberto I d’Este, Ercole’s grandfather, his lords and ladies on horseback hunting a variety of wild animals, a picnic in a meadow, a fountain, musicians playing and girls weaving garlands of flowers for their blond hair. Palace rooms had names, like the chambers of the porcupines, of the swans, and of the swords, and were decorated with hunting and fishing scenes. One was painted with Ercole’s pilgrimage to Compostela.139 This was a favourite palace of the dukes Borso and Ercole d’Este. They received their ambassadors there, as well as poets and artists with whom they enjoyed learned conversations. Here there were gardens, groves, orchards, fish ponds, and nearby, surrounded by trim greenery, the barchetto, the hunting lodge itself, with stags, deer and goats for household sport.140 The Este had also built a small suburban palace in the southern part of the city called Schifanoia, Sans Souci, whose frescoes have survived. They date from the reign of Ercole’s brother, Borso d’Este, during the third quarter of the fifteenth century.141 That this was only a modest house where they lodged visitors allows one to imagine the glories of the great residences.142 The main palace of the Este, and the usual site of the court, was the great grim, moated castle in the centre of the city with its contiguous marquis’s residence joined to the castle by a passage on arches where Ercole’s son, Alfonso I, constructed his private rooms. This old Este residence is now the town hall. In the Renaissance the castle had grounds, which have since been built over, with a garden and stream running by. There the ducal family ate out in good weather and it was a favourite spot for the ladies of the court.143 Indoors the state rooms were frescoed and hung with fine tapestries.144 For theatrical performances, of which Duke Ercole was fond, a wooden stage was often erected in the spacious courtyard, although plays could also be presented in the great hall of the castle.145 For the presentation, on 25 January 1486, of Plautus’s Menaechmi, the prototype Comedy of Errrors, the courtyard stage was equipped with five houses with battlements, a door, and a window. No expense was spared. In the opening of the play a light galley crossed the courtyard from the direction of the wine cellars and kitchens, looking very convincing, with oars and sails and ten people aboard.146 In 1499 Bembo was present at the performances of Plautus’s Trinummo and Penulo and Terence’s The Eunuch. He wrote enthusiastically to his friend Angelo Gabriele in Venice about the excellent productions, chided him for not coming, but then excused him, saying he had heard that Gabriele was now becoming a great man! Nevertheless there will still be a lot to laugh over if he comes later (T I, 37).

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And certainly Ferrara was a festive city, with horse races in the streets on St George’s day, apparently celebrated on 24 April,147 and comic races with women and donkeys.148 There were also acrobats, tightrope walkers, bears, and performing monkeys in the streets149 and jousts and tournaments for special occasions. Even the ageing duke jousted himself and took on some of the most distinguished military men of the age.150 Indeed even the men of letters at Ercole’s court had to know how to joust and prance their horses.151 In his letter to Angelo Gabriele of 1 March 1499 (T I, 37), Bembo had already showed his distaste for the Venetian life of public service, which his rank demanded, finding the life of a courtier much more to his liking. While he was in Ferrara, perhaps inspired by the late medieval culture of the court and the new Ferrarese flowering of the Italian language, Bembo commenced his first important work in Italian, Gli Asolani [The People of Asolo],152 a dialogue about the nature of love between young noble men and women who met in a garden at Asolo on the occasion of the marriage in 1495 of Fiammetta, favourite lady in waiting of Caterina Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus. Bembo, as a relative of the Queen, was presumably invited to the wedding.153 The subject may also have been inspired by Bembo’s first recorded love affair. In a letter to his friend, Trifone Gabriele, Angelo’s brother, in Venice Bembo wrote on 20 January 1498: Because it was necessary for me to leave in a turmoil I am sending you now these few words. I am going to fulfill a vow which I must fulfill at this time and I do not really know how long I will stay; I cannot be more specific. When I come back and can be with you, you will understand ... And because you know how great a part of me I leave behind ... I beg you, very strictly, that you visit M.G. sometimes in my place. And if you can do anything to please her do it in memory of your love for me ... I cannot say more. Be well, and of my departure and of these words do not make any mention to any living person. (T I, 23)

By February 1498 Bembo was writing to Trifone that the Asolani were asleep and he did not think he could rouse them. He refers, however, to being very busy with his studies and with public affairs [was he assisting his father in some way?] (T I, 24). Again, on 2 August 1498, he writes to a friend in Ferrara that affairs have been too demanding and his studies have suffered. Therefore he has gone away for a rest, and to study Aristotle. The letter is sent from “Ercole’s” beautiful villa, Belriguardo. He has heard that the duke himself will soon be there to interrupt his peace (T I, 28). Later in the month, on 21 August 1498, Bembo wrote again to his friend in Ferrara, Alberto Pio, Lord of Carpi, that he had gone to the family villa near Padua and was overjoyed to be there after a long absence. He first ran

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into the gardens, then to the banks of the Piovego and the shade of his father’s poplars. That corner always gives him great delight. But, perhaps because they have been away, it has lost a lot of its beauty, a lot of its loveliness, so that he almost regrets having written so much about it in Aetna. He thinks that knocking down a wall would improve the view of the trees and the river bank, but he will wait for Alberto’s opinion since he not only builds villas but also castles. From the garden Bembo went to the library where he found a poem he had written in the vernacular before setting out for Sicily, exhorting himself and his friend to the pursuit of good living and virtue. Since he is not displeased with this verse he will send it to Alberto so that he can have the first fruits of this estate and know that poetry is not just about love but also about philosophy and morals. “The rains are keeping us indoors. Our Jove’s supporting our studies. I don’t mind this, but I regret my lovely little walks. I expect you eagerly” (T I, 29). In March 1499 Bembo wrote to Trifone Gabriele again. The Asolani were sleeping soundly, which would bother him less if Trifone did not think so well of them. Now he is partly absorbed by family affairs, otherwise studying dialectics (T I, 36). He wrote again in May of his absorption in dialectics, saying he would like to see Trifone and talk things over with him. If Trifone could not come, Bembo would go to Venice to spend a day with him incognito (T I, 41). Was Bembo now avoiding M.G.? Trifone Gabriele had become Bembo’s special friend after his brother, Angelo, had taken a public position and was no longer a free man. After trying for three years to get some kind of employment in the administration of the Church (T I, 38) [he did manage to get a benefice, but that is all (T I, 33)]. Angelo had tried for an appointment in the public service instead. On 29 March 1499 Bembo wrote to him, congratulating him on his unanimous election to a magistracy (T I, 38). This change of orientation was just as well [though syphilis was rife among the clergy] since Angelo had written to Bembo in November 1498 to tell him that he was suffering from the French disease. Pietro was very sympathetic. He knows how bad it is because his sister’s husband has been suffering from it for some months and has his ups and downs. Angelo must follow his treatment through to the end, even when he thinks he is cured (T I, 34). In June 1499 Bembo wrote to his brother-in-law, Sebastiano Marcello, whom Antonia had married when he was in Sicily (T I, 7). They now had two little daughters. Sebastiano was pursuing the career expected of him, and had become podestà of Cologna. He was interested in dogs from Ferrara and Guglielmo was bringing him a young female puppy. It had a very good mother and father. He should have it trained by a diligent person so that he would have good enjoyment of it. There followed rumours of wars both in the kingdom of Naples and in Tuscany:

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There is news here that our armada has captured a ship belonging to the King of Naples which was going to the Sultan with arms for 12,000 men. Guglielmo says that it is true. No other important news except that the Florentines are thought to be devastating Pisa. Nor is even this very certain. There are always a lot of stories going around, but they are not to be written of, and beyond that I hear few of them because I don’t find them in my books, which I scarcely leave. Be well and kiss the podestaressa for me and kiss Marietta for me. La Marcellina has become a great sonneteer. (T I, 43)

The podestaressa was Bembo’s sister, Antonia, Marietta, the baby and Marcellina, little Marcella, the older daughter who was obviously staying with her grandparents and uncle Pietro in Ferrara. She and Pietro were to remain very close in later years. In August 1499 Bembo was in Venice where his mother was ill, but he expected to return to Ferrara soon with Cola, his Sicilian servant, because all his books were there (T I, 45). While he was in Ferrara Bembo wrote a sonnet which pleased his father and turned out to be prophetic. The sonnet was dedicated to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, often called St Peter in Chains after his titular church in Rome. He predicted that the cardinal would be St Peter’s successor; in 1503 della Rovere became Pope Julius II.154 From the dates on his letters it appears that Bembo stayed in Ferrara for two full years, until the end of 1499. In a letter of 16 November 1499 Bembo wrote to Trifone Gabriele, in Venice, that he had not answered his letter sooner because he had been very busy with his mother and father, but now they had left for Venice. He asks Trifone to come now. He has found an excellent woman to look after things and her husband will do the garden. They will have Cola and another man of good family to send where necessary and look after the stable. He has a little mule and another for Trifone, so they can ride. They will lack for nothing. He hopes that Trifone will come soon (T I, 46).

2 Maria Savorgnan

In the winter of 1499–1500 Bembo returned to his family in Venice. His father had been appointed governor of public finance, in charge of excise duties.1 Pietro continued working on the Aldine edition of his father’s autograph manuscript of Petrarch’s canzoniere and tried to make progress with Gli Asolani. But he was miserable, grieving over the end of his relationship with M.G., a lady he says he once loved with his whole heart (T I, 104). Although many of his letters of 1500 reveal the intensity of the feeling he had had for her and his bitterness at what he calls his deception, the only reference to M.G. while the affair lasted is in his letter to his friend Trifone Gabriele of 20 January 1498 quoted towards the end of the last chapter. In that letter he explains that he had to leave Venice precipitately, without time for goodbyes. He asks Trifone to look in on M.G. for him from time to time and do anything he can to please her. Trifone knows how great a part of himself he leaves behind (T 1, 23). This letter is very mysterious: Bembo has to fulfill a vow. He does not know when he will be back. He cannot say more. Trifone must keep this secret and not let anyone know of his departure. Then, from the letters which have been preserved, it appears that he spent a happy and fulfilling two years in Ferrara and only began to grieve over M.G. on his return to Venice. Had he expected to be able to pick up where he left off? Was it only in Venice that he felt desolate without her? Three early lyrics, undoubtedly inspired by the Petrarch manuscript he was working on with Aldus, since they were very much indebted to Petrarch both in form and in sentiment, appear to refer to the loss of M.G.: Rivers run back to your springs on the heights, Waves now cease at the blowing of the winds, Pines and beeches, love the deep sea, And you, wet fish, the mountains of the Alps

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... Let nothing proceed any longer as it was wont Since that knot has been loosened with which I was held Which nothing but death ought to have undone. (Rime XLVI) Solitary bird, if you go lamenting Your lost sweet companion, Come here with me, because I too lament mine: We will be able to sing together. But perhaps you will find yours today, I, mine, when? (Rime XLVIII) O nightingale who in these green branches, Above the fleeting stream are wont to pause ... At the foot of the Alps which divide Germany From the plain which Antenor chose [Padua], With the beasts and with the trees and with the waters, In a loud voice a man laments over love. (Rime LVI)

The last two lyrics, a sonnet and a canzone, appear with small revisions in Gli Asolani. While Bembo was feeling miserable a friend, taking pity on him, informed him that Maria Savorgnan was attracted to him and would like to invite him to visit her. Bembo knew the family and had high regard for its distinguished condottiere, Girolamo Savorgnan, Maria’s brother-in-law (T I, 5, 13). He was clearly flattered by the invitation and, not wanting to be discourteous, believing that she possessed all the fine qualities his first lady had lacked, “ran” to the rendez-vous, and gave himself wholly to her (T I, 104). And so began a very serious and many-sided affair which was only fully revealed in 1950 when the Vatican asked the head of the Ambrosian Library in Milan to inspect some sixteenth-century papers which were due to be shredded. There he found a bundle of about eighty letters tied together with string. They were in a female hand and dated 1500–01.2 That the letters were addressed to Pietro Bembo became quickly apparent. He was referred to by name in one of the letters (D 55), and one of the last letters (D 76), which was signed Ma. Savorgnana, had the name of the addressee written on the back, “Al Magnifico Mis Piero Benbo.” The letters also contained lines from his lyrics, references to his brother, Carlo, his secretary, Cola, and his Ferrarese friend, Ercole Strozzi. There were also dates written at the bottom of the letters in Bembo’s handwriting, and in one case a comment by him (D 43). These letters documented a passionate affair. Bembo had saved them for nearly fifty years. They must have been found among his effects when he died, a cardinal, in Rome, in 1547.

26

Pietro Bembo

This discovery also illuminated a series of letters in the posthumous publication (1552) of Bembo’s Juvenile and Amorous Letters to Ladies,3 a misleading title, since it included some letters written after he became cardinal but which were better hidden in a general collection of purported juvenile letters. Here, again, were some eighty letters, which read with Maria’s letters, bring to life a vibrant and daring romance of half a millenium ago. It is easy to imagine how Maria’s letters survived, treasured by her lover through an eventful life, but his own love letters? One has to conjure up a different culture when even personal letters were dictated to secretaries and only the final, fair copies despatched. The sender often kept the original and revised and improved it for eventual publication.4 Moreover, the recipient of a letter often returned it to the sender (T II, 588), who was then free to publish it, were he pleased with the style. And if he did not publish it someone else was likely to do so, having somehow or other made a rough copy. Interest in personal letters ran high and this was the age of unscrupulous publishing of other people’s property. Erasmus’s preface to his letters of 1521 reveals how literary men of his day regarded letter writing. He said that when he was young he wrote hardly any letters for publication. “I practised my style ... not expecting that my friends would copy out and preserve such trifles.” The knowledge that one’s letters circulated caused writers to elaborate every letter into a conscious literary creation and to safeguard their literary reputations by publishing them themselves.5 A digression on letter-writing seems called for: From the earliest Renaissance, from the days of Petrarch, authors had prepared their correspondence for publication, inspired by the discovery of Cicero’s letters.6 Humanists felt that the preservation of the expression of personal experience was important in the understanding of humanity in this world.7 They were also proud of their style, which they honed toward perfection.8 Although works could be and were preserved by hand copying, the advent of printing in the last quarter of the fifteenth century made widespread publication possible. The model letters of Cicero, which were widely used as a textbook; then those of Seneca and Pliny were published over and over again,9 while the moderns went to press with their own stylish letters.10 Inevitably publishers saw a market for how-to books. Even in the Middle Ages there had been handbooks on writing for the clerks who filled the chancelleries of Europe.11 Now, with more widespread literacy, there was demand for instruction on how to write letters on all sorts of subjects. The contents of some of these letter-writing guides reveal the surprising demands on some bourgeois secretaries. Francesco Sansovino, son of the great architect, published Del secretario in Venice in 1564. This book, while very practical, with rules on the five-part structure of a letter, openings and closings, date and place of writing, folding and sealing (envelopes had not yet been invented), also gave tips on how to write various sorts of

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letters. Love letters, for example, could have honourable intentions or lascivious aims but idealistic pretensions. Examples followed. One sample letter was addressed to the vice-legate of Bologna, then a papal possession, in favour of one Giulio, who had killed an enemy in the city: “I pray you, therefore, that you should have regard, not to the event, but to the man.” Giulio’s good qualities are listed, and assurance is given that he will not do it again.12 Another letter reprimands a man because he is happy that his friend, the tyrant, has occupied his city.13 The following letter tells him that he should not grieve that his friend, the tyrant, has been murdered.14 Del Secretario provides a comprehensive selection of actual letters by various sixteenth century writers, including Bembo. There was a huge quantity of published letters to choose from. We get an idea of how much was available from the fact that Montaigne, a Frenchman, possessed one hundred volumes of Italian letter books published before 1580. It is estimated that these were only about one quarter of those published.15 The Bembo-Savorgnan correspondence is difficult to deal with. Most of the letters were not dated at the time they were written. Rather, Bembo dated both hers and his, perhaps as much as a generation after they were written,16 and with little attention to contents or to the matching of the two sets. For example, he dated her letter which opens “I am glad that the season of roses has come” (D 56) to 7 October 1500, although roses in the Veneto bloom in May.17 His answering letter (T I, 58) he dated 3 April, a more plausible date for roses, but not for his reply to an October letter. Her letter referring to an eclipse (D 8) was dated 20 July. The eclipse took place on 5 November 1500 when the moon was 90 per cent occluded in Venice, a very dramatic darkening of the night sky.18 The only letters of whose dates we can be confident are those relating to the fall of Modon in 1500 (D 47 and T I, 62) and to Sebastiano Marcello’s departure as a sea captain (T I, 111). I have therefore decided to disregard the dates and to group the letters on the basis of content and echoed phraseology, to try to recreate a rarely documented love story of such an early date, recognizing that meetings took place between letters, that oral messages were received, that not all letters may have survived or been preserved, and that the content and vocabulary of some letters could fit into one group or another – “Come to see me on Wednesday,” “I look forward to Wednesday,” could be a simple example. Finally, it remains to say something about time keeping in Renaissance Venice. The Venetians used the twenty-four hour count, a system now widely adopted throughout the world. However, whereas moderns start counting after what is conventionally called midnight, though whether it is the middle of the night or not depends both upon the season of the year and the latitude, the Venetians began the count after sunset. A Venetian day ended when the sun had set and a new day began in the dark, as ours does,

28

Pietro Bembo

only earlier. Since both domestic clocks and personal watches were coming into use19 and it was not practical to adjust them every day, watching the sky like a mullah looking for the beginning of Ramadan or a sailor with a sextant at sea, a conventional time for sunset had to be adopted, as we have adopted a conventional midnight and a conventional midday which determines what is called morning and what afternoon. Our conventions do not correspond accurately to anything either. The Venetian diarist, Marino Sanuto, describing reports reaching the Senate, said that a letter arrived in the morning, at eighteen hours.20 Since morning ends when the sun reaches the zenith and afternoon begins when it starts its decline towards the west, say, after our one pm, for eighteen hours still to be morning implies that the conventional hour of sunset, the Venetian twenty-fourth hour, must have been our six pm and one o’clock, the first hour, our seven pm.21 It is necessary to bear this in mind when reading of times of assignations. To return to Maria Savorgnan and Pietro Bembo. In Sanuto’s Diaries, which record everything that took place in the Venetian Senate from 1496 to 1533, we read that on 22 December 1498 there came into the College [the executive committee of the Senate presided over by the doge] “the widow of Giacomo Savorgnan, our condottiere of one hundred horse, dead at Pisa ... with two little boys and two little girls, most beautiful creatures, and her brother, Domino Anzolo Francesco da Santo Anzolo, also our condottiere, and the brother-in-law of Sir Hieronomo Savorgnan, in mourning clothes. And throwing themselves at the feet of the Signoria that lady begged for maintenance and for dowries for her daughters because of her husband’s fidelity.” The College was moved to compassion and the doge said that he would consider her plea, but she received nothing.22 The widow was Maria Savorgnan. Maria was the daughter of Matteo Griffoni de Sant’ Angelo in the duchy of Urbino who had spent his career as an officer in the service of Venice and in 1455 had settled in Crema, southeast of Milan, at the western edge of Venetian domains in Lombardy. In 1487 Maria had married into the famous Savorgnan family of Udine in Friuli, near the eastern bounds of the Venetian republic and the frontier with the Holy Roman Empire, now the frontier with Slovenia.23 The Savorgnans were an old military family who served Venice well in the intermittent Turkish and German assaults. For his services to Venice Federico Savorgnan and all his family had been admitted to the Venetian patriciate in 1385.24 Maria’s husband, Giacomo Savorgnan, later described in Bembo’s History of Venice as an energetic young man,25 commanded one hundred horse and four hundred Greek stratioti in the ill-conceived Venetian expedition to assist Pisa in its effort to preserve its independence from Florence. After the usual exploits of a fifteenth century commander, burning houses, taking prisoners for ransom,

Maria Savorgnan

29

carrying off cattle, but seldom tangling with enemy forces, Giacomo fell ill and died in the field.26 Hence his widow’s plea for assistance from the Venetian Senate. At the time of her attraction to Bembo, Maria must have been in her late twenties, while he was turning thirty. Since her father died in 147327 she could not have been born later than 1474. Since she was married in 1487 and the usual age for marriage was fourteen,28 she was probably not born earlier than 1472. In 1500, then, she was a young widow, undoubtedly beautiful, certainly talented, lively and enterprising, lodging in Venice in the house of Bernardino Sbrojavacca of Udine, on the Dorsoduro, near the church of San Trovaso.29 From her letters it appears that she did not have her children with her. Pietro’s branch of the Bembo family had no fixed abode in Venice at this time. When Bernardo returned from his postings abroad he rented accomodation. Pietro’s letters of 1500 suggest that his family also lived near San Trovaso in that year. In one letter he writes of hearing from his house a party which the supposedly heartbroken Maria was giving at hers (T I, 107). In another he sends a note saying that he will be there in half an hour (T I, 57). In another he wrote that his red rose, which had been languishing, had perked up after she had touched it, mentioning this as though she had just dropped by, not made a great expedition with a gondolier across Venice to Cà Bembo on the Grand Canal (T I, 111). Moreover, in one of her letters (D 30), Maria asks him to pass by her house without noticing her while the head of the family, Tristano Savorgnan, was in town. She was afraid what might happen to her if his suspicions were aroused (D 34). Bembo may have been staying near Maria at a Marcello house in San Trovaso (coincidentally, purchased by members of the Bembo family three centuries later). In the same letter in which he tells her that she revived his red rose Bembo excuses himself to Maria for not coming to see her the previous day because they were all kept busy by the precipitate departure of his brother-in-law, Sebastiano Marcello, as galley captain against the Turks, who had just captured the Venetian fortress of Modon [Methoni] in the Peloponnese (T I, 111). There is evidence that, by the middle of the sixteenth century, the Marcello were living in a modern, that is, Renaissancestyle, house built onto a medieval one on the Sangiantoffeti embankment (fondamenta) of the San Trovaso canal, some 150 metres north of the church of San Trovaso, at what is now number 1075.30 There would certainly have been place for roses in the large garden behind the old part of the double house. If Sebastiano Marcello had been living in the old house in 1500 and the Bembo had been staying with him, this would explain both Pietro’s proximity to Maria’s lodging and the complete absorption of the Bembo family in the flurry of activity caused by Sebastiano’s sudden call to duty.31 In the aforementioned letter (T I, 111) Bembo says that his family

30

Pietro Bembo

Giovanni Bellini, “Portrait of a Young Man” [Pietro Bembo].

is going to change its “inn” (albergo), indicating that they had been in lodgings, on the following Wednesday, moving to the Marcello house on the Giudecca, which his father had rented in August (T I, 99). The move to a Marcello house is no proof that they were already living in one, but it suggests, along with the evidence mentioned above, that the Bembo may have been housed by their in-laws on their return from Ferrara and that they were maintaining family ties in their move. Incidentally, the new Marcello house on the San Trovaso canal was described in the seventeenth century as one of the artistic marvels of Venice because of the Tintoretto frescoes, four scenes from Ovid, on its façade.32 By the nineteenth century it belonged to the Bembo family.33 Now it houses the economics department of the University of Venice. Among the letters which have survived it is hard to know what might have been the first written communication between Pietro Bembo and Maria Savorgnan. Was it her sizzling sonnet, which he numbered 1, in which she describes her burning passion, fired by “his divine aspect, shining and serene”? This display of literary ability was certainly a shrewd move on her part to ensnare the young poet. She could be all that he had

Maria Savorgnan

31

ever yearned for. One of his own letters, which he had dated earlier, called her his “sweet and dear and incomparable good” and proclaimed that “I am much more yours than mine, so you have deserved of me” (T I, 51). If he had more time he would write her one thousand sweet things in verse. He will do that one day. She had revealed her heart to him so sweetly yesterday. “Love me ... and greet Donata [Maria’s maid, soon to be the gobetween] for me.” Their mutual attraction seems to have aroused comment. Envy and suspicion deprive them of their usual conversations. Therefore he begs her to write, just two words in her own hand (T I, 48). A letter of hers which must have been written early in the relationship, because she indicates that she cannot afford to tip Cola, Bembo’s secretary who brought his letters, invites Bembo to the house the next day (D 18). It was perhaps after this meeting that he wrote: I do not marvel if it is customarily said that lovers exchange their hearts ... I no longer think about myself as I used to in the past, but my mind is always with you and in you and around you; nothing but your name echoes continually in my heart. Every word of your conversation yesterday, every act of yours has whirled around in my mind a thousand times this night, and the memory of you – o sweet inn of the better part of me, o dear terminus of all my desires – has kept me company both in my waking moments and in my sleep. May it please love now to have made your memory of me the same, because, if this has been so, no other lover now lives happier than I. This morning I have treated the nasty gossip that you know about ... I await an order from you about what I have to do this evening. If this order should not come I would suffer like a flower which, growing full of vigour, while it gives off much perfume and appears to be very fresh and happy, is trampled by a mule’s foot and in a second has lost all its loveliness and fallen to the earth and is crushed. Love me. (T I, 98)

In two following letters (T I, 63, 85) he compares his plight to that of Tantalus and concludes that it is better to drink nothing than to have a drop or two only, and that rarely. “Ah, what joy does it give me to see you and to speak to you for so short a time if then I am deprived for so long a time, not only of speaking to you and seeing you, but even of being able to hear about you and approach the walls of your house? ... Grant only that one time it may be possible for us to discuss together, at length, those things which should not be hushed up any longer ... Think of a way that I may come for a long time to speak with you” (T I, 85). She replies: Know that day and night I think of nothing but you, and, burning in such thoughts, I wear myself out to find a time and place that I may speak to you. I am talking of

32

Pietro Bembo

things that matter a lot. And since this is not permitted me without the passage of many hours, let these few words be received by you with that trust that my love deserves so that, this way, we will go equally to the torch of love ... Live happily, remembering me, to the age of Tithonus.” (D3)

Maria’s conclusion, with a classical allusion, emphasizes her compatibility. She, too, is familiar with Greek mythology. A little later Bembo wrote: Now when I was writing to you that which you will perhaps see tomorrow Marco came to me and told me what you have charged him with. I thank you for this with that heart which is with you ... My spirit told me that I should hope for some sweet news from you today ... I am pleased that Venus is beginning to be a favourable goddess to you ... Remember me sometimes, who remembers nothing else but you always ... My passion is every day more beautiful and stronger ... I see that we will yet be able to be examples for lovers who will come after us. (T I, 50)

Marco, as becomes apparent as one reads the letters, was a gondolier who lived near Maria, possibly by the boat builder’s yard, the squero, which still exists by the church of San Trovaso. It appears that Marco’s commission had been to arrange a meeting. Bembo wrote of: The amazement that I feel at the infinite sweetness ... born of your most sweet conversation of yesterday ... I really do not know if felicity may exist down here, if it dwells among us. But if it is here, certainly it was with me yesterday and has stayed. What are kingdoms, or what are treasures, or what are lordships? I do not believe ... that I would have enjoyed so much the acquisition of one thousand cities, or all the wealth of the peoples of the orient or the broad dominions of the king of France, as the dear and sweet revelation, that you made me yesterday, of your thoughts, of your joys, of your desires, and I to you of mine; the equality of our passions, the contest as to who feels them greater and more vividly, as to who loves with truer faith and with purer; the sweet proposals, the sweet sighs, the sweet flashing of the eyes, which I love so much; the sweet smiles, the sweet blushes, the sweet paling, the sweet hopes, the sweet fears. Oh, how I would like to say many things, and the tongue does not find words with which it can express them, and love with no customary term allows me to be content.

He compares their developing relationship to buds bursting the bark of trees “in this spring of our love” which was also, probably, the spring of 1500. “Certainly he does not know what is sweetness, he does not know what is living joy in the heart and, finally, what good is, who does not know what love is, and what love is, he does not know, if he does not experience it” (T I, 92).

Maria Savorgnan

33

Bembo sends Maria a present, quite frank about it: Beautiful and dear and sweet object of my thoughts, I send to those hands which henceforth hold the keys to my heart the remainder of some pairs of gloves which I had from Spain many months ago, and I did not know I had them if I had not discovered them now, I do not know how, I believe that they might come to you, desiring to make that trip which I would always like to make. I wanted to beg them that they should hold covered from all others, except me alone, that beautiful ivory, to cover which I send them. But I remember that they do not have feelings. And perhaps they are happier in this because, if they are without feelings, they are also without desire. You will have with them your Solingo augello [Solitary bird], which canzone has begun to please me since I see that it pleases you. (T I, 81)

She sends him her picture. Bembo had been writing her a letter when Francesco, an errand boy Maria frequently used and whom Bembo tipped (T I, 53), arrived with her letter and her picture. He had been writing her that, in the beginning, he had determined to love her with moderation, maintaining his independence, but a few days had put paid to that. Now he found himself completely her slave. After he left her yesterday he was not able to concentrate on anything but her, even for a moment. He had ten dreams about her last night. The hottest sighs issue from his breast. He talks to himself. He had reached this point in his letter when Francesco arrived, doubling the picture that was in his heart, as his passion had unbelievably doubled since yesterday. He begs her to allow him to follow the sweet influence of his Jove. He does not want to hold up Francesco any longer (T I, 89). Later in the day Bembo wrote to her again – though he dated this letter 20 March and the previous one 22 July – apologizing for his morning letter. Francesco had been instructed to return quickly so “I rewrote what I had already written because the whole sheet was covered with spots ... Your portrait, since I always have it in my heart, I therefore hold most dear, above all the gifts I have ever had ... I have kissed it one thousand times, instead of you, and I beg of it that which I would gladly beg of you, and I see that it appears to listen to me very kindly, more than you do.” He begs her to love him always (T I, 54). A little later: “I, however, listen and hear no news … Without your letters there is no other good for me ... Beg Donata to pray you to show me mercy”(T I, 60). Francesco later came with a message. Bembo replied, “So I will obey you and I will not come if I do not hear anything else from you ... I was, nevertheless, with you, and was weaving some rhyme or other in your name, which you will have immediately it is ready. No other time now seems to me to be life except that which I spend with your memory, which is almost all the time” (T I, 55).

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Pietro Bembo

Girl with a little dog reading a letter in her bedroom from Hypnerotomachia Polifili 1499.

Then he wrote,”I am sending you [the dog] Bembino, such as he is. If you like him he will be the dearer to me. I would really like him to be worthier of you than he is, but you, keeping him, will make him so. I would like you at times to apply yourself again to the things which are yours, and put them in order where they are not good, like the rhymes of this morning which I sent you, which do not satisfy me in some places. It will be an act of mercy on your part, if you are feeling well, to arrange that I may see you, and remember my favourable Jove” (T I, 61). Maria replied: I am ill and have a little attack of a little cold fever, but nevertheless this does not have such a strong effect on me that it quells the most passionate fires in which my heart continually burns for you. And that my account is true the badly lined paper demonstrates. I do not know if it seems to you that we go as equals. What you should say of the letter of yesterday morning I do not know, because it is such a nice letter as you have yet written ... I did not know of C’s coming yesterday, because Donata did not hold the chain because I had not spoken to her. I am more yours than my own and if God should preserve me in your favour ... that, as you say, we may go as equals. You say that you are on fire, but that your passion may increase. I say that I am on fire and I do not know if it is possible to burn more, but to your

Maria Savorgnan

35

knowledge that it is possible to be more passionate I perceive that you are not yet in my position, and this is not good news for me. Until I get better there is no way that I can speak to you. When that will be God knows, but, however, I hope soon. Pray God for me. Every day you will hear news of me. However, have Co. pay attention every morning by the tanks for soaking hemp and if, after dinner, it is opportune for your replies I will send also ... Know that I want you to love me more than anything else ... O, o, o, and a kiss (D 10)

Bembo: I cannot endure not hearing about you today because Francesco informed me yesterday that you had felt ill and had stayed in bed. Therefore I am sending Cola. God knows that I curse at times having to worry about appearances which prevents me from taking the courage to come to you ... And leaving aside the influence of Jove34 I would like somehow to see you at some time and take on myself some part of your suffering ... But not to wear you out tediously, let me know certainly, not only how you are, but also what I have to do to see you, if it can be possible without burdening you. Be well if you want me to stay alive. I was at the Rialto this morning for a long time but I was never able to see Bernardino. At this point I wanted to send Cola to you when I heard Francesco knock with your sweetest letter, than which I have not yet had a sweeter. I now believe that equality because, with the fever, to write so much and so affectionately is a great and sweet sign of it. I pray you, I pray you to be strong, if for no other reason, at least that I may not be ill ... I have no more paper. Tomorrow morning Francesco will have another, longer letter, if he will come here. (T I, 69)

Now Bembo made his first mistake. While Maria was still ill and Bembo distraught, Taddeo Toscano appeared under his windows, playing the lute. Bembo invited him into his room where: He sang many little songs sweetly, perhaps intending in this manner to give pleasing delight to my heart. Alas, no song could now delight my sighing soul if it were not hers, the source of all delight to my heart ... No voice could be sweet to my ears except one which said to me: “Oh melancholy lover, why do you sigh? Know that your lady is well: the fever which tormented her soul in her beautiful and delicate body has lifted and departed from her. She sends you this saying ... now only your grief is making her worse.” But now, leaving aside Taddeo and his songs, I come to your sweetest letter of yesterday, written to me with a hand which was still weak, and, nevertheless, written at such length. Oh my soul, what ought I to say to you here? I have no breath, no pulse, and no vein in the whole of me, which does not render you a thousand thanks for such a clear sign which you have given me of the love you bear me ... I beg you not to do it again before you are strong ... A single greeting from you would be enough for me and two words from Francesco which

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Pietro Bembo

let me know how you have been feeling. Although, if you do not recover shortly, I believe that I cannot restrain myself from coming to see you in person, let him suspect who wants to suspect, providing it does not displease you ... Of my being able to be more passionate, we will discuss this orally, although it is very dear to me that you say that I am not yet where you are ... But where am I running with this impetuous pen? You are bed-ridden, alas, and I am giving you the job of reading such a long letter. Look after your health, if mine is dear to you, o my sweetest and most desired equal. However it is ringing five o’clock. (T I, 90)

Maria replied in a mixture of fury and passion: I am ill and you are in songs and music. Let it be in good time. I comfort myself that you will do penance for this sin. Which will be this, that Sunday evening at the customary time you must go where you wanted to go Thursday. Although I am not well I want to see you before I die. If you can find B. you will do a bit of good and I am very surprised that up to the present time you have not found him. (D 11)

The letter was torn here and a following letter has been lost.35 Then Bembo wrote: I have, however, sent every hour to see about you, but you have not seen the messenger ... In any case I will chastise Marco one day because, as I wrote you, he was not in this place yesterday, and he had an order to be here every day. I am upset that you are not well yet. If I knew what god to pray to for your health I would pray to it, either Apollo or Lucina or Aesculapius ... But I will pray to the whole heavens so as not to fail. I will come tomorrow without a companion ... I beg you, love me. And if I had not prayed you for it properly, love me, because heaven and the stars will it, and will will it always. I am angry with you because you take me for a liar and because you do not believe my letters. Let it be with God. I still hope to vindicate myself ... I have become envious of my brother who not only has an opportunity to speak with you, but even to see my Fiammetta. (T I, 78)

Bembo hoped that he had done penance for his sin, then did something that he feared had compounded it. The previous evening, because of something to do with his brother Carlo, he had left Marco’s house before Donata had spoken to him, intending to return since she was going to give him a message only after everyone had gone to bed. Worried that Donata might look for him, and not finding him there, give Maria the impression that he was not concerned about her health, he had left a message with Marco’s wife, who had not passed it on. Now he had worried all night. Her illness distresses him. He would turn himself into snow if he could cool her fever. He begs Maria to have Donata give him a message that evening (T I, 56). Carlo had seen Maria and given him to understand that she would write

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to him, but no letter has come. What has he done wrong (T I, 66)? Maria finally answered his letters: I understood you very well ... Yet enjoy life and expect to give pleasure, because having the songs of young men and beautiful women under your windows every evening you will not have your thought so fixed on me and, passing your life thus, I will no longer be surprised if you do not get to sleep before five o’clock. I do not want you to come this evening but, if it pleases you, I await you tomorrow at twenty hours. Bring me that little note of yours which I sent back to you with my two lines because I do not want you to show off, giving me to understand that you are half-dead because of me. Say, if B. should run into you, that you want to visit me. (D 12)

Bembo lost his temper: And I have understood you very well. My only answer is, that what you wish should become of me, I accept. I comfort myself that the blow foreseen hurts a good deal less. Do henceforth your very worst, because I had decided in my heart, at the time that I received your letter, not to hope for any other fruit of your love but grief … However, live content with this, that you will shortly see more pain in me than you will have wanted to see. I am glad that you have felt better. I will come tomorrow and will bring the paper which you ask for. Be well and look after my illness, because I do not want anything else from you. (T I, 91)

Now there was new trouble. Maria suspected that he still loved M.G. Bembo wrote: I do not know what I ought to say for myself about these suspicions of yours so new, if I should believe them or not, and it seems to me that there are stronger reasons to make me consider that you may be doing this to tempt me, or to put into my rare sweetness ... this bitterness also … I came yesterday evening to hear something from you and to cause you to hear from me what you have not yet understood, and I stood until everyone went to bed, about seven o’clock, hoping that at least Donata would appear at the window to see what the weather was. It pleases me, that, without your being obliged to do it, I heard you sing, which people usually cannot do who are in such deep pain as you say you are ... Friday night I had such hard and anguished and sighing and tearful hours as I have not often had since I entered into the shackles where I am now ... I felt myself being destroyed inside, nor from my troubles and from such thoughts was there any refuge for me ... But I am so little wise that I write these things, thinking that you will not have time to read them, not to say judge them, because you have so much company. I will wait until it pleases you that I should speak to you and then I will give you my reasons and you will see which one is the debtor. Love me. (T I, 77)

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Then Bembo had to go away: Carlo will be able to tell you the reasons for my going to Chioggia, who I know is now unexpectedly with you as he was a little while ago with me … I pray you, keep him in some way, because I am not able to do it, and tie him up so that he does not escape ... I would like to be with you so that you can discuss things with me as you say. We both want the same thing. I do not know what great love, or what fires you think once burnt me for that lady. I know this well, that as great and much more, beyond measure, are those which grill me now for you ... Say something bad about me with Carlo, but above all see to it that his coming helps me and the love which you bear him works so that I may be, before he goes away from you, where I always desire to be. Love me, and a thousand times love me. (T I, 72)

Bembo apparently did not go away immediately and the relationship was patched up. Now Maria wrote to Bembo for comfort: She welcomes the season of roses ... but for the past week she has had a strange feeling which she does not understand. She would like him to try to see her: Because you were, in truth, badly treated by me these days, because of which I am your debtor. I have sad news from Misér36 such that I find myself in despair. I am greatly frightened of trouble. May God not allow me to live so long that what I think comes about. Tomorrow I will write you, perhaps with a quieter heart. Pardon me because I am beside myself and I do not know what I am saying. However I know so much, that I am yours and will never be anything else. (D 56)

Bembo replied: This whole morning I have been reading about love affairs like ours which had set such a sweetness in my heart that a little while ago I took pen in hand to converse with you, from which activity the abbot drew me and held me in another conversation up to the present, when Cola had me called and gave me your letter. I grieve over the news you have had ... but you are upsetting yourself ... heaven will not do you such an outrage. The long season of roses I believe will give you a great deal of pleasure ... I desire you always and I always have a thousand reasons to desire you ... Nor will it ever be otherwise. I cannot be badly treated by you as long as you love me. It is truly sweet to me that you call yourself my debtor ... If Francesco cannot come here because of the spies which you say Bernardino sets on him, use Marco, who may not be suspected by anyone, nor can he always be followed ... Carlo left yesterday evening, as you saw, and I waited for him around your house, unseen. It was sweet to me to be somewhat close to you in this guise. Love me. Alas, why am I not where Donata is, who is perhaps talking to you? Greet her for me. (T I, 58)

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It was May when Bembo went to Chioggia, then up the Brenta to the family villa outside Padua. While he was there he wrote two letters in Latin, a long one to his friend, Vincenzo Quirini in Venice, expressing his grief on the death of Vincenzo’s uncle, Antonio Quirini, who had died in Cephalonia in April (T I, 65), and one to a friend in Rome who had asked for his help in getting a job in Venice (T I, 73). This second letter is dated 28 May and must have been written just before he left the villa if a letter to Maria, from a different manuscript source, is correctly dated 28 May: At this moment, arrived from Chioggia, I do not know how to restrain myself from running to the pen to converse with you, with whom I went, and stayed, and have returned. If you have come in the same way with me, our sweetest equality is flourishing. ... I burn with desire to speak with you in reality and not with the pen. And my passion is so great that I ... am not up to bearing it for long. I pray you to have pity on this soul, which is actually yours. Give me a reply through Marco and ... But what must I say? As I write I feel my hand and heart weakened by the just desire to be with you, which every fibre in me seeks. Nor can I go on more. Sustain my failing strength, because I expect restoration with you. (T I, 74)

These were the spring letters. The next set I have been able to identify dates from July–August, although there must have been letters in June. At the bottom of one of Maria’s letters (D 4), Bembo wrote in Latin, that “on 11 July it was first permitted me what I pray may always be permitted, and happily permitted. From that time huge downpours fell violently.” It would appear that the following letter refers to this first love-making: If I had been able to appreciate, o sweetest flame of my soul, that you had so much courage as I have newly discovered, God knows that I would have endeavoured to be that man ... which I now am through your grace ... Nor will I expand upon this with words, where no thanks in words could be enough. My heart will guard in itself, equally with its most vital blood, the thought of the great debt which it owes you for such a great gift and always will. I, when your pity will summon me to the beautiful garden of the day before yesterday, will pray my stars that they are content to make the air clearer and calmer for you than it was that day. Be well. (T I, 47)

Having become his mistress Maria was jealous again: If I have not written to you earlier do not be surprised, because I am absolutely certain that my letters do not mean as much to you as I thought at first, because, when I spoke to you the day before yesterday, I knew well how much of your favour I have gained and will gain … But you will not be able to say that from your heart,

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not from the plank, the first nail may be driven out by the second one.37 Enough: time can do all, but neither it nor I will be able to heal the first blow which love gave you. (D 4)

Bembo was naturally upset: The whole of today I have been fiercely melancholy and I was still more so than ever when there was Cola with your letter, or rather with your blows, which have held me in doubt of myself for a long time. To which, now that I can, I will make a brief reply. And I say that, if you have written as you have written to give materials to my writings about love, as you hinted you ought to do the day before yesterday, I thank you very much for the effort you have taken ... If you did this perhaps either to revenge yourself for some offence which you believe you received from me or to teach me to be afraid of that of which I was not afraid ... if this is it, take vengeance on me rather in this way, with words, than with deeds, and show yourself harsh towards me on paper rather than in your heart. But, however, if you have wanted to torment me in this way, to follow in the habits of other women who amuse themselves with the misery of their lovers, provided my unhappiness pleases you, I wish it could please me, too, because I have already formed the impression that nothing may please you that I understand and can do ... as children are wont to do, when they have a little bird in their hands, when they think they will get pleasure from squeezing it, they discover that they have killed it, so you, thinking that you will torture me, will kill me ... Of the accusation that you make against me, I want no other judge but you, provided that you listen to my arguments a single time, and do not condemn me in my absence. (T I, 86)

He concludes the letter “O Carlo, Carlo,” as she also does (D 7), which suggests that it was Carlo who brought them together, though the fact that Bembo does not use Carlo’s name when he describes the beginning of their relationship, but only refers to someone who took pity on his misery (T I, 104), calls this into question. Bembo wrote again: It was yesterday evening at four o’clock, when, not yet being able to sleep, I got up and replied to your letter, God knows with what thoughts. And now it is ten o’clock. Up to this time I have come continally to your letter and, thinking over every word of it, and about you and about me and the things which have passed between us, indeed without getting any sleep at all, I wanted to pray you ... to give me a hearing in a few hours ... You accuse me, and I am content that you yourself, because you are the accuser, should also be judge, provided that you listen to me before I lose my natural vigour and feelings in these griefs ... It was some time ago that I experienced this verse in myself: Lively love which grows in anguish ... And I hold this verse for certain: He dies well who, dying, escapes from pain. (T I, 88)

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Then he bursts into poetry and compares the man who once having experienced love still trusts in it to one who has been shipwrecked in the Aegean and then returns to it. Both are likely to find it an unrewarding experience, imagery that reflects the Venetian mercantile cast of mind. Imagery drawn from the sea and from trade appears often in Bembo’s writings. Again Bembo wrote, begging Maria to let him justify himself. He will be at Marco’s this evening, around four o’clock (T I, 68). He has heard that she is ill again and debates with himself whether he is the cause of it, perhaps by taking a little step prematurely. He begs her to have Cola informed how she is today (T I, 82). The news was apparently not good. He saw her illness on Donata’s face yesterday and Bernardino said, with a great demonstration of feeling, that all his good and evil depended upon her well-being. Bembo cannot sleep because of anxiety over her health and anguish over her mistaken beliefs and suspicions. When will his pure faith be recognized? He believes that she is deliberately tormenting him. He will come this evening to see her, if it is possible. It is so many days since he has had an opportunity to speak to her. He is ill. “Love me and let me know how you have been since yesterday. Do not take the trouble to write me, a word of mouth will be enough” (T I, 84). Maria replied: I would not swear which of us was the more tormented, although to him who reads your letters it will appear that you have long since been crucified and done to death. And if this is not so, you are good at giving me this impression; and, if this is so, I am very pleased ... that you share in the anguish that you cause me. Be content, then, because, if you suffer pain, I suffer a thousand deaths ... You say that I should hear you first and then sentence. I am content, even though I heard you enough Thursday, at what time you know. I am not saying that you said much, but few words, and with such heartfelt passion, when you were near the sweet name of you know who ... Nevertheless, since you are kind, and considering that you move me to such great passion, perhaps with time you will drive out of your heart every other amorous thought, except about me, as she over whose heart you hold dominion and who adores you as god on earth. But do not become arrogant because of this, if you really know the power that your qualities, manners and beautiful eyes have over me. Therefore, these are those hopes which I believe will one day make me happy and which give me courage to hear your arguments and to tell you mine, and this will be as quickly as I am able to ... There is no more paper. (D 6)

Bembo was ecstatic that she could wonder which one was the more tormented, then is brought up short by the thought that the true lover does not desire his beloved to suffer. He expands at some length on this theme, then begs her to hear him soon (T I, 87). He also sent her some roses which pleased her tremendously. She has only basil and another herb to send him

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in return. She wraps them in her letter and ties it with her hair, which she was drying as she was writing. Bembo should go to the Rialto tomorrow and tell Bernardino that he wants to drop around now that he has some free time. He will read his book, which he thinks Bernardino will enjoy. Then he should come at twenty or twenty-one hours (D 7). On another occasion Maria made a plan to have Bembo smuggled into her bedroom. She instructed him to go that evening at two o’clock, to her neighbour’s, in disguise, and beg him or his wife to speak to Donata, pretending that he was in love with her. He should say that he will return the next day for her answer (D 20). In another letter of the same day Maria told him that Menega (i.e., Domenica) was the wife’s name. She did not know the husband’s name. “As far as I can understand B. did not know of your coming yesterday. So, if you run into him, do not say anything. I will have him ask you for the Cento [Decameron] on my behalf ... which you will then send by C[ola] ... This evening I will be watching. I am yours” (D 21). Maria wrote again: Yesterday evening I was not in time because we were having supper from two o’clock. This morning Donata has helped the embassy and everything, in my way, from which I think everything will go well. If it seems good to you to come this evening at one thirty to speak to Donata from the window, only to give colour to the affair, I will not be able to speak to you ... But when you have spoken with Donata beg that Menega that she persuades Donata that you should go in through the window tomorrow evening. While I am out, she will have you go into some place in the house where you may not be seen and then, when I have gone to bed, she will be able to go out of the room in a decent manner. There is no other news. O, o, what are you making me do? I will send you B.’s servant to take the Cento ... I am yours and I am very pleased. (D 22)

Why the neighbours had to be involved in a plan to smuggle Bembo into Maria’s bedroom is difficult to understand. Because Menega was likely to see him climbing in through the window and might raise the alarm? Donata had been acting as a go-between, and would have carried out this plan on her own. The involvement of the neighbours turned an ordinary escapade into a Feydeau farce: You have done well to let yourself be seen ... did you have to make the effort to cover yourself so much? Certainly I am in such distress that I do not know what next ... because that Menicha told Donata that she must not let you come into the house, on no account, and that she should value her honour, and that she does not want to be the reason for this sin, for anything: Donata can no longer have you come because of her reputation. You have certainly performed badly. Nevertheless,

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come this evening and I will speak to you from the window and we will adopt an alternative then, and if I cannot speak to you except late, you will wait. Do not say a word to M. on any account. I would like to be at the other side of the world after you have conducted yourself so badly. At past two o’clock I await you there. (D 23)

Bembo defended himself: “The cause was yours because you wanted me to go out in the neighbour’s clothes and not as I was. And if I obey you and trouble comes of it, what can I do about it? That Maddalena [he has obviously forgotten the woman’s name] does not know who I am ... I pray you do not get lost in a glass of water ... Provided you do not trouble yourself about it all will go well ... I will speak more when there is plenty of time, this evening with the friend, and will do all that you command me. Love me, because I care about nothing else” (T I, 67). He wrote again that he had spoken to Marco and had concluded to come that evening at one o’clock or, if this could not work out, he would be in Marco’s house tomorrow, in broad daylight, at whatever time suits her, in a way that no eye would be able to see him. “But let us keep that for another time and for today let us try this way which I know will cause no suspicion ... Love me and do not fear mosquito bites. When I do my job their buzz will be taken away and the needles with which they puncture will be broken. Love me, love me, love me”(T I, 49). The mosquito bites must be gossip, although the Venetian lagoon was badly infested and the population had had to abandon the island of Torcello, with its magnificent cathedral, because of malaria, most probably the cause of Maria’s recurrent fevers. The gossip could not be shrugged off. Maria wrote: I am well so everyone in the house is in a good mood. But I do not know what rumour the women of the neighbourhood have started from what Me. has said, and about this she has been willing to speak only once because she says, with signs, that she does not want to be seen or heard speaking ... if it seems a good idea to you, send a porter this evening for Marco and you be where you think is good and you will have everything said there, then, tomorrow, I will send Francesco to find out ... Be careful that you do not come to Marco’s for any reason in the world, for all the love you say you bear me. (D 24)

Maria pined for him: Be with me, although, whenever you have left, my heart does not leave you, light of my eyes, without which life for me would be worse than bitter death. If, then, my existence depends upon you, rare spirit, be content, I pray you, to go, as equals, with your heart on fire, until we are led by time into the Elysian Fields where I still hope to walk happily with the sweet memory and conversations which we have

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had, my only darling, writing on sheets of paper and picking lovely flowers and pale violets ... Tell me what M. said to you ... because ... I am afraid of some idle talk by the neighbours. I am yours more than ever. (D 29)

In a following letter Maria tells Bembo of the repercussions of his disguise, apparently as a soldier – possibly a cutthroat: I sent F. yesterday and did not find C. Afterwards M. spoke with Do. and told her that that woman who had seen you went to Mr. Lorenzo da Molin and told him that every second an armed man was in the habit of coming, who was waiting for him or some other person, to make trouble, and this man has clasped his hands to be pardoned. So Mr Lo says he wants to ... see that person with his own eyes, then he will make the gibbet to hang him. So this is the situation ... Perhaps tomorrow I will send for you if no gentlemen come. (D 25)

Somehow Bembo and Maria managed to spend some hours together, until nine o’clock. He wrote the following day how she still remained in his arms, then explained why Francesco did not find Cola: What a sad case is Cola, having been instructed by me not to leave the house yesterday evening, he left, I think to see some mistress close by, which makes me half pardon his sin. And in that moment Francesco came and was told that Cola would return soon and that he should wait for him. He did not wait and left saying that he would return. He was hardly out of the door when Cola returned and went after him to the neighbourhood of his mother’s house, but he was not seen again. I believe that you will consider me of little worth since I do not know how to manage it that Francesco does not come here in vain ... But if you pardon me this time, perhaps he will not make this mistake again. I spoke with the neighbour because the neighbour’s wife had gone to bed and was sleeping ... You will never have anything from them that may offend you ... I have an idea about ... being with you, which I do not want to write to you in case it is misunderstood ... Love me. At three o’clock. (T I, 96)

Maria was inquisitive. What idea did he have of visiting her that he did not want to put in a letter? She goes on about her unquiet state but, “every other lady but me would lose herself in this desperate labyrinth.” Again, she had only one sheet of paper, so she could not write more, but she wrote on the top margin that she loved him, as always, and wanted him to love her. She would send Francesco if she wanted him to come tomorrow (D 26). Bembo was overjoyed: My dearest and sweetest good ... you could not believe how much consolation your last letter, received this very moment from Francesco, has given me. I will not

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say that it is because it convinces me that you love me, as though I doubted it, which I certainly never did, from the first hour in which I loved you. And I would be without eyes if I did not see the love you bear me. But, I do not know how, my having been with you had left in my heart a bitter sweetness ... such that, as I wrote you, I was not able to hold back my tears ... All this pain and bitterness ... your letter has lifted from me ... The thought that I had formed of visiting you ... is nothing other than this: I, seeing the difficulties of our being together and the troubles that you suffer because of it, wanted to restrain my desire for the future and not give you a burden and any hardship, except that which you wanted to take ... Now, because you write me that I should be happy, until the stars lead us to a better hearth, to live according to your wishes, because then you will live according to mine ... you give me what order and law pleases you more and I will not swerve from it, neither now nor ever, provided I know how to please you ... Of your disturbed state I know a good bit, and I have infinite sympathy for it, because it would not suit you to be in a labyrinth. And I, therefore, beg you that, in the presence of the other anxieties, you should not add anything on my behalf ... To me it is enough to be with you in the heart, as you are with me ... And when the delight which I feel in seeing you is taken away from me by my fortune, the tears will not be taken away which I will shed because I am unable to see you, which tears will be sweeter to me, each one, than a thousand smiles and a thousand pleasures of other lovers ... I will be pleased, if you want me to come to you tomorrow, to know it before dinner, if you are able to inform me at that time. Love me and salute my new copyist. (T I, 97)

As mentioned earlier, even love letters were copied by secretaries. They met, and this meeting left Maria upset, fearful that his passion for her was waning. She had also had words with Bernardino, who said that he had heard a lot of whispering in her room. She expects Pietro tomorrow (D 14). This note was returned to her, because Cola was not at home, so she wrote again, now in a new mood. After he had left she could not close her eyes, swept along by his “gentle manners and sweet humanity.” “While the spirit rules this body I will love no one else but you ... Tomorrow I expect you, but not in the room because of the little problem” (D 15). Bembo replied hastily that morning, promising a longer reply to her two sweetest letters that evening: I give infinite thanks to Love for the opportunity he has given for a thousand things, all sweet. Concerning these I want to speak with you at length, to make it very clear to you how much their occurrence has further tightened your chain on me with a firm knot ... Bernardino found me this morning and reminded me, in your name, of the letter. I blushed a little, but it could appear that that was because of the shame of not yet having given you the letter. I said that I would do it today. I also have letters from Carlo for you ... Expect me by the end of half an hour and love me. (T I, 57)

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Maria replied immediately: “B. will not dine at home, nor do I know at what time he plans to return, therefore I want you to come at eighteen or nineteen hours and, if he is at home, bring Mr Carlo’s letters and come cheerfully, because there is no longer any suspicion of you in the world ... I expect you at nineteen hours. I do not expect you earlier” (D 28). Bembo replied ecstatically, quoting her last two letters. “He who wanted to love and could not, let him read your letters and he will love. O, Love, certainly you either wrote them with your own hand or dictated them to the hand which wrote them ... Alas, are you not yet sufficiently sure ... of being my lady? And, if you are not certain yet, what do I have to do to make you certain and secure?” I do not know that there is now any part of me that is not more yours than mine: not blood, not breath, not heart, not soul, not thought ... I am, wholly, nothing more than an image of you, which takes and keeps all its quality and form from you ... And I know that love, like the olive which flourishes better on hard and stony hills than on soft and delicate plains, grows better in hazards and in difficult conditions ... While it pleases you to love me, both the sea will find itself without fish and the sky without stars, and every other impossible thing will happen before ... you will cease to be ... my lady and queen ... and I will not be completely yours ... Certainly today there does not live in the world two souls more content than ours, if your words are true ... The promise which you make me, that, while you live, you will love no other but me, may those gods in heaven who have the care of lovers confirm ... Oh how sweet it will be for us to be able to say, the one to the other, a long time from now: “O unique support of my mind, I indeed have loved you so many and so many years, and you me.” And who knows if the people who come after us will praise us with sweet envy? to whom, perhaps, the memory of our pure and constant loves will in some way pass. (T I, 93)

Now Maria warned him that the head of the family, the general Tristano Savorgnan, had come but would be leaving tomorrow. “In this time you will pass by without seeing me or speaking to me. Then F. will come to visit you ... I am yours. I am full to the brim with such great anxieties that, with a few more, I would leave life here” (D 30). Bembo was disturbed. What could her anxieties be? He could not sleep, full of imaginings and forebodings. They should be able to read one another’s hearts like the two perfect lovers in the second book of Gli Asolani (T I, 75). He wrote again the following day: I believe that today you have been in music and song, all of which I heard as far as here, and I took pleasure from your enjoyment, nevertheless not without envying those who enjoyed your presence. If you stayed awake at night with me as much time as I with you I think that in the morning you would feel all weak and

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Campiello del Magazen 1372. The old house opposite the church and campo of San Trovaso and a gondola workshop, squero, fits the topographical details in Maria’s letters of 1500.

worn out. Because ... continually, every night for four or five hours, I struggle to go to sleep always thinking, over and over again, about you, your words, your every act, great, tiny, bitter, sweet ... I took this pen in hand both to chat with you and to drive away from me, in this way, an indisposition which I have been suffering from since midday which, if it is not a fever ... is much like it. And I find that my decision helps, because it seems to me that I am already relieved. But I fear, when I have stopped chatting with you, that I will return to my first heaviness. Which, if it comes, I do not know if I will be able to hold myself back from coming to you tomorrow, because I know that otherwise I will not get better. Love me. (T I, 107)

Maria is concerned. She compares herself to someone who hurts in one side of her body but can get some relief by sleeping on the other side. However, if he, her other half, is also suffering, there will be no respite. “Please, therefore, as the better and dearer part of me, preserve yourself in order that when, in the midst of so many woes, I turn my eyes in that direction where my lord’s beautiful face shines, I may be able to temper the absence with honey and so, with your help, get along until love leads thence to a better port. Mr T. left this morning. I am not less desirous of speaking to

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you than you are to me, but I cannot until Sunday after dinner, although I will send F. to you first (D 31). Maria wrote again: “B. has gone out and I told him that I want to send his servant for you and he says that he is content. And so I will send him to you for appearance’s sake and you will say that you have things to do today and it is not possible and that you will come when you have time and say it in a way as though you did not consider me important. And so, do not come, because, as I said in the other note, you will come tomorrow because today there will be Beatrice and certain other mad women” (D 32). At some stage, on Maria’s instructions, Bembo had used the flooring for boats to cross the canal to reach the wall of her house and a ladder to her room, which she kept under her bed (D 50). There was, and still is, a boatbuilding yard, squero, at San Trovaso. In this happy stage of regular meetings he wrote that “I was dreaming that I was talking to you, lying by your side, and, hearing I do not know what beautiful and sweet word from you, I moved with a laugh to kiss you for what you had said” and woke up. Therefore, he begs her to let him finish the dream in the watches of the night (T I, 94). Bembo now made his first independent effort to arrange a rendezvous: “I will be with you Monday, as Maddalena will tell you ... I have spoken with Maddalena and questioned her thoroughly about everything. I see that I will be able to be in her room as long as you want to hold me there without suspicions, especially because Beatrice is there.” He begs her to accept his plan so that he is not always like Tantalus. He has made it easier for himself to come to her, both for her sake and for his. He thinks of how long it has been since they were together. Donata has justly called him a peasant, but she will not always be able to do so, if he does not die of the fever from which he still suffers. He will come, most unrecognisably, and no one will know of his coming except whoever she wants to tell. He begs her to tell him immediately if he will be able to have a long time with her (T I, 95). Her next letter must be quoted almost in full: After you had left me yesterday the man whom B. says I am in love with came, for my bad luck, and a little after that B. came, and I saw his expression change so that I thought that I would see him fall to the ground. But I was glad to be sure that the suspicion over you had been lifted, but I did not like it that he, like an unchained lion, after the other one’s departure, went searching throughout the whole house and, not having anything to do with this, I was in the room above the canal and he went into my room and, through Donata’s feeble-mindedness lifted up the bedframe where the day bed38 is kept and found the ladder. Oh think how I felt: I have lost all the reputation I had, I do not know any more what to do with myself. I care little about him, but for Mr Tristano I am certainly lost. Our guide who usually

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holds the keys to that certain place with the grilled window which is under the window of my room says that B. took them from her and threatened her fiercely that she should not speak to anybody about this. And such is fortune ... But provided that you love me as I love you I do not fear fortune, although there is need of great prudence to contend with it. You be the source of it. Rule me as you think best: either Camillo or another, where you wish, always when I will be able to. Provided that I may speak to you, suffering every torment will not be difficult for me. Do not disturb yourself because of this because a time will come again when the stars which have conspired to our losses will become benign. You will be able to say to Camillo whatever you wish, to hear what way will have to be adopted for the neighbours and if there were another way more secret ... Do not believe that I lack the spirit to serve you because of this. On the contrary, every hour it burns stronger in loving you because flourishing love grows in these anxieties. I await your letters, now the comfort of my weary life. I remind you of my servitude and recommend my heart. I am ill, I do not know what I am saying here ... Give this page a thousand caresses and kiss it because it is beautiful. (D 34)

And the next one: Think what a great uproar there is in the house; through that one’s fury every one in the house already knows everything, such that I consider myself reviled ... I do not dare to send F. to you any more because I am afraid that the boy will betray me either through force or by another way, so do not be surprised and for some days be patient as I will be because I know that you will not suffer more than I ... A line from you is in no way thinkable ... Patience, then, without forgetting me, as I never forget you. And consider your honour because, to the extent that B. knew this, everyone would know it, because so he promised me yesterday evening, saying that he could not do me any more harm but that he will search so much that he will find that one. If you will send C. to Campo San Trovaso every day after twenty-two hours and I will send F. But today do not send more. And see to it that C. will always have received my letter from F. who must give either a thread ... of silk, always of one sort, or a piece of paper with writing ... Yet C. will be able to come afterwards to the house, because perhaps B. will not be there and, however, if he is there, let him ask for Do. [Donata] and some book, but he must never speak to F. in the courtyard nor give him a letter because he or his servants could be in a hidden place and see it all, but Do. will take the letter more discreetly. (D 36)

But Maria was irrepresssible. She soon had an idea: This evening you will do what I told you in the note of the day before yesterday, that is, at one thirty be at Campo San Trovaso and concentrate on the light in the last windows above, then, when you see it come to the door. I say no more because we will speak then. If two o’clock passes and there is no light, there will be no

50

Pietro Bembo

arrangement. Come as you usually come, covered by the guide. If I do not speak to you this evening, then tomorrow I will answer you about coming while he is at the grilled window. (D 35)

Bembo reacted to the increased restrictions on their meetings with pages of long-winded reflections on the nature of their love written in convoluted sentences which must have been the result of a struggle to express what is always inexpressible. Clearly he had time on his hands. The resultant letter (T I, 115) reads like a reject from Gli Asolani. He uses his favourite marine imagery of the wandering ship of his life, the tempest-tossed lovers, the crashing reefs. Writing the very letter, “M,” the first in her name, fills him with lively sweetness and his hand grows hot, for half a page. At night he has difficulty sleeping. Every beautiful part of her swims into his sight, and her charming ways from their very first meeting. He remembers all her conversations, her every act, every saying, every promise, every laugh, every smile, every joke, every sound, every song, every feeling, every voice, and, finally, all those things, most secret and dearer, which have been between them. “I see all of you, I touch all of you, I hold all of you, I embrace all of you, to my incomparable delight, for the longest time ... I often bring my cheek close to your dear cheek and, kissing the beautiful lips with timid daring, I really feel the sweet heat of our mingled souls.” But does she remember him in the same way? Is it a case of out of sight, out of mind? She leads a lively social life in song and music, and takes the air with other ladies on pleasure craft. As a great lady, she is visited by many great men of much higher standing and loftier fortune than his, who spend the best part of the day exerting themselves to please her, one with charming conversation, one reciting poetry to her, another dramas, or perhaps recounting his prowess, modestly and sagely. Might not one of these men whom she sees more often than him have stolen her heart? “Alas, how many arts do lovers practise to draw other men’s ladies to themselves. And perhaps they do not think that they may be someone else’s and therefore do not believe that they are causing insult and outrage to anyone. But you, o Giovanni, misjudge. What you seek is already someone else’s and does not need new possessors. The lady is mine, whom you are now trying to make yours, as a free thing. Heaven and love gave her to me. She is most certainly mine ... She is mine now and must be always.” Giovanni, as a friend, is behaving villainously. But he is being stupid. What man who loved a woman would give her up because of the words of another man, even a friend? Bembo then addresses Maria, telling her how other men deceive and may be promiscuous. Where would she find another so true, so faithful, so devoted? Again he argues that they should become examples to posterity of everlasting fidelity, etc., etc. This is a letter of more than two thousand

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words. The Giovanni mentioned here is Giovanni Soranzo who appears in several of Maria’s (D 43, 45, 47, 63) and Bembo’s (T I, 71) letters. He was a member of one of the great Venetian families and was married to the niece of Caterina Cornaro, the Queen of Cyprus.39 He was Maria’s suspected lover in one letter (D 34). Maria wrote: I can sing the song which goes, “Oh, my heart, Oh, my head,” the first for love of you, because every road to seeing you is closed against me, the head because of the anxieties endured, in a way that I am certainly ill and, if it were not to make my enemy happy, I would not have got out of bed today. Your sweetest letters have given me a lot of comfort ... Because of this headache I cannot write ... Cola should not come to the Campo or to the house because that mad boy F., with so much good grace, confided in me that he wants to be the courier and expect him tomorrow. I am not writing more because B. has come home. I do not know if F. will come tomorrow morning or after dinner, but if tomorrow morning it will be late. Do not go out tomorrow because I will go out where I hope to speak to you. I am yours, yours and yours and most yours and always will be. (D 37)

Maria was coming down with a fever. Bembo prowled around the house for news and sent Cola to speak to Donata (T I, 70). Maria answered his letter: I am very sorry that yesterday you were near me and I did not speak to you. And, nevertheless, I sent to let C. know that I was ill, and not slightly, and certainly I had fever this night. Now I am somewhat better. If I do not reply to your letter forgive me. B. has told me that perhaps he will come back today to visit me. I do not want it because on Saturdays he almost never goes to the Rialto after dinner and there will be some gentlemen at the house and, if not others, Soranzo. Tomorrow, then, you will hear tomorrow morning what you will have to do ... About this capture of Modon perhaps it would be good for you to show yourself at the Council ... I beg you do not cease, for any reason in the world, from doing all that is your honour and do not pay attention to me because I cannot fail you because it is fixed in heaven that I am yours. Do, therefore, what you think is your honour, which will be my contentment because I feed and nourish myself on your reputation. Write me what you will do if you think it is good to follow my advice. I believe that B. may go out of town this evening for two days. If this happens you will hear of it. I believe that I am going to die from such a headache. Pray God for me. (D 47)

This letter is correctly dated 5 September 1500, a Saturday, and the day on which the news of the fall of the great Venetian fortress at Modon reached Venice. Bembo replied in a letter misdated 20 April:

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Pietro Bembo

Do not grieve, because I really was with you yesterday, and am always, and you spoke to me, and you speak with me still. Francesco performed the errand to Cola that you did not feel well and were in bed, but I was not at home, having gone to visit someone who is ill ... But I am upset, now, that you say that you have had a fever ... Bernardino told me yesterday, on your behalf, that, if I did not mind, I should come back today. But I will restrain myself. If I thought that I would find you alone tomorrow I would come to you with Camillo. But I do not think so ... for this new public melancholy I will allow myself to go with the others to our Council. I say if this will please you ... You will have your canzone. Keep it to yourself because it does not satisfy me in many places. I will pray heaven for your health ... Do not take on the burden of writing if you are not feeling strong ... My reputation, on which you say you feed and are nourished, will not be so much valued by me for any reason other than to please you, because it is dear to you. (T I, 62)

Maria wrote the next day, Sunday, 6 September, that she could not see him privately before Wednesday because a young girl was staying with her. His canzone is beautiful, but he could make it better with revision. She will explain herself when he comes, if he does not mind, since he has made her so bold. In brief, she thinks the style is too polished for such a lowly subject – an accurate reflection on Bembo’s stylistic tendencies – but perhaps heaven has not endowed her with cultural acumen. She relies on her fidelity, and her great love which, in time, will merit as much of his favour as the beauty and greatness of the other lady – Jealousy of M.G. was never far below the surface, possibly because Bembo had begun Gli Asolani when he was in love with her and Maria suspected that M.G. was the main stimulus of the book. She had complained, in an earlier letter (D 17), that he had not written what he had promised her, presumably because he was working on Gli Asolani – Maria says that she had reached this point in her letter when Cola had brought Bembo’s. He has done the right thing in going to the Council. She expects him today (D 48). There was obviously a quarrel, set alight by jealousy. Bembo, misunderstood and hard done by, wrote of his deep misery: “This night I got up at eight o’clock and, after long thoughts about my situation ... I took pen in hand and wrote you what just sorrow dictated to me. And now, having looked it over, I do not want to send it, so hard is my lot, which does not give me the courage to grieve with others than my own self over the sword which pierces my heart. And then, since saying anything else does not help me, be well” (T I, 64). Maria, desperate to know what was in the suppressed letter, replied immediately: “If you want to please me send me what you have written, and do not do otherwise. I was just now with Do. arranging to please you and me at one go, which ... will be Wednesday, without fail, and the hour and the way you will know in time. I really believe that it would be better

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outside the house, by day, but I do not assert it ... Live happy, because no man ever was or will be so loved by a lady as you by me, and, if you do not believe it, it means, “go and find out”, but I do not want that ... For what you have written this night I will send F. today. (D 49) Bembo sent the required bitter letter with a covering note. The letter accuses her of deliberately tormenting him, blowing hot and cold, building up great passion then, for her sport, lashing him with her tongue. He wishes he had wings to fly from the inferno. There is no point in begging mercy because his prayers are not only not profitable but they make her even harsher and more pigheaded every day. Every day she finds more material to torture him. It is now eight o’clock. He begs her to love him, if she can (T I, 109). In the accompanying note he says that he believes that she realized that she had given him reason to complain yesterday. Now he turns to her very sweet and amorous letter of today and reflects that in love one must experience everything, and a steady diet of pure honey would be cloying. He realizes that despite his bitter tears she loves him a lot. About Wednesday and outside the house, Camillo will always wait for her and his will be a convenient and secure place (T I, 108). Her reply shows that his hope that their understanding means that he can now say and write all that he feels (T I, 108) was misplaced. After reading the letter that he had held back she now accuses him of trying to make her suffer and demands an immediate answer. She will make her wishes manifest to him tomorrow (D 44). Bembo admits that he had tried, with that letter, to drive her to tears, to maintain the equality they aim at and boast of. He then reasserts his deep love for her (T I, 59). Now there was an important change in his circumstances. His father had hired a house on the Giudecca, where they will stay for a month. It is the Marcello house, near the Dandolo by the towers. Again Pietro had caused some trouble yesterday; enraptured, he had not noticed her uneasiness. He will take care not to cause any problem again. He fears that she is angry with him, and begs her to love him (T I, 99). The Dandolo house would soon play an important part in their romance, so it deserves a note. Sansovino, writing in 1581, called the Dandolo house one of the two most important on the Giudecca, one of the islands of Venice, across a broad canal from the Dorsoduro where Maria lived. It occupied a large site with many lodgings, courtyards, galleries, and gardens.40 Visiting dignitaries were often put up there by the Venetian Senate.41 It is described as being on the point of the Giudecca, opposite the island of San Giorgio, a description which could not have been literally exact since the church of St John the Baptist stood on the point until the early nineteenth century.42 It must have been south of the church, still on the eastern point of the Giudecca and opposite the island of San Giorgio,

3 9

1

6

2

4

7 8

5

The western half of de’ Barbari’s map of Venice, 1500. In a cloud Mercury, god of commerce, presides over the city “whose unequalled markets he makes famous.” Below, holding these words aloft on his trident, Neptune proclaims, “I dwell in the port watching over the seas.” The well-built city in the water contrasts with Rome in its ruins. Note the foothills of the Alps to the north of the city where Bembo set Gli Asolani. 1 The old Rialto drawbridge / 2 Cà Bembo / 3 The approximate site of Aldus’s printing shop in the S. Polo quarter / 4 The church of San Trovaso near which Maria and Pietro lived in 1500 / 5 Cà Dandolo with the 2 towers, Giudecca. Here Maria and Pietro met in the cavana, the gondola shelter / 6 Cà Corner-Contarini dei Cavalli at San Benedetto where Bembo stayed in 1514 as Leo X’s ambassador / 7 The doge’s palace and the church of San Marco / 8 The site for the new library built under Bembo / 9 The approximate site of Gianmatteo Bembo’s house

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on what are now the grounds of the Cipriani hotel. There is reference to festivities in May 1520, on the arrival of the Marquess of Mantua, at Ca’ Dandolo at St John’s.43 Certainly old maps of Venice show walls with towers extending south from St John’s, thought to be the remains of an old castle for the defence of the ducal palace and St Mark’s.44 The old maps also show gardens behind them. The house next door, which Bernardo Bembo rented, the Marcello, was also often used by the Signoria to lodge important visitors, including the commander-in-chief of the Venetian army, Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, in June 1525.45 The Giudecca was a resort of the Venetian aristocracy, “a place of delight.”46 The great families had houses there, sometimes more than one (housing appears to have been a good investment in Renaissance Venice).47 There was a market for high quality rented accomodation in the best quarters. Fifteen years later we find Bernardo Bembo renting a Contarini palace on the Grand Canal.48 The Giudecca, apart from its fine houses and gardens49 within sight of the domes of St Mark’s, had everything needed for comfortable living. There were well-stocked shops, craftsmen of every sort, bridges over the canals, because the Giudecca, like the rest of Venice, was an agglomeration of sand banks, and several impressive churches with appendant monasteries or hospitals.50 It was here that the Bembo moved in mid-September 1500. In a letter which can confidently be dated 12 September 1500, Bembo wrote to Maria that he had wanted to visit her yesterday but the departure of his brother-in-law [Sebastiano Marcello] as galley captain had kept them all busy.51 He will not come today, since it is Saturday and she will have things to do, but if she wants him today she should let him know. He believes that they are moving on the following Wednesday, and when they are on the Giudecca he will try to find a place for their meetings and will disappear from public view. “I am full of the sweetest thoughts, thanks to you and your compassion. Your red rose ... which had lost all its strength before it was touched by the beautiful ivory of your hands, has regained colour and life and has become much fresher than it was at first. Sweetest miracle of love ... the sweetest miracle both of love and of nature. Love me and remember me” (T I, 111). He wrote again after the move, about 18 September, saying that the thirteen days since he had seen her seem like thirteen years, even thirteen jubilees.52 He had wanted to come the other evening, just to see her bedroom windows. Apparently she had told him that Bernardino was suspicious and therefore Cola is possibly suspect. They may therefore communicate via Marco and Donata. He will order Marco to come to him every day to bring her news and letters. He thinks that this route [across the wide Giudecca Canal] is not always suitable for Francesco. He thinks of nothing but her, day and night. If she thought it was not importune he would go to

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Marco’s that evening, at least to hear three of her words and to tell her three of his (T I, 53). Maria replied the same day. She had not sent Francesco recently because a dog has bitten him, but at least that has given Bembo some free time to write to her. It is not burdensome for Francesco to come to him, but she is afraid he may be noticed by someone in the Bembo household. Bembo must not come that evening because she will be unable to speak to him. She thinks that his idea of dropping out of sight is an excellent one. He should find Bernardino and tell him that he wants to come to say goodbye to her because he is going out of town. He must not tell him that he has moved (D 52). She wrote again two days later, on Sunday 20 September. Bembo must not come until he has spoken to Bernardino. He was at St Mark’s today, but Bembo should be able to find him at the Rialto on Monday or Tuesday, and then he must let a day pass before he comes (D 53). Bembo moans over the delay in seeing her. He dreamt that Francesco had come with a countermanding order that would allow him to come that day. The dream was so convincing that he has constantly gone to the windows to look for him. He is very upset that their meetings have to be so infrequent (T I, 52). She replied that she expected him that week, at the customary place in the customary way – Thursday evening, at the time he thinks best (D 54). Then there was apparently some talk of the Dandolo house on the Giudecca which was up for rent. Maria hoped that when the head of the family, Tristano Savorgnan, came she might be able to persuade him to take it. She also criticizes one of Bembo’s madrigals which is destined for Gli Asolani, saying that it plagiarizes Petrarch, then tells him that she is having a new portrait painted for him, by Giovanni Bellini, as we learn from his subsequent sonnet (Rime XIX). She will not forget the material lined either with scarlet or squirrel and dosi [a kind of fur used for winter lining in Venice] (D 55). Bembo replies about his excitement over the Dandolo idea. If his sun dwelt there! He accepts her suggestion about the madrigal and comments on her new portrait. He thinks it unnecessary. The previous one was very exact and beautiful, and although she does not like the shadows there, they do not matter since it is going to be made into a medal. Cola has recovered in a few days, as Francesco did. Their stars agree in strange things. He now goes to bed with her image in his eyes and in his heart (T I, 112). Tristano’s visit had the opposite outcome from what Maria had hoped. He told her that he wanted her to leave Venice immediately. She cannot leave without seeing Bembo. He must stay at home, waiting for her message. If they cannot meet today, then tomorrow at Cami’s [Camillo’s], or at the two towers [the Dandolo]. “You must go first in a way that you are not recognized and go into the tower and stay there till I see you. Then send

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your boat away, because I will drop you off where you want in my boat. You must be there between nine and the bell, where I can see you. Today and tomorrow F. will visit you often in case plans have to be changed ... Yours for eternity and then, if it is possible” (D 38). As might be expected, the news of her departure fills him with incomparable anguish. It is such an unexpected blow. She must arrange for him to see her. He will not leave the house, if he has to stay there for six months (T I, 103). She asks him to be around her house that night at one o’clock because Bernardino may go out to supper. If it is all clear F. will give him a thread of black silk (D 13). Bembo wrote that he was composing a canzone about her departure and sends the first stanza, which she must emend and polish with the sweet file of her intelligence (T I, 101). Maria was very chuffed by his praise of her literary acumen, but feigned indignation at his flattery. How can she trust anything he says! She sends him a kiss. She is with him the whole day and the night and never leaves him. She summons him to the two towers on Wednesday, without fail. She advises him to look after his health. “And so watch out for every other thing which may cause you suffering, because I had very strange dreams about you and it is my misfortune that the greater part of my sad ones are fulfilled ... If anything happened to you ... my thread of life would be cut short” (D 40). She wrote again: Tomorrow you will go to ca’ Dandolo, to the boat house [cavana],53 where you will be expected and taken where necessary one hour before nine, and see to it that you are not recognised. Take care if you want Marco to come for you or if you take another boat. I remember your honour and about this give me all your advice because if you want Marco, I might be able to have him told where and how. And if you can arrange that he does not hear anything else about me, i.e., that I am coming to the two towers, do it. Of your letters we will speak then. (D 41)

Bembo answered that he passionately awaited Wednesday, that he was not a pretender, as she had accused him of being, that he does not believe in dreams and is only sorry that they disturb her. He goes on about the beauty of their love and sends her the second stanza of her canzone (T I, 102). They then met and quarrelled. She obviously asked him if he loved her as much as he had loved M.G. He told her that he loved her more, and that his feeling for M.G. was dead long before he met her, but he could not say that he had not loved her “whom I once made my lady and loved so much in the past.” He goes on: But ... I am no longer such a child that I do not know that it would be my manifest ruin to enter into those shackles, from which, with great pain and such great effort

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Pietro Bembo

An example of a cavana, a shelter for gondolas, and an indication of the structure of a fifteenth-century Venetian house on the water. G. Mansueti.

and sorrow and with manifest danger to my life, I escaped alive ... I could not go back to be hers any more, even if I had not found my heaven with someone else. And now that I have made myself yours and can live happily with you, can you believe that I am so poor of judgment that I should wish to go back to being hers to live more unhappy than the first time? ... I do not have a spirit so made that I may love two ladies at the same time ... my heart ... is all yours ... in God’s name be a good helmsman to it and do not destroy it for amusement ... Love me. Send me your picture I pray you. (T I, 113)

Maria replied, hurt, jealous, passionate, bad tempered, and sulky. She knows that in time he will need such a great love as hers, though it has recently been revealed to her that he does not count it highly. Yet she will be patient and like whatever pleases him:

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I will love you then as best I can and I will always love you and, if I cannot have this from you, I blame myself who, without rein, in abandonment, running to such a great undertaking, wanted to embrace much and have clasped little. I have lost with you the courage for it: do not expect your canzone from me: I have been too bold: I beg your pardon: this is because I loved too much. I do not want to send you my letters, my letters have bothered you enough. I have given Do. the embassy and it is fine that she commends herself to you. If you do not leave the house, or if you leave, I am content with what contents you. (D 43)

Bembo wrote in Latin at the bottom of this letter, “Each one has his fate from the day he is born.” Now he wallowed in self-pity: Alas, my wretchedness. And what star or what sin of mine always causes me to love without being loved? and that I give all my freedom to one who does not concede any part of hers to me? And that, when I believe that I have really deserved to be dear to the other person, I find myself to be precisely farther from her favour? I loved a lady once with all my heart, believing myself to be loved likewise by her, with all her heart. Nor did I hold this belief for a long time when it dawned on me that I was mistaken ... I strove to get out of the noose which I myself, through my misjudgment, had knotted, with the firm determination never again to trust the snares of love ... But, as happens in the greater part of human affairs, I slackened my determination and, feeling sorry for myself, I began to think that it was possible that such a hard heart did not dwell in every lady ... and that it was not a wise proposal, through simple and obstinate will, to deprive myself of that good nature gives to men, perhaps more natural than any other, and which, once youth is over, which departs in a few years, is no longer available. Now ... there was someone who, through the long pity which he had felt for my hard life, made me to understand that it would not be displeasing to you that I should love you and, on your order, made me a sweet and generous invitation. Alas, he was not aware what a cruel office he was fulfilling with his sympathy.

Bembo goes on to describe his early captivation, then her cruelty to him, when she once realized that she had ensnared him. And so they had stumbled on, from drama to drama, “until yesterday evening when, having returned to my house from which a monk had taken me, I found your bitter letter, which gave me a greater shock than I expected. Alas, what have I done ... that I should deserve this ...?” He quotes some ten of her letters proclaiming eternal, unshakeable fidelity. What has become of that, how could she change so quickly? Let him know if she thinks him unworthy of her love “because I ... will not cease to love you alone and for as long as my life will last, if for no other reason, at least ... not to run again ... into a third failure, which does not merit pardon or

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sympathy” (T I, 104). It remains to be seen how long he abided by that resolution. Maria wrote that she was misunderstood and that he was just trying to hurt her, since he knew how much she loved him, and asks him to come to see her (D 45). In another letter she mentions a sure meeting, at the beginning of the following week, provided he is not afraid of boats. She mentions for the first time the possibility that she may be going to Ferrara and hopes that he will visit her there (D 58). In another letter she tells him that he can send for her portrait (D 57).54 He thanks her for her mercy yesterday and asks her to send his letters (T I, 101, 102) in which she has marked the stanzas of her canzone because, in a thousand years, he could not finish it without them (T I, 79).55 They met again, happily. Maria sent him back his canzone and asked “what sign of me you bear that you mentioned yesterday: I pray you, if it can be, that you write me it ... If you do not want to, today it pleases me what pleases you. I would like to know what you have begun for me which will please me ... I would be pleased if you did with your hand in a letter of mine as I have with the canzone” (D 46). Bembo answered that “the sign of you which I bear in my person is within, filling my whole heart, you, all life and movement, and now sweet and sometimes bitter, as you usually are when we are together. Outside there is a sweet spot the colour of red roses, the size of a small rose, the legacy of the happy evening of a thousand things.” He looks forward to the repetition of the love bite. As to her next question: “I have started some notes on the language, as I told you that I wanted to do when you told me that I should make them in your letters. Therefore, do not expect me to damage your letters with any mark, unless I damage them by kissing them” (T I, 106). As the time of her departure drew near there was another great misunderstanding and Bembo needed reassurance of her love. God knows how much he hopes that one time it may be possible to say that “now and forever our love is indeed both firm and secure; we are indeed certain to live like this for the rest of life that is granted us. And he knows, who has already for seven months led us where it pleases him, that nothing is so big which a little man like I could do, which I have not done, hoping to deserve you.” If heaven wished him to go on foot to Compostella she would see a new Romeo56 on pilgrimage. Then he makes his usual moan of not being loved as much as he loves. He does not know how he stands with her. He begs her to let him know before she leaves (T I, 100). Maria was annoyed: “Alas, why with false imaginings do you seek to spot the pure white thick web which we have woven? Certainly nothing learnt of me excuses you except the very great deceptions of the woman you recently loved. But if you take a good look, with a sane eye, perhaps

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you will not find a cause for the pain that you put upon yourself. Nevertheless, if it appears to you that so much hurts you, try ... to make me recognise my error because, perhaps, I will find myself a thing not worthy of you, nor will I hurt you more with my deception. But perhaps you will be unhappy about this because, I will say this, that love like mine is rarely found” (D 62). Bembo replied with a long letter on the nature of their love. He has recognized his error, what a mad thing it is to find reasons to be miserable in their relationship. He does not excuse himself for his actions but begs her forgiveness for everything that he has done which has displeased her from their first day together. He will always do what she wants. He calls her a wise and great lady who must believe everything he writes in this letter (T I, 105). Maria: “I am not surprised that you have recognised your error so quickly, because I know that you are very sensible, but I really am surprised that, in your letter, you touch every other part except that with which you have offended me, and, although you make yourself look better by eating humble pie and in this, too, you do not please me much, however, for this sort of thing I would not continue to make you unhappy ... I will not cease to love you, because, if I really wanted to do otherwise, I could not. And you will do what you can. However, do not believe that I am angry with you, but really with my mean lot. I cannot write because B. never goes away” (D 5). She wrote another letter the following day which can be dated shortly after 5 November 1500 because she says that she was given a poem that day but did not send it to him because of the eclipse.57 Now she sends it in relation to his humble pie, to annoy him a little with her frivolity. The theme is “Easy does it.” She asks him to return the stained sheet of paper she sent last evening because she does not know what she said. She wants to speak to him, but, as luck would have it, their guide is ill. She wishes that he would pretend to come back to Venice so that they could meet and speak more easily and be together in public (D 8). A further letter wants him officially back in Venice and asks for news of Carlo (D 39). He replies that he has been staying at home because he did not know what she wanted him to do and reports that Carlo is in Cremona and does not know when he will be back. He will be eagerly watching for news (T I, 76). They met and she made another rendezvous at Marco’s, on Friday, at four hours (D 59). The end of the year was now approaching and with it her departure. He writes lyrically about their love and her spirit, which hour by hour reveals itself to him more beautiful and more lofty. He is all fire and so full of desire to please her that she would judge that he had had leaden wings in the past compared with the feathers with which he has now clothed them.

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He complains about the harsh weather which makes it difficult for them to communicate (T I, 119). Later his self-confidence evaporated: Alas, can it be that, if you loved me as much as I love you, one thousand ways would not be found for us to be together more often than we are? Can it be that, if you were smitten in the way that I am, pity for me would not compel you more than it does now? Can it be that your heart suffers to see so often in my eyes my unemployed soul asking you, silently, for mercy, and revealing to you its passion and its own little desire and you are still never prepared for its rescue without so many checks? I do not mean that you may not have shed a little tear as a sign that mine matter to you. Oh dear, if I had seen you once, as you have seen me many times, no chain, no impediment would have been able to hold me back from running to join my cheek with yours to mingle our tears and so weep until you had said, “I am content” ... What does it mean that, because you know that you are soon going away from me, your coldness does not thaw more than usual? ... And you will say then that your passions go equally? O torment and comfort of my life, be content that I say this: “You feel no passion.” (T I, 120)

She replied, sharply, in a single sentence, telling him to come Wednesday at the time, place, and by the means he knows (D 61). He wrote two days after an unhappy encounter, feeling that she is falling out of love. She had said of his passion, “All that glitters is not gold,” a little-deserved word for the finest metal of his pure and solid faith, which does not rust with time ... (T I, 118). Then Carlo brought the bitter news that she was leaving sooner than had been expected. He must now send her canzone (T I, 114). Her next letter is about preparations for departure (D 63) and the following one, sent from the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie on an island in the Venetian lagoon, is her farewell: I am yours living and I will be yours dead: as long as I am away from you, you are and will be adored by me. I am leaving and I leave you my soul and, how you will look after it, tell me shortly. That it may be as I would like it to be, I am yours and absolutely yours and I speak the truth. (D 64)

For some reason Maria left some things in the monastery which Bernardino had to fetch later (D 70). Bembo wrote to her in Ferrara that he had not been able to grasp her departure as long as he could see her. That pleasure had blinded his mind. But as she, and then even her sails, slipped from his sight he had wrapped his head in his cloak and returned home in tears, more miserable than he could have imagined. Hour by hour and day by day his grief has redoubled. All he wants in life is the light of her eyes and the sound of her voice. Per-

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haps she is enjoying the carnival festivities in Ferrara. He does not know what will become of him a month from now, or two, or three. Marco, who comes to see him from time to time, thinks he cannot live longer without her. “Love me, and, by God, love me. And because I may be far from your sight do not expel me from your heart” (T I, 121). It would be impressive if such a great love lasted until they could walk hand in hand in the Elysian Fields picking pale violets (D 29). Unfortunately that is not what happened. After a few weeks’ separation Bembo wrote: Who could have believed, provided that he had known the love which you once showed that you bore me, that you could have been such a long time without writing me a single line? I certainly could not, if I had not experienced it now ... But it is not, nevertheless, much to be marvelled at, because no worldly happiness is stable and firm. I have written to you twice, and would have done more if I had had convenient porters. I long to know how happy you are ... If you want to know my whole life I will set it down briefly: Here, I am alone and, as love invites me, Now rhymes and verses, now grasses and flowers I gather, talking to them, and of better times Continually thinking; and this alone helps me. I care not of the world, neither of fortune, Nor much of myself, nor of anything lowly, Neither feeling inside, nor outside, great warmth. I already had two wounds in my heart, now I see One’s fair tender dart made into ashes; The other wound, as I can, I am mending myself.

He then adds that these three little sisters, that is, the three stanzas, are still unrevised, so she must keep them to herself (T I, 123). In February 1501 he had gone to the family villa near Padua (T I, 125), probably to seek solace in nature, and it was while he was there that a letter from Maria arrived, as he noted in Latin on her letter: You may know how I live, indeed as I lived already, I say with sweet memory of you always, recalling our extraordinary equality all the time with Donata. The pain in my heart, already tired and weary, grows greater since I have written more times to you and you have never deigned to reply one single time ... Moise58 has written to you … I do not know how the letters have gone, which distresses me. But ... as you will learn from Mr Carlo, I will be in a nearer part where we will be able to

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communicate more easily by letters and messengers. I am pleased that the wounds are being treated ... A thousand thanks for the three sisters ... everything you have written pleases me except, “I already had two wounds in my heart.” “I had such a wound to the heart that is not healed by magic art or the juice of new herbs.” I greatly commend myself to you. (D 65)

Maria’s irritation that she had received only one letter from him had turned to anger as she considered his poem with its reference to M.G. and its suggestion that he was curing his passion for her. She continued to write, however, asking him to do her favours. In one letter (D 66) she asked him to order a good, large mirror for her from Moise. She also sent him four ducats, three for her mother and one for Menega who was to do something for her. Her mother should not allow herself to want before Maria can make better provision for her and for her daughters who were with her. Bembo should ask her aunt to have the lotion made for her hair which her daughter-in-law had taught her. “Tell my ladies that after Sunday I will come to Venice and, no joking, I will be able to do this easily. I am more yours than ever.” She did not go to Venice but wrote to Bembo again: I owe you so much so that the only thing that I have left to offer you is my life, which I offer you freely, as a gift, and, as you want it, short or long, so I will make it for you, because I do not know anything else ... which is as much as you deserve ... After these festivities are over we will be in Venice, where you will happily hear of the honours which have now been done us and which are certainly of a sort, so much and such, as I would never have believed, so that, if the absence of your sweet company did not crucify me, in every other respect I would be happy. Of the pommade I had need and I really believe that I will use up the rest in time. Tell my mother that she should not worry because, if she knew the pleasure that I have here, she would suffer every disaster ... Mr Carlo will tell you ... what to do with your life which, if you will follow his advice, you will be happy ... Be happy if you love me because I love you perfectly, nor is it possible that it will ever be otherwise ... I expect you shortly, no fail, by all the love you bear me, because Mr Carlo will give you the way for everything ... Commend me to Moise. (D 67)

Bembo replied in a long letter, bitter in the realization that she wanted to stay on in Ferrara, but happy that she was enjoying herself. “About the honours that you have received, I am as glad as you are, nor can anything be dearer, nor will it ever be, than every honour that you receive, every satisfaction of yours, every happiness of yours. And I do not wish that my distance should lessen your happiness. On the contrary, I pray you that you enjoy yourself so much more because of me, realizing that I am glad because of your joy, many times more than for any other particular happi-

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ness that could ever come to me.” Still, he feels that he cannot live long away from her. He has not had an hour of rest since she left. He will certainly come with Carlo, or shortly after him. “Love me, love me, love me and a thousand times love me” (T I, 126). Bernardino, who had obviously accompanied Maria to Ferrara, wrote Bembo asking him to send the little lute and the smaller one and all the portraits. Maria added a note saying that she was expecting him and telling him that he will not be seen by anyone except members of the household (D 68), again a mysterious comment. Why should Pietro Bembo have to hide in Ferrara while his brother, Carlo, could come and go freely? Could it be that Pietro did not want his father to hear of his pursuit of Maria? Bembo came and went and was immediately followed by a letter from Maria asking him to perform some errands and to “tell the ladies to threaten Julia on my behalf so that she gets her hair under control” (D 69). Julia may be one of her daughters, who could be twelve or thirteen now and who may, like other teenagers, have independent ideas about how she wanted to look. Bembo also wrote immediately: All those things which you feared, I found false when I returned Thursday morning and went to your house before going to mine: the letters in your mother’s hand and the remainder both in the desk and in the room, secure and taken care of, so you do not have to be anxious any more. But I am the one who is in a bad way. I do not know if you now get as much anxiety from that as from those things which are much less important. Every thought which either M Bernardino or M Ercole could have formed about my having come there has been dispelled by such an early return. I did not find M Tristano because he had left for Friuli. (T I, 128)

He does not know when he will be able to return to Ferrara to see her. He lives with grief and tears. In a following letter he wrote that he had sent Bembino because he had been pining for her and he loved the dog more for that (T I, 124). Strangely, a letter Maria wrote to her mother was found among the letters addressed to Bembo. This gives a slightly different picture of Maria’s feelings and circumstances: My dearest lady, know that we are all well and certainly I want to see all of you, but for these days it is not possible, and after St George’s59 we will come absolutely immediately if we have tidied up our affairs, because you know how we are entangled, and much more than you know, and, therefore, I am amazed that you make so much haste for our return. I was so tormented in Venice that certainly if I stayed a little more you would not have had a daughter any more ... Resign yourself and look after yourself as best you can until our return. And you, lady aunt, look after

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my mother and the little girl and the puppies and Zamberlano. Do not do like us, because we have lost Bembino. And also give Donata’s mother good company, and above all the little girl, Faustina, and see to it that she is well mannered and respectful. Now that you have a woman servant send her to school with Iachomina and, since you say that they do not have blouses and aprons, Miser [Tristano] when he returns from Friuli will bring them clothes. Give to Mr Bernardino all the things which are in the monastery and all the rest that he asks for, as appears in the handwritten note which I gave him, item by item, because Mr Piero knows my writing well. I am taking these things to do me honour this St George’s because all the ladies have been invited to my house ... Do not trust anyone in talking about the miseries of the house, because I still suffer a lot, even where I am, and I am calm, and you be too. Tell Lucia to behave well because when I come, according to the way she has behaved, I will reward her ... I cannot send you anything, though if I could, God knows that I would do it. Remember that no one should go into my room, for the reason that I told you on my departure and, if Mr Bernardino should want to sleep [there], do not allow it for any reason and, in my study, you, My Lady, look in the benches, and, what you find that appears suspect to you, hide it, and do not fail. Your Maria. (D 70)

It would appear that Maria’s mother was now living with Maria’s daughters in the house Bernardino had rented and Bernardino was returning from Ferrara. Another letter sent to Bembo by Moise, the goldsmith, was also found with Maria’s letters, possibly because she had written a note in the middle of it saying that she was expecting him. The semi-literate Moise begged Bembo to help his wife in a dispute with a new neighbour in Mestre. Then he told him that poor Bembino was lost. He had, with effort, carried him in his arms from the boat to the house and is very sorry about what has happened, as is the lady, because she loves his master. Moise has gone to Ferrara to make a medal of the duke.60 He asks Bembo to tell him what letters he wants on his medal and he will make it at the same time as the duke’s.61 He has also received many commissions from gentlemen in Ferrara (D 71). Bembo went to Ferrara again, possibly after the middle of April because, in his letter to Maria on his return to Venice (T I, 129), he wonders what St George wants to make of him – St George’s day is celebrated in Ferrara on 24 April. He rails against fortune, which has set them so far apart, then describes the stormy journey home: “Yesterday evening night caught us far from the inn, with such fierce weather holding us some hours almost without being able to see where we should go so that I would have wished to be in any other place than in that ship.” He concludes with eight lines of verse which she should memorise and whisper to their friend. The theme is that hard-won triumphs are dearer.

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Bembo had sent this letter to her by way of Marco. The next day he sent her another letter, through Carlo, in which he complained that he had seen her only twice in three months and, it would appear, never privately. He awaits her letter every hour (T I, 130). She replied with a brief note asking him to send her two ounces of gold like that which he had already sent her. She will send a longer letter with her maidservant, who is coming with Ercole Strozzi’s ladies (D 72). In a further letter she again says that she will send him lots of news with one person, or another, who will be going to Venice. Her mother, who is apparently visiting, asks to be remembered. She would have sent him the canopy62 if she did not need it until she gave a dinner to certain ladies (D 73). Again she said in this letter that she was coming back soon. Another letter makes the same excuses for not writing and says that she will be back soon and tell him all the news (D 74). Bembo finally lost faith in her promises. He believed that she kept telling him that she was about to come back to Venice to keep him from moving near her, presumably to Strozzi’s villa at Ostellato, where he went the following year, with unexpected consequences (T I, 139). Her brief notes have left him miserable. He wished that he had never met her. Donata, who knew her better than he did, had said at the beginning of their affair, “And how long will it last?” implying not long. He will not write often because he does not want to bother her (T I, 131). He did, however, return to Ferrara in the summer. Maria sent him a note asking him to compose two barzelette [short lyrics in eight verses] for her to sing, two in case she did not like one of them. She concludes, “I am ill because of you and my own illness. Today I will come to see you” (D 75). She wrote him another letter at the end of September, four days before St Michael’s [Michaelmas, 29 September], summoning him to Ferrara and giving him various errands to do. She would be grateful if he would find out from her godmother where she got that water, presumably, considering Maria’s preoccupation with her image, something like eau de cologne made from orange flowers or rose petals, rather than some beverage. He should also visit her mother and aunt and ask them to order four or five pounds of very fine white powder for her63 (D 76). He visited her again, for the last time: When you have a spirit to give me, pure and simple and constant like that which up to this moment you have had from me, perhaps I will return to be yours, just as I leave you now ... I do not know, yet, if death could be more bitter than this separation is now, and the divorce of those hearts which I believed were bound by an indissoluble chain – and they were for me if not for you. But, because it is better to die once than a thousand times, I have, as a lesser evil, chosen that it be so, come what may. The conversation with P. and orders given this night, of which I overheard enough, much different and distant from the words spoken to me yesterday,

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demonstrate to me how little hope I must have ever to be able to receive from you what you have had from me ... Do not believe that I am moved by jealousy of your honours, because I hold them dearer than you yourself do. But I am moved because I see that you are less high-minded than I thought because you so openly feign so pure a spirit ... For many years I have been looking for what I twice thought that I had found: a sure and faithful heart. But I will not search any longer, and I will believe that all women are made in one way. My holy faith did not deserve ... that yours towards me should have turned out like that of the other lady, whom you were wont to rail at ... Of this live secure, that you are never again going to find a feeling for you like mine. And that is it. Of the obligations that your courtesy has placed in my heart ... have no regrets, because I can never be a bad debtor to you. And, if I can do anything for you now, or if I will ever be able to, at any time, spend me securely for what I am worth, because I will always be loyal ... I pray the gods that they bring to you, a thousand times doubled, that sweetness which you are now removing from my life. It will always be most sweet to me, above all other sweet things, hearing that heaven advances your every desire. Be well. I leave in two hours. (T I, 132)

She wrote him a final letter, asking him to intervene in a friend’s legal case and sent him a sonnet, which she had written, on the end of the relationship, “Now that the flame is extinguished and the knot loosened,” asking him to revise it, adding that she would still like to speak to him (D 77). Maria Savorgnan was an extraordinary woman, independent in spirit, if not financially independent, who knew what she wanted and went after it single-mindedly. She tackled the Venetian Senate, which intimidated most people. She fancied a young writer, invited him around and calculated what was needed to enslave him utterly. She had the intelligence, talent, culture, passion, and beauty to manipulate a relationship so that it scaled the heights of rapture and descended into the hell of despair. It was she who, for the most part, arranged their assignations, sometimes bizarrely. Then, when she had to go to Ferrara, she soon discovered how to shine in its sparkling social life, something she had been partially deprived of during the clandestine affair with Bembo in Venice. Her romantic lover now became a convenience, nothing more, ready and willing to help her to maintain a brilliant image. She had undoubtedly loved Bembo, intensely, possessively, and capriciously, but life moved on and she had to make the best of her new situation. It is not known if she married again, or if she retained any feelings for Bembo. He kept her letters to the end of his life. There are only two further mentions of Maria in Bembo’s letters. In his letters to his brother, Carlo, of 1502–03 (T I, 145, 152), he sends her greetings and asks her to remember, sometimes, to love him a little, although at this time he was already in love with Lucrezia Borgia. There is one final snapshot of Maria Savorgnan in the Diaries of Udine for 1511. There, at a

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time of civil strife and partisan atrocities in the city, she invited both parties to her house to dance and sing to celebrate a reconciliation. One of the singers was her daughter, Lucina, to whom Luigi da Porto dedicated Giuletta e Romeo. The next day there was a massacre.64 The truly extraordinary feature of the Bembo-Savorgnan affair is the absolute discretion of servants and friends. There may have been some neighbourhood gossip about Bembo in disguise, but no one who knew what was happening ever talked. Bernardino never found out what was going on, despite the number of people involved, including even Moise, the goldsmith. Donata, Marco, Francesco, Camillo, Menega, the neighbour, never said a word. Today, when breach of trust is almost the rule, Venetian loyalty is truly impressive. Since Bembo prepared his letters for publication it is legitimate to consider them as literary works, as part of his literary legacy as well as autobiographical fragments. A modern critic has called them “Applied Petrarchism ... Petrarchism playing an actual role in Renaissance private life.” Petrarchism gave “voice to the mutual passion of a man and a woman … doing so without any overt sign from them that this is something strange or incongruous.”65 In short, these letters expressed Petrarchan sentiments and used Petrarchan imagery and phraseology quite naturally. The letters were not studied imitations. There was nothing artificial or contrived about them. So popular were Petrarch’s love lyrics that his images and turns of phrase were imprinted on the minds of the literate of 1500, 125 years after his death, just as people in the nineteenth century often used scraps of the King James translation of the Bible or Shakespearean tags in their writings or conversation. Maria knew some of Petrarch’s poems by heart and wrote in his style herself, Lucrezia Borgia used one of his images in a letter to Bembo and to Bembo himself, who had copied out the whole of the Canzoniere and was working with Aldus on his edition of Petrarch’s Italian Things, Petrarchan expressions regularly sprang to mind, especially because he found fourteenth-century Tuscan the most beautiful of Italian dialects. Petrarch had established a wonderfully musical idiom of love which was popular for two centuries. But while Bembo used Petrarch’s vocabulary, his feelings were his own. They went beyond Petrarch’s. His were not pretty laments over love for another man’s wife, the mother of eleven children, but a passionate desire for a woman he had enjoyed in a tantalizing, frustrating, clandestine relationship. Boccaccio, whom Bembo took as his prose model, and whose prose rhythms are at times echoed in Bembo’s letters, described in the Filocolo, Filostrato, Fiammetta, and Corbaccio the miseries and sufferings of love. In one of his letters (T, I, 78) Bembo calls Maria his Fiammetta after she complains that he cares nothing for her and, in another letter (T I, 58), he says that he has been reading about love affairs like ours. Where is he

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likely to have found them – this is only half a century after the invention of printing, only thirty years after it came to Venice – except in Boccaccio’s works? But writing about the agonies of love is universal and is common in the literature of all periods. Bembo needed no models. The expressions of established authors were just the currency he spent to describe his own feelings and to create his own works. After the unhappy meeting in Ferrara Bembo returned to Venice where, to please his family, he continued his fruitless, unenthusiastic quest for an official Venetian appointment.66 Finally he begged his brother not to put his name forward again (T I, 127). He thanked Carlo and his relatives for their efforts on his behalf and the senators, those who had voted for him, thinking they were doing him good, and those who did not vote for him, who actually did him good. Now this should cease. He will look at the political storms from afar, quoting Horace.67 For others the mitres and crowns. He loves the countryside and the rivers watering the valleys, now quoting Vergil Georgics, II, 485. Bembo continued to work on Gli Asolani and, in May 1502, went to Rome again, with two friends. The family’s modest circumstances but high social standing are revealed by a letter which Bernardo Bembo wrote to the Marquess of Mantua at this time, asking him if he could lend Pietro two horses, so that he could make an honourable impression in Rome. The marquess had a famous stable. Gonzaga replied that he could not oblige him because an epidemic had killed most of his horses.68 Pietro somehow managed to go anyway. It is not known why Bembo went to Rome in May 1502 or how long he stayed. His father, who was podestà in Verona in 1502–03, was sent by the Senate to Vigevano to welcome Louis XII in June 1502. Bernardo formed part of the king’s retinue on his entrance into Milan after his recapture of Genoa. Perhaps Pietro joined him there. A work by Trissino, I Ritratti, is set in Milan at this time. The introduction tells about Trissino’s visit to the famous Greek scholar, Demetrio Chalcondyles, where he found Bembo. They spent the best part of the day in a most pleasant conversation with the saintly old man. Leaving, in the Piazza del Vescovado they met Vincentio Macro whom Bembo knew well. Macro told Bembo about a very beautiful woman he had just seen. This led to a discussion of who was the most beautiful woman in Italy and to Trissino’s Ritratti [Portraits].69 Bembo apparently had a reputation as a connoisseur of female beauty and correctly guessed the identity of Macro’s beauty. As to the date, Trissino may have chosen it arbitrarily. On the other hand, Pietro may have been there with his father after his visit to Rome. It appears that he then visited his friend, Ercole Strozzi, in the Ferrara area in July.70 Bembo’s letters from Venice resume only in October 1502.

3 Pietro and Lucrezia

In the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan there is a small collection of letters which Byron called “the prettiest love letters in the world.” With them is a lock of blond hair in a kind of gold and crystal monstrance. The hair is Lucrezia Borgia’s. The letters are addressed “to my distinguished and dearest Misser Pietro Bembo.”1 In early 1502 Lucrezia Borgia had arrived in north Italy, having been married by proxy in Rome, to Alfonso d’Este, heir to the duchy of Ferrara. Her progress from Rome to Ferrara through the wintry Appennines had been more than regal. Riding on horseback or carried in a sedan chair in which there was a place for Elisabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, who was to meet her at Gubbio and escort her to her husband, Lucrezia was accompanied by her own ladies and retainers, 180 in all, and by a guard of 200 horsemen provided by her brother Cesare Borgia, along with buffoons and musicians to keep her amused, ecclesiastical and Roman nobility with their retinues, the Duke of Ferrara’s grand wedding escort of 510 horse, and a long train of mules and specially constructed wagons carrying her baggage. The entire cavalcade comprised more than 1000 persons in all.2 The charge on the countryside through which they passed is unimaginable. When after three weeks’ travel Lucrezia’s procession had reached Bentivoglio north of Bologna, the ladies were able to travel by boat, in sullen winter weather, via a network of canals to the Po, where they were met by the Duke of Ferrara’s daughter Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, who had herself arrived by boat. The ladies then proceeded downstream to Torre della Fossa where they were met by the duke, Ercole d’Este, ambassadors and courtiers, and a guard of seventy-five mounted crossbowmen in Alfonso’s colours. Lucrezia was escorted to the ducal bucintoro, modelled on the Venetian state barge, which took her to the outskirts of the city, where she spent the night. The next day, 2 February 1502, she made her formal entrance into Ferrara, splendidly attired, riding beneath a canopy

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Lucrezia Borgia as St Catherine, Pinturicchio, Borgia apartments, Vatican. Lucrezia was fourteen, the time of her first marriage, when Pinturicchio painted this fresco. She arrived in Ferrara at twenty-two.

carried by doctors of the university, to the sound of eighty trumpeters and twenty-four flutes and trombones, accompanied by ambassadors and nobles, and escorted by the crossbowmen in her husband’s colours of red and white.3 This was carnival and there were great festivities to celebrate the wedding, cavalcades, jousts, tournaments, illuminations, concerts, balls, and theatrical performances.4 At one of these, on 8 February, the last day of carnival, Plautus’ Casina was presented at court with Lucrezia’s young husband, a versatile expert on artillery, one of six musicians playing the violin during intermission.5 Ludovico Ariosto, one of the Ferrarese court, celebrated the wedding in a Latin epithalamium.6 Though ugly rumours circulated about Lucrezia’s colourful past,7 Lucrezia herself charmed everyone with her beauty, culture, linguistic abil-

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ity, regally exquisite manners, dancing, singing, and playing the harp and zither.8 Now twenty-two years of age, she was described by a Ferrarese chronicler as having “a beautiful countenance, sparkling and animated eyes, a slender figure; she is intelligent, joyous and human, and possesses good reasoning powers. She pleased the people so greatly that they are perfectly satisfied with her, and they look to Her Majesty for protection and good government.” A visitor from Parma said that she was “of medium height and slender figure. Her face is long, the nose well-defined and beautiful; her hair is bright gold, and her eyes blue; her mouth is somewhat large, the teeth dazzlingly white; her neck white and slender, but at the same time well-rounded. She is always cheerful and good-humoured.”9 Lucrezia settled into a routine in Ferrara. She rose late, spent a long time dressing and doing her hair, especially when she washed it – that gold must have required some maintenance! – went to mass at midday and, whatever the weather, snow, rain or fog, for a drive in a carriage in the afternoon, exploring the countryside, visiting churches and convents. In the evening there were dinner parties, dances, games, and reading. She read often, in Spanish and Italian.10 After his early unsuccessful attempts to gain appointments in the service of the Republic, as his rank required, Bembo in October 1502 decided to accept the offer of his friend, Ercole Strozzi, of the family villa at Ostellato, about thirty kilometers southeast of Ferrara, a quiet retreat where he could continue his studies and work on Gli Asolani. Bembo arrived at the villa by boat on 14 October. His servants, in Cola’s charge, followed in another boat with his books.11 Bembo had already been a guest of Strozzi that summer and had discovered that he could work seriously at Ostellato.12 The villa had been built on a piece of land in the lagoons of Comacchio in the middle of the fifteenth century by the first duke of Ferrara, Borso I d’Este, as a hunting lodge. Ercole I d’Este, the second and current duke, had given it to Tito Strozzi, one of his leading magistrates, distinguished Latin poet and father of Bembo’s friend Ercole Strozzi. The wealthy Strozzi had embellished the villa in Renaissance taste at great expense.13 In a letter of 31 October 1502 to his Venetian friends Vincenzo Quirini and Angelo Gabriele, Bembo wrote that the house was magnificent and sumptuous and very well maintained, and that the servants were wonderfully zealous, exceedingly devoted and attentive. “If I were a prince I could not be better treated. It is convenient, and everything is as cheap as in town.”14 The waters swarm with fish and waterfowl, but he prefers looking at them to participating in their slaughter and spends the mornings reading and writing. Friends15 insist that he needs exercise, so he goes hunting with them in the afternoon, but while they pursue fox-cubs or leverets, he steals away to think. When they return to the villa he spends three hours at his lamp before dinner. His companions do not discuss serious scientific or legal

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A country villa in the Veneto. Crescentio, 1496.

problems but joke – a contrast to Venetian earnestness. “While I was writing this a servant came to me from the library telling me that the mice had gnawed off the buckles and indexes of Aristotle’s books on zoology.” They had not touched the others. Had he defamed mice, and are they taking revenge? “Joking aside, since I am infested with mice, I would like you to send me one of your Egyptian cats,16 provided the women in your household are not so attached to them that they cannot spare one. But I do not demand anything if they are unwilling ... I know what pleasure they are, even to men” (T I, 141). Ercole Strozzi was too busy in Ferrara to be able to go out to his villa to welcome his guest. He invited Bembo to lunch in town. Bembo answered on 20 October that he wanted to have nothing to do with townspeople; he wanted to stay in the country (T I, 140). Ercole Strozzi (1471-1508), a member of the grandest, richest, most powerful, and hated family in Ferrara was, like his father, a magistrate, a member of the ducal court, and a Latin poet.17 He had been a member of the escort sent to Rome to accompany Lucrezia to Ferrara18 and quickly became her confidant.19 Crippled

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from birth, he walked with a crutch, and had compensated for his physical disability by studying women’s wishes and desires and making himself indispensable to them. He now enjoyed the freedom of Lucrezia’s court, with her husband’s approval. He told her of the luxuries of Venice. She asked him to go shopping there for her, for silks of every colour, taffetas, brocades, and velvets.20 He must also have told her of another Venetian luxury item closer at hand, an aristocratic poet writing a book about love, who was staying at his villa outside Ferrara. He invited Bembo to Ferrara and introduced him to Lucrezia. They obviously got to know one another quickly. By 16 November, back at Ostellato, Bembo wrote to Strozzi familiarly of “Lucrezia” (T I, 142),21 not the Duchess of Ferrara, a courtesy title granted to her since she was married to the heir to the duchy and the duke was a widower. Bembo had every gift to attract a woman like Lucrezia. He was young, good looking, above medium height and slim, well-spoken, gentle and jovial, elegant and lively, of patrician lineage in the great Republic, and a man of wide-ranging culture with a growing reputation as a poet and humanist.22 However debauched the Vatican may have been, it was also a cosmopolitan cultural centre frequented by scholars, artists, architects, and sculptors, all drawn to the honeypot in the hope of patronage. This is the environment in which Lucrezia had grown up.23 And now she was duchess of Ferrara whose court was one of the most brilliant and refined in Renaissance Italy. Bembo was the sort of person she needed in her entourage. Therefore, on her afternoon drive on 15 November 1502, Lucrezia, dressed in the black of mourning,24 which must have set off her golden hair to the greatest advantage, made a flying visit to Ostellato. Bembo was bowled over. He describes this visit to Strozzi in letters of 16 and 17 November. In the first letter (T I, 142), written as it was getting light, when the litter-bearers taking other guests to a Strozzi party in Ferrara were pressing to leave, he regrets that Lucrezia did not stay. “I would have offered her every delight. For who would not to such a beautiful woman, so elegant, so completely lacking in superstition?25 ... And, since she was going to leave, I gave her the verses which I had recited to you ... “ The second letter (T I, 143) gives a more exact account of this episode: “The verses which I wrote that I gave to Lucrezia, because she was going to see you, were torn because she snatched them from my hand, when I did not want to part with them, because I was not pleased with them yet ... Now I am sending them to you with a couple of changes ... You give them to the lady herself, or, if you prefer, through an intermediary ... Joke! ... Greet her warmly from me ... Let the ladies take anything that is useful to them from my house [a reference to the Venetian shopping expedition in which Strozzi is to participate on behalf of Lucrezia]: nothing could please me more.” Bembo worries about Strozzi’s precipitate and inconvenient voyage, about

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the weather and the sea, and asks him to write him about his dinner parties. He will write about what he does, what he writes, what he thinks. Bembo’s scholarly retreat is obviously becoming less appealing. The bright, exciting life of the court at Ferrara beckons. In the short, cold winter days the lagoon at Comacchio was dark and desolate; Bembo wrote a Latin epigram on Lucrezia’s gold serpent bracelet.26 In January 1503 Bembo attended a spectacular New Year’s ball in honour of Lucrezia Borgia at the Strozzi palace.27 At about that time he and Strozzi received an invitation from Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua and Lucrezia’s sister-in-law, who had heard of Lucrezia’s success with the two poets, Bembo and Strozzi. A great collector of cultural trophies, she invited them to visit her court in Mantua. They wrote a joint reply from Ferrara on 6 January 1503: Her invitation had made them very happy, but also very sad since they were unable to accept it at this time. They ask her to believe that they are both her most devoted servants (T I, 146). Isabella did not succeed in drawing Bembo into her circle for another two-and-ahalf years.28 When she went to Ferrara in the spring of 1503 to see the mystery plays Bembo was not there.29 He had returned to Ostellato to continue his studies, while Strozzi kept him up to date on events in Ferrara and sent news of Lucrezia.30 Bembo was already at Ostellato by 9 January 1503 when he wrote to a friend in Ferrara that he had a really atrocious cold and could hardly write. He cannot bear the bad weather and muddy roads, so do not expect him. He is not putting a foot out of the house until he is better. Enjoy the dinner party and write him about it. Please send the Greek book which accompanies this letter to Nicola Leoniceno [Bembo’s old professor at the University of Ferrara] (T I, 146). In the spring of 1503, during the fortnight when her sister-in-law Isabella d’Este was in Ferrara for the mystery plays, Lucrezia tried to impress her by the brilliance of her court. She had several musicians in her employ, including Jacopo di San Secondo, the celebrated viola player, who is said to have been the model for Apollo in Raphael’s Vatican Parnassus. She dressed him in black satin. He was assisted by four lute players dressed in gold brocade her brother Cesare Borgia had sent. Lucrezia also had a band of singers headed by Tromboncino. On this occasion she spent so much on dances and concerts that she had to pawn some of her jewellery and asked her father, the pope, to give her the income of the archbishopric of Ferrara for a year to clear her debts!31 Bembo missed all this. Then, on 23 April 1503, “very late in the evening, when I was going down into the hall, I was given a letter from you about Lucrezia ... May the gods curse those who deliver letters so negligently. To think that I failed to receive such a beautiful letter for so long. For I do not want you to think that I did not notice that the letter was addressed in

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Lucrezia’s hand ... Were you jealous? You certainly wanted ... to prevent me from enjoying such great joy ... I myself suffer from the jealousy I accuse you of ... Finally, all those things which I so praised to you begin to seem worthless and unwelcome, the leisure, the country, the villa, even my writing and the Muses ... I am not pleased that I am not there ... May I die if I would not prefer that to Homeric learning ... even to Aristotle. I would joke more if those to whom I was going to give this letter were not calling me, who are now, I hear, on horseback” (T 150).32 Sometime that spring, perhaps in May, Bembo wrote to his brother Carlo in Venice asking him to send Gli Asolani immediately. He told Carlo that he had sent the manuscript to his friend Trifone Gabriele at Campo San Pietro for criticism. He asked Carlo to send a messenger for it, to wrap it in heavy paper and a waxed cloth, and give it to Messer Piero Corboli, telling him that this is important writing, and address it to Messer Ercole. Messer Piero must send it safely with the first courier. He also reminds Carlo of the strings he had requested. They must be good ones. And he sends greetings to various Venetian friends and to the refugee duke of Urbino, the duchess, and Madonna Emilia (T I, 145).33 The letter had opened with a casual reference to Maria Savorgnan: “About Madonna Maria I say nothing more because I know you will have seen her. Remember me to her and write me if she has gone to Friuli or if she will go there.” Then there is a reference to some legal problem she has with Rome, where she should triumph. On 3 June 1503 Bembo wrote to Carlo from Ferrara telling him that he had received the strings the day before yesterday and the first two books of Gli Asolani yesterday. He asks Carlo to send the third one also (T I, 152). Carlo had apparently sent some news of Maria and Bembo responded with an affection perhaps reawakened by the stirring of his love for Lucrezia, “I commend myself very much to Madonna Maria and tell her that she should at times remember to love me a little.” Sometime before June 1503 Bembo had seen a Spanish poem, Yo pienso si me muriesse, “I think if I should die,” which Lucrezia had copied from the fifteenth-century Aragonese poet, Lope de Estuñiga.34 Did she show it to him when he visited Ferrara, or send it to him via Ercole Strozzi? In a letter of 3 June 1503 Bembo sends her a Tuscan song based on it, a pair of sonnets, and the first book of Gli Asolani: To Madonna Lucrezia Borgia Duchess of Ferrara Two sonnets born these days of my thoughts are ashamed to come before Your Ladyship as though countrified, because of the place where they were born, and badly dressed; but I have given them heart, assuring them that they need wear nothing else in your presence but fidelity, which they say they have in plenty. Therefore they come to Your Ladyship reassured and bring with them a little song just born

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today and an answer to your “I think if I should die.” But neverthless it humbles itself before it and knows clearly that the charming sweetnesses of the Spanish imagination have no place in the grave purity of the Tuscan tongue and, if brought there, appear neither true nor natural, but artificial and foreign. May it please Your Ladyship not to allow these verses to leave your hands nor, similarly, anything else which I send you newly composed in the future because it rarely happens that I allow the first form of my rhymes to survive and time discovers and reveals many blemishes which love and the heat of birth hold covered and hidden from another person. If I receive this grace from Your Ladyship I will send her other things more securely from day to day ... I have nothing else to say to you except that this leisure, this shade, this solitary life, this sequestration which in the past has always been so sweet and dear to me now appear to me less beautiful, nor does this please me as it was wont to do. What sign this may be or of what trouble the start, I would like Your Ladyship to search in her books to know if they are the same as mine. To whose good graces I recommend myself as many times as there are leaves in this garden which I am looking at, leaning by a cool and charming little window, as I write to you ... I am sending Your Ladyship the first of Gli Asolani which I have just had back this very hour. (T I, 151)

In June 1503 Lucrezia’s husband was away studying the fortifications of other Italian cities.35 Lucrezia wrote to Bembo in Spanish:36

Trusting in your skill which I appreciated these past days when considering certain designs for medallions, and having decided to have one made according to that most subtle and most apt suggestion you gave me, I thought I would send it to you with this letter, and lest it be mixed with some other element that could detract from its value I thought also to ask you herewith kindly to take the trouble for love of me to think what text should be put upon it; and for both the one matter and the other I shall remain as obliged to you as you deserve and the work must be esteemed. I await your reply with great anticipation. Prepared for your command37 Lucretia de Borgia

Bembo dated this letter 8 June 1503. Bembo replied immediately. After thanking her for her great courtesy, and promising to show her one day that he does not have a small and narrow spirit matching his fortune, he wrote, “As to the fire in the gold, which Your Ladyship has sent me to make you some motto above it ... I cannot think of giving it a better place than in the spirit. Therefore you can inscribe it thus, EST ANIMUM [It consumes the spirit].38 I did not want to detain your messenger longer so that I might have more ideas” (Travi I, 153).

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Bembo went to Ferrara, then back to Ostellato, from where he wrote to his brother, Carlo, on 18 June 1503 (T I, 154), complaining that the strings which he had sent for the viola were not good. He heard them tested by Jacopo da San Secondo in the duchess’s presence. He goes on to praise the duchess: “Every day I find her a still worthier lady, seeing that she has far excelled all my expectations, great though they were after hearing reports of her from so many lips, and most of all from Messer Ercole.” He asks Carlo to greet the duke and duchess of Urbino, still in exile in Venice because of Cesare Borgia’s occupation of their state. On 19 June Bembo sent Lucrezia a sonnet telling how love had restricted his courage to ask for mercy or reveal his suffering. Would that he had a crystalline heart in which his lady could look and see his internal misery. Below the sonnet he wrote: Gazing these days into my crystal, which we discussed the last evening when I paid my respects to Your Ladyship, I read in the centre of it these verses which shone through to me ... It would be very sweet to me and dearer than any treasure if Your Ladyship would allow me, in return, to see anything that she had read in hers. However I am not sure that I ought to hope that you would do that, considering that the day before yesterday you were again silent about those things which you had proposed that we should discuss. I kiss your hand. (T I, 155)39

Lucrezia replied on 24 June, “My Messer Pietro, about the desire you have to hear from me the matching of your or our crystal, because so it deserves to be considered and called, I would never know what else can be said of it or found except an extreme conformity, perhaps never at any time equalled. And this is enough and let it remain as a perpetual gospel.” Braden in his article, ‘Applied Petrarchism,’ argues convincingly that the reference to one’s crystal is derived from Petrarch. One’s crystal is a pure and transparent heart in which the truth shines forth.40 Lucrezia concludes her letter, “This henceforth will be my name: FF.”41 What FF stood for has been much discussed and never satisfactorily deciphered. Was it the Latin, firmitas fidelis, “faithful steadfastness,” or its Italian equivalent, ferma fideltà? It has been noted that it was the mark that popes made on documents indicating that action be taken, fiat, “let it be done,” or “ok.” This is something with which Lucrezia would be familiar, since at twenty-one she had stood in for her father the pope at the Vatican, but this seems meaningless as a name. Curiously, on the reverse of one of her medals is a blindfold Cupid tied to a laurel with the inscription fphff,42 also undeciphered. Bembo did not immediately use her cipher. In his undated reply to “Madonna Lucrezia Borgia Duchess of Ferrara,” Bembo wrote:

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Now my crystal is dearer than all the pearls of the Indian seas and certainly you have acted mercifully to give it that parity which you have given it and that company. God knows that no human thing could be so dear to me as this certainty ... Since I wrote to Your Ladyship I have written three sonnets about a most gracious dream I had one of these past nights which, because they are still rough, I am reserving to send you another day ... Since Messer Ercole has left for Venice I will come to greet you. I kiss your hand and recommend my crystal to you. (T I, 156)

The sonnets he mentions tell of a dream sent from heaven in which his lady appeared to him and soothed his troubled spirit. Then the first light drove it away and opened his eyes and his suffering heart.43 Things did not work out as Bembo had planned: To Madonna Lucrezia Borgia Duchess of Ferrara I would have come today to salute Your Ladyship ... if it had not been that one night recently I woke up with a painful neck so that I cannot move it now except with my whole body and still so badly that it causes me no little trouble. I think it may have been hurt through twisting ... but it appears that it is beginning to get better ... When that happens I will come straightaway to Your Ladyship, which I guess will be within two days. And if it is slower to depart I will come anyway, because I do not want an injury to the heart, which is always much more serious, added to that to my neck ... Here it is exceeedingly hot, nor, for my part, have I ever felt it hotter, because I feel myself completely burning and on fire. I do not know if you feel it so much. I would think not, by no means, because you have more shade there than I have here; also women naturally feel the heat less than men usually do … On the 29th of June 1503. In Ostellato (T I, 157)

Lucrezia immediately sent him a get-well note in Spanish.44 By early July Bembo was established in the Strozzi palace in Ferrara, taking Strozzi’s place at Lucrezia’s court while he visited Venice. Bembo wrote to Strozzi from Ferrara on 6 July 1503 reminding him to bring to Ostellato, on his return, an expert on terraces to repair the balcony of the tower which is doing a lot of damage to his room. He goes on: The Duchess and all those ladies miss you and, in fact, I was told yesterday that they did not see how they could get along without you. Cynthia insists that I remember her to you and Madonna Polisenna wants me to send you a letter which she is writing. If I get it I will send it with this ... Be well and come home in good form and soon, and bring a small format Dante for Messer Antonio Tebaldeo. Your father fell from a ladder the day before yesterday but suffered more shock than hurt ... In fact he took a great risk. Now he is more vigorous than I am. He has recently revised this epigram which I am sending you. (T I, 159)

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The Strozzi palace, piazza Ariostea, Ferrara.

Tito Strozzi’s Latin epigram, which is included in the letter, was obviously sent to show off Bembo’s growing ascendancy over Lucrezia. It begins: When the gentle poet was reciting his verse And translating it into her mother tongue, Alas, Borgia sighed, I am distressed Because my capacities fall so far short of your art. How I wish I had learnt to speak and write Latin So that, an educated woman, I could appreciate this wit.

The poem concludes with a compliment to Lucrezia who herself, with her divine voice, surpasses all the sweet harmonies of Apollo and the Muses and Pallas. Tito Strozzi also wrote a Latin epigram to Bembo about Lucretia, playing on the root of “light,” luc, in the beginning of her name and the other Latin word, retia, “snares,” in the ending.45 A week later, on 14 July, 1503, Bembo wrote to FF: It delights me that every day you think, with brilliant invention, of some way to increase my passion, as you have done today with that band around your radiant forehead. If you do this because you feel somewhat warm yourself and wish to see the other person on fire I do not deny that for every one of your sparks I have many

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Etnas in my breast ... May Love make a just war against you if you are another person in your face from what you are in your heart. (T I, 160)

On 18 July he sent FF another letter: Not that I may say in what great, sweet bitterness this departure has enveloped me am I writing to you, O light of my life, but to pray you to hold yourself dear and care for your health, which seems somewhat under threat. Take care of it, so that my life does not perish. The verse, which you had partly carved around it, is now wholly engraved in my heart, which has no place for anything else but for the thought of you ... Alas, because I am nevertheless leaving. I kiss that sweetest hand which has slain me. (T I, 161)

Then on 24 July he wrote from Ostellato to “Madonna Lucrezia Borgia Duchess of Ferrara”: At this very moment I have, with reverence, received your letter, truly the sweetest, like everything which comes from you, and full of that honey which is gathered only in the flowers of your words, and nowhere else. I thank you for the news which you give of your recovery from the two attacks of the tertian fever, of which I had heard nothing. And that was better for me, because, if I had chanced to hear of it, I would have suffered from an unremitting fever ... I thank you also for your dear offers and I know that I do not have words sufficient to pay this debt of gratitude. (T I, 162)

In two manuscripts46 this letter concludes with the following: As for my Asolani, I am envious of them; they will never ever have hoped that such bliss could be theirs ... Messer Ludovico [Ariosto] writes me that there is no longer need for them to be published to gain glory because they cannot gain more than they have now. And he speaks the truth. I will therefore make an effort to think of something else that may come to you, as this has, so that my writings at least will have the bliss that I cannot have.

That summer Bembo was in and out of Ferrara. If the dates on the letters are correct he wrote from Ostellato on 31July (T I, 163), from Ferrara on 1 August, saying that he was about to return to Ostellato after sending his brother in Venice a little pot of good and fine horse fat Taddea47 had asked for (T I, 164), then from Ostellato on 3 August (T I, 165). Now there was plague in Ferrara. Bembo returned and fell ill, though of what he does not say. On 12 August he wrote to Lucrezia, as Duchess of Ferrara, at a loss for words to thank her for visiting him yesterday, sitting by his little cot and staying a long time to comfort him. Like a celestial being sent from

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heaven to cure him her visit has driven away a most serious illness. Just the sight of her and her touch, then her dear and sweet words, full of love and of joy and of the most vital comfort restored his previous health. He thinks he will be able to get up tomorrow. In the meantime he kisses her hand, sweeter than any ever kissed by man (T I, 166). Bembo returned to Ostellato to convalesce and Lucrezia moved with her ladies, singers, and musicians to the nearby Este villa at Medelana.48 Whatever joy they had was to be brief. On 18 August 1503 Lucrezia’s father, Pope Alexander VI, died in Rome and her brother, Cesare Borgia, fell gravely ill. According to gossip, they had drunk from a poisoned goblet intended for their guest.49 When the news reached Medelana Lucrezia was shattered. Bembo wrote to her from Ostellato on 22 August: I came to Your Ladyship yesterday, partly to let her know how upset and grieved I was over her misfortunes, and partly to comfort her over them as best I could and to beg her to calm herself since I understood you were suffering excessively. But I was not able to do either the one thing or the other. For as soon as I saw you in the dark, in those black robes, sad and tearful, my every sense was paralysed and I stood a good while without knowing what to say. And I, needing comfort myself rather than being able to give it to another person, my soul distraught at the pitiful sight, between speechlessness and stuttering left, as you saw, or could have seen. (T I, 167)

He goes on to say, at considerable length, that knowing his devotion she must realize his grief and will understand how his wits deserted him when his soul was penetrated by a dart drenched in her tears. Then he finds the courage to offer advice which shows that he knew of her past, of what people said, and of the precariousness of her position now that her family had fallen from power: As to consolation and comfort, I do not know what else to say to you except to remind you that time softens and lessens each of our sorrows ... If you have indeed lost that very great father of yours ... this is not, nevertheless, the first blow which you have received from your hostile and malign fortune. On the contrary, your soul must now have become hardened to the blows of adverse fortune, you have suffered so many and such heavy ones in the past. Also, because of the current situation,50 you must not allow anyone to believe that it is not so much what has happened which grieves you as your own present lot. But perhaps I am not very prudent in writing these things to you. Therefore I will conclude humbly, recommending myself to you. Be well. (T I, 167)

On 28 August 1503 Bembo wrote to Strozzi from Ostellato that he was returning the elegy he had written for Lucrezia with the revisions made that

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Tebaldeo had suggested. He asks him to show it to Tesira. He has no more ideas. If Strozzi does not like the new version he should revise it himself or burn it. Anyway, he would like to hear what Strozzi thinks51 (T I, 168). Bembo stayed at Ostellato until late October, Lucrezia at Medelana until late December.52 Lucrezia and Bembo saw one another in the country. On 5 October 1503 he wrote to FF from Ostellato, apparently after a scene in which she had accused him of not loving her as much as she loved him: I am writing to you now … to make you sure of two things. The first is that I would not have wanted to have gained a treasure rather than to have heard what I learnt from you yesterday, which you could easily have let me hear earlier, as was due to our affinity. The second: that as long as I live the fire in which FF and my destiny have placed me will always be the loftiest and brightest that is felt in our time in the heart of a lover ... I will never think of another woman both because none can be of such excellence and because, yielding to my third passion, if I should lose my life because of it, I would have made a good investment of myself because all third occurrences of things, because they are most risky, usually give a good yield.53 Neither chance, nor fortune, nor place, nor time, nor the whole world, nor you yourself will be able to displace my resolution. I will be able to write you many things which I did not know how to say to you yesterday when you could see that “the fire of love binds one’s tongue and ravishes the wits.”54 But if you do not know how to recognise me from my life or read me in my eyes and face, what must I think that you would make of something on paper? If there will be little happiness for me, perhaps heaven has willed this, that I may be an example of much faith and rare spirit. Now suspect what is false as much as you please, and believe the truth as little as you can because, whether you wish it or not, you will know one day that you made a bad judgment this time ... Make a good fire of all my other letters I beg you. Please keep this one only as a testimonial. (T I, 172)

Bembo seems to be slipping back into the neuroticism of the Maria drama. On 18 October 1503 he again wrote to FF: It is eight days, today, since I left FF and it seems to me that I have been away from her for eight years, although I would be able to swear that not one hour has passed in this time without my remembering her. This has become so familiar and characteristic of my thought that it is henceforth food and nourishment of my soul ... May the god who has willed this grant me, in return, as great a part of her as is necessary to cause the gospel of conformity to be founded on true prophecy. I often keep remembering ... some words spoken to me, some on the balcony, with the moon as witness, and some at that window which I will always be happy to see, and also all the many dear activities and costumes in which I have seen my gentle lady, which all swirl around in my heart with marvellous sweetness, and fire in me a desire to pray her to test the quality of my love. For as long as I am not completely certain

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that she knows what power she has over me and what passion her great excellence has fired in my heart I will never be content. True love is a great flame and it is strongest when two equal wills in two lofty souls compete as to who loves more, and each one seeks to give a livelier proof of it. But much greater, sometimes, is the flame of that love which cannot express itself when it wants to ... I have tried to turn into Tuscan your Crio el cielo i el mundo Dios, but I do not find a way of expressing this idea in that language in a way which gives me any satisfaction and especially in the form of a cobla55 and with similar vocabulary. All the same I am sending you a sonnet which I have begun on this subject then twisted into another path56 ... I have heard that you are well; however, of your being indisposed on the day when I took leave of you, I say nothing further. It would be very sweet to me to see two lines from FF’s hand, but I do not dare demand so much ... I kiss your hand with my heart because I cannot with my lips. (T I, 173)

A week later Bembo wrote to FF from the Bembo family villa, Noniano, where he had had to go to attend to something which should have taken only a couple of days. However, when he got there, he found other problems, and his father in a dangerous condition because of a fall. He could not have left him before today. Now that his father is himself again he is leaving for Venice tomorrow. After two days there he will return: To see my dear half without which I am not only not whole, but nothing at all, because she is not half of me but the whole, and always will be. And, to me, this is the sweetest of all human fortunes, nor can I make any dearer gain than to lose myself in this way and lead my life with a single thought, that, somehow, in two hearts the same will may live, and a fire that can last as long as those hearts desire, whatever happens. And this may be done easily, because the eye of a stranger may not discern their thoughts nor human force forbid the path they take, because thoughts come and go unseen. (T I, 174)

However, Bembo did not return to Ostellato to see his dear half at Medelana. Lucrezia’s husband, Alfonso d’Este, had got there first. Perhaps suspicious of what was going on in the country, perhaps because the hunting season was in full swing and his wife and her ladies were occupying his own hunting lodge, Alfonso commandeered Strozzi’s Ostellato for his court. On 2 November 1503 Bembo wrote to the Duchess of Ferrara at Medelana that he had gone to Ferrara without her permission, expecting to leave immediately, but, finding that he could not go to Ostellato, had decided to stay there since he had promised to spend the winter in Ferrara. Now the plague was diminishing and he expected that she would soon be returning. Meantime he would come to Medelana to pay his respects (T I, 175). Lucrezia did not return to Ferrara until late December when Bembo was suddenly summoned to Venice where his brother Carlo was gravely ill.57

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He wrote to Lucrezia on 5 January 1504 that he, too, had had to change into the black of mourning and that the auguries he took before leaving her, like her ladyship’s, had proved too true: Carlo, my only dear brother, the unique supporter and consolation of my life, has gone to heaven with the greater part of my heart, whom I found not only dead when I came here, but already buried, so that the verse of the Bible, which I read by chance as a prophecy of the future on my leaving you, should be truly fulfilled in every respect: “And he has gone to sleep with his fathers and they buried him in the city of David.”58

Carlo had taken Pietro’s place in adversity, making his lot lighter and happier,59 now he has been taken away in the flower of his youth. Bembo is sending to Ferrara for his things and will stay in Venice to comfort his old and grieving father in his bereavement. “Of my return I say nothing, because I do not know what to say about it. I kiss your hand and, where I may be able to do something for you, I pray you as strongly as possible not to disdain to recognize me as your servant, because I will consider myself that much less unhappy by how much you will deign to command me. Be well” (T I, 178). Bembo wrote Carlo’s epitaph in Latin, comparing him to the morning star (Carmina xxix). He also wrote Carlo a sonnet asking him why he had left him alone and transformed his bright and happy life into darkness and suffering. He came first, he should have gone first. Then he would be there with him, spared this distress. He prays the Lord that he may be able to follow him soon (Rime CXLIII). [It is always the bereaved who suffer, not the deceased.] On 13 January 1504 Bembo wrote to Ercole Strozzi, “The fates have left me both my grandmothers, worn-out and incurable women almost one hundred years old; they have taken away my only brother in the flower of his youth, my hope and solace. You may easily guess what grief I suffer for this. You will learn the rest from my people. Alas, my misery” (T I, 179). On 22 January he wrote to Lucrezia: The tears which you write you were driven to, reading my letter about the death of my dear and beloved brother, Messer Carlo, have been the sweetest relief to my grief, if anything could have been sweet at this time. Hearing that you have grieved so affectionately over my heartache has surpassed ... all the other condolences I have received ... in this, my very harsh and bitter misfortune. Therefore I give you the greatest thanks and I feel as much indebtedness to you as a man can who has fallen from his hopes and all the tranquillity of his life and remains most unfortunate and most afflicted. And, as far as I can, with that patience to which you exhort me, I will try to bear the weight of my misfortune ... taking as an example your courage in your adversities. (T I 182)

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Bembo had indeed lost a lot, not only his beloved brother and his irresponsible life as a man of letters and a poet, but also his passionate relationship with Lucrezia. Now he had to face his obligations in Venice. The Ferrara idyll was over, though there were a few more letters exchanged and Bembo saw Lucrezia again in 1505. Meantime, another exceptional man stirred Lucrezia’s heart. Lucrezia was insecure after the death of her father and her brother’s fall from power, as Bembo had realized.60 True, her husband was a military man and the heir to a powerful duchy. He could protect his wife against external enemies, if there were any, but her father-in-law, the old duke, had fêted her father’s death. What if the Este turned against her?61 Lucrezia felt the need for a protector; all her life she had been protected by powerful men. Her brother-in-law, Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, Venetian condottiere, hero of Fornovo, the Venetian victory over Charles VIII in 1495, was in Ferrara in March 1504.62 The old duke, Ercole d’Este, became religious and puritanical as death approached, but he did allow some pleasures at court which Lucrezia and his son-in-law Gonzaga, now the idol of the ladies of Ferrara,63 enjoyed unreservedly. Affection developed between them while Gonzaga’s wife Isabella d’Este looked coldly on. There were displays of mutual admiration and attachment for all to see.64 It appears that Bembo wrote to Lucrezia complaining that she had not written for a long time and telling her of his yearning for two lines from FF. Lucrezia wrote “to my dearest Misser Pietro Bembo” on 29 March 1504: My Misser Pietro, with singular pleasure and solace I have received and read a letter from you in which I understand what you are writing to me. I thank you for it over and over again, although I have, on the other hand, grieved, understanding, through that letter of yours, that you are at present so discontented, and also learning of your desire to receive two lines in the hand of FF. She has not been able, for many good reasons, to satisfy you in your present petition in accordance with the anxiety that she feels to please you and to do what you wish. Nevertheless ... I am content to substitute for her with these few lines in my own hand, persuading myself that they may result in some consolation for your peace of mind. Because of these things I pray you earnestly to excuse her through respect for me and to accept her good will which I certify to you is always most disposed to gratify and serve you as from your experience you will, no doubt, be able to give good testimony. Desirous to gratify you Lucretia Estense de Borgia65

Bembo replied in a letter dated 28 March 1504: There was no need for Your Ladyship to make excuses to me for not having written me often because the fact that you indeed remember that I am your servant, this

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is and always will be enough for me. From your Majordomo I have learnt how you have thought of coming here this Lent and how you are now thinking of coming here this Ascension. I will grieve less about the one if the other takes place in its time. I do not want to pray you for this because such a lofty prayer should not be mine. All the same, if you should deign to come here you would get ... in my opinion, a good bit of entertainment and pleasure. But much greater will that be which I will receive from your visit. I understand from all who come from Ferrara that you are now more beautiful than ever, for which I rejoice with you. I would even pray heaven that your beauty should increase daily, but I believe that that would be impossible. And then, if with what you have you make a manifest conquest of everyone who looks on you a single time, what would it be if it were possible, and did come about, that you were still more beautiful than you are now? I have had many sweet discussions with your Majordomo and have half-recovered from my past distress with his visit. Imagine what it will be when you come here later. (T I, 186)

Another letter of Bembo’s addressed to Lisabetta da Siena, one of Lucrezia’s ladies in waiting, dated Holy Wednesday [3 April], 1504, seems to be a second reply to Lucrezia’s letter: I accept any excuse which you make for me in the name of FF and all those reasons, which you say are many, for her not writing to me in accordance with the desire which she has to please me, reasons which I continually imagined, and had in my imagination, when I prayed you for two lines in her own hand. Despite this, I cannot restrain myself from longing for her letters after being deprived of seeing her and talking to her, two things which were the strongest and sweetest supports of my existence. The third thing still stands – and will always remain, because nothing will ever be able to take it from me except that one thing which is the final end of everything – the thought, I mean, and the memory of her, which spins in my heart every day, every night, every hour, every place, in every situation ... You can imagine what great delight her letters would always be to me, when just the excuse which you give for her silence has been a great consolation to me so that I hope to live some days content with this food ... Recommending myself unendingly to your good grace and to her mercy. (T I, 187)

Two days later, on 5 April 1504, Bembo wrote to Giovanni Strozzi in Duke Ercole’s household answering his request about the pearl market in Venice. The faithful Bembo went out of his way to find the best source of pearls, undoubtedly believing that they were destined for Lucrezia (T I, 188). Once again things did not work out as Bembo had hoped. Lucrezia did not go to Venice and he fell ill and wrote her on 22 May that he could not go to Ferrara with Strozzi to pay his respects (T I, 189).

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There were good reasons Lucrezia did not go to Venice in May 1504. Her husband was absent in France and England, her father-in-law’s health was failing, and her brother Cesare had not only lost the neighbouring duchy of Romagna but was now a prisoner in Spain. Lucrezia was alone and frightened. She turned to Francesco Gonzaga for support and met him in one of the villages by the Po where he promised his protection.66 Now Gonzaga and Lucrezia talked of poetry. In a letter of 10 July 1504 he wrote to her that he was ill because he was deprived of the air of Ferrara, which agrees so well with him, and of her conversation, which is so pleasing to him. He excuses himself for not sending the promised sonnets.67 On 14 July Lucrezia replied. She grieved over his indisposition, and in the circumstances could not have enjoyed the sonnets. In October 1504 Lucrezia’s ladies, especially Polissena Malvezzi, urged Gonzaga to come to Comacchio, that is, the Medelana area, to see Lucrezia. On 7 November Lucrezia urged him to come soon “to enjoy it ... and to recuperate the time in lost pleasures.” She is wholly dedicated to him. On 12 November Lucrezia wrote again, urging him to come because “I have many things to say to you which I cannot write.” In her autograph letters to the Gonzagas Lucrezia is very affectionate toward Francesco, very formal with Isabella.68 Meantime Bembo continued his correspondence. On 25 July 1504 he wrote from Venice: I give infinite thanks to Your Excellency for the greetings which you sent ... how much good your greetings have done me you can guess, because you know how much I am your servant. I have indeed been, for a good time, on the point of coming to do you reverence but I have been frustrated by business, day after day, and have delayed until today when I have learnt that you have gone to Modena. Therefore I have changed my mind; I have decided to go for two months to a small villa of mine in order to complete the things I began for you. In this period, if your ears ring at times, it will be because I will be talking about you, to the shade and to the wild places and to the plants, or I will be writing pages about you that still will be read a century after us. If this is not because of any perfection of theirs, it will be because of the loftiness of your name, which they will bear at their front, and which by itself brings eternity with it.69 (T I, 191)

Bembo wrote again, still from Venice, in a letter dated 1 August 1504: If I have not sent you earlier these discussions70 which I promised to send you in Ferrara last year ... may the death of my brother Messer Carlo excuse me ... His death so stunned me, like those who, touched by lightning, remain unconscious for a long time, that I have not been able to turn my mind to anything else but to this incurable and most penetrating blow ... I have lost the only brother I have born of both my parents, who was now entering into the first flower of his youth and who,

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for his great love for me, making my every wish his, had no greater care than to free me, so that I could give all my time and thought to the literary studies which he knew were dear to me above everything. Beyond this he was of a bright and gentle character and for his many qualities deserved to reach the years of the snowiest old age, or at least to have a normal life span. Because he was born after me he should die after me. You will be able to appreciate how much all these things have continually deepened my wound, from the two blows which injurious fortune inflicted on you in a small space of time. Now, since it is not possible to do anything about it and because, through the passage of time, a vulgar and common medicine ... my pain and tears have given place, in part, to reason and realism, remembering the promise I made to you, and my debt, I am sending these things to you, such as they are, and all the more willingly at this time, because I have heard that you have recently married your gentle Nicola, thinking them a not inappropriate gift on this occasion. Since I cannot be part of your festivities, because of my duties, they may converse with you and with your dear and gifted Madonna Angela Borgia and with the bride ... in my place ... And it will come about that that which other young men have discussed with other ladies, among the pleasures of another marriage you will read at yours, with your damsels and courtiers, as a gift from me, who am yours.

He goes on to praise Lucrezia, who cares more about the beauty of her mind than that of her body, and spends as much time as she can either reading or writing. He hopes that her reading of Gli Asolani, because of the subject matter, will make her even more lovely. This will be a very good reward for his youthful exertions (T I, 192). This letter was printed at the beginning of Aldus’s edition of Gli Asolani of March 1505 as the official dedication to Lucrezia. On 22 September 1504 Bembo had returned to Venice from his villa where he had spent some weeks. He wrote to the Duchess thanking her for sending a poem written by her secretary, Antonio Tebaldeo, which he and his friend, Vincenzo Quirino, had found “truly enchanting and admirable in every way and which we greatly enjoyed.” He continues, “Messer Ercole [Strozzi] has urged me many times, in your name, to publish Gli Asolani.” Bembo has put the finishing touches to it and, as far as he is concerned, it could go tomorrow. However, for reasons which Messer Ercole knows, he will have to hold it back for some days or months. He goes on to complain about fortune, which has taken everything from him that was sweet and dear except his life, which he feels sure she would have taken if it were still sweet and dear, as it once was (T I, 194). Bembo wrote to the Duchess of Ferrara again on 8 October. He was in Verona and had planned to stop in Mantua,71 then Ferrara on the way home, but he had heard that her father-in-law, the duke, was gravely ill, perhaps already dead, and that the Marquis and Marchioness of Mantua had gone to Ferrara at this news. He was therefore postponing his visit to

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Ferrara until carnival. He begged Her Ladyship to press Strozzi to give him the undertaking he had promised for the publication of Gli Asolani. When he gets back to Venice he wants to send it off to seek its fate (T I, 195). Presumably Strozzi’s undertaking was a guarantee that he would pay the cost of publication, for authors were normally expected to subsidize their works and Bembo was clearly in straitened circumstances. Bembo wrote to the Duchess of Ferrara again on 10 November 1504 apologizing for not having written for some time. He had constantly thought of coming to pay his respects, but he had had too many things to do. He cursed the busyness of men. He was still miserable. He hoped that Her Ladyship would deign to remember that he was her slave. The deprivation of her presence was the worst of his woes. His greatest desire was always to hear that she enjoyed every happiness (T I, 197). On 16 December 1504 the Venetian Senate elected an ambassador to go to the duke of Burgundy to offer condolences on the duchess’s death. The nominees included Pietro Bembo, “doctor, nobleman, lawyer.” His friend Vincenzo Quirino was elected.72 Though Bembo had been trying to assume the responsibilities of his rank and was on very familiar terms with the doge, Leonardo Loredano,73 he never managed to inspire confidence in his peers. He was never elected to a political office. Ercole d’Este died in January 1505 and Lucrezia’s husband Alfonso became duke of Ferrara. He immediately showed that he had learned to appreciate his wife’s qualities and announced that they would share the government of the duchy. He also had a connecting corridor built in the castle to link his rooms with hers.74 It would appear that Alfonso, like so many others, had succumbed to Lucrezia’s charms. He may also have wanted to be able to check privately on her activities. One of Lucrezia’s ladies, Polissena Malvezzi, who had written letters to Gonzaga in late 1504 and then been suddenly dismissed – it was said that she knew too much – spread the story that Alfonso had once found his brother, Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, alone with Lucrezia in her room.75 Alfonso also began to get rid of Lucrezia’s Spanish attendants in an economy drive.76 There is an extraordinary letter by Bembo to Lucrezia, under the cloak of Madonna Nicola, her lady-in-waiting whose marriage the previous summer had been the occasion for Bembo’s sending the complete manuscript of Gli Asolani.77 The letter to Madonna Nicola was actually dated 10 February 1503, an obviously impossible date, both because of the intimate relations alluded to, which were certainly not established before the summer of 1503, and because of the reference to his trip to Rome after Easter. Bembo did not visit Rome in 1503 but went with his father’s delegation to Pope Julius II in April 1505, after Easter.78 In his letter of 8 October 1504 (T I, 195), Bembo had told Lucrezia that he was postponing his planned visit to Ferrara until carnival because of the

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The Este castle at Ferrara.

old duke’s imminent demise. He fulfilled his promise. Carnival began early in north Italy, well before Lent. After the duke’s funeral Bembo went to Ferrara in early February 1505, and his reunion with Lucrezia rekindled the passion on both sides. On his return to Venice Bembo wrote to “Madonna Nicola”: In all my life I never remember having received so sweet a letter as that which Your Ladyship gave me on my departure in which you revealed to me that I lived in your grace. Though I had had before now some signs of that, nevertheless this certitude in your own handwriting has given me infinite satisfaction and contentment. Therefore I render you all the thanks for it which I, who have no other good but you, ought to render you for so dear a gift. Replying to it ... if I have been silent with you for a long time it has been for this reason, because my cursed misfortune, which opposes all my greatest desires ... has so willed it, because it has been necessary for me to restrain my passions in my afflicted and burning heart. And although this same misfortune is more contrary now than ever, it does not, however, terrify me, nor will it terrify me into giving up my love for you or always holding you as the only dear lady of my life and serving you with all that pure and warm faith with which an impassioned and changeless lover ... can serve his lady.

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I dearly pray you that you do not change or grow depressed in this love because many things oppose it and are hostile to our desires ... On the contrary, think that the more you are on fire with love the firmer you see your enterprise being, and consider that everyone knows how to love where everything is prosperous and favourable and supportive, but where there are always a thousand hard and difficult things in the way, a thousand separations, a thousand guards, a thousand fences, a thousand walls, here not everyone knows how to love or, if he does, does not want to, or if he wants to, does not persevere. And therefore it is a rarer thing and, because it is rarer, it is still more beautiful in itself and more magnanimous and more praiseworthy, and a greater proof and sign of a great and lofty heart. Despite fortune I love you ... imagining that, if ... nothing will be able to cause you not to love me, that day must yet come in which fortune will conquer for us ... providing that we do not allow her to dominate and conquer us in the meantime. And then it will be dear and sweet to us remembering that we have been steady and constant lovers and it will seem to us that we are only truly happy through such a memory. And then, when you say to me that you do not desire to remain alive for anything else but to serve me, I say to you that from now on, I, too will desire and seek to live only to serve you and that at no time will I protect myself from risking my life or spending it to please you. And since, in any case, one dies, and ten years or twenty, more or less, do not change the fact that one time one leaves this world, it would be sweeter to me today to die serving you and pleasing you than to live a long time, yet deprived of your grace. Therefore, if you know that I am able to do anything which is of pleasure to you, I pray you that, without any sparing of my life, you impose it upon me. Above all, I pray you to have care that no one may be able to know and discover your thoughts that the paths which lead to our loves may not be restricted and impeded even more than they are. And do not wish for a person to confide in ... at least up to the time when I come to you, which in any case will be after Easter, if I am still alive. The bearer of this, who is most faithful to me ... will return to know if you want to give me any orders. You will deign by this means to give me a reply, and give it to him in the utmost secrecy … Still more I pray you for this, that, since we can converse little by word of mouth, that you be content to talk to me at length in letters and to tell me what your life is like and what are your thoughts and in whom you trust and what torments you and what consoles you. And take precautions that you are not seen writing because I know that you are watched a lot. I will come there after Easter, as I told you and will go as far as Rome for a month or so. Now I kiss that sweetest hand of yours ... and, if you give me so much courage, I kiss one of those two prettiest and most sparkling and sweetest eyes of yours which have completely trapped my soul, the first beautiful cause, but not the only one, of my passion.

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Remember sometimes that I think of, admire, honour nothing but you ... I want no other happiness in this life but you, the port and the sweetest resting place of my buffeted ship. The enclosed Agnus Dei, which I wore a time on my heart, you will deign to wear at night sometimes for love of me – if you are not able to wear it in the day – so that that sweet dwelling place of your precious heart, to be able to kiss which one single time for a long hour I would bargain my life, may be at least touched by that circle which a long time touched the dwelling place of mine. Be well. (T I, 148)

Bembo did return to Ferrara after Easter79 and presumably presented Lucrezia with the printed edition of Gli Asolani which was dedicated to her and which Aldus had just published in Venice in March 1505. Then he joined his father and his party at Urbino, where they spent a few enjoyable days. The Venetian delegation to Julius II reached Rome on 28 April, was received with great pomp, and stayed until 24 May. Bembo then returned to Venice independently, spending some days at the court of the duke of Urbino, which had moved to Gubbio. He presumably stopped at Ferrara, as he had promised, before he went on to Mantua to accept Isabella d’Este’s long-standing invitation.80 On 23 September 1505 Bembo wrote to Lucrezia congratulating her on the announcement of the birth of a son (T I, 213). A second letter, of 30 September, thanked her for informing him personally. He had received her letter when he was travelling, returning from the countryside around Treviso “where I spent a few days in courtly entertainment, not to be compared to that offered at Ostellato ... which I often still think about with that part of me with which I can still live there. I kiss your hand reverently, praying you to condescend to kiss for me my dear and tender little lord” (T I, 214). The baby had been born in Reggio, an imperial fief held by the Este. On her way back to Ferrara Lucrezia stopped at Borgoforte on the Po, where she spent 28 and 29 October 1505 with Francesco Gonzaga. Amidst music and dancing they discussed Cesare Borgia’s imprisonment in Spain and together drafted a letter to the Spanish king. Gonzaga persuaded Lucrezia to accompany him to Mantua to visit Isabella.81 One can imagine her reception was not cordial. On 31 October she left in Gonzaga’s state barge, the bucintoro, for Stellata, the star fortress. The next day she left the Po for secondary streams and reached the painted towers of Ferrara’s Belriguardo.82 Ercole Strozzi, who knew everything that was going on, wrote Francesco Gonzaga offering him Ostellato for hunting and fishing83 – and a place to meet Lucrezia? On 29 November Bembo thanked the duchess for her letter informing him of her baby’s death. He is overjoyed that she still remembers him. He feels that nothing in this life is dearer to him. To help to relieve her grief he sends her the horoscope he had had an astrologer

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draw up when little Alessandro was born. It shows how much we are ruled by the stars (T I, 221). Though until her death in 1519 there were occasional letters between Bembo and Lucrezia it would appear that they never saw one another again. Probably Bembo’s old friend, Ercole Strozzi, now panderer between Lucrezia and Francesco, told him what was going on. On 1 January 1507 Lucrezia opened the splendid masked ball at Ferrara with Gonzaga as her partner and publicly showed him affection. They exchanged secret messages through Strozzi.84 On 4 April 1508 Lucrezia gave her husband his long-awaited heir, called Ercole after his paternal grandfather, as the first boy had been called Alessandro after his maternal grandfather, the pope. On 10 April 1508 Duke Alfonso went to France, with which he was allied. On 25 April Strozzi wrote to Gonzaga that Lucrezia loved him terribly, more than he can imagine, more than he loves her, since he does not write often enough. He begs him to come to see her.85 Francesco did not come, but Alfonso returned from France on 13 May. Strozzi was murdered in a street in Ferrara on 6 June. That morning, at the corner of via Savonarola and via Praisolo, Strozzi was found lying in his black magistrate’s robe, his hat on his head, his spurs on his ankles, his crutch by his side, his throat cut from ear to ear and twenty-two stab wounds in his body. There had obviously been some struggle. Locks of hair were scattered on the ground.86 Who was responsible? Strozzi had many enemies. As a member of the administration of the duchy he was much hated for his rapacity.87 On his accession in January 1505 Duke Alfonso announced general administrative reforms and the correction of abuses which had grown up in the previous long reign. The attack on extortion was aimed at Ercole Strozzi, among others.88 Strozzi also had enemies among the relatives of the first husband of his wife, Barbara Torelli, a poet and widow whom he had married in September 1507,89 and whose dowry he was trying to recuperate. The chain of the dead husband’s relatives led back to Lucrezia’s first husband, Giovanni Sforza. It is said that Barbara thought that they were responsible. Two days after Ercole’s murder, when Duke Alfonso did not order an investigation,90 Barbara and Ercole’s two brothers went to Mantua to ask Francesco Gonzaga to help them avenge the murder.91 That he did nothing is hardly surprising considering his involvement with Strozzi and the possible repercussions of any revelations. Barbara Torelli wrote a sonnet on her husband’s death which was recited at his funeral and still appears in Italian anthologies; some say that Ercole’s friend, Ariosto, who composed a Latin epitaph, also wrote the sonnet.92 Bembo too wrote Strozzi a Latin epitaph (Carmina xxx). Popular suspicion of the murder fell on Duke Alfonso. The pope made that accusation, as did the gossipy prelate Paolo Giovio.93 A sidelight on

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the Este attitude towards murder comes in a remark that Lucrezia made to an emissary the Gonzaga sent to express suspicion that the Este were involved in a murder attempt on an unpopular official in Mantua. Lucrezia said that if they had planned it they would not have chosen a gentleman to bungle it but a cutthroat who was sure to succeed.94 Contract murders were accepted as a fact of life, not crimes to be indignantly repudiated. Lucrezia had grown up in the Vatican. After Ercole Strozzi’s murder Lucrezia used his brother Lorenzo to correspond with Gonzaga. That he was willing suggests that he did not fear Alfonso, although men were obviously willing to risk their lives, or so they said, to please Lucrezia. On 21 August 1508 Lorenzo tried to arrange a rendez-vous for Lucrezia in Reggio. Gonzaga’s secretary wrote that he was ill and unable to come to visit the duchess.95 Had Gonzaga taken fright, or was he just trying to mend strained relations between the two courts?96 Lucrezia continued to charm everyone she met. In 1512, at the time of the battle of Ravenna, the Chevalier Bayard, “l’homme sans peur et sans reproche,” met Lucrezia and praised her to the skies.97 So did the great Venetian publisher, Aldus Manutius, when he dedicated the poetry of Tito and Ercole Strozzi to her. He lauded her for her love of God, benevolence to the poor, kindness towards her relatives, and for her ability as regent of Ferrara when her husband was away at the wars.98 She became one of the executors of Aldus’s will.99 Paolo Giovio extolled her for giving up the pomps and vanities of her childhood and dedicating herself to good works, founding convents and hospitals.100 She joined the third order of St Francis. A book of guidance to the contemplative life, based on sermons she listened to twice a day, was prepared for her by her confessor, Fra Antonio di Meli of Cremona. He dedicated it, on 4 October 1513, to the “Most Illustrious and Most Devout Lady Lucrezia Borgia d’Este, Duchess of Ferrara” and it was published in Brescia in 1527 as a guide to others through the pilgrimage of life.101 Numerous poets praised her, including Ariosto, who devoted several stanzas to her in Orlando.102 Lucrezia gave Alfonso five more children before dying of puerperal fever at the age of thirty-nine. She was buried in the convent of the Sisters of Corpus Christi in Ferrara where she had often gone on retreat. Her tomb, along with that of her husband, Alfonso I, and of her grandson, Alfonso II, is in the nuns’ choir in the church of Corpus Domini. It remains to say something about Lucrezia. From the evidence of her independent life as duchess of Ferrara it is clear that she was not the wicked woman of legend, the cruel seductress and poisoner who, like a black widow spider, destroyed her mates. She was unfaithful to Alfonso, at least in the early years of their marriage, but he was the third husband forced upon her as a pawn to papal ambitions, and he had objected to the marriage. Alfonso d’Este, the scion of an illustrious north Italian family, son of

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Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara, presents her son, Ercole, to St Maurelio. Engraving on silver by Giovanni Antonio da Foligno, 1512. The engraving was originally fixed to St Maurelio’s tomb in St George’s, Ferrara. It is now in the church treasury.

the famous duke Ercole d’Este and of a royal princess of the house of Aragon, did not want to marry a papal bastard with such a compromised reputation.103 Nevertheless, when forced into the marriage for political reasons, Alfonso did his marital and dynastic duties, as the pope was happy to hear, though he took his pleasure elsewhere.104 In these bleak circumstances it is not surprising that, shortly after this loveless marriage, Lucrezia looked for the excitement and comfort of love to the sensitive scholar poet Pietro Bembo, then to the valiant soldier Francesco Gonzaga, even though adultery was risky in the house of Este.105 She seduced Bembo and enjoyed a romantic idyll with him in the palaces of Ferrara and in the villas of Comacchio. When Bembo had to leave her for Venice, in a time of uncertainty and insecurity, she turned to her brother-in-law Francesco Gonzaga for her own protection and for help for her brother Cesare. But she did not break off her relationship with Bembo in a hurtful way. When he visited her after more than a year’s absence she was warm and loving. She hurt no one, she always wanted to please and create happiness around her. There is no suggestion that she ever caused Gonzaga any pain, and she managed to maintain equable relations with the violent Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, Alfonso’s brother and reputedly her admirer at one time.106 Lucrezia’s marriage to Alfonso d’Este turned out to be a happy one. She

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gave him eight children. When he had to be away she governed Ferrara competently. The very night she died Duke Alfonso wrote to his nephew, Gonzaga’s son, now marquess, that he was in tears, being deprived “of such a dear and sweet companion. For such her exemplary conduct and the tender love which existed between us made her to me.”107 What more beautiful tribute could Lucrezia receive than these final words from her husband! Lucrezia was beautiful, talented, and fascinating but, after her terrible Roman past, desperately in need of love and protection. She was generous of heart, with a great unformed moral potential. How her character would develop would depend upon circumstances. She could be sinner or saint. In the haven of Ferrara the people found her the latter. They loved her greatly and mourned her loss.

4 Gli Asolani

Gli Asolani [The People of Asolo], which Bembo dedicated to Lucrezia Borgia and delivered to her personally in Ferrara in April 1505, is a dialogue about love. It owes much to the medieval courtly tradition and was printed in the italic script invented for the newly published Bembo-Aldine edition of Petrarch, one of its sources of inspiration.1 Although the setting is Asolo, Queen Caterina Cornaro’s domain in the foothills of the Alps north of Venice, Gli Asolani seems to reflect the court at Ferrara where Bembo himself lived from 1497 to 1499 and where he worked on the book. The first references to Gli Asolani are in letters written from Ferrara in 1497 and 1498.2 How much contact Bembo had with Asolo is not known. From his description of the setting at the beginning of Gli Asolani, he had obviously visited it and it is quite likely that in his twenties, as a presentable young Venetian patrician, he had attended a court wedding there. In a couple of letters he refers to the Queen’s barco, her country villa at Altivole in the plain below Asolo near Treviso.3 Bembo was a relative of the Queen,4 as he mentions in Gli Asolani, book 1, chapter 2, and probably saw her occasionally in Venice as well as in the country, but there is no indication of any real closeness to her in his letters. He did not send condolences to the Cornaro family on her death in 1510, although he felt close enough to her brother, Giorgio, to grieve over his death in 1527 (T II, 793 and 801). It is strange, considering the documentation which has survived from the period, that there is no indication at all of the Queen’s reaction to a book about her own court, in which she was a protagonist. Could she have ignored it because of the dedication to Lucrezia Borgia? And is that why Bembo ignored her death? Whatever the case, there is some visual evidence of Bembo’s connection with her court. Bembo has been plausibly identified with the balding young man behind Queen Caterina and her ladies in Gentile Bellini’s Miracle of the Cross at San

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Lorenzo, painted in Venice in 1500 at the time when he was composing Gli Asolani.5 On the other hand, with his father visdomino, Bembo was very familiar with the brilliant, elegant, high medieval court at Ferrara. There people read Provençal lyrics and French romances and ladies and gentlemen met in gardens to discuss the problems of the Courts of Love: What is more difficult, to run away from love or, loving, to pretend that one is not in love? What is the greater incitement to bravery, honour or the desire to please one’s beloved? Can a lover die for loving too much? Is love a stronger passion than hatred?6 It was in Ferrara that the courtier, Boiardo, had written Orlando inamorato and it was there that Bembo’s young friend, Ludovico Ariosto, was soon going to write his continuation, Orlando furioso. In the setting it is not surprising that Bembo, an aspiring man of letters with a classical education and a love for the lyrics of Petrarch, a young man in love with M.G. who was inaccessible in Venice, should have conceived the idea of writing a dialogue, a popular humanist form,7 about love, the popular subject at court and one close to his heart. It is also not surprising that he should have shunned Latin for the language of the people, the language of the court, the language of women. As he pointed out in a Latin lyric to his Ferrarese friend Ercole Strozzi a Latin poet, it is shameful to build marble villas on distant shores and not know how to speak the language of our mothers and sisters (Carmina, XVII). But what version of that language? It could not be Venetian dialect or Boiardo’s Ferrarese. It had to be a language comprehensible throughout Italy. The best choice seemed to be the language of the great fourteenth-century Tuscans, Petrarch and Boccaccio, who were read everywhere. And so, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Bembo wrote Gli Asolani in what was then a learned tongue nobody spoke, fourteenth-century Petrarchan, with an admixture of Boccaccio and even of Dante.8 However, Bembo could not set his dialogue in the court of Ferrara, with which Venice had just been at war (1482–84). Therefore the Venetian court which he knew at Asolo would be the setting for his dialogue. The interlocutors would all be noble and cultured Venetians. Caterina’s title, Queen of Cyprus, the birthplace of Venus, made her court particularly suitable as the setting for a book about love. Gli Asolani opens with a long latinate justification for writing the book. As a mariner caught in a storm at sea looks to the lodestone to find the north; as a traveller in an unknown country, faced with a crossroads, looks to a native to set him on the right track; so men blown about by the gusts of passion, not knowing which road to choose in the face of conflicting arguments, need guidance in their pilgrimage through mortal life. Therefore Bembo thought that he could perform a meritorious act by communicating the following conversations which had been reported to him. They

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Modern Asolo in the foothills of the Alps.

took place in the garden of the Queen of Cyprus at Asolo on the occasion of the wedding of her favourite lady-in-waiting whom she had nurtured from childhood. These were discussions about the nature of love among three well-educated Venetian gentlemen and three young married ladies, their relatives, with whom they had grown up, whose husbands had had to return to Venice to attend to their duties. Since everyone falls in love, this account may be useful in helping people find their way, and in obviating disaster. After this introduction Bembo describes Asolo and the wedding celebrations of the previous September, a good ploy to suggest immediacy. In fact he worked on the book for seven years, 1497–1504, though it was basically finished by 1503, when he first showed a manuscript copy to Lucrezia Borgia. Every day during the celebrations, comedians, probably clowns or buffoons, then musicians amused the guests after the midday dinner. One day two damsels, having done reverence to the Queen, took the lute in turn and sang two songs, the first about love’s torments, the second about love’s joys. Then the Queen summoned her leading lady-in-waiting and asked her to sing. Taking the viola, a more serious-sounding instrument, the third one sang a song about true love, which is neither of this world nor understood by the people. The Queen then, as was her custom, retired with her ladies for the siesta, to rest before the evening ball. The three young singers were the last in the hall. Before they could leave, one of three young gentlemen who had been walking up and down having a discussion and had stopped

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at a balcony looking out onto the palace garden, said that it was a pity for the young women to shut themselves inside the curtains of their bed when the summer was coming to an end. He urged them to come and rest in the cool of the garden where they could have a pleasant conversation.9 The ladies, who much preferred the shade of the trees and the clever conversation of the young men to royal bedsteads and the chatter of the other women, followed Gismondo’s suggestion and gaily went down the stairs into the garden, a pretty description of which follows (Gli Asolani I, 2–5). (Rémy Belleau used this model in his Bergerie.) When they were seated by the fountain Gismondo suggested that they discuss the three songs and began to praise love. Perottino, normally taciturn and glum, was eventually persuaded by Madonna Berenice, the queen’s leading lady-in-waiting, the oldest and therefore senior lady, to take part in the discussion of the songs, as was Lavinello, who was teased by Lisa. After this attempt at a little natural give and take Bembo makes Perottino,10 almost his namesake, launch into a lengthy diatribe against love, playing upon the two words amore and amaro, “love” and “bitter.” He argues that love is bitter, that all love causes bitterness and that all bitterness proceeds from love. Love is not the son of Venus or of any other god but the product of excessive lasciviousness and slothful idleness, the lowest and vilest progenitors resident in the human soul. Love is swaddled in the most insubstantial hopes and fed on vain and foolish thoughts which flood into his mind as the bloated infant sucks (Gli Asolani I, 9). Madonna Berenice intervenes to challenge Perottino’s statement that all bitterness comes from love. He defends himself with an ingenious argument. All goods and all evils that affect men affect their souls, their fortunes or their bodies, evils such as serious fevers, unaccustomed poverty, villainy and ignorance.11 The reason that the body suffers from an abnormal condition is because it loves its health. If it did not, it would not suffer, any more than wood or a stone. Similarly, in regard to a change of fortune. In the case of spiritual evils, we grieve because we have an innate love of virtue and goodness, which we instinctively long for. Spiritual grief and torment is what Perottino calls bitterness. Therefore bitterness is the product of love (Gli Asolani I, 10). This argument leaves Berenice pensive, so Gismondo intervenes. He will not grant Perottino his argument but before he rebuts it, he wants to hear the other side of his proposition, that it is not possible to love without bitterness. Perottino gladly cites literature whose usual subject is the miseries and destructiveness of love, which regularly describes love as a consuming and destructive fire. Love is cruel, harsh, savage. It breeds suspicions, injuries, enmities, wars, desperation, rebellion, vendettas, chains, blows, deaths. He supports his argument with stories from classical literature and from Dante (Gli Asolani I, 11).

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Then Lisa, who had been lying on her left side propping her head up with her hand and dangling her other arm over the edge of the fountain, sits up and says, “If love is the cause of such great evil, as you and your literature allege, why do writers call it a god, because he who does evil is certainly not a god, and no god can do evil?” Perottino replies with a classical encomium of poetry, the civilizer of mankind, which with its music led men from the trees and the caves. Poets taught through fables, and called love a god because of its power, while revealing the damage its passion could do. But Perottino’s knowledge of the injuriousness of love is not derived from literature only. He has experienced it himself, intense joy and intense misery in the same hour, tears and smiles, burning and shivering. The lover desires both to live and to die, an unnatural emotion. But, as a lover approaches death, the joy that he feels at the prospect of leaving this painful world brings him back to life. Perottino sings a song to this effect, then continues at length, developing the paradox that the heart-broken lover cannot die. He recites another poem reiterating his argument, concluding with the witty conceit that love, with its twisted laws, keeps a man alive with a double death (Gli Asolani I, 12-16). Perottino now returns to Lisa’s question about love as a god and explains love’s iconography. Love is naked because he strips lovers of all that they have, a small child because that is what he reduces men to, he has wings because, with their foolish desires, lovers fly through the air of their hopes (Gli Asolani I, 25 compares the lover to Icarus with his waxed wings), he carries a lighted torch to indicate the brightness and burning of love, and a bow and arrows to show the wounds it can inflict (Gli Asolani I, 17–18). Hereupon Gismondo notes that the shadows are lengthening and evening approaching with its festivities. He suggests that the ladies should return to the palace but now Sabinetta, the youngest, who had been sitting on the grass under the laurels, stands up and tells Gismondo that he was doing Perottino an injury in not letting him finish what he wanted to say. The others agree, so Perottino goes on – for the same number of pages (Gli Asolani I, 19). Perottino returns to his theme, that desire is the root of all evil. His remarks about incest (Gli Asolani I, 21) in a book dedicated to Lucrezia Borgia show that Bembo did not believe the lurid reports about the Borgia household in the Vatican. Perottino, with Bembo’s experience, describes the small things that rouse passion, a single glance, two little words, a brief touch of the hand, then the mad joy, and the neglect of all one’s responsibilities, when a man becomes his own enemy. Now there are miserable sleepless nights, anxieties, tear-stained letters, all that we have read in Bembo’s correspondence with Maria. Perottino describes the miseries of love in a double sestina (Gli Asolani I, 20–24), a complex verse form

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invented by Petrarch and also imitated, at about the same time, by the Neapolitan Sannazaro in his Arcadia.12 Perottino goes on in prose, returning to the same themes: the pleasures of love, love’s tragedies, lovers’ fears of loss, of death. Again he describes falling in love, the agonies of love, his lady’s illness, jealousy, the breakdown of a relationship, parting. He recites two more tearful poems, both sixty-eight verses long, which were to be carved, pastoral fashion, on a beech tree!13 Animals, birds and fish can rest, but the lover has no repose, no respite from his travails. He agonises day and night. He disregards the intellect, God’s gracious gift, to permit man to reach heaven. Because of his love Perottino has broken with his parents and has lost everything. He gets out the handkerchief which his lady has given him and weeps. At the sight his audience bursts into tears and the wet handkerchief is passed around. Then the ladies return to the castle and the two young men walk with Perottino in the countryside, trying to comfort him (Gli Asolani I, 25–36). Book II follows the same pattern as book I with Gismondo declaiming about the joys of love and reciting poems in celebration of them, while Perottino and the ladies interrupt from time to time. Again there is an introduction where Bembo, drawing on Cicero’s introduction to the third book of his Tusculan Disputations,14 contrasts care of the body with carelessness of the soul. We err in preferring the bitter leaves of vice to the sweetest fruits of virtue, though people do not see their choices that way. Swinburne expressed this popular feeling more memorably in Dolores (ll, 67–8) with his lilies and languors of virtue and raptures and roses of vice. Bembo then resumes his story. The three ladies and the three gentlemen meet in the garden the next day and Gismondo, taking up the argument, criticizes Perottino for his immaturity and self-pity. In his discussions of love Gismondo flatly contradicts Perottino, insisting that there is no good in this life without love and that Perottino’s speech has been a confection of plausible lies, which he refutes one by one. If all bitterness comes from love then all sweetness must logically come from hatred, which is obviously absurd. Love is not the cause of bitterness or even of hatred, but fortune, which gives and takes away as it pleases. If your servant at the wedding party takes away your plate, heaped with good things which he put there himself, before you finish eating, would not people think that you were mad if you then blamed the cook who had created all these succulent dishes? Following Perottino’s argument based on similarity of sound one could state that damsels were the cause of all damage (donna-danno). At this point Sabinetta, the youngest and most attractive of the ladies, laughingly suggests other ridiculous plays on similar sounds (Gli Asolani II, 2-4). Gismondo also attacks Perottino’s assertion that all literature is full of unhappy love stories, then praises love in poetry. He goes on. We have all read happy love stories but happy lovers generally do not write, only sad

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ones. The churches are full of ex votos offered by shipwrecked sailors, but most ships arrive safely home – of course those who erected the ex votos also arrived home and were even happier than average because they had been saved. However, the ex votos do record disasters. Gismondo then recalls Aristophanes’s allegory in Plato’s Symposium.15 People were once joined together in androgenous balls, but jealous Jove, fearing their power, split them in two. Since then they have been seeking their other halves to be whole again. Single people are incomplete. Men and women have complementary functions in life but need one another for fulfillment (Gli Asolani II, 5-11). There follows an excursion into ancient psychology, a late addition to Gli Asolani.16 Our minds have two parts, the rational faculty and the perturbations [emotions] which can shoot us off track, though all men seek what they think is their good and joy in possessing it. Our emotions are four: desire, happiness, anxiety, and grief, two good and two bad in their origins. However desire and happiness can have good or bad objects and anxiety can be protective or damaging. Now Gismondo engages in a complex analysis of human emotions. He finally reaches love, which is associated with the rational part of the mind, not the perturbations, and which, since it is natural, is good, reasonable, and temperate, as all natural things are. When love is not temperate it is not reasonable or good and therefore is not love (Gli Asolani II, 13). True love leads to society and civilization (II, 20). At this point Berenice asks why, if love is the cause of everything, it is not the cause of evil, as Perottino has said. Gismondo replies with the standard argument about free will. We can choose to direct our actions to good or bad ends, as we can use a knife to cut our meat or to murder. Evil is caused by unnatural desires to which our free will gives free rein (Gli Asolani II, 21). Gismondo then turns to the sweetness of love, the beloved’s beauty, shocking the ladies by an apparent reference to Sabinetta’s high, round breasts clearly outlined by her soft summer dress. He expatiates on the joy of seeing the beloved strolling in the countryside, by the sea, in the garden, dancing, the power of her tears (Gli Asolani II, 22-24). Then he moves from the pleasures of sight to those of hearing the lady speaking, singing, playing a musical instrument (Gli Asolani II, 25), then he discusses thought, which distinguishes man from animals and allows the lover to be with his beloved always, since she remains in his mind (Gli Asolani II, 27). Gismondo illustrates the power of sound, reciting a lengthy canzone, inspired by Petrarch, since he sees that the ladies prefer poetry to argument. The fiction that these 150 verses are going to be carved, pastoral fashion, on a beech tree is maintained (Gli Asolani II, 28). Gismondo then resumes his dissertation about the joys of lovers, love’s inspiration, the power of love. Lovers are like two perfectly tuned lutes or

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harps that sing in unison. Like the sun, love lights our lives. It is everywhere good, on the plain, on the mountain, on land, on sea, in the ports and the anchorages, in good fortune, in hazards. For men and for women, like health, it is always a pleasure, always does good. It beguiles the wandering shepherds in their caves and poor huts, it comforts the pensive minds of high kings in their comfortable palaces and gilded chambers, it soothes the worries of judges, it restores the exhaustion of warriors ... It feeds the young, it sustains the old, it delights them both. It pleases the good, it gives joy to the wise ... It chases away sadness, it relieves melancholy, it removes fears, it composes quarrels, it leads to marriage and children. It teaches speech, it teaches silence, it teaches courtesy (Gli Asolani II, 29–33). Trumpets sound ending this wonderful encomium of love, summoning them to the evening ball which is about to begin. The ladies are anxious to leave, although Gismondo has not finished his harangue. Madonna Berenice, who had a more measured view of love in her song at the beginning of the book, annoys him by stating that, whether he has finished his argument or not, they look forward to hearing Lavinello tomorrow, from whom they hope for a more temperate statement. The ladies then go into the palace and are immediately swept into the dance, while the three gentlemen join the others in attendance (Gli Asolani II, 34). The third book, like the other two, opens with Bembo’s reflections, in this case on the difficulty of discovering truth. What is truth? Can we ever, with our feeble minds, find it, or should we let ourselves drift in the winds of chance, not struggling to get into port or reach the shore, not looking for the lighthouses? Bembo obviously thinks not. We must make an effort, and prospect for the truth, which nature requires us to dig out, like precious metals and gems. Bembo feels that many will blame him for involving women in this discourse – and in fact they did later in the century, in the days of the Counter Reformation17 – but, if we accept that they also have minds, there is no reason why they should not apply them to try to find what one must avoid and what one must do. These two things are the least open questions and happen to be the pivots around which all the sciences revolve,18 the markers and targets of all our work and thought (Gli Asolani III, 1). Now we must hear Lavinello, who has a larger audience than his two predecessors because the Queen had heard of their discussions in the garden and resolved to join them this day with any members of her court who were interested. She descended the steps into the garden and sat under the laurels on the green and flowery grass on two most beautiful cushions her ladies had placed there. Her court gathered around her according to precedence. Lavinello is naturally abashed, but is persuaded to speak and is inspired by the Queen’s presence. In his opening he puts his predecessors’ arguments in a nutshell, that love is always evil and cannot be good or that

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love is always good and cannot be evil. In fact, the love that they were talking about can be both good and evil, as he will show until the truth leaps forth like a fire (Gli Asolani III, 2–4). What they have been calling love is desire, because one cannot love and enjoy one’s beloved without desire nor can one desire anything that one does not love. Love and desire are the same thing and exist in us through nature and through the will. It is natural to love life, to love understanding, to love one’s offspring, to love those beneficial things that nature offers us in profligate abundance. But it is the will which causes us to desire now this, now that, now more, now less among the multiplicity of attractions which impinge on our consciousness. And these desires both diminish and grow, both depart and resume, both suffice and are not enough, depending upon who we are, what is our will, and the capacity we have to give our desires lodging and status in our minds. We were given love of life and procreation so that we could continue our species like the animals. But in addition to that we were given reason, and to give it exercise, free will, so that we could desire or not desire various things, according to what appeared to us to be good. But we make mistakes, so that the love of a person can be good or bad. In that respect both Perottino and Gismondo spoke the truth (Gli Asolani III, 5). Good love is a desire for beauty. And what is beauty? It is nothing other than a grace born of proportions, seemliness, and harmony, occurring both in the soul and in the body. The beauty of the soul enters through the ear, the beauty of the body through the eye, and both are appreciated and sustained by thought (Gli Asolani III, 6). Lavinello leaves his argument there to answer the Queen’s plea for poetry like the ladies had heard on the two previous days (Gli Asolani III, 7). Lavinello does not consider love for an ugly person with a beautiful soul or for a beautiful person with an evil soul, the nature of the magnetism which attracts two people to one another, for good or ill, or the physical and spiritual sides of the union with what is perceived as beauty. To please the Queen Lavinello then recites three metrically identical canzoni dealing with the faculties involved in loving, sight, hearing, and thought.19 The first describes his falling in love in the spring, when he first saw his lady, with her blond hair unconfined, on the green bank of a stream, a Petrarchan not Venetian setting, though there were many streams in the Veneto. Her presence gave the fountain a livelier flow, branches burgeoned, grass flowered beneath her feet, and the winds were stilled at her voice. Here was a (Petrarchan) paradise on earth where a Botticelli-like Venus could arrive. The second canzone describes the lover’s bliss, looking into his lady’s eyes and hearing her voice, in all the four seasons. The third tells of the consolation of love in torments and tribulations. Love will eventually lead the lover to heaven (Gli Asolani III, 8–10).

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Then Lavinello tells the Queen and the courtiers what happened early that morning, when he had gone out for a walk to think about his argument. He took a narrow path which led up the hill to a little wood on top of the mountain. He entered the wood, a medieval romantic motif, drawn by its shade and silence. Following a barely perceptible path, he came upon a clearing where he saw a small hut and nearby, walking among the trees, an old man with a very white beard, wearing a robe the colour of the bark of the oak trees. Lavinello realized that this must be the holy man about whom he had heard, who had retired from the world to study holy scripture and who lived in the woods on roots, berries, and water [the hermit cliché of medieval romance]. He might be able to shed light on their controversy, but Lavinello hesitated to interrupt his meditation. Then the hermit, in his perambulation, turned toward Lavinello, addressed him by name, and kissed him on the forehead. He had been expecting him because of a dream, another commonplace of medieval romance, knew what his thoughts were, and would like to help him20 (Gli Asolani III, 9–13). The hermit had learned in the dream that Lavinello had said that love could be both good and evil. He asks him why. Is it because lovers are at times attracted to things that are bad and wicked? Is not this because they follow their senses more than their reason? Lavinello agrees. A Socratic cross-examination follows, the hermit fulfilling the role of the Greek priestess, Diotima, in Plato’s Symposium. Do lovers not at times desire things which are suitable and salutary? Is that not because they follow reason in loving, rather then their senses? Lavinello agrees. So following reason rather than the senses is good, and following the senses rather than reason is bad? Again Lavinello agrees. Why? Because our reason is what sets us apart from animals, so that following reason is asserting our humanity. However, we can follow our senses like animals if we want to because we have free will. But it would be unjust if free will were given us only to allow us to return to the bestial level. Free will also enables us, using our intellects, to rise to a higher state. We have the heavenly bodies in their courses as constant reminders of the greatness of God. Why, then, like Narcissus, fixed on a reflection, do we, with our vain desires, waste our lives on shadows here below?21 The better part of life is when the mind, freed from slavery to the appetites, rules the body with temperance. Thus old age is good health and youth infirmity (Gli Asolani III, 14–16). No earthly love is ever perfect. We are confused by our senses and never completely satisfied because we have an innate idea of perfection. We can find pure happiness only by turning our minds to God, who created them. Some concept of God may be formed by studying the universe [throughout his life Bembo was fascinated by astronomy, perhaps because of the scientific bias in Venetian education and his studies of Aristotle at the universities of Padua and Ferrara].22 God made the earth round, a perfect sphere,

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revolving on itself, and surrounded it by many heavens of the purest substance transporting the planets, stars and the sun in a circular motion around the earth. Beneath them he placed the elements of fire and air. Then came the heaviest element, earth, surrounded by lighter water.23 Study of the perfection and vastness of the universe, in which the least star of the infinite multitude is greater than our earth, reveals how paltry are the things we are attached to here (Gli Asolani III, 17-19). The desire which gives real happiness is the desire for true beauty, which is not human and mortal but divine and immortal, though earthly beauty can start us on our way, since it is the reflection of the divine. Leaving the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic physical world behind, the hermit now tells Lavinello about the unchanging Platonic world of ideas, divine, intelligent, illuminated, where the grass is never brown, the plants never wither, the animals never die, the sea is never stormy, the air never dark, the fire never scorches and the heavens do not rotate. It is perfect and permanent – and more reminiscent of the new heaven and the new earth of the book of Revelations than of Plato. This world, pregnant with its own felicity, has given birth to the world we see24 (Gli Asolani III, 20). On earth you are enamoured of the dim light of two eyes already full of death and of the voice of a tongue which has just made you weep and which soon will be silenced. How would you feel if you could see the splendour of eternal beauty and hear the harmony of the heavenly choruses? And in the love of God there is no competition, suspicion or jealousy. There is room for all. No battling for space, making rivers run red. The poor, the exiles, the prisoners, he receives with a smile. In short, good love is that which one can enjoy eternally and bad that which condemns us eternally to grief (Gli Asolani III, 21-22). Having said this the holy man dismissed me, since it was time for me to leave. And when he had said this Lavinello concluded his discussion, as did Bembo. It has seemed necessary to give a synopsis of this little-read but much published and very important work.25 It went through some twenty-six editions in the sixteenth century26 and was constantly reprinted over the following centuries. There have been new editions as recently as 1989 and 1991. Henry VII had a copy, now in the British Library, as, did other crowned heads, and men and women of culture throughout Europe. Bembo clearly intended Gli Asolani to be a serious philosophic contribution to the understanding of one of the most important forces in human life, one which exercised him personally and which ultimately touches everyone. It was a work he was proud of. He wanted the women he loved to read it. He gave it three times to Lucrezia Borgia and earlier read sections to Maria at Bernardino’s house in Venice [we can be sure that Maria would have interrupted more, and been more questioning than the ladies

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of Asolo, since she did not hesitate to find fault with Bembo’s poetry].27 In his correspondence with Maria Bembo called himself Perottino (T I, 131) and Perottino’s agonies and Gismondo’s ecstasies reflect his experience with Maria,28 at times spelt out at great length in his letters, which were a kind of subtext to the first two books of Gli Asolani. However much he philosophized, Bembo was never able to pass beyond the “perturbations.” He never found love in his rational faculty. If he had, he would have married a Venetian patrician, as his father had done. Even when he did fall in love with one she was already married and he was a sixty-nine-year-old cardinal, hardly a rational love. If Perottino and Gismondo represent Bembo in relation to Maria – and to her predecessor, M.G., of whom Maria was so jealous – it is possible that Lavinello may reflect something of his idealisation of his relationship with the lovely Lucrezia, who never tormented him but who was fundamentally unobtainable, and could therefore inspire thoughts of higher things. Lucrezia seems to have been genuinely religious, despite her Vatican background. She fostered religion in Ferrara and often went on retreats to the convent of the Poor Clares, where she lies buried. Bembo’s parting gift to her was an Agnus Dei (T I, 148), and in his dedication of Gli Asolani he described her as one who cares much more about the beauties of the mind than about those of the body (T I, 192). The exaltation of his hopeless passion for Lucrezia may have led Bembo to think, temporarily, of the Neoplatonic rapture beyond the physical embrace, which he put in the mouth of Lavinello’s hermit. However his love for Lucrezia was not rational 29 and Bembo wrote to the duchess of Urbino in 1504 [after having finished Gli Asolani and ended his relationship with Lucrezia] that the thought of heavenly things had never concerned him much and now does not concern him at all (T I, 184). Bembo’s theme in Gli Asolani, the nature of love, was a favourite subject of discussion throughout the middle ages, from at least the twelfth century, when it perhaps originated at the courts of Eleanor of Aquitaine and of her daughter, Marie de France. Arabic ideas circulated in the courts of Poitiers and Troyes 30 (this was the time of the Crusades) and it has been suggested that the courtly discussion of the nature of love may have arisen from Islamic mysticism, from some such work as Avicenna’s Treatise on Love.31 Andreas Capellanus, André the chaplain at Marie de France’s court at Troyes, wrote three books about love, which set forth examples of recommended behaviour, with appropriate dialogues, for lovers of various classes in various circumstances.32 Discussions of the conduct of lovers, what choices should be made in the most difficult circumstances which could be imagined, became the staple of medieval courtly conversations. Courts of Love were invented where arguments were advanced and cases judged by presiding noble ladies.33 In a sense, Castiglione’s Courtier is the final, bril-

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liant example of this sort of discussion. It takes place in the court of a lady, the duchess of Urbino, and, though its subject is the qualities of the ideal courtier, it ends with the ideal lover because every courtier, be he young or old, will also be at some stage a lover. After Gli Asolani Bembo, who was a member of the court of Urbino at the time when Castiglione was writing, was the obvious choice to present the case of the ideal lover. Castiglione gave him a speech, which he approved,34 in tune with Lavinello’s discourse. In the second book of Gli Asolani, Gismondo refers to Aristophanes’s comic explanation for love in Plato’s Symposium (190–3). In book three the hermit does not cite Plato to Lavinello but Bembo was obviously inspired by Ficino’s Neoplatonic commentary on Diotima’s speech in the Symposium (202–12) which linked love to the theory of ideas, with love of beauty leading by stages of abstraction to the perception of absolute beauty. This theory had cried out for adaptation to Christianity which in the teachings of Jesus was a religion of love. Aristotle had been known throughout the middle ages and had given structure to Thomist theology. But when Plato’s Greek text was taken to Italy as Byzantium was falling, Plato was recognized as almost a precursor of Christianity. Marsilio Ficino (1433–99),35 who translated Plato and the Neoplatonists into accessible Latin, wrote commentaries on the dialogues, reconciling them with developed Christian theology which went far beyond the teachings of the New Testament. However the Symposium with its discussion of the elevating possibility of love, provided an obvious and easy link with Christianity and the contemplation of and desire for beauty led to a glimpse of the splendour, beauty, and goodness of God. The best English examples of this Renaissance Neoplatonism are Edmund Spenser’s four hymns in honour of love and beauty, of heavenly love and heavenly beauty. It is interesting that Avicenna, in his Treatise on Love, also linked the love of the rational mind for human beauty to the contemplation of absolute beauty.36 In his letters at the time he was working on Gli Asolani Bembo referred frequently to his philosophic studies, to his reading of Aristotle. These were his university studies. There are virtually no references to Plato in any letters of any period. Yet, while he was studying Aristotle in Ferrara, Bembo was writing Gli Asolani with its Platonic and Neoplatonic references. The Platonism came from home. It was something which Bembo had grown up with. His father, Bernardo, had been associated with the Neoplatonic Academy in Florence.37 The poet, Cristoforo Landino had hailed him as a true Platonic lover of beauty,38 and he had received admiring letters from Ficino39 and a copy of Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium, the De Amore, which Bernardo had annotated,40 while Bernardo’s commonplace book, his zibaldone, contained many quotations from Ficino’s writings, suggesting that Ficino’s ideas were discussed in the family.41 One of Pietro’s early teachers, Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli,42 whom

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his father had taken into his household as a young poet from Rimini, had published a canzoniere, a book of Petrarchan lyrics with Neoplatonic colouring, in the 1480’s43 when Pietro was a teenager. His professor of philosophy at Padua, Nicolò Leonico Tomeo, was a Platonist as well as an Aristotelian44 and Bembo’s own familiarity with Ficino’s writings is revealed by marginal references to his Platonic Theology in a handwritten copy of Gli Asolani.45 Ficino’s concept of the ascent to God through love could tie in with the stairway to heaven in Dante’s Paradiso which Bembo was editing while he was writing Gli Asolani.46 There, too, a lady had led the way. It was also consonant with the dolce stil nuovo, “the sweet new style,” of the poets who followed Dante and who envisioned their ladies as angels sent from heaven for their salvation.47 It all fitted together. Gli Asolani was a comprehensive study of the nature of love, bringing the medieval courtly dialogue, of itself worldly, to a philosophic Christian conclusion in a fashionable Neoplatonic climax. With this Bembo created a prestigious work for the sixteenth century, combining the traditional with the contemporary. With his elegant prose he also established a new literary idiom for people to learn, fourteenth-century Tuscan inspired by the writings of Petrarch and Boccaccio. Under Bembo’s influence this was to become the language of Italy. Gli Asolani also inspired other treatises on love48 and contributed to the sixteenth century Europe-wide vogue for Petrarch.

5 Bembo the Courtier

With the publication of Gli Asolani in March 1505 the die was cast. Repeatedly defeated in his reluctant attempts to secure an elected position in the Venetian administration as his birth demanded,1 Bembo had now advertised himself as a man of letters as well as a classical scholar and one who felt himself at home in the courts of Italy. He knew Asolo and Ferrara, had been entertained at perhaps the most refined court of all, in Urbino,2 and had already been introduced into the brilliant papal circle in Rome. Rome, the ancient capital of the greatest empire the world had known, now the Catholic capital of the world, was quickly becoming its intellectual and artistic centre. Bembo called it “the light of the world and the theatre of mankind” (T I, 231, l. 91). It was on this that he set his sights. In April 1505, after visiting Lucrezia in Ferrara to present the newly published Gli Asolani Bembo had met his father in Urbino and had accompanied him to Rome where he had been sent by the Republic to congratulate Julius II on his elevation. Pietro made his way home independently, stopping first in Gubbio, one of the cities of the duchy of Urbino where the duke and duchess were currently holding court. From there, on 3 May 1505, he wrote to Galeotto della Rovere, the new pope’s nephew and his successor as Cardinal of San Pietro in Vincola, congratulating him on the news of further honours, then playing on his name, della Rovere, “of the oak tree.” Now the tender shoot had the whole sky in which to spread its branches. Bembo thanked the young cardinal for his kindness and courtesy during his brief stay in Rome (T I, 205). Bembo was already fulsomely flattering a potential patron. Bembo apparently spent a month in Gubbio as guest of the duke and duchess, then rode on to Ferrara where he spent five days and saw Lucrezia Borgia again.3 He left Ferrara for Mantua on 20 June 1505, taking up Isabella d’Este’s invitation of January 1503 (T I, 146). Letters of recommendation from the duchess, Elisabetta Gonzaga, and the leading lady of

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her court, Madonna Emilia Pia, preceded him. On 10 June 1505 the duchess wrote from Gubbio to her sister-in-law Isabella d’Este, telling her how she had enjoyed the conversation of Bembo, who was a true gentleman, that she had persuaded him to visit her, she asked Isabella to cherish him for his virtues and gifts of mind, and for her sake. Emilia Pia wrote Isabella on 16 June 1505, singing Bembo’s praises, saying that he was a man who would go somewhere in life.4 Bembo left Mantua on 27 June 1505. As soon as he reached Venice, on 1 July, he sent the marchioness ten sonnets, not because they were worthy of her, he wrote, but because he would like her to sing some of his verse, remembering with what sweetness and softness her ladyship sang that happy evening and judging that his verse could have no greater grace than this (T I, 206).5 Later, on 21 July, Bembo wrote again to Cardinal della Rovere, apologizing for not having written earlier, because he had fallen ill as soon as he got home to Venice. He now kisses his hand, congratulates him on becoming vice-chancellor of the Church, and tells him how much he longs for Rome, how he has been imagining the cardinal’s festivities. Bembo prays that the cardinal may often have occasion to celebrate “because, as I am a little leaf of all those which adorn your noble oak, it is not possible that every refreshment which the fortunate water of the Tiber brings to your roots does not restore me also” (T I, 207). The program of flattery of people in power6 continued with a letter to Francesco Gonzaga, Isabella d’Este’s husband and marquess of Mantua, whom he also addresses as his lord. Bembo had been told that Gonzaga, who was in Florence when Bembo visited Mantua, was pleased that he was made a fuss over and honourably received and that he had spoken highly of his father and affectionately of him (T I, 208). Another letter of the same day, 27 August 1505, thanks the marchioness for her greetings and assures her that he has not forgotten his promise to persuade Giovanni Bellini to paint a picture for her study (T I, 209). In a later letter, of 20 November, he tells her that he went to see Bellini that day. He will paint her a picture, but he needs to know the size required, lighting conditions, etc. (T I, 219). Two days after his letters to the Gonzaga, Bembo, utterly depressed at being stuck in Venice, wrote to Bernardo Dovizi, usually called Bernardo Bibbiena after his Tuscan birthplace. Bibbiena, exactly the same age as Bembo, was already established in Rome as secretary to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Leo X. Bembo wished that he could live where he wants to. “I swear to you ... that I can in no way quiet down and conform to our life of public service or business and adopt, as one has to if one lives in this community, the customs of the city and the manners of the people.” He has a long-seated desire for study “and for your courteous and liberal life in Rome, which excites me more daily and drives me to seek it. I would like, either to be able to love this way of life, which can be no less splendid

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and very illustrious for him who willingly embraces it with enthusiasm ... or, loving leisure and that liberty of yours, be able to possess and retain it from this time forwards, and not have to desire it and long for it in vain, as I do, and cannot help doing” (T I, 210). If Bibbiena thought that Bembo had made a good enough impression on the papal vice-chancellor [Galeotto della Rovere] for him to protect him if he came to Rome, he would go there and live with Bibbiena. But the thought that he might not to be able to live in Rome comfortably, with honour and in tranquillity, holds him in this subjected and restricted and, to him, burdensome and tedious life, against his will. “Do not speak of this to anyone except, always, the vice-chancellor, from whom I do not want any part of my mind ever hidden ... I beg you to write to me often, if you want to give any relief to my life, because I have no other pleasure but that which comes from that place. Kiss the vice-chancellor’s hand for me and humbly recommend me to him” (T I, 210). In his desperate attempt to get to Rome Bembo now asked the duchess of Urbino to help him. The duke and duchess owed a debt of gratitude to the Venetian Senate for its support during their exile in 1503 when Cesare Borgia occupied Urbino. A promising and charming Venetian man of letters, the son of a senator, could, therefore, reasonably hope for a favourable reaction by the duchess to a letter asking for patronage. Urbino had close ties with the Vatican, the ultimate prize in Bembo’s eyes, since the childless duke had adopted as his heir his nephew Francesco Maria della Rovere, who was also the nephew of Pope Julius II. Urbino could be a back door to the papal court. As expected the duchess acted on the receipt of Bembo’s letter. She asked her brother, a cardinal, to recommend Bembo to the vice-chancellor and the vice-chancellor [Galeotto della Rovere] apparently told him that he would discuss Bembo with the pope. On hearing this news on 7 October 1505, Bembo wrote della Rovere another fawning letter, praising his lofty spirit and his condescension toward a little person from whom he could expect nothing more than devotion and fidelity. He confesses that his first and most intense desire has always been to be able to live in comfortable, and not dishonourable liberty, so that he can further his literary studies. This will also permit him to demonstrate his devotion to his lordship. If the breath of della Rovere’s favour will allow him to reach his port he will put the government of his life in the cardinal’s hands. If this does not happen – and that will only be because of Bembo’s hard and inexorable destiny – his lordship will, nevertheless, always be in his heart (T I, 216). In November 1505 Bembo again spent some days in the duchy of Urbino, presumably soliciting more support for his Roman enterprise (T I, 219). On 13 December 1505, back in Venice, Bembo wrote to his fellow Venetian, Gabriele Gabrieli, bishop of Fano, congratulating him on becoming

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cardinal of Urbino. Gabriele’s elevation had been announced in the Senate and everyone was delighted. Bembo hopes he will become pope. Father sends his congratulations too, but cannot write because he is now a member of the Council of Ten (T I, 223). Bembo seized every opportunity to remind influential people of his existence and to try to advance his cause. In early January 1506 Bembo received a reply to his letter to Cardinal della Rovere. He quickly answered him calling him his “true and only lord” and thanking him for his letter expressing his love and his favour, the greatest gift he has ever received in his life. He sends him his heart in return, for love links the highest to the lowest in the great chain of being. He regards his relationship with della Rovere, the Oak, like that of Petrarch, whom he would like to resemble in his intellect, with the Column [Cardinal Colonna]. However, Bembo has the advantage, because Petrarch leaned on a piece of marble, which is sterile by its nature and hard, whereas he has placed himself under the shadow of a tree, which though young and soft and delicate, is growing daily and increasing its beautiful and healthgiving shade most abundantly (T I, 224). In February 1506 Bembo was back in the duchy of Urbino, at Castel Durante, modern Urbania, where presumably the court had assembled. From there he again wrote to the marchioness of Mantua in reply to her letter about the Bellini painting. She had asked Bembo to suggest a subject. He told her that that must be left to the artist, who liked to be free to wander on as he likes in his pictures. He goes on to ask for her help with her court painter, Mantegna. His friend, Francesco Cornaro, a relative and almost a brother to him, had made a written contract with Mantegna for some paintings of a specific dimension for 150 ducats and had given him an advance of twenty-five. Now Mantegna refuses to do the work for that price. He wants her to make Mantegna fulfill the agreement, while he and Francesco will keep after the Venetian, Bellini (T I, 225). On the same day, 5 February 1506, Bembo wrote to Bibbiena in Rome about his attempt to get a benefice in Padua since della Rovere had just become bishop there. The duchess of Urbino had written on his behalf, but the bishop of Vicenza got it. He had also tried for another benefice, without result. Madonna Emilia had encouraged him to write to Bibbiena about his problems. He hopes with his help to rise up one day from his lowly position (T I, 226). That Easter Bembo made a further attempt to get patronage. He rode to Mantua to see Isabella d’Este again. Unfortunately she had left the city because of the plague (T I, 234). Then Bembo temporarily gave up and tried another tack. On 3 May 1506, he wrote to the Duchess Elisabetta and Madonna Emilia from Venice. He said that he had not written since his return from Fossombrone, the site of another Montefeltro palace to which he had presumably gone after Castel Durante, following the court, because he had

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The palace of the dukes of Urbino in Pesaro where Bembo frequently stayed.

always been on the brink of leaving for Rome, where he had hoped to stay for two or three years to try his fortune, thanks to the duchess and the vicechancellor, and to lift himself up from this sort of life which could not be more unattractive to him. Some months passed while he hoped, in vain, to receive his father’s consent and support, while his father tried to change his mind and launch him on the path of ambition and honours in the Republic. When he did not succeed, he refused him money to go to Rome, thinking that Pietro could not find the money himself, a considerable sum, especially if he wanted to maintain his social standing. His father said that he did not want to be the procurer of his own misfortune. He also kept trying to persuade Pietro to marry. Pietro then tried to find some means to go to Rome himself. He found a kind and dear friend, as a companion for the Roman enterprise, who was

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so wealthy that they could have stayed at the Roman court as long as they wished and in honourable standing, not anyone’s servants, but free, and their own men, and they could wait for better luck, giving their time to study. It seemed as though his dream were answered ... They had made plans, written to Bibbiena to find rooms for them, and expected to see the Urbino ladies on their planned visit to Rome. However, since the duchess had delayed her trip and the hot weather had come, they decided to spend this summer at the Lord of Pesaro’s Villa Imperiale, which he had offered to Bembo in the past to give him leisure for his studies. They had decided to visit Urbino from Pesaro occasionally, for a day or two, until the time came for them to go to Rome. Then, when they were about to mount their horses, his companion changed his mind, forced, he said, by his family. The ladies can imagine how upset Pietro was, especially since his friends in Rome were expecting him and the vice-chancellor had arranged for them to have a suburban villa [vinea, vigna, “vineyard”]7 to stay in. Pietro realized that if he stayed in Venice two of the greatest misfortunes would befall him, he would be forced to marry against his will and he would have to throw his life away on tiresome things, abandoning his studies, which were his life’s blood ... If he did not believe that he could produce fruit from them which others could keep alive for more than a century ... he could give them up, without too much sadness. But with this belief or hope ... to leave them for less beautiful things, in fact, for things that are vile and low and transient and full of perpetual harassment, is something not to be endured, if he is half a man. Therefore, he must get away from Venetian ambitions and this part of the world and hide himself somewhere where he will have leisure for his studies, whatever happens to the rest of his life. Since he cannot afford to live in Rome honourably and does not want to live there dishonourably – just because he is a poor man he does not have to have a poor spirit – and, since he does not want to go far away from them and his Roman chances, he has thought of asking the duchess to arrange with the abbot of the hermitage of Santa Croce at Fonte Avellana on Mount Catria, which he had visited during his stay in the duchy of Urbino, for him to live there with two servants for some years, if nothing else turns up. He would need only two rooms and food for the three of them. He could furnish the rooms himself and would pay the abbot what was appropriate for their room and board. He asks her to please let him know if this is possible as soon as she can. The best way to communicate with him is by letter to Francesco Arduino in Pesaro. That is how he received Castiglione’s Eclogue, which came to him very quickly. If the arrangement can be made, he will come immediately, to enjoy the dear sweet leisure for his studies, the tranquillity and the delight. Perhaps, when he has been in that solitude for some time, he will not want to leave, but

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The tenth-century hermitage of Santa Croce at Fonte Avellana on Mount Catria where Bembo spent some time with his books in 1506 “among the innocent chestnut trees and the groves of oak and beech” until he was summoned to the court at Urbino.

will spend the rest of his life in that hermitage, among the innocent chestnut trees and the groves of oak and beech ... Petrarch said that the happiest time of his life were those ten years which he spent in solitude on the Sorgue ... Please do not divulge the content of this letter, except that he is going to the abbey for four to six months. He knows how people would sneer if they knew that he would leave Venice to spend more than a very few days in those mountains (T I, 231). – This after his letter of 3 March 1504 in which he had told the duchess that the thoughts of heavenly things never concerned him much and now do not at all (T I, 184). In short, the hermitage was to be an affordable hotel which would allow him to escape his responsibilities in Venice until he could find a more attractive alternative. He was even a bit ashamed of not being able to organize a more prestigious hideaway. Bembo was always concerned about his image as a Venetian patrician while not wanting to fulfill his obligations to the Republic. During this unhappy period of his life Bembo wrote a letter which at least the editor of the posthumous publication of his correspondence was

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ashamed of and suppressed. The letter, to Giangiorgio Trissino, was written in either March 1505 or 1506 and survives in a Vatican manuscript of his letters (RVSb1, 41v-43r) which Bembo had prepared for publication – so he, at least, was not ashamed of it. It is dated 21 March 1505. It was not published by Scotto in 1552 in the official edition of Bembo’s correspondence by his literary executor, Carlo Gualteruzzi. Gualteruzzi, on the other hand, did publish the innocuous letter to Luigi da Porto which introduced the subject of the Trissino letter under the date of 9 March 1506 (Scotto III, bk 4), a letter which did not appear in any versions of his correspondence Bembo had prepared for publication.8 This suggests that Gualteruzzi may have received that letter, along with several others which do not appear in any versions of Bembo’s correspondence prepared for publication,9 from a da Porto source, possibly Luigi’s brother, Bernardino, since Luigi, himself, had died in 1529. This date might therefore be accurate, and not have been tampered with by Bembo. Considering that Gli Asolani was published in March 1505 and that Bembo seemed happy to be going to Ferrara to present it to Lucrezia Borgia in April (on his way to Rome with his father and the Venetian delegation to Julius II), I think that the balance of probability favours the 1506 date of the da Porto letter, although Bembo’s quarrel with Trissino was related to Gli Asolani. 1506 was the year Bembo felt his insignificance after another rejection by the Venetian Senate and a failure to secure a benefice in Padua after his wooing of della Rovere who, Bembo believed, had been given the bishopric of Padua.10 In the letter of 9 March 1506 Bembo wrote to his friend Luigi da Porto in Vicenza sending him a copy of a letter which he had written to Giangiorgio Trissino asking him to persuade Trissino to let him have the gold medal which Messer Anton Nicolò de’ Loschi had reserved for him. His father, Bernardo, who had entered the room while he was writing, joined him in this request. Bembo regrets that da Porto had not come to Venice for carnival (T I, 227). Trissino refused to give up the medal. Thereupon, on 21 March Bembo wrote him an exceedingly abusive letter. Bembo wrote that he did not have such a small and restricted spirit that he had ever refused any one of his possessions to anyone who liked it, even though he may have been attached to it for its beauty or value. Therefore, he cannot understand why Trissino has denied him something which is neither marvellously beautiful nor costly. He regrets that he asked him for it, not because he was deceived about Trissino’s character, but because he thinks that Trissino must be feeling regrets about denying such a slight request when he, Bembo, would never have denied him anything. He had thought that Trissino shared his philosophy, that one can make no more useful gain than giving well and that one cannot assemble a richer treasure than good friends. It is not as if

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the medal were of the finest diamond, rather than of simple and little gold, and it was not signed by Phidias or Praxiteles. If Trissino should want any of Bembo’s antiques – and he has some which are not despicable – just let him know and he will be happy to give them to him. Trissino should know the reason why he wanted the gold medal of Berenice. It is because it looks exactly like a lady who is living now, whom he honours greatly and whom he called Berenice in Gli Asolani.11 Still, he does not want anything from him which causes him hardship ... Valerio says that it is not true that he found the medal for Trissino, who had wanted it for ten years, but Bembo prefers to believe that Valerio wants to deceive him rather than that Trissino has wanted to lie to him. “If I was mistaken in thinking that you had asked Messer Anton Nicolò for the medal for me, and you regret it, I have regretted that I believed that you have a courteous and lofty spirit, because someone of a low and avaricious heart would not have been equal to doing that.” He thanks Trissino very much for his offer of anything else from his collection, but he would not like to test him again (T I, 202). Bembo and his family were great collectors of antiquities,12 which Bembo was later to display in a museum in his house in Padua, but this represents the acquisitive spirit at its worst. There must have been a strong emotional attachment to the medal and probably to the person the medal resembled for Bembo to have written and kept such a shabby letter. This was a time when he felt frustrated at every turn. It seemed that he could not get anything he wanted and Trissino was someone he could lash out at. What Bembo did in April 1506 after his expedition to Lombardy at Easter to pay his respects to the marchioness of Mantua (Travi I, 234)13 is unclear. In a letter written from Venice on 25 May to his friend Luigi da Porto in Vicenza Bembo said that something important had turned up which was occupying all his time so that he could not go to the baths at Abano14 as he would have liked. He could not leave Venice for even an hour (T I, 235). There is another letter written from Venice around this time, 5 June 1506, addressed to Cardinal Carvajal, a cardinal who had been one of the candidates for the papacy on the death of Alexander VI in 1503.15 It praises him to the skies and protests Bembo’s long-lasting devotion, only asking that it be put to the test (T I, 236). Presumably Bembo was angling for Carvajal’s support to acquire some benefice. A little later Bembo went to Rome.16 There is no indication how he managed to do this considering the difficulties he had catalogued in his letter to the duchess of Urbino on 3 May. Exactly when he went is also unclear. In his letter to Lucrezia Borgia dated 6 July 1506 (T I, 237) he says that he has been in Rome for two months and hopes to stay one month more. Obviously either this letter or the previous one to Cardinal Carvajal is misdated. Bembo refers to some sleepless, convivial nights in Rome that summer in a letter of 17 December 1506 to Filippo Beroaldo,

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Jr (T I, 248) but gives no hint as to what he had been trying to accomplish there. By the end of August Bembo was close to penniless and back in Urbino.17 In September he went to the hermitage on Monte Catria (T I, 256), the refuge he had asked the duchess to arrange for him (T I, 231). There he wrote two sonnets (Rime XXII and XLVII) on his withdrawal from the deceptions of the world, whose joys and sorrows he wearily rejects after years of great efforts trying to please his lady. Since heartbreak did not take his life, he is now struggling to heal his wounds over the loss of what he loved more than his life, and collecting his thoughts, left scattered on the banks of the Po, i.e., in Ferrara, to prop them on the left peak of Mount Catria. If Apollo is moved by mortal prayer, this will be his Parnassus and Apollo will crown him with fresh ivy. With its wood, shady and thick, Catria will conceal his tired body until his release from the world. Bembo did feel sorry for himself! There is, however, in the imagery in both these sonnets, a hint that ambition for something other than literary honour has not completely departed. Bembo still thinks in terms of worldly greatness. Catria is regal, a superb and sacred mountain which imperiously divides the whole of Italy, there where the fair Metauro flows [the river of the duchy of Urbino] and valour and courtesy make their stay (Rime XLVII). Soon the valour and courtesy of the condottiere’s court at Urbino summoned him. The pope, on his way to bring his city of Bologna to heel, was to stop at the court of Urbino for a few days on 25 September 1506.18 The duchess invited Bembo. Presumably, with the duke infirm, the duchess wanted to add another attractive young man to her court. She probably also thought that a meeting with the pope might help Bembo fulfil his Roman ambitions. Bembo jumped at the opportunity to take responsibilities in the court and to try to impress the pope (T I, 239). On the duchess’s invitation he stayed on in Urbino and did not return to the hermitage (T I, 245). Something better had turned up in a matter of days. Bembo’s family was not yet resigned to his abnegation of his responsibility as a Venetian patrician and in October 1506 again put his name forward for a diplomatic post, this time as one of two ambassadors being sent to Naples to greet Ferdinand of Aragon, now king of Naples as well as of Spain and Sicily.19 Again Bembo failed to be elected. However, he was now actively pushing for the career that he did want, and in mid-October rode to the papal court, which in its progress toward Bologna had stopped in Forlì, in order to press his case (T I, 240).20 Service of the Church did not require any vocation. The Church was a large, international corporation in constant need of administrators, offering life-time security and an adequate, sometimes lavish, income to those who were able to accumulate offices and farm off pastoral care to poorly paid parish priests.

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In November Bembo went to Padua where his father, now seventy-three, was seriously ill with a carbuncle. Bembo stayed with him for eight days, until he was convalescent, then left again for Urbino “not without tears ... May the gods preserve the best and most lovable of fathers, who is dearer to me than my life.” This letter was addressed to the doctor, Valerio Superchio, an old Venetian friend who had accompanied him to Rome in 1502 (T I, 135) who was now expressing concern both over Pietro’s father’s health and over Pietro’s own abandonment of Venice, which people found incomprehensible. Bembo states that he was convinced that he had made the right decision and that he is happier by the day. Now he has time for his studies and is profiting from them (T I, 241 of 26 November 1506). Superchio replied that he was glad that Bembo was happy with the choice he had made. Bembo wrote back on 5 December that this pleased him, that he missed Superchio and all his Venetian friends. He has sent Superchio’s letters to Rome with the ducal courier, as requested. He comments on people, complains of a bad cold, which he thinks has been brought on by too much reading and writing, and sends his best wishes to Superchio’s family and his very pretty little girls (T I, 242). Now that his family and friends realized that he had definitely left Venice, Bembo found himself having to write letters of self-justification. To his half-brother, Bartolomeo Bembo, he wrote on 10 December 1506: And as to the amazement of all my friends that I am in Urbino I say that I am amazed that they all think that I am mad ... Know that I am here not without reason. If I could be better off elsewhere ... I would be there. Let people say what they want. They are fools who believe that they alone are wise and know another person’s needs better than those who have the needs. If God gives me life and the situation does not change for some months yet, I hope that they will say that I was wise to do what I have undertaken to do. And still, granted that the world might change and the pope might die, I would not think, because of that, that I would be in less good circumstances than I am now. But all the same, keep this to yourself and let each one make his own judgment, because the majority of them do not see farther than their own feet. And do not believe that the company of these ladies is making me forget myself. Be assured that I am not asleep. And enough of this. This week I will go to Castel Durante [the site of a ducal hunting lodge] and I will stay there until some favourable wind blows me elsewhere. I will not be there in vain.

It then becomes apparent what Bembo is aiming at. He is hoping to acquire a benefice, a living, from the knights of St John of Jerusalem, currently still in Rhodes. The knights of St John, the Hospitallers, were all aristocrats, required to have four noble grandparents in Italy and even more noble ancestors in Germany, France, and Spain.21 Though the Venetian Republic discouraged its patricians from joining the Order,22 it would be suitable for

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someone like Bembo, if joining a religious order were the only way that he could acquire a steady and more or less secure income. The Order was very wealthy and had properties all over Europe which had to be administered, rich pickings for those who could pluck them.23 Like all other religious orders it required vows of poverty, chastity and obedience,24 but these vows, in all the religious orders, were very broadly interpreted. Those who had successful ecclesiastical careers were neither poor nor chaste and obedient only in so far as it was in their interests to be so. Bembo therefore asked his brother to see Pietro’s old friend Messer Angelo Gabriele, now a Venetian official,25 and beg him to organise a spy to get trustworthy information on the gravity of the illness of Monsignor Malipiero [a Venetian patrician], Commendatore of Cyprus, that is, Knight Commander of the Order of St John in Cyprus. Bartolommeo should send the news straightaway by courier to Rome, to Bernardo Bibbiena, secretary to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, and then by another courier to Bembo in the duchy. And Bartolommeo and Angelo should discuss it together and establish a base on which it will, perhaps, be possible to build. Bembo would also like this to get to the prior of San Giovanni, the head of the Order in Venice. “Because Malipiero has one foot in the grave he must be watched very carefully. And as soon as any news of those wives [the benefices were called “white wives”]26 comes in, send it post-haste to the Roman court and to me.” Bembo discusses another benefice in the east of the Venetian Republic, then asks Bartolommeo about Cardinal della Rovere’s sword. If it has not yet been sent to Bibbiena, Bartolommeo must send it by the first courier, well wrapped up and tied so that it cannot slip out of the packaging ... and he should write a few words to Bibbiena, that he is sending it on Pietro’s instruction and that it was not possible, with all the effort in the world, to have had it earlier. He must do the same thing with the handles, when they are supplied, putting them in a little chest well padded with cotton so that they are not damaged in transit. He greets his father, mother, his sister, Antonia, and his friends. He tells his brother not to be worried about the immoderate expenses for which he has been criticized. He is not so negligent as the Solomons there make out (T I, 244). Bembo sent a long letter of the same date, 10 December 1506, to his friend Vincenzo Quirino in Venice. He is very upset that Vincenzo, both by letter and in conversation with Cola, Bembo’s secretary, severely condemns his going to Urbino. He would like his friends to approve of his decisions. He knows that Vincenzo worries about him, but can assure his friend that he is all right. He has been attempting to get a reserve on the benefices of Rhodes, i.e., getting the promise of a benefice on the death of the incumbent. He has had the pope’s promise. [I suspect that it was the pope who suggested this course of action to Bembo in the first place, when he visited

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Urbino on 25 September since he had been a member of the Order of St John himself.27] Bembo believes that this promise is as good as a written commitment or papal bull because, if the pope should change, these commitments would not be honoured anyway, and the papal bull would cost money. He goes on about the politics of acquiring preferment, then adds that he does not, however, want anyone to die on his account. Bembo now answers objections Vincenzo has made, point by point. Those who build up splendid careers often have no time for their personal development. Bembo has made many attempts, always in vain. Now he seeks nothing but quiet ... to live a literary life, as his own master, and not be the servant of a large nation. Vincenzo says that Bembo is in the midst of the waves, with fortune at the helm, but is not the service to the Republic also subject to the buffets of fortune? Vincenzo underestimates the power of Cardinal Galeotto and of the duchess. Galeotto has an income of 40,000 florins and she has made her brother a cardinal ... On their first meeting the cardinal [it appears that he is here referring to the duchess’s brother, Cardinal Gonzaga] offered him a respectable pension and insisted that he take it, while the duchess is exerting herself on his behalf beyond all expectations. As to what Vincenzo says about Bembo’s living at someone else’s expense, with a higher profile than he would have in the Roman court, he will not deny it. He had gone to Urbino to see the pope, then planned on going back to the hermitage. However the duchess wants him to spend the winter in a place where the weather is not so harsh as in the abbey, where it lasts six months, so she has kept him in her household, at her expense. He has let her do what she has wanted to do, and has not cared to deprive her of that exercise of the courtesy and liberality which is a hallmark of her life. He has not regarded as shameful what has appeared acceptable to the Magnifico, Giuliano de’ Medici [Lorenzo’s son and later ruler of Florence], who, the brother of a cardinal with 10,000 florins income [Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Leo X], has remained in Urbino since the pope’s visit, living in the duchess’s palace with ten horsemen, at her expense. Those who set themselves up as judges of other people’s lives generally blame equally those who accept and those who dispense courtesy because they are men who, through lowness and poverty of spirit, are not equal to either themselves. Vincenzo talks of Bembo’s change of life style, but he has not changed. He is the same man Vincenzo knows, and he would rather have Vincenzo’s good opinion than the applause of ten theatres, although he is glad that Vincenzo has spoken to him frankly, as a true and faithful friend ... He would rather stay as himself in the background than push himself forward in a mask, and be scorned for wearing someone else’s clothes. He is very pleased that Vincenzo says that he has taken the hermit’s advice to

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The castle of Urbino, site of The Courtier, where Bembo lived from 1506 to 1511.

Lavinello to heart, especially when he enjoys the honours and splendours of the Republic ... He congratulates Vincenzo on the doubling of his honours ... He hopes that Vincenzo will soon be the most honoured man in their city (T I, 245). On 15 December 1506 Bembo wrote to his friend Luigi da Porto, in Vicenza, that he was sorry to hear of his illness in Venice and glad that he has recovered. If Bembo can do anything for him he will go to Bologna. He is glad that Luigi is coming to Urbino after Christmas. Let him know precisely when and they will laugh for eight days and chase away his melancholy. Now Bembo is going to a quiet place eight miles from Urbino and will stay there, except for ten days of carnival when he has promised the duchess to be with the court, either in Urbino or Fossombrone. But if Luigi comes he will drop everything to be with him ... One day his ship will come in (T I, 246). The same day, 15 December 1506, Bembo sent a brief note to Lucrezia Borgia, excusing himself for not having written since he had been at the court in Forlì28 – there are no couriers and he has had little news. Since then he has been in Urbino. This week he will leave for a place ten miles away, where he will spend the winter unless he returns to the court. In this passage it would appear that he is referring to the papal court, which is now in Bologna, because he says that if he goes there he will come to kiss her hand. Meantime, he sends her two sonnets which he has written on the Cardinal of Aragon’s motto29 (T I, 247). It appears from Bembo’s letter of 6 May 1507 to a Camaldolese monk in

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the hermitage at Fonte Avellana (T I, 256), that he did not return there that winter and that he went to Rome in Lent,30 probably sometime in March, after the pope’s second visit to Urbino. In the interval, in January, February, and early March, he was at the court in Urbino and in Castel Durante, which must be the quiet place near Urbino to which he referred in his letters to Lucrezia Borgia and Luigi da Porto. Urbino31 was the ideal city of the Italian Renaissance. Sequestered in the hills of the Marches which separated Romagna from the Kingdom of Naples, away from the sea, the domain of Venice, and the haunt of pirates, it was the capital of a papal state ruled by a humane, cultured, and magnanimous duke. It sat snug in russet brick, behind its walls, and looked down “on smiling slopes planted with vines, fruit trees and olives in a rich and pleasant part of the Appennines. The great duke, Federico da Montefeltro, had built himself a panelled study, one of the finest examples of Italian marquetry, between the two frontal towers, commanding a long view over the mountains. Underneath it, on the way to the banquet hall, was a shrine to the Muses, complete with an altar where offerings were made. The rooms of the ducal castle were light and spacious. The walls were hung with silk and with cloth of gold and silver. There were many paintings and antique statues in bronze and marble. The doors were inlaid, some from designs by Botticelli. Musical instruments were everywhere.”32 This was the city of Bramante and Raphael and of a court now dominated by two ladies, the duchess, Elisabetta Gonzaga, and her widowed sister-in-law, Emilia Pia. Their court had attracted some of the most distinguished gentlemen of the age and was a haven for exiles from both Genoa and Florence. Bembo added a Venetian presence, and Castiglione greeted his arrival with a stanza in his pastoral, Tirsi, written for carnival in February 1506 in collaboration with his cousin, Cesare Gonzaga, with whom he lodged in Urbino.33 Bembo was a shepherd from the Adriatic come to celebrate the duchess.34 Bembo enjoyed court life, the court of a prince, the court of a pope, its elegance and refinement, beauty, wit, entertainment, art, and learning. Though in testing times he showed that he was a patriot, Venetian dourness had never appealed to him, a life dedicated to business and administration, to the creation and maintenance of the wealth and power of the great Republic. As early as 1498–99, when he was in Ferrara, Ariosto had dedicated a Latin elegy to him about their shared yearning for a literary life and Bembo’s desire to escape from the responsibilities of his birth.35 The court at Urbino has been immortalized by Castiglione in The Courtier which purports to describe discussions over four evenings in March 1507, after the pope’s second visit and his departure for Rome. The parallels with Bembo’s recently published Gli Asolani are obvious, including the pretence that these are reports of conversations which took place

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between ladies and gentlemen of the court during Castiglione’s absence in England. But so are the differences. Castiglione’s discussion of the many attributes of the ideal courtier is, by definition, of much greater breadth than Bembo’s of the nature of love and has therefore always had a wider appeal for its spreading canvas of Renaissance social life. However Bembo is brought in at the end of The Courtier to describe true love, a late addition and a bow to Gli Asolani.36 Castiglione also had a gift for characterization, which Bembo notably lacked, and he treated different attitudes of a very much greater variety of people, often with penetrating analysis, often with humour. The court of Urbino was the court of a military man, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, ailing and unlucky son of the great condottiere, Federico da Montefeltro, who had built his elegant palace from his military earnings. As a result, a great many of the courtiers were sometime soldiers, including Castiglione himself. However the court was by no means militaristic. It included “the finest talent of every description anywhere in Italy” including buffoons of all kinds.37 Three of its members were to become cardinals. In The Courtier Castiglione recalls “the polite conversations and innocent pleasantries” at the court, everyone’s face being “so full of laughter and gaiety that the house could truly be called the very inn of happiness.”38 The young duke, suffering from crippling gout so that he could now neither stand nor walk, always retired to his bedroom soon after supper.39 The court then went to the duchess’s rooms where “along with pleasant recreations and enjoyments of various kinds, including constant music and dancing, sometimes intriguing questions were asked, and sometimes ingenious games were played (now on the suggestion of one person and now of another).”40 On one particular night in March 1507 the duchess asked Emilia Pia to begin the games. She decided to ask each gentleman in turn what he would suggest as an interesting subject for discussion, and then accept the most popular suggestion. This device, perhaps derived from Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations book IV, where Cicero asks Brutus what he wants to discuss that day and then basically gives a lecture on the emotions himself, offered Castiglione an opportunity to establish his characters, with their preoccupations and prejudices. Cesare Gonzaga, one of the soldiers, turns out to be surprisingly reflective and suggests that each person should discuss what kind of madness he could suffer from. Fra Serafino, a friar, and like many Renaissance friars in literature a buffoon, suggests they discuss why women hate rats and love snakes. As he begins to develop his subject Emilia, the presiding lady like Bembo’s Berenice, cuts him short. Then, after three other suggestions Emilia, with the duchess’s support, approves Federico Fregoso’s idea that they should choose someone to discuss the attributes of the perfect courtier. Here Castiglione was

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adapting a classical model, Cicero’s De Oratore, on the perfect orator, to the contemporary situation as Bembo had adapted the medieval courtly discussion of the nature of love to the now popular classical dialogue form. Now Emilia picks Count Lodovico Canossa for the task. His first requirement, noble birth, is immediately challenged by Gaspare Pallavicino, the youngest of the group, who supports the self-made man and stresses the power of Fortune to make or unmake. In The Courtier there is real discussion, with disagreements, jokes, and sharp remarks, giving a much more complex picture of society than Bembo’s in Gli Asolani, where humour was certainly not a feature. Also Emilia’s management of the discussion spreads it around a much larger company than Berenice had in the garden, giving a much greater variety of viewpoint. Following Cicero’s technique in The Orator, Emilia introduces a new argument by calling on someone who has been silent up to that point.41 After Palavicino’s interruption Canossa continues, asserting that “the first and true profession of the courtier must be that of arms,”42 then goes on to his physical attainments. The courtier should be of medium height, not too tall, not too small, well built, physically agile, able to hunt, swim, jump, run, ride, and play tennis, but he should not be an acrobat or funambulist. Though he could “laugh, jest, banter, romp and dance”43 he must never forget proper decorum. He must avoid affectation, and in all things display an effortless ease. “True art is what does not seem to be art.”44 The courtier must be able to speak and write well on both serious subjects and amusing things.45 He should be well educated in the humanities, that is, in Latin and Greek, and be able to compose verse in the vulgar tongue “to provide constant entertainment for the ladies.”46 He should also be a musician, able to read music and play several instruments47 and be able to draw and paint.48 At this point in the discussion there was the sound of tramping of feet and the Lord Prefect of Rome, Francesco Maria della Rovere, the pope’s seventeen-year-old nephew, who was also the nephew, adopted son, and heir of Duke Guidobaldo, entered the room in a blaze of torches. When he heard what game they had been playing he wanted to participate too but, since the hour was late, the group decided to postpone further discussion until the following evening. Bembo had ended Gli Asolani II with trumpets announcing the beginning of the ball. Castiglione ends his first book even more dramatically, and certainly more seriously, with the chiaroscuro entrance of the soldiers. The presence of Francesco Maria in the following books is like that of Queen Caterina in Gli Asolani. As in Gli Asolani, each book of The Courtier begins with reflections by the author, then introduces a new aspect of the subject for discussion. Book

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Francesco Maria della Rovere, Bembo’s life-long patron and friend, lord prefect of Rome in The Courtier and in 1508 duke of Urbino. Carpaccio, 1510.

II shifts the discussion from the qualities of the courtier to their appropriate exercise in war, sport, and society. Book III, after the author’s introductory praise of the court of Urbino, effectively a ladies’ court, discusses the qualities of the court lady. Book IV concentrates on the qualities of the prince whom the courtiers serve and analyzes the various forms of government. The discussion finally shifts to the prince in love. Here Bembo is called upon and he develops the hermit’s advice to Lavinello in the third

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book of Gli Asolani, setting forth the Neoplatonic concept of love, that love is the desire to possess beauty, in the beginning the beauty of women, ultimately the beauty of God which is divine goodness.49 There is more psychological analysis of lovers here in The Courtier, book 4, than in Gli Asolani, book 3. Bembo discusses the reason for the dissatisfaction of lovers after they have enjoyed their beloved: physical union does not satisfy the soul’s natural yearning for the divine. Mature lovers will learn, in their search for beauty, how to leave the sensual behind, as the lowest rung of the ladder which leads to heavenly beauty and God. This assertion is immediately interrupted by objections that beautiful people can be evil, cruel and spiteful, because beauty makes them proud, and pride makes them cruel.50 However Bembo insists that beauty itself is always good, a sacred thing which descends from and leads back to God.51 This forces him to say that the ugly are evil, a ridiculous assertion which he feels obliged to explain by changing his earlier definition of beauty as a matter of good proportion and due measure52 to “the pleasant, gay, charming and desirable face of the good” while “ugliness is the dark, disagreeable, unpleasant and sorry face of evil.”53 And “the proximate cause of physical beauty is ... the beauty of the soul.”54 Bembo describes falling in love purely, loving the beauty of a lady’s soul,55 and experiencing a kiss as a spiritual not a physical union.56 From there the lover can climb to another love far more sublime57 by contemplating “not the particular beauty of a single woman but the universal beauty which adorns all human bodies.” Then: Let him turn within himself to contemplate what he sees with the eyes of the mind ... and in this manner ... purged by the study of true philosophy, directed towards the life of the spirit ... the soul turns to contemplate its own substance and perceives in itself a ray of that light which is the true image of the angelic beauty ... and ravished by the loveliness of that light ... it ascends to its noblest part, which is the intellect; and there it glimpses the divine beauty itself ... And this is the beauty indistinguishable from the highest good … So let us direct all the thoughts and powers of our soul towards this most sacred light which shows us the path which leads to heaven ... let us ascend by the ladder whose lowest rung bears the image of sensual beauty to the sublime mansion where dwells the celestial, adorable and true beauty which lies hidden in the secret recesses of the Almighty.58

Bembo then utters a prayer to sacred love which flows from: The union of beauty, goodness and divine wisdom ... graciously binding the universe together ... you direct the heavenly powers in their government of the lower, and turning the minds of men to their source, you unite them with it. You unite the elements in harmony, inspire Nature to produce, and move all that is born to the

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perpetuation of life ... Consent, then, O Lord, to hear our prayers ... illumine our darkness and ... show us the right path through this blind maze ... Quicken our intellects with the incense of spirituality ... Inebriate our souls at the inexhaustible fountain of contentment ... that we, liberated from our own selves, like true lovers can be transformed into the object of our love and soar above the earth to join the feast of the angels.59

The conclusion of Bembo’s rhapsody was greeted with silence until Madonna Emilia plucked his robe and begged him not to let his soul escape his body. This broke the tension and allowed the others to engage in a bit of casual chitchat about the courtier until suddenly Cesare Gonzaga said “it is day” and sure enough, when they opened “the windows on the side of the palace that faces the lofty peak of Mount Catria ... they saw that dawn had already come to the east, with the beauty and colour of a rose, and all the stars had been scattered, save only the lovely mistress of heaven, Venus, who guards the confines of night and day. Venus, goddess of love and beauty, had presided over Bembo’s prayer. Now a breeze came from the dawn, filling the air with biting cold, and, among the murmuring woods on nearby hills, wakening the birds into joyous song. Then all, having taken taken their respectful leave of the duchess, went to their rooms, without torches, for the light of day was sufficient.”60 This brilliantly symbolic conclusion to Bembo’s harangue about love is an example of Castiglione’s skilful stage management. But Bembo’s speech was a late addition to The Courtier,61 and there are those who argue that it is inconsistent with the whole, which is practical rather than idealistic, and reads like something tacked on at the end.62 Perhaps in the twenty-year gestation of this work Castiglione began to feel that he should include in the courtier’s education something of the popular Neoplatonism spawned by Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium and decided that Bembo, who had written the hermit’s speech in Gli Asolani, was the obvious person to express it. Also, by the time he wrote this, Castiglione had taken Holy Orders. Although these words were not his, Bembo was sent the manuscript and presumably approved them,63 so they can be considered consistent with an image that he wanted to present and views he inconsistently held but was never able to implement. Right to the end of his life, even when he was a cardinal, in the days of the Catholic Reform and the Oratory of Divine Love,64 some of whose members were his friends, Bembo was never able to sublimate his attraction toward women. The Courtier was finally published in 1528 when Castiglione, now papal nuncio in Spain, heard that unauthorized versions were circulating in Naples through Vittoria Colonna. He had given her a manuscript which she had allowed friends to see and obviously copy. There was a danger that

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one would be published, as was a garbled version of Sannazaro’s Arcadia, while he was absent in France in 1503.65 Castiglione therefore sent his manuscript to Bembo to arrange for publication by Aldus in Venice. The book, however, as he states in his introductory letter, was basically written in a few days after the death of Duke Guidobaldo in 1508, with the intention of preserving the memory of his court.66 It can therefore be taken as a fond, undoubtedly idealistic, but fundamentally truthful, representation of the court of which Bembo was a part for much of the time between the autumn of 1506 and the early spring of 1512. That society of the period was not always so refined is revealed by Bembo’s friend Giovanni della Casa in his Galateo or about Manners, a handbook for young noblemen suggested by Bishop Giberti of Verona67 who felt the need of it for members of his entourage. Galateo is completely down to earth. The gentleman must wash his hands openly before sharing a platter of food with his neighbour – servants normally went around the dining table with ewers of water, basins, and towels – he must not put his feet on the table or relieve himself in public. When speaking he must not wave his hands around as though swatting flies. He should not leave his study with his pen behind his ear. His dress and grooming should conform to the standards of his society, clothes not too long or too short, no long hair if everyone else cuts his, no beards if everyone else is clean shaven, no shaving if everyone else has a beard. After blowing his nose he should not open his handkerchief and look in it, as though there were pearls and rubies there. He should not sniff the wine or food that others are about to consume or even sniff his own. He should not smack his lips when eating. Perhaps this is a reflection of manners of men on their own, not of those in the presence of ladies. Bembo’s immersion in court life is revealed in his letters of early 1507. On 5 January 1507 Bembo wrote to his brother Bartolommeo in Venice, because one of the court poets, Vincenzo Calmeta, was going to Venice to have some of his works published. He had been in Urbino for some time, honoured by the duchess. Bembo asks his brother to receive Calmeta at home. Give him my room, comfortably furnished, and make a fuss over him while he is there, which will probably be for a few days. If he does not go to our house, seek him out and bring him there. “I am obliged to him and particularly for this reason: that he honours me a good bit in his writings and gives the impression of being very fond of me.” Everything is fine in Urbino. He sends his greetings to his father and mother and asks Bartolommeo to kiss Marcella and Lavinello, his sister’s children (T I, 250). A second letter to his brother, on 22 January 1507, asks him if Cola is there. Bembo’s secretary has been away for more than a month. If Cola is there, would Bartolommeo tell him to see if Girolamo Savorgnan’s greyhounds are good and those of the others and bring him as many as he can,

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because he has many gifts to make. Also, he should not forget the fish for the duchess (T I, 251). The next two letters represent a further attempt to curry favour with a cardinal (T I, 252), and further defiance toward his friends in Venice who criticize his decision (T I, 253). Then we discover what he has been doing. In a letter of 18 February 1507, “the second day of Lent,” he writes to Ottaviano Fregoso from Castel Durante about Ottaviano’s request for the text of his carnival skit (T I, 254). Bembo wishes that the stanzas, which he had woven with a hasty shuttle to amuse the duchess and Madonna Emilia, Ottaviano’s aunts, at the carnival festivities, were forgotten, with people remembering only the occasion, because what pleases in such circumstances will be scorned at another time. As fish out of water lose their beauty, so these stanzas, torn from the carnival setting, will have lost all their sparkle. They were recited by masked actors amidst noise and chattering, between dances and banquets. However, since it was he who commissioned them, Bembo is sending them, reminding him that while he, Ottaviano, is rich in glory gained in arms and chivalry, he, Pietro, is poor in the pen and his writings, and he would not like to cause Ottaviano a loss when he is showing them around (T I, 254). Ottaviano had a claim on the stanzas because he and Bembo were the masked actors, disguised as two ambassadors Venus sent to the duchess and Madonna Emilia as they sat among noble ladies and gentlemen, dancing and celebrating on carnival night.68 The ambassadors did not recite the stanzas themselves because they did not know the local language, but were represented by an interpreter: In Arabia Felix there lives a relaxed and happy people, devoted to love, whose commandment is that every man should live following love in all his thoughts [another reprise of the favourite courtly theme of love]. The greatest sinner is he who does not love when loved. This pious people had erected many temples to love. One day, before dawn, Venus appeared to two of her devotees in her temple, ordering them to go as missionaries to Urbino, to two ladies who resist Love’s arrows, the duchess and Emilia, who argue that chastity is worth more than their lives. “Go to them and bring them to my band. Let them see how it upsets me that they do not give me their green years.” Venus will transport her missionaries in her shell, or in her swan-drawn chariot. The missionaries travel from Arabia to Egypt, Rhodes, Crete, Sicily, the Appennines, and Urbino, where they praise the duchess and love, which is gracious and sweet, soothes the savage breast, purifies souls of every baseness, guides them to delight, and draws them from pain. Love exalts humble things, makes the brief lasting, brightens the dark. Love is fertile, the seed of every good, love is he who shapes and rules and serves the world. Love’s domain is the earth, sea, air, fire, animals, plants, what is hidden, and what is seen in this globe. Love guards and pre-

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serves them, reproduces them with his sweetly sharp flames and is the agent of the power above. Love tempers and moves the wandering stars and heavens but also the virtues, which are far more beautiful, and rain down from love, which is the origin of life. The speaker then recalls the Latin and Italian love poets. He describes feminine beauty, born of love, the eyes, the pink and white cheeks, pearly teeth, ruby lips, sweet smile. Feminine beauty is like a garden in April and May, to be enjoyed. The missionary contrasts Penelope’s miserable fidelity with Odysseus’s scouring the seas, joyously bedding women. Love is God’s law for the birth of all things, plants and animals in the spring, on land and sea. But the duchess and Emilia live alone [a shockingly insensitive remark, since the duchess was married to an invalid]. What good is it to possess cities and kingdoms and live in beautiful palaces, have servants and chests heavy with much treasure, be sung by sublime talents [a modest remark!] dress in purple, eat off golden plate, be in beauty equal to the sun, and lie in bed cold and alone? To the modern reader this appears to be carnival liberty carried to a tasteless extreme, but that was not the reaction at the time. The speaker continues: How good it is to have faithful lovers and share every thought with them, desires, fears, laughs, complaints, anger and hope, and the false and the true. How he ought to be dear to you, the man who cares more for your joy than his own ... She who does not love can be called dead. Each person is one half of a whole [the Aristophanic image again]. Love reunites the halves, bringing twice as much joy as before. If you do not harvest beauty, like the rose or the lily, it falls. Soon comes white hair, a severe look, troublesome and weak old age. This is the immemorial mantra of love poets, and a contrast to Bembo’s speech added to The Courtier ten years later. The success of the Stanze surpassed that of Gli Asolani until they were placed on the Index.69 The Stanze, as poetry in the vulgar tongue, both discursive in the modern fashion and intimately classical, in contrast to the descriptive and narrative exuberance of Poliziano and Boiardo, influenced Ariosto.70 The paean to love here is reminiscent of Gismondo’s all-embracing delight in love in Gli Asolani II. The vision of love as the governor of the universe owes a debt to Christian Neoplatonism and the description of half people made whole by love derives from Plato’s Symposium, but the love presented here is natural, traditional, accessible to all. It is not surprising that its fifty stanzas, four hundred lines of mellifluous verse in the Petrarchan tradition, were more popular than the lengthy and argumentative Gli Asolani. People could absorb this readily. With the Stanze closely following Gli Asolani Bembo established himself as the voice of love for his generation. Thus, when Castiglione finally decided to add a section on love to The Courtier, Bembo was the inevitable choice.

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Two weeks into Lent the pope returned to Urbino, on 3 March 1507, having reduced the papal states to submission. He stayed only one day and left on 5 March.71 It was on the four evenings after his departure that the discussions in The Courtier supposedly took place. Then Bembo went to Rome, perhaps encouraged by something the pope had said (T I, 256). By April he was back in Urbino, writing on the fourteenth to the widow of the prefect of Senigallia who, the duchess and Madonna Emilia have told him, wants to arrange for him to get the commenda, a benefice in the Order of St John, which Messer Pietro Paolo da Cagli is giving up. Bembo tells her that he had thought of going to see her in Senigallia these Easter days (Easter Sunday was 4 April 1507) because he missed her in Urbino, but a painful illness has kept him in bed and he is still not fully recovered. He has been in Castel Durante and would not have moved back to Urbino were he not expecting a party of Venetian gentlemen, his dearest friends, with whom he is planning to go to Rome for a month (T I, 255). Bembo returned to Rome sometime in the summer of 1507, but when he went there and how long he stayed is undocumented. He was still in Urbino on 6 May when he wrote to a monk in the hermitage at Fonte Avellana a belated letter on his activities since he had visited the hermitage the previous September. He had delivered the rosary to the duchess. She was very pleased and wants him to pray for her and is going to offer him a painting in return. Almost every day she speaks of his most austere and uncomfortable life, perpetually shut up in a little cell for so many years ... Bembo thanks him for his prayers for that noble and adventurous girl for whom he had asked him to pray at her mother’s request. She has now made a good marriage. Bembo expects good news himself, from day to day. He thinks it the greatest grace that he has known Don Michele and knows that he can never be abandoned by his guardian angel while he intercedes for him. He asks after one of the monks whose goodness and affection he can never forget. He commends himself to the members of the community (T I, 256). Bembo had genuine respect for the truly dedicated. By the end of August Bembo was back in Urbino, writing to friends in Rome and still angling for benefices (T I, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261). On 9 September 1507 he wrote to Latino Giovenale thanking him for news from Rome, congratulating him on keeping his canonry, and telling him that there is no news from Urbino “except that we laugh, joke, play, prank, feast, study, even compose at times.” Castiglione has just written a beautiful canzone. He will send it sometime (T I, 262). Bembo’s description of the court at Urbino in 1507 closely corresponds to Castiglione’s in The Courtier. The hunt for benefices continued. On 13 September 1507 Bembo wrote to Bibbiena in Rome telling him that he had received a letter from Count Ludovico Canossa, the first speaker in The Courtier, who was now with

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the papal court, that his election as prior of Cyprus could be arranged on the death of the current incumbent, and that the election could take place quickly. Bembo had replied that Venetian law forbade anyone requesting a benefice when the incumbent was still alive so that there would be no temptation to procure another’s death [since Queen Caterina’s renunciation of the throne, Cyprus had been under Venetian rule]. Also, he would not want to do this, but he would not mind if he could receive, from Rhodes, a reserve of 3000 ducats on the first benefices becoming vacant in the Venetian Republic. He asks for Bibbiena’s help and thanks Canossa who has his interests so at heart. He is anxiously waiting for a reply about the pension in Vicenza (T I, 263). Bembo wrote Bibbiena again two weeks later, on 29 September, thanking him for his two letters of the 22nd and the 23rd and telling him that if he has to turn the world upside down he will be in Rome in October or November. Canossa is doing everything for him and urges him to come to court in Rome. He offers him the Pavia room under the Belvedere in the Vatican garden, a nice room, and very convenient to the palace, and he says that, seeing him in his house, the Cardinal [Giovanni de’ Medici, later Leo X] will feel that he has to favour him. A great deal of gossip follows, Bembo recommends himself to friends in Rome, kisses Cardinal de’ Medici’s hand, and calls Bibbiena his sweetest, gentlest, and most loving Bernardo (T I, 264). More letters to Bibbiena follow in the same vein (T I, 265 of 13 November 1507; 266 of 26 November 1507). But by 2 December 1507 Bembo is complaining about not receiving replies. With Bibbiena it is out of sight out of mind. There is a mysterious reference in this letter to a table-cut diamond ring with two FF beneath. The Magnifico, Giuliano de’ Medici, gave the ring to Agostino Ghisi [presumably the banker, Agostino Chigi] and wants it returned if Agostino’s illness should prove fatal. FF, which Lucrezia Borgia had adopted as her cipher in her correspondence with Bembo and used on a medal, was obviously in current use at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but its meaning seems to have been lost (T I, 267). A letter to Bibbiena a week later, 9 December, after Bembo had heard from him, contains a lot of oblique gossip about people, thanks a couple of cardinals and Count Canossa for trying to further his interests, then asks Bibbiena to send back, with his messenger, various antiques which Bembo had presumably bought in Rome that summer and had left, for some reason, with Bibbiena: a small tablet, broken, with figures in bas relief; a little alabaster head of a man and one of Taurian marble; and a little bronze figurine. He sends Bibbiena a canzone for him to criticize and emend (T I, 268). In a letter of 11 December 1507 to his old friend, Trifon Gabriele in Venice Bembo regrets the lapse in their correspondence and says that he is happier every day with the decision he made about his own life and which

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his friends criticized. He is sending Trifon a new canzone he has written on the death of his brother, Carlo. He expects to go to Rome soon for some months (T I, 269). Bembo’s last letter of the year, of 16 December 1507, to Bibbiena in Rome, gives support to Castiglione’s portrayal of Bibbiena in The Courtier as the joker. Bibbiena’s letter to the group made Bembo laugh so much that he cannot yet get hold of himself. There follows a lot of chitchat about friends, and the usual request to kiss Cardinal de’ Medici’s hand (T I, 170). When we read Bembo’s letter of 1 January 1508 addressed in the London manuscript to Madonna B, in the Paris manuscript to Madonna G, we see that he has not changed: Revolving in my memory, the whole of this night, what used to be given to me so willingly and that little which was so obstinately denied me yesterday evening, I was overcome by such great humiliation and self-pity that I do not remember ever having soaked my bed with so many tears as this time. Live happy and content with these gains of yours, and my losses, because I live without end, unhappy and melancholy, and so will live always, until I succeed in valuing your scorn of me and your rejection, as much as you value my adoration of you and my prayers. On the 1st of January 1508. He who, as you have a mind to deny him everything, equally intends not to ask for anything from you. (T II, 271)

Who could the lady have been who refused to go all the way with Bembo on New Year’s Eve? A subsequent letter, written in Rome, apparently on 2 February 1508, was addressed to Madonna G. I believe that she was also the intended recipient of the letter written on New Year’s day and that Bembo, with his usual taste for mystification, wrote Madonna B in one version to throw people off the track, because he had already admitted to strong feeling for a Madonna B. If Madonna B is to be identified with Veronica Gambara,72 there is no suggestion that she was in Urbino in the autumn of 1507 and willingly giving herself to Bembo up to a point. However, a Madonna G was there, Costanza Fregoso, sometimes called Gostanza, the young as yet unmarried sister of Bembo’s friends Ottaviano and Federico Fregoso. The Fregoso, the ruling family of Genoa, were spending their exile in Urbino because their mother was the natural daughter of the late Duke Federico and the half-sister of the current Duke Guidobaldo. In the Italian Renaissance legitimate and illegitimate members of a family stuck together.73 The letter to Madonna G, apparently of 3 February 1508,74 is a somewhat playful lament: Is it possible that every time I am away from you for ten days you have to give yourself to a new lover? Although you can say that this one, to whom you give your

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favour now, is not new. Oh your weak and infirm spirit, and your fickle faith! Think with what heart I live, realising that Rome is doing me harm, not only because it keeps me away from you, but also because your friends are dearer to you than befits your pledge to me and what my devotion deserves. God may forgive you, but I do not forgive you for it yet, nor will I ever forgive you, even if it should lead to my damnation. I would have returned to Urbino these days, but, thinking that I could disturb these new pleasures of yours, I have restrained myself from doing so, because I do not want to do anything that can trouble you in any way ... One thousand plagues on Pope Julius and the Bologna manor if I should have to pay this price for it. How I ought to curse your inconstance [a clue to her identity?] because it does this and wants me to live always in sad and grieving thoughts. If I am not writing a cheerful letter ... blame yourself. I cannot be happy unless you give me a reason to be happy ... But do not worry, if I did not think that I could get even one day, I would die in despair ... Come now, let’s cheer up and laugh a little now so that you cannot say that I always write melancholy things. Oh what fine comedies, we hear, have been presented at Urbino, how many fine festivities, how many balls. And it is said that you recognised all the maskers as soon as you saw them. And yet you did not recognise me there, because I came to see you there so many times ... I take pleasure in all your pleasures except for one ... because I wear the mask of jealousy ... and would God that you, too, should wear this mask ... I kiss your hand a thousand times and I recommend to your grace ... my truly faithful devotion, too often most wrongfully injured and outraged by you. (T II, 275)

The following letter, which is the one dated 3 February 1508, is apparently a covering note, written to a woman he calls Commare, “godmother,” an affectionate term, which is stressed by Bembo’s using the familiar “tu” in speaking to her, though that also indicates that she is not of the same social status. This letter gives away the identity of Madonna G: Well, godmother, godmother. Is this how you look after my interests? And who will save me that treasure which is dearer to me than anything else in this world if you allow it to be given to another person? I beg you, by the only God, that you make an effort that your constancy is shared by her who proclaims herself to be not only constant but constancy itself. (T II, 276)

Constancy is Costanza, so it appears that Bembo had formed a romantic attachment to Costanza Fregoso. Given his proclivities and his usual success with women, it would have been surprising if he had not been attracted to one of the ladies of the court and had not enjoyed some of her favours. The news that his ship was finally coming in took Bembo to Rome in January 1508. On 14 January Julius II issued a bull giving Bembo, when it fell vacant, the commenda of Bologna, the magione or manor in the papal

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city belonging to the knights of St John of Jerusalem to which Bembo referred in the previous letter to Madonna G. The bull required Bembo to make a religious profession in the Order within six months.75 If one can trust the dates of his letters, Bembo was still in Urbino on 16 January 1508 (T II, 272) but by 27 January was in Rome (T II, 273). The Venetian Grand Council heard of his appointment on 17 January 1508.76 While Bembo was still in Rome the duke of Urbino died in Fossombrone on 11 April 1508, a cold, snowy day. He had been carried there on a litter at the beginning of February because of its mild climate and wholesome air.77 The news of the death came to Rome in a letter to the pope from Federico Fregoso, the duke’s nephew, whom Julius II had sent to the duchy when the pope heard of the gravity of Guidobaldo’s illness. The duchy of Urbino was one of the papal states and the heir was the pope’s and the duke’s nephew and adopted son, Francesco Maria della Rovere, now eighteen years of age. At the request of his father, Bernardo, who was in Rome at the time, Bembo wrote a memorial tribute to the duke centred on the Roman reaction to the news of his death. Castiglione also wrote a Latin account of Guidobaldo’s death to Henry VII of England, who had made the duke a Knight of the Garter only two years before. Castiglione’s letter, which was published in Fossombrone in 1513 “so that people may know of Guidobaldo’s outstanding gifts and his daily struggle against ill health and adversity,” was a straightforward encomium, recounting Guidobaldo’s life from childhood, and giving a vivid description of the scene at the deathbed where Castiglione was present, and of the funeral procession back through the duchy to Urbino.78 Bembo’s Guidobaldo was a dramatic account of the impact of the news in Rome. Although it was written shortly after the events and circulated among friends,79 it was not published until 1530.80 Bembo tells how he, his two friends Jacopo Sadoleto and Filippo Beroaldo, Jr, and the papal secretary and historian Sigismondo dei Conti, were together in the Vatican, with nothing to do because the pope had gone to his fortress at Ostia, when the news of Guidobaldo’s death arrived. Fregoso’s letter to the pope was read out, with the description of the final illness, the actions taken to secure an orderly succession, Guidobaldo’s quiet death surrounded by his court, with the duchess holding his hand, the duchess’s wild grief, the night funeral by torchlight, the reading of the will on the following day, and the new duke’s cavalcade through the city, showing himself to the people. The duchess was prostrate, lying on the floor by the marriage bed, dressed in black, her face veiled, in a sunless, airless room, lit only by one feeble torch. Delegations came to express their sympathy and greet the new duke, while the catafalque of Guidobaldo stood in the centre of the church, surrounded by countless candles. Now the funeral oration by Lodovico Odasio, Guidobaldo’s old teacher,

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was read. Bembo quoted it in full and it was published in Pesaro in 1508.81 A precocious child, Guidobaldo had developed into a fine scholar and had become expert in all martial arts. He was exceptionally brave and magnanimous and the handsomest man of his age, but unfortunately, at the age of twenty, he developed gout, which finally carried him off at thirty-five. Bembo concludes his account with a panegyric of the duchess, Elisabetta Gonzaga, a woman of outstanding ability, utterly devoted to her husband, a model of chastity in a worldly society. Bembo’s Guidobaldo is in the form of a dialogue, with a frequent exchange of reactions to the news, which gives insight into the impact of Guidobaldo’s personality and conveys the impression of widespread public shock and grief. It was a coincidence that Bembo was in Rome at the time, but that gave him the opportunity to write from the Vatican and stress his association with the papal court.82 He also wrote in impeccable Ciceronian Latin, a skill which did not escape the notice of Cardinal de’ Medici.83 Bembo returned to Urbino a couple of weeks later if one can trust the date84 of his next letter. Writing from Urbino to Bibbiena in Rome (T II, 277 dated 27 April 1508), he is hatching some sort of plot to advance his interests with the knights of St John of Jerusalem. He asks Bibbiena to find someone to go to Rhodes to favour their enterprise. It must not be a Venetian, because he would be too naïve because of lack of experience of the court, His Holiness, and the papal state, and would be incapable of dissembling ... Bibbiena is his only anchor. If he fails him, the ship of this enterprise will easily break up. Therefore he must give it thought and take care, and, since this is a favourable moment and delay is risky, he leaves him in charge. Bembo tells him that he is better, and that the duchess is beginning to recover from her bereavement, to their great relief. A second letter to Bibbiena, written from Urbino on 19 May 1508, thanks him for finding Terpandro, one of the characters in The Courtier, to go to Rhodes. He is a good friend and has been there before. The delay until mid-July is acceptable. Have him come to Venice, where there are many ships for Rhodes and Crete and Corfù, so that he can go from one place to another. Bembo will send money for the trip. Terpandro must find out about Cardinal della Rovere and his benefices so that he can talk knowledgeably. Have the cardinal’s letter to the Grand Master, which the pope countersigned, copied for the signature of the duke of Urbino who will also send it (T II, 279). From an apparent reference to him, by name in a subsequent letter (T II, 285), it would appear that Terpandro made the trip to Rhodes and returned to spend some weeks with Bembo, but there is no indication of what came of all this. There is another letter, of 18 December, to a top-ranking Venetian official, thanking him for news about the commenda of Cyprus and requesting further inside information, but we are still left to guess exactly what was going on (T II, 282).

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The first Christmas in Urbino after the duke’s death was gloomy. Bembo wrote Federico Fregoso in Bologna on 23 December 1508, that when they arrived, a large party, tired after struggling over very muddy roads in the rain, they found the palace cold, with no joy or laughter, though the town had the same face as always. They are expecting Bibbiena today or tomorrow. “Each day seems a year until I can see him and enjoy his most delightful company, his conversation, which I adore, his wit, his jokes, his expression, his affection, every day, and a great part of the nights.” If Federico could only be there, nothing would be lacking. But Federico prefers to be where men can see that he has a great deal of authority – as their continuing friendship attests, a friendly tease rather than a snide remark(T II, 283). The year was also ending gloomily for Venice. The Venetian intelligence service, which kept the Senate extremely well informed, must have been aware of the formation at Cambrai, on 10 December 1508, of an alliance against Venice, instigated by the pope. The signatories were Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Spain and Naples, the Marquess of Mantua, the Republic of Florence, and the Duke of Ferrara, all of whom had grievances of one sort or another against Venice and wanted to cut her down to size. Julius II, in a kind of revival of the medieval investiture controversy, objected to Venetian insistence that she had the right to appoint bishops in her own territory. Venice had had the temerity to turn down the pope’s appointee to the see of Cremona, his nephew, Cardinal Galeotto della Rovere, whom Bembo had been cultivating so assiduously. The other chief cause of Julius II’s hostility to Venice was the Venetian occupation, on the fall of Cesare Borgia in 1503, of cities in the Romagna which Cesare had conquered, Faenza, Rimini and Cesena. These had been part of the papal states, though ruled by local lords as papal vicars , and Julius wanted them back. He had just brought Bologna to heel in 1506. He was not going to acquiesce in the occupation of any other of his cities in 1507. Louis XII, occupying Milan, wanted to extend his territory and was promised the two Venetian cities of Brescia and Crema if he joined the alliance. Maximilian wanted to restore the German empire south of the Alps and was promised Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Friuli, while Ferdinand of Aragon, as King of Naples, chafed at the Venetian occupation of the Apulian ports which the last king of Naples, Frederick II, had handed over to her as security for a loan.85 Florence was hostile to Venice, because it had supported Pisa in its bid for independence between 1495 and 1498, and Ferrara wanted the Polesine back, which had been lost to Venice in 1484 in another war organized by a della Rovere pope, Julius II’s uncle, Sixtus IV. On this occasion the pope had encouraged Venice to press her claims to the territory because it suited his designs on Romagna for his nephew, Girolamo Riario.86 Francesco Gonzaga, the marquess of Mantua,

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who had led the Venetian forces against the French invaders at the battle of Fornovo in July 1495, now sided with the French, while the other condottiere whom Venice usually employed, the duke of Urbino, now the pope’s nephew, was ordered by his uncle to stay within the boundaries of his duchy.87 Venice was bereft of support and faced with almost impossible odds, while the pope was conceding large parts of northern Italy to foreign powers. The French struck first and defeated the Venetians at Agnadello on 14 May 1509. Maximilian also invaded and occupied some Venetian cities. The Senate authorized the cities of the Terraferma to surrender to avoid bloodshed. Although the cities dutifully handed over their keys, they remained loyal to Venice. Meantime, the papal forces had advanced into the Romagna and occupied Ravenna, Rimini, and Faenza, while the duke of Ferrara entered the Polesine and the marquess of Mantua seized Venetian territory. Padua was a special case. Although it had surrendered to Maximilian, as instructed, the Senate decided on 17 July 1509, to retake and defend it, which they did. Maximilian then besieged Padua with French and Spanish aid, but Venice defeated the besieging forces. This encouraged Vicenza to rebel against Maximilian. He responded, in the winter of 1509-10, by pillage and massacre in Friuli. Now Venice dealt with the pope. The investiture issue was settled and the pope, having regained his cities in the Romagna, made an alliance with Venice against the French and Germans in February 1510, a typical papal tergiversation, but also sensible policy. The pope had sowed the wind and was reaping the whirlwind. French armies continued their conquests in north Italy, and on 13 May 1511 they occupied the pope’s city of Bologna. On 5 October the pope formed the Holy League with Venice and Ferdinand of Aragon as king of Naples to drive the barbarians out of Italy. The French were at first victorious and defeated the League in the battle of Ravenna on Easter Sunday 1512 with the help of the duke of Ferrara’s artillery. They captured the papal legate, Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, soon to be Pope Leo X. However, the victorious French general, Gaston de Foix, was killed and things started turning against France. The pope now organized a Swiss threat to the French-held duchy of Milan while the French were pushed back in Lombardy by the Venetians. The pope regained Bologna and his possessions in the Romagna recently lost to the French. Venice got back her cities. Maximilian withdrew from Italy, the French retired to France and Maximiliano Sforza, Lodovico il Moro’s son, was restored in Milan. Genoa, which had also been occupied by the French, rebelled, restored the Fregoso family, and Ottaviano Fregoso of Courtier fame became doge. Another of the protagonists of The Courtier, Giuliano de’ Medici, returned to Florence and Medici rule was

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re-established after the Spanish general, Raymond de Cardona, punished Florence for its alliance with France by sacking the city of Prato. This tremendous upheaval in 1512 thus more or less reestablished the status quo of 1494 before the first French invasion.88 These dramatic events lurk in the background of many of Bembo’s letters of 1509-12, but they are not the object of much direct comment. Bembo, like the majority of people any time anywhere, was interested in politics and contemporary events only when they touched on his own life. His main concern was with everyday things, getting on as usual. Thus there is no mention of the disastrous Venetian defeat at Agnadello on 14 May 1509 and the loss of the Lombard cities, just a familiar letter, dated 10 June, to a woman who was obviously a courtesan he had got to know in Rome, recommending a friend of his, whom I believe to be the Terpandro who went to Rhodes on his behalf, to her warm attentions: My sweetest Madonna Alessandra, God preserve you. Messer Anton Maria, my dearest and most beloved brother,89 who has been with me for many weeks, is going to Rome, and will tell you all the news which I might have put in this letter. Please ... welcome him for love of me ... because he is one of those men whom I love with all my heart ... He tells me he is dying to meet you ... But enough talk of him. Speaking of me, my Madonna Alessandra, do you remember me ever? I want to believe you do ... because this belief alleviates a little the melancholy I feel, and think that I will always feel, at not being able to be with you ... I hear little news of you, which continuously makes me suspect that your stomach trouble is causing you distress more often than is right.

He addresses her stomach, and tells it off for causing suffering to so beautiful and delicate and kind a lady. “Leave her alone and do not torment her any more. She’s mine, and I love and honour her more than my life. It is not right for you to take what belongs to me. You can have so many other ladies ... If you want to give one of us trouble, give it to me ... But this is a lengthy digression.” He asks her to write and kisses and hugs her, tight, tight, “my sweetest and dear, but little enjoyed darling” (T II, 285). To Bembo, safe in Urbino, away from the war in the north, life went on as usual. However Bembo was upset when the siege of Padua began in July. Both he and his father had studied at Padua and the family villa was on the outskirts. On 29 July 1509 he wrote to his “most respected father” in Italian but, by the time he had reached the end of the letter, he signed himself in more formal Latin, “Your most respectful son.” He kissed his father’s hand and recommended himself to his good graces and benediction. This sounds almost as though he thought it could be a final letter. It was obviously an anxious time. Bembo did not know what was happening to his father, nor was he able to go to find out, as he wanted and was honour bound to do.

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He is therefore sending his secretary, Cola, who will explain his situation. He asks his father to send Cola back promptly with all the news. The duchess, who is now regent of the duchy until the duke reaches the age of 25 in 1515,90 is worried that Bernardo may have lost his Paduan possessions and wants to find out what has happened so that she can intervene in Rome or in Germany. The duchess and Madonna Emilia send their greetings to both Bembo’s parents (T II, 286). Bembo had been jolted into awareness. This is revealed in his next letter to Venice, to the condottiere, Girolamo Savorgnan, his old friend and Maria’s brother-in-law, congratulating him on his appointment to the Venetian Senate as a reward for his energetic defence of the Alpine regions of the Republic [Friuli] against the invading Germans.91 “After the many and very sad and disastrous and heart-breaking news of our country and of our public and private affairs throughout the whole of this year,” he is happy to hear something good. Girolamo’s valour has opened for him the pathway to the highest honours in the Republic (T II, 289 of 6 November 1509). A little later92 Bembo wrote a long letter to his father in Venice: “The porters of this letter are citizens of Urbino, men good and tried in arms, who are coming to Venice to serve the state in the siege of Padua or wherever they are needed.” There is much support, he says, in the duchy, but the duke has forbidden succour to Venice since Urbino is one of the states of the Church. However, both the duke and the duchess support Venice, and would send their forces, if it were not for the pope, especially the duchess, who remembers how Venice took her and her husband in when they were exiles. Therefore she and the duke do not “see” people leaving for the defence of Venice and bringing supplies of grain and wine. This has led to a complaint from Maximilian a few days ago. Bembo is writing this now so that Venice will know the truth. He is passing on inside information because he believes that he has secure messengers. The marquess of Mantua has informed the duke and duchess that he would like them to intervene with the pope to begin to repair the damage to Venice. The duke should go to the pope, because of their relationship, and beg him to show compassion to Venice. The duke would have gone today by the post, if the pope had not ordered him to stay in his state until granted permission to leave. So he sent an ambassador to request permission, but did not get it. Therefore the duke and duchess decided to send Cesare Gonzaga, the first gentleman of their court, to ask permission for the duke to go to the pope. This support is encouraging for Venice. The pope is by nature hard, and intractable generally, but he is very affectionate toward his nephew, who is the continuation of his line. This move by the marquess is very important. If he knew anything he could do, himself, for his country, he would do it (T II, 290).

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Bembo’s next letter to his father, dated 22 November 1509, written in the Latin of a formal occasion, expresses his incredible, overwhelming grief at the death of his mother, Elena, a faultless person who was most dear to him. It was his father who had informed him by letter, and it was his father’s fortitude in face of the loss of the most excellent and wisest wife, with whom he had lived for forty-eight years93 in perfect harmony, which had helped Pietro to bear the shock. He now knows that he does not have to compound his grief with worry about his father, but he will never recover from his own sorrow at her loss. His mother was a most dear and delightful person, the help and solace of his life. She consoled him in his troubles and always helped him in every circumstance; she supported him in every mood with a ready response. She offered advice and affection. She had the sweetest nature and was the best of wives (T II, 293). At the end of the year the situation had changed in Urbino. On Christmas day the young duke, Francesco Maria della Rovere, married Eleonora Gonzaga, the niece of the Duchess Elisabetta and illegitimate daughter of the marquess of Mantua. On 1 January 1510, Bembo wrote enthusiastically about her to his sometime fellow courtier and the duchess’s nephew on the Montefeltro side, Federico Fregoso. She is more beautiful, jollier, and sweeter than any young woman he has met. She has a lovable nature and is sensible beyond her years. Everybody is delighted with her, especially her husband. After the wedding night the duke, deliriously happy, leapt out of bed almost naked, to embrace his mother – those who bring this letter will tell him more. He is glad that Fregoso likes his book on Guidobaldo and the duchess. He has already sent the Cicero manuscripts. He thinks they are going to Rome soon and will stay until summer’s heat drives them away, if the pope permits. Otherwise, until the end of March (T II, 294). It appears from this letter that Bembo and Fregoso had both been in papal Bologna recently, as part of two different delegations, and that they had had to share a little room, even a bed. Then, in January 1510, Bembo went to Ferrara, then on to Venice, where he reported to the doge’s cabinet: 23 January 1510 Signore Pietro Bembo, son of Sir Bernardo, doctor and knight, who is a knight of Rhodes, came into the cabinet. He comes from Urbino. He has been in Ferrara and has spoken with the duke, who made a great fuss over him and had him escorted to the Polesine, but did not want him to go to Francolin [on the Po, northeast of Ferrara]. He ... reported some things and the pope’s willingness to help this country providing his demands are met. Also he spoke of his duke of Urbino and then the duke of Ferrara ... also he says that at Ferrara he did not see the captured galleys. He thinks they have been taken to Francolin.94

Bembo had become involved in the political situation and, as a patriot, was gathering information for Venice. There is a hint in this report, and in

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The port of Rome, where Bembo was entertained on a ship, the ruins on the Aventine in the background. A. Bartoli.

a letter, from Venice, to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, dated 14 February 1510 (T II, 295), thanking him for his hospitality in Ferrara, that Bembo may also have been in Rome in January. He certainly went to Rome in February. He describes this visit in a letter dated 15 April 1510, to another friend from The Courtier, Gaspare Pallavicino: The duke and duchess and the whole court went to Rome for carnival. They were very well received by the pope and all Rome. They were feasted and visited and greatly honoured. They had a very merry time and stayed for Lent and Easter. They returned to Urbino six days ago. After a bit of gossip about mutual friends and the pursuit of benefices, Bembo continues. Today he is dining with Captain M. Zanetto, on his galley moored at San Paolo on the Tiber, from which he is writing. He has stayed on in Rome for a few days for his personal affairs, then will return to Urbino. He inquires anxiously for news of Gasparo’s health95 (T II, 296). On 18 April 1510, before he left Rome, Bembo wrote the sort of letter that he was to write often in the course of his life. This letter was addressed to his father, who was now avogador di commun in Venice.96 The avogador di commun, public prosecutor, was a very senior and powerful magistrate who held an ancient office which had been established in 864 and lasted until the end of the Republic in 1797.97 Bembo asks his father, in so far as honour permits, to favour the case of a friend of his best friends in Rome who is currently in prison in Venice (T II, 298).

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When Bembo got back to Urbino he received distressing news of the breakdown of his sister’s marriage to Sebastiano Marcello. For two years Sebastiano had been consorting with a prostitute, abandoning his wife and family. Bembo’s sister, Antonia, had tried to win him back with humanity, decency, restraint, and patience, making the greatest efforts without saying anything to anyone, to no avail. When this became known the pleadings, grief, and tears of family and friends had had no effect. Now Bembo is turning to the patriarch of Venice, the protector of religion and the sacraments, as their last hope, the sacred anchor which can save the family from shipwreck. Bembo warns the patriarch that Sebastiano is ever ready to flatter and promise but is completely perfidious. He must be compelled to cut himself off from that pestilence. Bembo feels sure that when he has been liberated, and released from his infamous association with the prostitute and his calamitous behaviour, Sebastiano will, with a calmed mind, thank the patriarch for restoring him to the rational existence of a man, from the shameless, lawless, irresponsible life of the beast (T II, 299, dated 7 July 1510). It would appear that the patriarch’s, or someone else’s, intervention was successful: a few years later, Bembo was addressing Sebastiano as his dearest brother-in-law (T 345 of 4 December 1514). It seems that the group depicted in Castiglione’s Courtier really were and remained good friends. Their names crop up over and over again in Bembo’s letters, particularly Federico and Ottaviano Fregoso, Bernardo Bibbiena and Giuliano de’ Medici. Sanuto, the Venetian diarist, records that in October 1510 Giuliano de’ Medici, the Magnifico of The Courtier, went to Venice to have his eyes treated and stayed in the house of Bernardo Bembo because of his friendship with his son, Pietro.98 During this winter Bembo wrote a letter to Valerio Superchio, the doctor in Venice who had earlier questioned Bembo’s decision to move to Urbino (T I, 241). The occasion was the elegy which the doctor wrote on the death of one of his patients, Paolo Dandolo, which Bembo believes the doctor sang to the lyre, because he practises all three of Apollo’s arts. Apparently Dandolo had an infectious disease, so the doctor was quarantined with his patient because of the stringent sanitary regulations in Venice. On 25 April 1511 Bembo wrote to Paolo Giustiniani in the hermitage at Fonte Avellana saying that the same concerns which had bothered him six or eight years ago [the time of his relationship with Lucrezia] still disturbed him and asking for Paolo’s prayers. Bembo has been ill for fifteen days and still spends half a day in bed. Giustiniani answered him.99 On 26 May Bembo wrote back, excusing himself for not writing a lengthy letter. He was too upset by the French capture of Bologna and by the Church’s loss of all its equipment, by Venice’s loss of sixty men-at-arms and a large party of the infantry, and many other misfortunes. He asks Giustiniani to pray

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for the duke and Signor Ottaviano Fregoso, besieged in the castle of Bologna, which is now under enemy attack (T II, 305). Then Bembo had more bad family news. His father was ill in Padua, and Bembo had difficulty getting there in wartime. On 21 June 1511 he wrote from the port of Cesenatico to his friend, Federico Fregoso, who was with the court in Urbino: I am sending you the verses which I composed on the way here to reduce the tedium of the journey by speaking to you. You will clean them up, for they are dusty and I think that you have a lot of free time for literature since you have left the war, on the loss of the camp, and will return to your studies ... Up to the present there are no galleys here which I may board; however, they say they will be here any time now and I have decided to wait for them. Greet the duke and duchess and Emilia for me and Margarita, who is so witty, and Ippolita with all her lovers and Alessandro Trivulzio, my rival. (T II, 307)

The poem he included, “Ad Lygdamum,” was published as Carmina XXIX with only one change. It appears from the reference to the duke here, and to Ottaviano Fregoso in the following letter, that the two escaped from the siege of Bologna. Bembo wrote to Federico again the next day, still from the port of Cesenatico: Still no galleys have appeared, only merchant ships which our soldiers have boarded. So I am held up in a clearly inconvenient place, looking at the shore and the sea. Certainly, if I had been able to foresee this, I would have waited where you are to see your brother, Ottaviano ... going home after escaping very many and very great dangers, and I would have spent these nights in my own bed, nights during which both the importunate mosquitoes and the continual shouting of the soldiers’ porters and camp-followers saw to it that I had no sleep. Now, since I foresaw none of this, I am paying the penalty, not indeed for sloth and inertia like your soldiers, but ... for diligence and speed. And so that proverb “Make haste slowly” is better, something which I forgot in setting out for home, which I certainly hope to follow when I will have to go back. But alas, what are the ladies, what the duke, what are the rest of you courtiers doing? What about my Ippolita, is she caught in the nets of Secundo or Trivulzio? Oh I am foolish and plainly witless, leaving my love as a prey and plunder to men of war while I sit on the sand of the seashore, more cowardly and stupider than them. (T II, 308)

Bembo tells us in his History that he got a lift two days later on the Venetian legate’s galley and reached Chioggia in one day’s sailing, whence he went to visit his father in Padua.100 If one can trust the dates on his letters, Bembo went to Rome shortly afterwards and stayed in the Borgo, the

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little village huddled by St Peter’s. On 20 July 1511 he sent a thank-you letter to a friend in Rome, returning a most beautiful copy of Petrarch which he had lent him, because he has to go back to Urbino tomorrow (T II, 310). By August Bembo was in Venice, then he returned to Urbino, whence he wrote to Paolo Giustiniani at the hermitage on 30 August 1511, telling him that he had found all their friends well in Venice, studying Greek, Hebrew, and Latin very assiduously. He led them astray a little for some hours every day. Bembo told Giustiani that a rumour had travelled around Venice that he had become a monk at the hermitage, so they could not believe their eyes when he turned up. Cardinal Cornaro has promised him a pension of 200 ducats on the abbey of Vidor. He is going to Rome about that in September, with the Archbishop of Salerno [his friend, Federico Fregoso, appointed in 1507], and thinks that he will stay there all winter and settle his affairs. Then he hopes to spend a year in the hermitage in sweetest solitude. The Germans and French are in Vicenza and are thinking of attacking Treviso. We will defend it, and Padua. The emperor himself is expected. Other cities are left to their own fortunes. Every place is full of plunder, murder, fire. He returns Giustiniani’s little book and asks him to pray for him and for the duchess and Emilia also (T II, 311). Bembo did indeed go to Rome with Fregoso. His happy days at the court of Urbino had come to an end and he finally realized his ambition to settle in Rome. Needless to say, he did not return to spend a year in the hermitage on Monte Catria. Rome was too seductive.

6 Rome

The Rome in which Bembo lived for the best part of the next ten years was an extraordinary place. It was not a proper city like Naples, Florence, Milan, Paris, or London. It was rather a collection of settlements in places like encampments, with a combined population of about 50,000,1 scattered inside the walls and half-buried ruins of an imperial city which had once held a million people. Those who saw bombed German cities in the late 1940s could perhaps best envisage it. Much of Rome was rural, even invaded by wolves in harsh winters.2 The biggest population centre was the flat land, subject to severe inundation, inside the bend of the Tiber, in what the Romans had called the Campus Martius.3 In addition there were two largish settlements on the right bank of the Tiber, the Borgo, stretching from Castel Sant’ Angelo, Hadrian’s tomb now a fortified castle, to St Peter’s, and Trastevere, farther south, a village dependent upon the port of Rome called “Ripa,” “the river bank.” The Borgo and Trastevere were separate villages, not even connected by road.4 Other small settlements huddled around the great ancient churches frequented by pilgrims and by the main gates in the old city walls.5 The seven hills had been mostly abandoned, and had reverted to farmland, grazing ground, vineyards, and gardens. There was even a hunting preserve beyond the Baths of Diocletian in the modern station area, on the site of the camp of the old Praetorian Guard now occupied by the National Library. The ancient Forum was a cow pasture. Goats grazed on the Tarpeian Rock on the southwest side of the Capitoline Hill, though the Capitol itself, in memory of its ancient glory, was the isolated seat of the medieval civic government which met in the old Roman archives, the Tabularium, looking out over the Forum.6 Few of the straight streets of ancient Rome had survived. There was via Lata, “Broad Street,” now the Corso, the extension of the via Flaminia which entered Rome from Umbria and the Adriatic. There was via Recta,

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Rome 1550. Note the gardens everywhere among the ruins. Hendrik van Cleef.

“the street called Straight,” to use biblical phraseology, now Coronari, which ran at right angles to the Tiber, across the Campus Martius north of Domitian’s stadium, now Piazza Navona. Most of the rest of the Campus Martius was a maze of narrow winding alleys encumbered by porticoes, balconies, overhead bridges, and outdoor staircases. These alleys were so narrow that in some places it was impossible for two horsemen to pass.7 Palaces of the wealthy, bankers or churchmen, several storeys high, with ground floor shops in the ancient Roman tradition, stood beside dwellings of the working class and small traders, with their ground floor workshop and single living room above. The neighbouring poor lived in one-room hovels. All districts were mixed. Everyone was heaped in together. Houses were built not in orderly rows, but higgledy-piggledy.8 The ancient sewage system no longer functioned, so the streets were full of refuse, offal from butchers’ shops, and droppings from the constant procession of animals. Streets were unpaved and often muddy, as in other medieval cities in Europe.9 Only one of the eleven ancient aqueducts was still operational, the leaky Acqua Virgo, which took water to the Campus Martius and now supplies the Trevi Fountain. Elsewhere water came from wells or the Tiber and water carriers were a common sight.10 The old Roman nobility, feudal war lords like the Colonna and Orsini, dwelt apart, in fortresses built in the Roman ruins.11 Like other medieval Italian cities, Rome was a forest of more than 300 crenellated baronial towers, a few of which survive in truncated form today.12

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Rome was a great pilgrimage centre, especially at the time of Jubilees, proclaimed every twenty-five years by the Renaissance popes. The normal annual influx of pilgrims has been estimated at 100,000. Fortunately, they did not all arrive at once, nor stay more than a few days.13 The pilgrims toured the traditional seven churches in sequence: St Peter’s, San Paolo fuori le Mura, San Sebastiano on via Appia, St John Lateran, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, and Santa Maria Maggiore. Awe-struck, they venerated such precious relics as Jesus’s foreskin, a vial of the Virgin’s milk, the manger, Christ’s portrait painted by no hand, the table at which Jesus ate with the Apostles, one of the pieces of silver given to Judas, the stairs on which Jesus stood in Pilate’s palace, two thorns from his crown, a piece of the sponge which was held up to him, the lance of Longinus which drew the sacred blood, fragments of the True Cross and one of its nails, St Thomas’s finger which touched Christ’s wounds, St Luke’s portrait of the Virgin, St Peter’s chains, the heads of saints Peter and Paul, Aaron’s rod, the laws which God gave to Moses, and miscellaneous body parts of lesser figures among the saints and martyrs.14 There must have been some very plausible salesmen in the Middle East. Rome was well provided with hostels for the pilgrims. Giovanni Rucellai, who visited Rome in the Jubilee Year 1450, referred to 1022 hosteleries with signs, and a large number of others without.15 Some of these still survive as hotels, like the fifteenth century “Sole” opposite the Pantheon, on the piazza della Rotonda. Poorer pilgrims, however, hired straw mattresses and slept in the open by St Peter’s.16 And as one would expect, Romans, whose only industry was the Church, provided services to exploit the pilgrim potential to the full. Money changers abounded, hawkers of relics, crucifixes, religious medals, prayer beads, devotional paintings, and of typical Roman snacks, pig’s trotters and tripe. There were innumerable wine shops, as well as jewellers, gold and silver smiths and luxury boutiques.17 Women were also available to satisfy other basic needs of the male pilgrims and the predominately male population of a city of clerics: ordinary prostitutes who could solicit from their windows, whistle and call for custom,18 and elegant and cultured courtesans who served the wealthy, the churchmen, and the throng of humanists, who could thus imagine they were living in Pericles’s Athens.19 As is apparent from his letter of 10 June 1509 to a Madonna Alessandra in Rome (T II, 285), Bembo had already, on previous visits to the city with Venetian embassies to the Vatican, discovered the delights of the courtesans who crowded the Borgo.20 It was here that he was to find his long-term companion, Morosina. The most famous courtesan in the Borgo was Imperia. Born there in 1481, she was the daughter of a courtesan who later married a much older

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man, Paolo Trotti, a member of the choir of the Sistine Chapel, who then managed her financial affairs.21 By the age of seventeen Imperia already had a daughter whose father is thought to have been either Bembo’s old friend from Ferrara and later colleague in the papal service, Jacopo Sadoleto,22 or the banker Agostino Chigi, the father of her second daughter and later her protector. Imperia is thought to have been the model for either Galatea or Psyche in the frescoes Chigi commissioned Raphael to paint in his villa, now called the Farnesina. It is known that Raphael, who lived near her in the Borgo, had painted her nude. She is also thought to have been either Sappho or Calliope in Raphael’s Parnassus in Julius II’s library in the Vatican, called the Sala della Segnatura, or even the young woman in Raphael’s painting called La Fornarina, who is usually thought to be his mistress, the baker’s daughter. Imperia’s beauty was celebrated in poetry, and men committed murder for her, though she herself, at the age of thirty, committed suicide over a man and was buried by special dispensation from Julius II, in San Gregorio al Celio, with a Latin epitaph, “She gave among men a rare example of beauty.”23 At the time of her death Imperia was being kept in great luxury by the banker Chigi, across the river in the most elegant quarter of Rome, in the via dei Banchi or the new via Giulia.24 The Dominican friar Bandello wrote a novella about Imperia in which he likened her house to that of princes, with its velvets, brocades, carpets, precious vases, musical instruments, richly bound books in Italian and Latin, and extravagant flower arrangements. Imperia herself wrote and sang sonnets and madrigals.25 She counted most of Bembo’s humanist friends among her lovers. In addition to Sadoleto there were Castiglione, Beroaldo, Colocci, Giovio, and the papal librarian Inghirami [Fedra].26 Nicola Campani wrote a poem about some of the Christmas presents they gave her: Sadoleto a ring, Fedra a dress, Capello gold shoes, Colocci a gold Venus.27 Blosio Palladio wrote an elegy on her death.28 Roman courtesans in many respects resembled the ladies of the Italian courts with whom the well-born young men who flocked to Rome looking for lucrative employment were familiar.29 They were elegantly dressed, cultured, witty, musical – and available. Respectable Roman women had no social life. They knew only home and church. Even at wedding parties or banquets women were segregated from men.30 Courtesans, on the other hand, were one of the sights of Rome, speeding by in splendid coaches, riding prancing Spanish steeds or led by grooms on mules that were richly caparisoned and plumed. Their clothes were of the highest elegance and greatest luxury. They wore the finest perfumed underwear and dresses of silk, velvet, and the richest gold brocades. Their accessories were showy: the rarest of furs, the most precious Venetian laces, gloves perfumed with Spanish jasmin or carnation, dazzling jewellery, rings, bracelets, necklaces,

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Fireworks at Castel Sant’ Angelo, Rome, probably for the feast of the Assumption. Hendrik van Cleef.

earrings, and diadems. They were attended by maidservants and pages and accompanied by throngs of admirers.31 Church was their all-round theatre. It provided an opportunity to be seen, to show off their clothes, their wealth, and their success. Young men crowded on the steps of the fashionable churches to see them, preceded and followed by their entourage and surrounded by admirers, with their hands on the shoulders of the current favourites. Burchard, the master of ceremonies to Pope Alexander VI, noted in his diary that in Sant’ Agostino, on St Augustine’s day in 1497, courtesans occupied the entire space between the altar and the seats of the cardinals.32 Courtesans’ houses were often painted on the outside to suggest the gaiety within and attract clients who, when they entered, were amused by exotic pets, monkeys, talking parrots, and beribboned cats.33 Infessura in his diary gave the number of courtesans in Rome in 1490 as 6,800. By 1524 the figure given by the Spaniard, Delecado, was an improbable 30,000, indicating the impression foreigners took away. On the basis of the 1526–27 census it is thought that the number for that year was 4,900,34 a little less than one tenth of the population. Rome was alive with festivities. There were constant showy processions, cavalcades of ambassadors and cardinals, senators going to the Capitol, officers, magistrates and the pope and his court on high holy days. At

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Corpus Christi, which fell in hot weather, the pope was carried in his sedia gestatoria under a parasol, fanned by peacock feathers, while the cardinals, bishops, and other clergy, the papal secretaries, palace officials, and ambassadors, all in their finery, accompanied him on foot.35 The display was more suggestive of India or Sri Lanka than of modern Europe. On some feast days there were fireworks from the ramparts of Castel Sant’ Angelo. The fifteenth of August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was particularly important.36 In addition there were, from time to time, barefoot processions carrying holy relics, praying for release from peril and giving thanks for deliverance.37 And there was the purely secular celebration of the birthday of Rome, on 25 April, revived by the humanists in the fifteenth century.38 Some of the Church festivals had degenerated into popular celebrations which must have had roots in pre-Christian times. At Candlemass young cardinals scrambled to collect the most candles and throw them, burning, into the crowd, whose confusion amused the papal court. At Epiphany birds were released in church and there was a competition to see who could climb a greasy pole to capture a pig at the top.39 But the greatest excesses marked the season of Advent. A Veronese visitor to Rome in the 1480s was shocked by the lack of respect for the clergy in the Advent celebrations when people dressed as clergymen, and wearing masks, provoked Innocent VIII to laughter by their antics. Cardinal Colonna raced his horse through Rome, wearing short clothes, prostitutes rode through the city wearing surplices over their dresses and the pope’s daughter, Teodorina Cibò, rode through Rome in great pomp with her children.40 Then came the great outburst of popular spirits which was carnival. It began after Christmas and was regulated by the civil government of Rome. Carnival started with races – of horses, donkeys, buffalo, men, young and old, courtesans, prostitutes, Jews, and geese, who ran from the Campo dei Fiori across Ponte Sant’ Angelo to St Peter’s. The pope and his court watched from Castel Sant’ Angelo, laughing uproariously. The 1520 carnival began with a tournament in the moat of Castel Sant’ Angelo. On this occasion the pope and his court threw food at the spectators, and when they went to pick it up, pelted them with rotten eggs. In another part of Rome carts of pigs were rolled down Mount Testaccio. Contestants had to pull pigs off as they passed. On other occasions there were bull fights. Horse races also took place in via Lata, hence now called the Corso.41 In The Courtier Castiglione makes Bernardo Bibbiena, soon to be cardinal, tell a story of what happened to him once at carnival in Rome when one of his practical jokes was turned against him: For during the recent carnival, my Monsignor, Cardinal San Pietro in Vincoli, who knows how much I enjoy playing jokes on friars, when I am in masquerade, and

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Bull fight, Monte Testaccio, Rome, 1520, probably part of carnival celebrations. Note an apparent umpire on a camel, the pyramid of Caius Cestius, the thirdcentury walls of Rome, and the many gardens on the slopes. The large church in the background on the Tiber is probably the Constantinian basilica of St Paul Without the Walls, destroyed by fire in 1823, brought closer to provide background interest to the drawing. Hendrik van Cleef.

had earlier arranged all he meant to do, came along one day with Monsignor of Aragon and several other cardinals to certain windows in the Banchi, as though he intended to stay there to see the maskers pass by, as is the custom in Rome. Then I appeared on the scene in my mask and, seeing a friar standing to one side and looking rather hesitant, I decided this was a good opportunity and at once swooped on him like a falcon on its prey. After I had first asked him who he was ... I pretended to know him and talking fast I began to persuade him that the chief of police was looking for him ... and I also urged him to come with me to the Chancery where I would make him safe. Frightened and trembling all over, the friar seemed unsure what to do next ... But I kept encouraging him, and at last managed to persuade him to mount behind me; and then, judging that my plan had already succeeded, I immediately spurred my horse, which was bucking and kicking wildly, towards the Banchi. Now just think what a fine spectacle it was to see a friar riding behind a masker, with his robe flying and his head jerking backwards and forwards and always seeming on the verge of tumbling off! At the sight those gentlemen began to throw eggs at us from the windows, as did people who lived in the Banchi and all

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the others who were there, until there were eggs falling from the windows with greater force than hail ever fell from the sky; but since I was masked I wasn’t worried, and I imagined that all the laughter was at the friar’s expense and not mine. So several times I rode up and down the Banchi through that barrage of eggs, although very tearfully the friar kept begging me to let him dismount and not to make him disgrace his cloth. Then, without my knowing, the rascal got certain lackeys, who had been stationed there for that purpose, to pass him some eggs, and, pretending to hold me tight so as not to fall, he crushed some of them on my chest, more on my head and several on my very face until I was streaming with them. At length, when everyone was tired of laughing and throwing eggs, he jumped down, threw back his scapular to show his long hair and said: “Bernardo, sir, I’m one of the grooms of San Pietro in Vincoli, the one who looks after your little mule!”42

The huge supply of eggs stresses how rural Rome was. Cocks must have been crowing all night. Carnival came to a climax in the ten days before Lent. The most important events took place in piazza Navona on the Thursday before, and on Mount Testaccio on the last Sunday before Lent. On “Fat” Thursday there was a magnificent civic display, with floats carrying allegorical and historical representations created by the best artists and men of letters. They started in piazza Navona then progressed to the main centres of the city. Then came a hunt for bulls and other animals on the Campidoglio on Saturday and on Testaccio on Sunday.43 There were also private entertainments during this period, banquets and theatrical performances. The pope’s domestic servants engaged his hostlers in a battle with oranges, two Florentine teams of thirty-five each, in different colours, played the famous Florentine ball game, a kind of barbarian melee, in the Belvedere court to the sound of trumpets and papal drums,44 and, on 6 March 1519, the Sunday before Lent, Ariosto’s I Suppositi was performed in the Vatican with sets by Raphael representing Ferrara.45 Such was old Rome, but the Rome in which Bembo settled in the autumn of 1511 was in rapid transition, on the way to becoming the only great Italian city shaped by the Renaissance, expressing humanist ideals. When the popes returned to Rome from Avignon in 1377 they decided to settle on the Vatican hill near St Peter’s, on the opposite side of the Tiber from Rome proper, rather than back in the old Lateran Palace by St John’s. This necessitated some rebuilding. In the ninth century Pope Leo IV had constructed walls to protect the Vatican area after St Peter’s was raided by Saracens in 846, but the old Vatican palace was not a secure residence. It had to be fortified and Hadrian’s tomb, now called the Castel Sant’ Angelo, which had been turned into a fortress after the fall of the Roman empire, had to be further strengthened and equipped with residential quarters as a refuge for the popes in time of war or civil disturbances, both all too frequent. Castel

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Sant’ Angelo, dominating the one bridge across the Tiber from the settled area of Rome, was the key position to hold, so, in the middle of the fifteenth century, it was connected to the Vatican palace by a walkway, the passetto, which was built on the battlements of the Vatican walls.46 Then communications had to be improved. Before the Jubilee of 1475 Sixtus IV (1471–84) built a road, the via Sacra, through the Borgo to St Peter’s. This was paved by 1483.47 He also built a second bridge across the Tiber, the Ponte Sisto, which bears his name. It linked the financial centre of the city to the village of Trastevere and the port of Rome.48 He began the clearance of the crowded alleyways, demolishing dark porticoes, widening streets and squares49 and he tackled public hygiene. He ordered the paving and regular cleaning of the three main streets which converged on Ponte Sant’ Angelo and of the public markets in front of the Pantheon in piazza della Rotonda, in piazza Navona and in campo dei Fiori.50 He also began the restoration of many crumbling churches and renovated the papal chapel in the Vatican, now called the Sistine Chapel in his honour because it was he who summoned the greatest painters of the age: the three Umbrians, Perugino, Pinturicchio, and Signorelli, and the Florentines, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Roselli, and his pupil, Piero di Cosimo, to fresco the walls of the chapel with scenes from the life of Christ. Sixtus IV’s successor, Innocent VIII (1484–92), built the Belvedere on the hill behind the Vatican palace. This was a Renaissance villa, with open air dining in its loggia, a secluded afternoon retreat for the pope, decorated with illusionistic landscapes of famous Italian cities.51 It was, however, still crenellated, a sign of the times. The following pope, Alexander VI (1492–1503), continued the embellishment of the Vatican, employing Pinturicchio to fresco his apartments in what came to be called the Borgia tower. He also strengthened the fortifications of the Castel Sant’ Angelo and built another road, the via Alessandrina, through the Borgo, from the castle to St Peter’s, for the Jubilee of 1500.52 He supported the rebuilding of the Sapienza, the University of Rome.53 However it was the second della Rovere pope, Julius II (1503–13), Sixtus IV’s nephew, the warrior pope, who restored the papal states, fostered the great art and architecture of Renaissance Rome, and made Rome the magnet for humanists. He made Bramante his architect, Michelangelo his sculptor, Raphael his painter, and it was he who laid the foundation stone for new St Peter’s on 18 April 1506. Bramante’s original design for St Peter’s appears on one of Julius’s coins for 1506. By 1507, 2500 workers, mostly Tuscans and Lombards, were engaged in demolition and rebuilding.54 Julius continued the embellishment of the Vatican palace, commissioning Raphael to paint the rooms he intended for his private apartments, the famous Stanze, while he asked Michelangelo, who was working on

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sculptures for his tomb, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He commissioned Bramante and Raphael to build new Renaissance loggias onto the fortified medieval palace and instructed Bramante to link the Vatican palace to the Belvedere, creating an imperial Roman garden and home for his sculptures based on descriptions in Pliny’s letters and Tacitus’s Annals.55 Albertini, writing on the marvels of Rome in 1510, says that between the Vatican palace and Innocent VIII’s Belvedere, Julius II built a sumptuous structure adorned with various stones, bronzes and marble statues; a Doric building with towers and baths and water ducts; most sumptuous hot baths, groves for wild animals (the Vatican possessed a menagerie with lions, leopards, panthers, monkeys, parrots and an African elephant, a gift from the King of Portugal56); gardens in which men could walk for relaxation; and a paved path between one palace and the other, all in a very short time.57 Three great terraces or piazzas converted the natural rising site into architectural volume with receding planes bordered by porticoes, ramps and staircases. The lowest terrace became the first permanent theatre of the Renaissance and was also used for tournaments, bull fights, and mock battles. The upper level housed the pope’s statue collection, the first museum of the Renaissance.58 Here, in niches around the sides painted with arbours full of flowers and birds, were displayed the Apollo Belvedere from Julius II’s own private collection,59 the Laocoon discovered in 1506, Venus and Cupid, the Emperor Commodus in the guise of Hercules holding the infant Hylas, Hercules and Antaeus wrestling, and a drowsing nymph, then called Cleopatra, now Ariadne, from whose breasts water fell into a sarcophagus. There were other freestanding classical statues and four garden plots in the centre with two classical river-god fountains, the Tiber and the Nile, facing one another.60 Julius did not limit his architectural works to the Vatican. He had Bramante design a new broad street, the via Giulia, running from the Tiber south of the Ponte Sant’ Angelo through the financial district to the new Ponte Sisto. And he built a corresponding street on the other side of the Tiber, the via Lungara, crossing Trastevere and more or less linking the Vatican to Ponte Sisto.61 He also continued his uncle’s program of renewal of streets, churches and public buildings.62 Private building also continued apace with papal encouragement. Sixtus IV had permitted the inheritance of houses bought or built with income from benefices. This encouraged rich clerics to invest in Rome and led to much building which continued throughout the papacies of Julius II and Leo X,63 though the downside was the continual pillaging of the ruins of ancient Rome for building materials. Raphael attacked this vandalism in a report commissioned by Leo X and written for him by Castiglione with some input from Bembo.64 But art and architecture were not the only beacons in Julius II’s Rome. Along with the artists the dynamic pope also attracted throngs of human-

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ists from all over Italy and northern Europe, especially the German Empire.65 When Erasmus arrived in 1509 he found Rome a unique city of sweet liberty with rich libraries, full of wise men and scholars, with all the brightest of the world assembled in one place.66 Julius also responded to the challenge of the Council of Pisa, aimed at removing him because of his bellicose policies, by summoning a council, himself, to Rome to discuss reformation of abuses in the Church.67 The fifth Lateran Council met from 1512 under Julius II until 1517 under Leo X. It only tinkered with administrative law. It did not aim at a wholesale reformation of corrupt practice. While Bembo was living in the Rome of Julius II with his old friend from Urbino, Federico Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, and lobbying for preferment, he engaged in discussions on language with Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, nephew of the famous Renaissance polymath, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Language and style were Bembo’s lasting preoccupations. In humanist Rome the language and style discussed were Latin and the epistolary debate was conducted in Latin. Pico’s letter to Bembo was dated Rome, 19 June 1512. He refers to their discussion about imitating ancient writers. He did not know at the time what he thought. Now that he has had time for reflection he believes that a single author should not be imitated but all good writers, and not in all things. He believed that that had been Bembo’s thought also. He gives his reason for his opinion: the ancients, Vergil, Cicero, Livy, who are accused of having imitated their predecessors, did not imitate but emulate, while Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon were all dissimilar. Plato used fine words, Xenophon common. The ancients never concerned themselves with imitation but felt the beauty of variety. We must not be monkeys. The ancients were native speakers of Latin and Greek. We have only learned their languages through hard application. We must not try to ape them, slavishly, but advance, making footprints in their traces. Bembo could never pass himself off as an ancient. Cicero varies, depending upon the sort of writing, the subject, the emotion. Like the ancients we need various writers with various styles which suit our temperaments and themes.68 Bembo’s reply was dated 1 January 1513.69 He is glad that Pico has put into writing his view of the conversation they had about imitation. Ideas can be better expressed in writing than in conversation. For Bembo imitation is natural, inborn in all men [he could have added animals]. It can be controlled, but not extirpated.70 As for writing, he believes that there is an idea of good writing laid up in heaven just as there is one of temperance, of justice and of the other virtues. All great writers try to imitate this model, as they are able to conceive it in their souls. This should be our aim.71

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What does Pico mean by saying that one should imitate all good writers? They all have different styles and differing elegance. One is better in one respect than in another. If it is right to imitate someone, one should imitate the greatest and the best one, who is most congenial – but those with no gifts should not try to write.72 Imitation embraces the whole shape of someone’s writing, it demands the pursuit of the individual parts of it, it concerns itself with the overall structure and body of its style. An imitator has to express the whole beauty of the style.73 After much thought Bembo has concluded that Cicero should be the model for prose, Vergil for heroic verse.74 To follow their examples he realised that he would have to absorb their ways of looking at things, their minds, but, despite strenuous efforts, he has found that he could not imitate them any more easily than he can other writers. In fact, he found it impossible to become them, but he has persisted in trying. “It certainly seems that nothing is so difficult and so hard that it cannot be conquered and overcome by our efforts.” He does not know how far he has succeeded, but he does not regret the attempt.75 He has also written prose and verse in the vernacular. He has dedicated much effort to saving the language from degradation because correct usage was almost obsolete and it seemed that unless someone supported it the language would soon be without honour, without splendour, without any reverence and dignity.76 Returning to Latin he praises Vergil, whose poetry is like the voice of nature, the parent of men and of all things, speaking in verse.77 All poets can imitate Vergil, whatever their genres, elegy, lyric, tragedy, comedy, epic. They will all be helped by the study of the structure of Vergil’s verse and of his metre and the reason for it.78 As to Cicero, he can be rather verbose, especially when writing about his own exploits and consulship, but he is the most eloquent of all prose writers. Eloquence was born with him. When he errs, it is not a fault of style but weakness of character, of judgment. He did not know when to be silent.79 Nevertheless his style was varied, sometimes richer, sometimes sparer, gleaming in its bare wood without any bark. Thus his style can be suitable for innumerable subjects.80 One can try to imitate Cicero’s eloquence without admiring his life and try to surpass him, as he did his forebears.81 Emulation and hope are two driving forces, but emulation is always rooted in imitation and hope is for the success of the imitation.82 We cannot write without borrowing something from someone, but we can try to make our borrowings more splendid and more illustrious than their sources, as Vergil did with Hesiod. And borrowing is the same as imitating.83 If the quality of Vergil’s and Cicero’s writing has not persuaded people that they should be taken as models he does not expect this letter to do so.84 Pico replied in an undated letter.85 Children’s imitation of their parents is natural, not art. They are like monkeys. He agrees with Bembo about

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Platonic ideas by which we judge imitations in this world and thus call things beautiful, etc., but no one can really imitate another person; people are individuals, times are different. No one in this age can replicate Cicero. You can steal, but not imitate. “I would not see you, Bembo, as Cicero, however much you are devoted to him.” There is the difference of temperaments. The letters of Pico and Bembo were the latest expression of an argument which had been going on among humanists since the 1480s.86 Discussions of language and style were to continue for the rest of the century, but interest was shifting from Latin to the vernacular. Bembo’s letters of 1512 to friends in Venice and Urbino reflect a society of scholars keen on learning, hunting for manuscripts, classical or medieval, exchanging hand-written copies of their treasures, borrowing and returning books.87 Bembo also sent the first two books of his dialogue on the vulgar tongue to Venice to be circulated for criticism (T II, 314, 315) and rejoiced at the news that Aldus was publishing Plato (T II, 316). He comments on the civil war in Florence (T II, 318 of 31 August 1512), then congratulates Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici on the family’s restoration, taking the opportunity to express his high regard for his father, Lorenzo, and his gratitude to the cardinal and his brother, Giuliano, Bembo’s old friend from Urbino, for their many kindnesses to him (T II, 319 of 5 September 1512). This letter was undoubtedly sincere, but Bembo was also taking advantage of a godsent opportunity to indulge in the fulsome flattery obligatory in the quest for preferment in Rome, and it was written in most elegant Latin. Bembo sent a different sort of letter to his old friend from Urbino, Ottaviano Fregoso, with whose brother Federico, archbishop of Salerno, Bembo was living in Rome. In this letter (T II, 324 of 1 January 1513) Bembo expresses his joy that the liberation of Genoa from the French has meant that Ottaviano has been able to give up leading armies and is devoting himself to literary studies. If Ottaviano is restored to power Bembo will think he has lived long enough. The rest of the letter reports on life in Rome, the delights of the city and especially of the Vatican, with whose “sons of fortune” he spends a good deal of time, and on Federico’s scholarly circle, in which no one is happier than he is. He also refers to the very difficult times “when everything is either collapsing unpredictably or is being subverted by the desire of a single man.” This could refer equally to Julius II or Louis XII. Since Julius II has been Bembo’s benefactor and Bembo is still manoeuvring for additional benefices, I believe it must refer to the king of France and his wars in the north. Indeed Bembo’s good relations with the pope are revealed in a letter which he wrote to Julius II later in the month. The pope had given him a book from Hungary written in a script no one could decipher. Bembo identified it as a fragment of Hyginus, on the stars, written in

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the shorthand Cicero had invented to preserve the opinions and speeches of senators. He believes that this shorthand could be revived and used today. Julius’s predecessors had made the Vatican library elegant with marbles and paintings and most beautiful windows. He could add to its glory by restoring Cicero’s shorthand just as he has restored the Roman empire (T II, 326 of 20 January 1513). At the time that Bembo wrote that letter the pope was already moribund. He died a month later, on 20 February 1513, having summoned the College of Cardinals to his bedside, exhorting them to unite in the election of a good pope.88 The Conclave met in early March. Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici was in Florence when the news of the pope’s final illness arrived. Ill himself, he was carried on a litter to Rome and arrived only after the Conclave had begun its proceedings. After days of discussions and manoeuvres Giovanni de’ Medici, only thirty-seven years of age – although he had been a cardinal for almost a quarter of a century, having been appointed through parental influence at the age of thirteen – emerged as the candidate of the younger cardinals. Then, as Paolo Giovio so charmingly put it, the older cardinals decided to support him because he was not expected to last long since the smell of his anal fistula filled the Conclave as though he were infected with a mortal disease.89 Ficino had cast his horoscope when he was a child and had predicted that Giovanni de’ Medici would become pope.90 That prediction was fulfilled on 11 March 1513. Now Giovanni, as pope, chose the name Leo. There was a story that before his birth his mother had dreamed of bringing forth a huge lion. This dream was also being fulfilled.91 Then, even before he left the Conclave, the new pope appointed the two best latinists of the age, Pietro Bembo and Jacopo Sadoleto, as his two secretaries and Tommaso Inghirami, another of Bembo’s friends, as Vatican librarian, thus proclaiming his adherence to the humanist cause.92 He completed his humanist inner circle by making Ludovico Canossa, the first speaker in Castiglione’s Courtier, master of the papal household93 and appointing his former tutor, secretary, and agent at the Conclave, Bernardo Dovizi, “Bibbiena,” papal treasurer.94 This founder of Italian Renaissance comedy95 became known as the alter papa, the other pope.96 However, although he was now pope, Leo was not yet a priest. He was therefore hastily ordained on 15 March 1513, then made a bishop on 17 March because all popes are bishops of Rome. With these formalities taken care of he was crowned with the triple tiara on 19 March 1513.97 He took possession of the See of Rome in the following month, on 11 April 1513, the feast of St Leo. This was exactly a year after his capture by the French at the battle of Ravenna, and he rode for his possesso the same Turkish horse he had been riding when he was captured.98

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Giovio describes the day of Leo’s enthronement as the brightest and most joyful since the fall of Rome to the Goths. The streets were decorated with tapestries, the doors of the houses with flowers and branches, fine carpets hung from windows, triumphal arches had been built on the processional route to supplement the stone arches of Imperial Rome, through which the procession passed, and these temporary wooden arches were decorated with paintings and sculptures of scriptural and historical personages with various admonitions, and classical gods proclaiming a new age: “Once Venus had her day, once Mars had his, now Pallas has hers.” Lions appeared frequently and the golden balls of the Medici family.99 The procession was the greatest Rome had ever seen, a brilliant theatrical display of the Medici comeback and the triumph of the exiled and defeated Cardinal Giovanni. It marked the coronation of the ruler of the universal church, a great Italian prince, and the successor to St Peter as bishop of Rome. The procession took hours and involved every class of the pope’s subjects. It was headed by the military: cavalry, men-at-arms, and mercenaries; the households of the cardinals followed, each at least sixty in number, all in richly coloured liveries; the twelve papal standard bearers with their red flags came next; then the thirteen heads of the administrative districts of Rome with their banners; finally two cavaliers each holding a standard with cherubs on a red background, five great standard bearers wearing silk cloaks of various colours over their armour, including Giulio de’ Medici, the future Clement VII, who was a knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, and Alfonso d’Este, duke of Ferrara. They were followed by young men and women leading the richly caparisoned horses and white mules of the papal stables, 112 papal manservants in rose silk capes lined with ermine, four members of the papal household carrying mitres and crowns, 100 barons of the papal state carrying their coats of arms, the singers and musicians of the papal chapel in uniforms of green, red and white, the 200 principal vassals of the Church in various dress, a great band of Florentines, a cavalcade of ambassadors, and finally, Francesco Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino and leader of the papal armies. Then came the clergy. A horse in their midst carried the Holy Sacrament under a baldachin, which Roman citizens, flanked by footmen with lighted candles, held aloft. Next came Church officials, the two naval prefects, the heads of papal tribunals, scribes, and members of the Schola Cantorum, all mounted, some in purple, some in black. They were followed by the clergy of the Apostolic Chamber and the auditors of the Sacred Rota. Then came about 250 abbots and various prelates, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, and cardinals, all mounted, each one with eight attendants. The representatives of the Roman people and the two hundred Swiss guards followed on foot.

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Then, preceded by a gold processional cross and acolytes swinging their censers, came the pope on his Turkish horse, riding under a baldachin. He was followed by the nobles of the papal states, by the pope’s “family,” men like Bembo, Sadoleto, and Bibbiena who lived with him in the Vatican, then by the gentlemen of Rome. After the ceremony and banquet at the Lateran, the procession returned to the Vatican by torchlight.100 Bembo must have been in his element with such regal splendour. At the age of forty-three, after repeated rejections by his own people, admittedly for jobs that he did not want, he had finally succeeded in gaining recognition. The domestic secretaries of the pope, so called because they lived with him, were very powerful men. They were the equivalent of secretaries of state, the most important figures in the government after the pope.101 They carried on the correspondence with kings and emperors and high-ranking clergy, drafting papal briefs and secret bulls which were then handed to the scribes for fine penmanship.102 They could also pull the levers which actuated the Vatican machinery and so gain absolutions for their petitioners, virtually operating the gates of heaven and hell, though the person actually responsible for the absolutions was the datary, the papal minister of finance, who sold the service.103 Bembo was therefore cultivated by Alfonso d’Este, among others,104 and beseeched by Lucrezia Borgia.105 Leo set Bembo to work immediately, even before his coronation, instructing him to inform various Italian rulers of his elevation, appointing a new nuncio to Venice, and informing the doge.106 Then he ordered Bembo to draft letters on foreign affairs. On 18 March 1513, he wrote to King Sigismund of Poland about his sorrow on hearing of the ancestral dissension between him and Albert, marquess of Brandenburg. War must be avoided. He will hear the dispute and try to find a solution. The Turks would take advantage of a war between Poland and Prussia.107 Another letter, of 22 March, now dated in the first year of Leo’s pontificate, informs Raimundo Cardona, viceroy of Naples, that Sultan Selim is assembling a fleet and army to be used against Rhodes. He asks him to permit free export of materials for Rhodes and promises any necessary aid.108 A letter of the same day to the doge and councillors of Genoa informs them that the knights of St John are going to Genoa to buy two warships and asks them to provide properly equipped ships, as soon as possible. He expects Genoa to contribute to the defence of Rhodes should it be necessary.109 A letter to Guido, Grand Master of Rhodes, discusses the Turkish threat and informs him that Leo has instructed all members of the Order to return to Rhodes.110 Leo’s brother, Giuliano de’ Medici, in Florence, is informed of the importance of making peace with Louis XII.111 Vladislas, king of Hungary and Bohemia, is told that the pope has heard that some Bohemian generals are plotting war in support of schismatics. Will he please suppress these rebels to maintain Christian unity.112 A second letter to Sigismund,

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king of Poland, informs him that the Emperor Maximilian does not want the Teutonic Mariani harmed. Will Sigismund therefore please allow the legate or the Lateran Council to settle the dispute.113 A friendly letter to his faithful ally, Henry VIII of England, praises the king’s extraordinary virtues and devotion to the Church in the flower of his youth and lauds his ambassador, Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, archbishop of York.114 In other letters Bembo drafted Leo makes a contribution to the good works of the Florentine nuns.115 He tells his nuncio in Venice that he has heard that the Senate has made a treaty with Louis XII but neither he nor the Venetian ambassador has reported it. The nuncio should investigate and inform Leo as quickly as possible.116 He reappoints Francesco Maria della Rovere, duke of Urbino, as commander of the papal forces for two years with 200 heavily armoured cavalry and 100 light-armed, with 30,000 gold pieces to maintain them and 13,844 for himself.117 Leo asks Alfonso d’Este, duke of Ferrara, to free two Bolognese who had helped him when he was papal legate in Bologna at the time of the fall of the city to Alfonso’s French allies, as he had promised to do when he was recently in Rome.118 He tells Francesco Gonzaga, marquess of Mantua, that he has been informed that certain leading men in Italy are plotting against him. He will not permit this. If necessary he will send the army under the duke of Urbino.119 He informs Doge Leonardo Loredano that he has taken Francesco Gonzaga, his city, and his state, under his wing. He should be absolutely safe from Loredano and his Republic.120 Then he tells the duke of Urbino that he has ordered his troops, who had wintered in Bologna, to assemble in Verona because he has heard that the Venetians wanted to take back the city they had lost to the League of Cambrai, in this case, to the Emperor Maximilian. He wants della Rovere to go there with his army as soon as he receives the signal.121 This sample of the letters Bembo wrote in the first two months of his appointment illustrates the range of papal concerns. During this same period he wrote few personal letters. The first one which has been preserved (T, II, 328), dated 11 May 1513, was addressed to Lucrezia Borgia, apologizing for not sending her a letter by one of the duke’s retinue who had been in Rome. The man who had promised to take the letter had left without telling him. Now he thanks her for her pleasure on hearing of his appointment by the pope and assures her that no office, however illustrious, “could ever draw me or divert me by so much as a single step from my long servitude to Your Ladyship, more dear to me and precious than any kingdom.” The next letter (T II, 329) was addressed to Lucrezia one month later, on 17 June 1513, complaining that his job does not give him a moment’s leisure. Therefore he cannot write often and is distressed that she may think that a bit of good fortune has made him forget her. Then he realizes that it is unworthy to think that she would misjudge her

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old servant because of little diligence. He believes that she knows that no kind of fortune, however great, could ever suffice to banish from his mind the firm and solid and unyielding dedication to Her Ladyship made many years ago ... He goes on to say that he will not make the brief of absolution which she requests until she writes to ask him for it in her own hand. Then he will see if she really wants it. Apparently she wrote. The papal brief was issued on 20 July 1513, written by Bembo: “Your thoughts and the ardour of your mind and your inclination towards religious devotion I loved in the past and always esteemed most highly, considering it beautiful and exalted that you, amidst great affluence of delights because of the wealth and splendour of your family, continue to fear God and give yourself to all the duties of piety and, with an upright spirit, look at eternal heaven ... since you ask my favour I greatly approve all that Alexander VI and Julius II conceded to you in their letters.”122 On 7 August Lucrezia wrote to “My dearest Misser Pietro,” thanking him for his letter, saying that she had delayed her reply to increase his pleasure through anticipation. She had already expressed her debt to him in two letters to the Treasurer [Bibbiena].123 Beyond that she feels that she cannot be held to more because, if he expresses easily in his letters all that he feels for her, she cannot do this because she feels so much for him ... But, because it would be unsuitable that she should be, in her own case, both advocate and judge, she surrenders herself to the very grave judgment of Monsignor, the Treasurer.124 Bembo’s next personal letter was addressed to his half-brother, Bartolommeo Bembo (T II, 330). He says that he has nothing to write except that his twelve [presumably his personal staff] all had fever and that one of them had died. In one of the manuscripts this letter is dated 20 September 1513, the right time for malaria in Rome.125 Although typically undated, Bembo’s next letter to his brother (T II, 332), given its content, must have been written shortly thereafter: Brother. I need a canopy or sparvier da letto,126 like this: that is, of silk twill, the finest that can be obtained; and if it were of that double twill of Flanders, provided that the piece were not much, much dearer than ours, it would be better. And the one stripe should be peacock blue and the other green ... And I would like it to have a strip of black velvet at every seam, two fingers wide, or thereabouts, cut with foliage or knots, whichever looks better. But I believe that it would be better with foliage, judging by the work of the two bonnets which my dear little girl, Marcella,127 made for me and sent recently, which pleased me so much, for which I thank her. And I want two others made this way: that they should have, this time, the two round pieces that go, one in the front and the other at the nape of the neck, worked in the same way with those thick cords which form the bands. Now, return-

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Old St Peter’s in Bembo’s day with the dome of the new church rising in the background. The congregation entered the church by a flight of stairs, as today, while clerics rode their mules up a ramp, through an arch into a courtyard. Above the main entrance to the church is a two-storey building called the Loggia della Benedizione. The pope appeared at the second window from the left to bless the crowds in piazza San Pietro. Bembo’s first rooms in the Vatican were behind that window (T II, 330). To the right of the church, higher up, are the new BramanteRaphael loggie where Raphael painted Cardinal Bibbiena’s bathroom (T II, 371). Hendrik van Cleef.

ing to the canopy with the bands, work, as it seems right to you, through the hand of our Rev Father Don Salvator Bembo, with the two other bands at the opening of the canopy a good handspan wide, the one, however, worked and with openwork embroidery, as seems right to you, and with a round piece on top of the said bands, however worked in the same way. [A drawing appears at this point in the original letter followed by:] the design and the proportion may be your work, provided that it is generous and not mean. At the bottom it will need a band of the width of those of the opening and of the same work ... I want the velvet sewn on the twill without cords on the edges, just simply; and, because the little bands will eventually cover the seams ... they can be made on the outside of the canopy so that the inside appears to be right side out. And the bands should go right under the fringes of the little hat which covers the whole top ... The canopy must not be narrow from the head from which it hangs, only to the extent that it may enter into the wood which suspends it; but it should

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be wide so that ... it fills all the circumference with its skirts. And so, then, the hat. This hat should be of green and peacock blue velvet depending upon the livery of the canopy. This is the gist. And above all I would like it to be made ... as soon as possible, so that, in any case, I have it here for Christmas, because on that day the pope, and all the cardinals and all the court, come to my rooms from which, on Christmas day, the benediction is given to the people. Because of this I pray you, as much as I can, that you call Don Salvatore as soon as you have this and give the whole order. I pray His Reverence ... that in this he serve me well and early, leaving every other thing aside. The little hat will need fringes above and below, green and peacock blue ... and the fringes above should be a handspan long. The others not so much, and of twisted silk. Then I will do Don Salvatore a service in some other matter of greater importance ... In conclusion, I would like the canopy to be absolutely beautiful ... You will have with this twenty ducats ... the rest I will send you at each request. If you need some ducats suddenly, so as not to have to delay until they come from here, get them, if you do not have them, from Messer Gio. Ant. Moresino, because, by the first courier after your report, you will have them without fail. All the velvet, see that it is new. It will be necessary that Antonio and those girls get to work on this. And so I pray that it may be furnished on time ... it will take at least fifteen days for the trip. Send me a ducat of Benzui.128 To your many letters received last evening and today I have no more time to reply.

He then hastily refers to a benefice he is going to get and gives ecclesiastical news relevant to Venice. Now Bembo was literally in the centre of everything. The pope gave his Christmas benediction from the medieval loggia bounding the courtyard or atrium of old St Peter’s, overlooking St Peter’s square. This is where Bembo was lodged. Behind this Benediction loggia, at the other end of the courtyard, the old Constantinian basilica was being demolished and a new church in the shape of a Greek cross was being built to Bramante’s design. Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel had been completed the previous November, while Julius II was still alive, and Raphael had completed the frescoes, The School of Athens, Parnassus, and The Dispute of the Holy Sacrament on the walls of Julius II’s study and library, called the Stanza della Segnatura because that is where he signed documents. Raphael was now working on the neighbouring Room of Heliodorus, in the pope’s private apartments.129 Bramante’s great Belvedere courtyard and the museum, though not yet complete, were already enjoyable. In short, Bembo lived at the centre of power and with the greatest art in the world. In addition, he had congenial companionship, not just his colleague Sadoleto but Bibbiena and Canossa from his Courtier days, Inghirami, the librarian, and soon Castiglione himself, who was sent to Rome as the agent of the duke of Urbino.130 Bembo also became very friendly with Raphael.

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These were denizens of the Vatican, but he also found a much larger circle of congenial friends in the humanist gatherings in the gardens of Rome called vinea, vigne, vineyards. Imperial Rome had been a city of gardens which extended over a large portion of the seven hills. Even the poorer citizens had window boxes.131 This attachment to things green and growing was never lost in the middle ages. Rome was full of monasteries and each one had at least one cloister planted as a garden, while large, flat open spaces like the Circus Maximus were turned over to market gardening.132 But the Renaissance, with its cultivation of things Roman, saw the widespread creation of gardens as cultural centres and pleasant places of repose. Cicero had set many of his dialogues in gardens, as had Plato before him, and Pliny had described them.133 So scholars like Pomponius Laetus, the founder of the Roman Academy, built a house with a garden on the Quirinal, more or less opposite the gardens of the modern presidential palace, where a small public garden remains as a vestige.134 Bembo’s friend Sadoleto later acquired this property.135 In this return to the ideals of ancient Rome and the glorification of country life, humanists and cardinals followed Laetus’s example, became gardeners, and planted trees and flowers with their own hands.136 Vatican officials with lucrative offices bought large tracts of empty land among ruins to create their gardens called vineyards. The most famous of these belonged to Johannes Goritz, a Luxemburg notary in Vatican service, and the great Maecenas of the litterati.137 Goritz was not a rich man, but he was careful of his resources so that he was able to commission a statue of his patron, St Anne, with the Virgin and Child, by the sculptor, Andrea Sansovino. He placed it in the new and fashionable church of Sant’ Agostino, by the third pillar on the left of the central nave, with a painting above it by Raphael showing Isaiah displaying a scroll prophesying the birth of Christ.138 Then, every year on the Feast of St Anne, 27 July, he invited his humanist friends to mass in the church then to an open air banquet in his gardens which stretched from the eastern slope of the Capitoline hill across Trajan’s market (as yet unexcavated), then climbed up to Campo Carleo, which still exists, on the slope of the Quirinal, near the chapel and priory of the knights of St John of Jerusalem. The garden in the midst of the ruins of ancient Rome had been planted with citrus trees and was adorned with antique statues, sarcophagi and fragments of inscriptions. There was a grotto with a fountain bearing the words “This is the nymph’s abode, drink, wash, be silent.” To honour St Anne and their host the humanists left Latin poems on tables laid out by the sculptural group in the church and fastened to the trees, hedges, wells or statues in the garden. One of the humanists, Blosio Palladio, collected this poetry and published it in 1524 as Coryciana, because Goritz’s name was latinized to Corycius after the good old man in

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Part of Trajan’s Forum where Goritz created his garden and humanist meeting place. Hieronymus Cock.

Vergil’s Georgics (IV, 136). And good old man he was, according to Castiglione, who described him as “a priest, with integrity and innocence, far from any fault, always surrounded by dear friends in the perfumed wood of citrus trees and in the gardens looking up at the sacred ruins of the Capitoline hill. He lived happy years in the midst of poets.” And indeed Coryciana was a major collection of contemporary Latin verse by 130 different poets, including Bembo, Sadoleto, and Castiglione.139 Another famous garden frequented by humanists was that of Angelo Colocci. It lay to the east of the Corso, on the southern part of the site of the gardens of Sallust, in the flat land below the Quirinal, near the Trevi fountain and the church of Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte, “St Andrew of the Gardens,” where Colocci is buried. Colocci was of a noble family of Iesi in the Marches. For a while he was a member of Pontano’s Academy in Naples, then, at the age of thirty, in 1497, he was sent to Rome as Iesi’s ambassador. He stayed on to become a Vatican official who, though a layman, managed to accumulate various bishoprics and abbeys. A shrewd businessman, he bought large tracts of unoccupied land in Rome for speculation. On one of these, traversed by the only surviving Roman aqueduct, the Acqua Virgo which now supplies the Trevi Fountain, he decided, inspired by Pontano, to perpetuate the Roman Academy founded by Pomponius Laetus, recently dead. There he created a garden with statues and

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inscriptions and a beautiful fountain on which a nymph lay sleeping. The inscriptions on the fountain read, “This is the home of Conviviality whose one concern is pleasure. Either live by the rules of Conviviality or depart,” and, “Here dwell jokes, here happy pleasure without dispute, and Conviviality. Let quarrels, worry, work give way.” Colocci encouraged the discussion of both classical antiquity and early romance languages, Provençal and Italian, in which he was interested.140 A third humanist meeting place was the garden of Blosio Palladio on a hill behind the Vatican. Palladio was another Vatican official who became secretary to Clement VII and Paul III and bishop of Foligno. He had a sumptuous little villa with a garden climbing up the hill behind the Vatican. In the bottom of a valley, a sunny fountain was surrounded by marble seats placed among shady laurels. From here a broad alley, roofed by thick vines, led through fruit trees of all sorts to a slope covered with a grove of perfumed lemon trees. On top of the hill were two marble pools and above them a terrace where Palladio gave his dinner parties. In the centre was a fountain in the shape of a theatre with columns supporting shady vines. On either side were fountains falling from the rock, which was made to look like the waterfall at Tivoli. These fountains irrigated the lemon trees. Beside these fountains were little houses which served as kitchens. A hill rose on the left, covered with a grove of laurels whose berries attracted a large number of birds. Near the house chickens, ducks and peacocks wandered about.141 Men of letters frequented a number of other gardens. From the early fifteenth century rustic vigne composed of a simple house set in vineyards and orchards, either in uninhabited parts of the city or just outside the walls, had provided summer retreats for members of the Vatican court. These also became haunts of humanists, many of whom were employees of the court.142 Then there were the magnificent gardens of various cardinals, inspired by Bramante’s Belvedere.143 The most impressive of these was the garden of Cardinal Paolo Emilio Cesi with its large, open courtyard, staircases, parterres, sculptures, arches, tempietto and various trees.144 Then there was the villa of the banker, Agostino Chigi, La Farnesina, with its vast gardens in Trastevere on the right bank of the Tiber, across Ponte Sisto which connected it with the financial district. It was here that Raphael had painted the frescoes of Psyche and Galatea thought to be portraits of the banker’s mistress and Sadoleto’s lover, Imperia.145 Raphael had not designed La Farnesina, but he did build a villa and gardens on Monte Mario for the pope’s cousin, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, later Clement VII. The Villa Madama, as it came to be called because it later became the home of Margaret, sister of the Emperor Charles V who married Paul III’s nephew, is now used by the Italian government for state receptions.146

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There was no end to the beauties of Rome. There were town houses whose walled gardens at the back had a central fountain or well surrounded by plots of grass or flower beds, shaded by a few trees, usually laurel or cypress, and some bitter oranges. Here there was usually a loggia or portico for open air dining or a wooden pergola covered with vines and espaliered trees.147 Bembo and Sadoleto frequented one of these, the house of Jacopo Gallo near the Cancelleria, the palace of a cardinal, cousin of Julius II, confiscated by Leo X. Gallo’s nearby courtyard was decorated with antique statues and Michelangelo’s Bacchus.148 However, it was at the open air banquets in the large vigne that humanist society sparkled, senses stimulated by the perfumes of flowers and trees, the sound of plashing fountains, the sight of antique statues and fortuitous bits and pieces of the ruins of old Rome. Giovio said that at these ancient style symposia, which were triumphs of sophisticated luxury, Bibbiena shone. With his brilliant wit, he settled discussions without seeming to impose himself, through a mixture of jokes and earnestness.149 For someone like Bembo this was living life to the full – almost. Unfortunately, the Vatican court and the humanist symposia were all male. But, as previously mentioned, courtesans dwelt in the Borgo, at the gates of the Vatican. They provided the balance in Vatican society. Bembo had certainly discovered their charms by his third visit to Rome in 1505, when he accompanied his father and the Venetian delegation to congratulate Julius II on his elevation. When he visited Rome in 1511 he stayed in the Borgo (T, 310), and that is probably where he had stayed on his previous visits, in 1507, 1508 and 1510. Apart from anything else, the district was convenient for negotiations with Vatican officials. Then, in 1513, Bembo found, in the Borgo, the woman who was to be his companion for the next twenty-two years. On 5 February 1537 Bembo wrote to Cosimo Gheri, bishop of Fano, who had asked him for news of his children. After mentioning his son Torquato, he went on to say that his daughter Elena was very bright, and would soon overtake her brother, who was about three years older. Then he added that she promised to be a great beauty, for she was much prettier than her mother, Morosina, whose mature beauty Gheri knew, had been at her age (T IV, 1826). Born on 30 June 1528, Elena was eight and a half at the time! Bembo must, then, have first set eyes on Morosina when she was eight or nine years old, like Dante’s Beatrice. Since Morosina died at thirty-eight in 1535 she must have been born in 1497. She would, therefore, have been eight, going on nine, when the Venetian delegation visited the Vatican in April 1505. Bembo was thirty-five. Bembo’s contemporary and friend Giovanni della Casa, archbishop of Benevento, wrote in his biography that Morosina and Bembo fell in love when she was sixteen years of age,150 that is, in 1513, at the time of

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Bembo’s appointment as papal secretary. Della Casa describes Morosina as extraordinarily beautiful, charming, and well mannered. She was also married. On 28 March 1513 her sister Mariola, gravely ill, made her will. She left nothing to her sister, Morosina, except a half share, with her brother, in a house in via Alessandrina in the Borgo, near the meta151 and the church of Santa Maria in Transpontina, because Morosina had already received her portion on her marriage.152 There is no further mention of her husband, not even his name, but he was apparently still alive when Clement VII issued his brief legitimizing Bembo’s sons Lucilio and Torquato, in 1530 and 1532.153 What had happened to Morosina’s husband? Had he been involved in some political conspiracy or criminal activity and been banished or imprisoned? Had he been carried off by pirates and sold into slavery in North Africa? Was he mad and confined? Or had he just abandoned his wife? In any case, he was never heard of again and Morosina’s marriage was never annulled. Ambrogina Faustina Morosina della Torre was the daughter of Antonio della Torre of Genoa, who was already dead by the time Mariola was making her will. Della Torre had some pretensions to gentility, since she asked for a coat of arms to be put on her tomb. Since Mariola left a second house she owned in the Borgo to Giovanni Antonio Battiferro of Urbino, one of the staff of Bembo’s friend Federico Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, since her will was witnessed by high Vatican officials and Vatican officials were its executors, it is clear that Mariola was one of the Vatican courtesans and Battiferro her lover. Battiferro was also a friend of Raphael’s and Bembo knew him already in 1508, perhaps having met him in Urbino. Battiferro is one of the people he mentions in a letter to Bibbiena, of 24 July 1508, in which he discusses people he wished could go to Rhodes to advance his interests there (T II, 277). But Bembo must have met Mariola before that to have seen Morosina in 1505. Was he her lover once? In any case, the Fregoso-Battiferro-Raphael connection, in what was a very small society, must have kept Bembo in contact with Mariola and resulted in his seeing Mariola’s little sister, Morosina, from time to time.154 It seems that 1513 was an insalubrious year in Rome. Mariola died in March, her mother, Chiara, whom Morosina and her brother were to look after by the terms of Mariola’s will, died shortly thereafter, then Morosina herself, gravely ill, made her own will on 19 August. She made the church of Santa Maria in Transpontina her heir. She wanted to be buried there, beside her mother, and gave the money for four masses a week, two for her soul, one for her sister’s, one for her mother’s. She made two small legacies to poor women and a codicil gave a small sum of money for a public oven in Trastevere. The executor of her will was the prior of the church, the witnesses were unknown people.155 Morosina was obviously not wealthy, but a warm-hearted sixteen-year-old, concerned about others. Her kind and

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gentle nature was one of the things that bound Bembo to her (Rime, C1). At the same time that Morosina was ill Bembo’s household of twelve was stricken with fever, and one died (T II, 330 of 1513 and dated 20 September in one of the mss). It must have been some time in this year that Bembo and Morosina became lovers. He could not live openly with her in Rome but he took her home with him when he returned to the Veneto and there treated her as his wife. As one of his two domestic secretaries Bembo was in daily contact with the pope with whom he could have had very little in common. True, Leo was easy to get along with, affable to everyone, never refusing a request, though he was rarely able, or indeed inclined, to make the effort to fulfill a promise.156 And he did appreciate good Latin style. He fostered humanism and humanists,157 he improved the Vatican Library,158 founded printing presses for Greek and Hebrew texts,159 and by inviting the best professors and paying above the odds, built up the University of Rome, the Sapienza, to rival Bologna and Padua.160 In this he behaved like a great Renaissance prince. But Leo had no intellectual interests, which Bembo later put down to a lack of education due to the instability of his life in exile (T, III, 1733), and he had few cultural interests apart from bawdy comedy and music. In 1514 he instructed Bibbiena, now a cardinal, to present, in the Vatican, his immensely complicated farce about mistaken identities and adultery, La Calandria,161 and, in 1519, the pope himself directed Ariosto’s I Suppositi, down to the last detail, and even stood at the door admitting guests and laughing at the lewdness. French visitors were shocked.162 Music was an art in which Leo had been well trained as a child and for which he had a natural gift. He had a good singing voice and loved liturgical music, which could make him cry. He liked discussing technicalities of music, he was adept at building a contrapuntal score for a song on the tenor line, and he played musical instruments, an ability which aroused scorn in Spain where, according to Giovanni Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, people did not have a good word for the pope, “He’s worthless, except as a lute player.” Leo surrounded himself with musicians from all over Europe and rewarded them lavishly with ecclesiastical or temporal honours. One he made archbishop of Bari, though perhaps that was because he was a good organizer of the hunt which Leo adored.163 In art Leo liked Raphael, whom he kept on to continue Julius II’s program of frescoes for the walls of the papal apartments. But he took no interest in Michelangelo, who soon left Rome for Florence, and he completely ignored Leonardo da Vinci, who spent two years in Rome (1513–15), patronized by Leo’s brother, Giuliano, and living in the Belvedere before he left for Milan and the court of Francis I.164 Leonardo was undoubtedly too strange and complex for the light-minded Leo, while

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Michelangelo’s powerful style had found its resonance in the powerful and violent Julius II with whom he constantly quarrelled. He and Leo X had nothing in common, though Michelangelo later received Medici patronage from Leo’s cousin, Giulio de’ Medici, later Clement VII. Raphael, however, was congenial. Even in scenes of violence a quiet serenity suffused his paintings with their soft light and harmonious colours. There was beauty, but nothing demanding. This suited the soft, easy-going pope who was only aroused by the interests of Florence and the Medici family. Leo’s chief preoccupations, apart from music, were entertainment and hunting. Indeed the outstanding feature of his court was its stream of amusements, the banquets, the balls, the comedies, all sorts of games, and the hunting expeditions.165 Leo kept in his household, together with the cardinals and humanists, clowns, buffoons, mountebanks, a tailor turned astrologer and a great assortment of parasites, scroungers, and madmen who entertained him. He enjoyed dining in public, at a table laden with exotic foods and unimaginable luxuries, accompanied by his motley entourage, scattering gold coins to the onlookers like the nouveau riche he had become.166 He was neither a glutton nor an alcoholic, though physically gross, but he enjoyed the company of both. One who amused him most and became his constant companion was fra Mariano, once Lorenzo de’ Medici’s barber. He was a Rabelaisian glutton who could reputedly eat a pigeon in a single mouthful, devour twenty capons and suck four hundred eggs at a sitting, and once ate a camel hair coat because it was oily and dirty.167 Leo also kept a brother who ate berettas.168 On the very day that Bramante died in 1514 the pope gave fra Mariano Bramante’s lucrative post of piombo, keeper of the seal. Mariano encouraged Leo in all his excesses repeating, “Let’s enjoy life, holy papa, since everything else is a joke.”169 Leo spent half the revenues of Spoleto, Romagna, and the Marche on his table.170 Leo also enjoyed practical jokes, the most famous of which was the “triumph” of the execrable poet, Baraballo, on the elephant given to the pope by the king of Portugal.171 He also liked gambling and card games, which he played with the cardinals in public, again scattering gold coins to the onlookers, and he excelled at chequers, though that is not a lively spectator sport.172 Leo’s greatest love was hunting. At the beginning of autumn, when the rains came and the weather got cooler, presumably after mid-September, if one can guess from today’s Roman climate, the pope went first to Viterbo for birds, partridges, and pheasants, using sparrow-hawks and other trained birds of prey. Then he went to Lake Bolsena and fished from the island and at the exit of the river Marta. Next he went hunting for deer and wild boar in Tuscany near Corneto del Tarquiniese, where there is a natural amphitheatre into which the animals could be driven. Around

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1 November he returned to Rome but soon left again by boat for Magliana, five miles down river, whence he could easily return for a consistory or a feast day. At Magliana Leo had a sumptuous hunting lodge with a chapel, sacristy, courtyard, loggia, guardroom, great hall, kitchens, and bedrooms, the whole interior decorated with marbles, metals, and coats of arms. There were large stables. Magliana was a marshy area excellent for hunting deer and birds. The country people greeted the arrival of the pope with great joy; they knew his largesse to young and old. He gave gifts to those who were down on their luck, dowries to young girls, and paid the debts of the sick and the old. Hunting was followed by riotous feasts at which the cardinals who accompanied him and the general papal entourage drank the fine white and red wines from Leo’s vineyard on a nearby hill and enjoyed music, jokes, and general buffoonery.173 The pope went hunting in all weathers. He felt that the fresh air was good for him, but he was not very active on horseback himself. He often watched the hunt from a high place because he sweated copiously with the least exertion and his fistula made riding uncomfortable.174 Falconry was easier and he often received gifts of birds of prey, eagles from Spain, falcons from Crete, other raptors from Armenia.175 From Magliana he also rode to the sea and embarked on fishermen’s boats with nets and hooks.176 These hunting expeditions were not without their dangers. Once Cardinal Egidio of Viterbo saved Leo from a wolf.177 On another occasion, in 1516, he had to abandon a hunt near Civitavecchia hastily when pirates, who had established themselves on Elba, ravaged the coast.178 Like his table, Leo’s hunting expeditions were costly. They entailed keeping large numbers of horses and dogs, some with gold or silver collars, and required the importation of special nets and handlers from France. The birds, too, were expensive to maintain.179 And this was just one aspect of an extravagant life style which squandered the resources left by Julius II and the income of the Church during his own papacy, and mortgaged the future for his successor.180 Leo borrowed heavily from the banks, the Genoese, Florentine, and the Fuggers of Augsburg, at high rates of interest. The Medici bank in Rome is estimated to have made a 30 per cent return on its capital. And Leo sold every service he could conceive of, including indulgences in Germany. Cardinal Egidio said that liturgical and sacramental actions were performed, not for the sake of divinity but for the sake of dollars, “non numinis sed nummi gratia.” And Mantuan said, “Everything is for sale – temples, priests ... altars, prayers, heaven and God.”181 A day of reckoning would come when a German friar would challenge the pope and force the Vatican to give some thought to theological matters. But that was only after 1517. In the meantime, Leo resolved to continue Julius II’s policy of keeping the

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French out of Italy through an alliance with the German emperor and the Spanish rulers in the Kingdom of Naples.182 With this aim he sent Bembo to Venice in December 1514 on a mission impossible, to try to persuade the Venetian Senate to accept the German occupation of Verona, which was now backed up by papal troops, and formally yield the city to the Emperor. Now that Milan was back in Italian hands Leo believed that if he could effectively form an alliance with Venice and the Germans in the north he could stave off a further French invasion of Italy to recapture Milan.183 To that end he had persuaded the Germans to agree to return, for a price, some of the territory they had taken from the Venetians under the terms of the League of Cambray.184 However the Germans wanted to keep Verona. It was also the sticking point with the Venetians, and with the object of regaining the city, they had made an anti-German alliance with Louis XII on 23 March 1513. This provoked an anti-French alliance in May 1513, between the German emperor, Henry VIII of England, who could always be counted on to distract the French in the north, and the papacy.185 Bembo’s task now was to persuade the Venetians that it was in their interest to come to terms with the Germans and the papacy. The Venetian ambassador in Rome, Pietro Lando, reported Bembo’s mission to the Venetian Senate in advance, though his letter arrived on the same day as Bembo, presumably because Bembo had travelled fast by the post (T II, 347).186 The Senate had already heard that Bembo had been involved in Rome in negotiations over the anti-French league187 and that he and Bibbiena, who largely determined papal policy and was a known opponent of the French, had gone in May 1513 on a non-religious pilgrimage to Loreto, presumably to meet imperial agents. It was thought that this boded ill for Venice.188 Bembo was therefore not guaranteed a warm welcome in the Republic, which he was considered to have deserted. In his report to Leo X dated Venice 6 December 1514 (T II, 347) Bembo boasts that he had arrived on Monday, the fourth, having spent less than five days on the road. If 4 December was the fifth day, he must have left Rome on 30 November.189 He was accompanied only by Agostino Beazzano, his secretary, and one servant; according to Sanuto, they took the boat from Chioggia for the last lap of his journey. The Senate had wanted to provide lodging for him as papal nuncio, but he wanted to stay with his father in San Beneto, in the Corner house on the Grand Canal, now called Corner-Contarini dei Cavalli.190 The next day he presented his letters of credence to the Senate,191 but he had to wait until Wednesday 6 December to present his embassy because the doge was busy with the Turkish ambassador on Tuesday (T II, 347). The Senate had wanted to send gentlemen to meet him, but no one was willing to escort him, so Bembo went to the palace alone, with his father and secretary, dressed in purple like a courtier.192 As he told the pope in his letter of the same day, he read his submission to the Signoria so

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Cà Corner-Contarini dei Cavalli on the Grand Canal, Venice, at San Benedetto, where Bembo stayed with his father when he was papal ambassador to the doge in 1514. The horses are on either side of the elaborate gothic windows.

that he would not inadvertently omit any part of Leo’s argument: He recalled Venice’s past support of the Medici, when they had been in trouble, and told them of the pope’s admiration for the Venetian republic, founded on the most holy laws, and for its prudence and gravity. Now the pope warned Venice of the dangers of its league with France. He has intervened with the Germans to effect the return of former Venetian territory from Verona to Bergamo on the payment of 200,000 gold florins. It is now in the interest of Venice to break with the French. The pope thinks that the king of France can be discouraged from invading Italy by an Italian league, especially since he has just taken a very young and beautiful wife, no more than eighteen years of age [Henry VIII’s sister, Mary] which is likely to shorten an old man’s life, especially since he is not continent [the Vatican knew everything!]. In fact, it appears that he is already in decline.

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An ambassador before the doge and his cabinet, the Collegio. G. Franco.

The pope has brought Florence, Milan, Spain, the emperor, Genoa, and the Swiss together in an alliance against the French. It is in the interests of Venice to join this league. Leo reminds the Senate of the fate of Ludovico il Moro, of what opposition to the Church can lead to, the wars of Julius II, and the great losses Venice suffered. The pope wants Venice to allow the emperor to have Verona in return for Brescia, Bergamo and peace in Italy. Then Bembo spoke of himself. When he was instructed to go to Venice for this purpose he was not happy. He is no longer young, not in the best of health, and it was a long distance to travel in exceedingly wet and severe weather.193 However, he accepted the charge voluntarily, believing that he could bring good news of peace, quiet, and security in place of the war, sufferings, and dangers, from which Venice had suffered for many years. He then listed the forces promised to the league and told the Senate that the finances were assured. The emperor threatens a descent into Friuli. Much of the Terrafirma is vulnerable. It could be reduced to ashes and the population driven into the sea. The Germans could descend like floodwaters. It is dangerous having the pope hostile. Remember Julius II. Let the emperor have Verona to guarantee peace. Let the Venetians show that they are the world’s best Christians. The text of the speech has survived.194 However, in his letter of 6 December 1514 (T, II, 347), Bembo told Leo

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that he had been warned in advance that Venice was wedded to the French alliance because it believed that that was the only way to reintegrate its state. Letters had been received from France the very day he arrived reporting that the army was being prepared for invasion, news the people had greeted with joy. Bembo added that if the Senate delayed its reply to see how things turned out, he would tell them that he would leave and assume that the response was negative. The pope would then make league with their enemies. Bembo’s statement about French military preparations and the popular belief in a French invasion recalls his words, in an undated letter to his brother-in-law Sebastiano Marcello, sent from Ferrara, and dated by Travi 4 December 1514, the very day that Bembo reached Venice (T II, 345). It is quite possible that the post from Rome passed through Ferrara en route to Venice, via Chioggia, and that it arrived the same day in Venice. Bembo’s brother-in-law was apparently in a position where he would be affected by the actions of the French, perhaps with Massimiliano Sforza, currently duke of Milan. In his letter Bembo wrote that a letter had reached Ferrara from Ferrarese ambassadors in France saying that war had broken out between the French and the emperor and that people in Ferrara believe that the king will attack Milan. Bembo prays that this will happen quickly, with glory and utility to Venice. For not to show itself vigorous and spirited this time will be its loss, if such opportunities do not come to it again. This letter, whether or not it was written immediately before Bembo’s arrival in Venice, reveals that Bembo was a patriotic Venetian opposed to the pope’s anti-French, pro-German policy and eager to see Venice restored to her former glory. If Travi is right in assigning it to December 1514 it shows that Bembo was going to Venice to advocate a policy in which he did not believe, dutifully attracting ignominy as a traitor to his country. On 11 December 1514 Bembo wrote two letters to Rome, one to the pope (T II, 349), one to Cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Bernardo Bibbiena (T II, 350), who are generally credited with forming Vatican policy,195 explaining the Venetian attachment to the French alliance and their distrust of the pope’s ally, the Spanish king, who they believe will doublecross him, as will the emperor. They are doubtful, too, about the pope’s commitment to a consistent policy. Bembo believes that gossip from Rome about papal ambivalence196 has undermined his negotiating position. He tries to advise the pope and the cardinals on tactics if they hope to succeed. On 15 December 1514 Bembo was summoned to the Signoria and given a written response to the pope’s pleas. Venice could not give Maximilian Verona, the key to Italy, and could not abandon its alliance with Louis XII. Venice always kept faith with its allies. Bembo reported this to the pope the same day (T II, 351). That day Bembo also received two letters from the pope, the first about forcing a Venetian decision, now superseded by

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events, the other asking him to secure the release of Count Cristoforo Fregapane [Frangipane]. He therefore went to the College the next day and submitted the pope’s request. It was categorically refused. Fregapane was the greatest devil and cruelest man alive. The state had never had a more bitter, more noxious, more serious enemy than he. The whole city had its churches, bridges, and porticoes full of blinded and maimed people because of him. They do not believe his promise to the pope that he would do no more harm to Venice. He is untrustworthy. He has faith in nothing. He would cause trouble to the pope ... Bembo tells the pope that Venice is right about Fregapane, but that he had pleaded hard on the pope’s behalf. After various news items Bembo says that he is leaving for Padua tomorrow (T II, 352), having asked the Council of Ten for permission to spend three days in Padua with his aged father (T II, 352). The official view, as reported by Sanuto, was that he was going there to inspect the fortifications.197 To such an extent was Bembo regarded as a traitor. Bembo left for Padua on 20 December (T II, 353) and returned to Venice on the twenty-third. Writing to Cardinals Giulio de’ Medici and Bernardo Bibbiena on that day he said that he was now treated as though he were a German or a Spaniard, in short, as an enemy (T II, 355). It is believed that Bembo was active with publishers in Venice at this time. According to his friend Trifon Gabriele, Bembo was responsible for the analysis of the structure of the Inferno in Paganini’s 1515 edition of Dante and therefore, presumably, of the structural analyses of all three realms in Aldus’ Dante, also of 1515.198 It has been suggested that Paganini pirated the tree of sins which Bembo drew for Aldus.199 However Bembo and Paganini seem to have been on good terms since Paganini republished Gli Asolani in 1515, in his new and elegant pocket book size collection of Latin and Italian classics and dedicated it to Bembo. Bembo may even have collaborated with him on it.200 Although his copyright had expired after ten years, Aldus republished Gli Asolani himself, also in 1515. Bembo was soon recalled to Rome. At the pope’s command he left Venice hastily on 28 December 1514 without taking leave of the Signoria or even sending his father on his behalf. This roused hostile criticism.201 After this episode Bernardo Bembo, who had already been excluded from many of the deliberations of the Senate because it was feared that his son’s position could bias his judgment, received no further appointments.202 He was, however, in his eighty-second year. On 1 January 1515 Bembo wrote from Pesaro to Bernardo Bibbiena in Rome: On 27 December at 3 hours [about 9 pm] he had received his letter instructing him to return to the pope at once. The next morning, having expedited his affairs and eaten breakfast, he took a boat for Chioggia, which he did not reach until evening because of a strong contrary wind. At Chioggia he took the post, thinking that it was a good idea to run down

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the coast. He reached Pesaro on Saturday [30 December] so tired, battered, and broken that he realized that the courier service was not for old people.203 He had some fever that night, which the considerable caresses and endearments of Madonna Emilia did not cure. The duchess was in bed because of a fright caused by a fire. He had to rest there for a day. Bibbiena may think that he is just making excuses, but he really was so feeble, exhausted, tired, and shaken that he could not get to his feet. He felt that he had to spend another day there. Tomorrow he will take a horse, not the post, but mounts the duke is lending him. Bembo then discusses the pope’s instructions and his dealings with the Venetians, showing a canny perception of their psychology. He passes on to Bibbiena rumours of political postures in the north (T II, 356). On that very day it was reported that Louis XII had died in France,204 supposedly worn out by his young bride. That summer his youthful successor, Francis I, with some Venetian help, won a brilliant victory over Leo X and the duke of Milan at Marignano southeast of Milan. Milan returned to French hands and Venice regained Verona. Leo X made peace with Francis I in Bologna in December 1515. Bembo’s personal behaviour was not always admirable, but neither was that of his contemporaries. One of the most unpleasant examples was the concealed in-fighting between Bembo and his old friend Vincenzo Quirino,205 now a friar calling himself Peter the Hermit. Far from being a hermit Quirino had gone to Rome in April 1513, as soon as Bembo had been appointed papal secretary, to lodge with him in the Vatican.206 Aspiring to a cardinal’s hat, Quirino curried favour with Leo and with his brother, Giuliano de’ Medici, and found ways to meet the pope every day. Bembo was equally ambitious and believed, at least until 1520, that he was in the running for the cardinalate.207 In those days laymen could become cardinals to occupy high positions in the administration of the Church. There were two classes of cardinal: cardinal deacons, the administrators, and cardinal priests, the ordained.208 Before he became pope as Leo X, Giovanni de’ Medici himself had been a cardinal deacon (above). Since a Venetian candidate for the cardinalate would have to have the support of the doge the two rivals began denouncing one another to the Venetian authorities. Quirino sent his brother Zorzi information prejudicial to Bembo pass on to the Signoria.209 Then, on 30 July 1514, Bembo sent the doge and the heads of the Council of Ten a letter written by Quirino which a friend had secretly passed to him and which had to be returned. Bembo had thought that Quirino was a good man, dedicated to the service of God, and had loved him as a brother, and so had Cardinals de’ Medici and Bibbiena. Now his ambition had been exposed. Bembo had done much for Quirino in civil life, and for his order, but he had now dis-

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covered that he cheated both God and Venice. Therefore he is sending the evidence (T II, 339). This rivalry ended dramatically, and as was usual in the Renaissance, with whispers of poisoning.210 Just three weeks after Bembo wrote this letter, on 21 August 1514, Sanuto records the reading in the College of a letter from Rome stating that Quirino was ill in Bembo’s house, spitting blood, and that seven doctors could not understand the cause.211 In a later report from Rome Bembo asked for a doctor for Quirino,212 who died toward the end of September 1514.213 Despite their falling out, Bembo many years later referred to Quirino’s brilliant and saintly life in a sonnet to his nephew, Girolamo Quirino (Rime, CXXIX). Bembo had happier moments, however, with his brilliant band of friends in Rome, not only at the literary symposia in the gardens, but also in exploring the ruins of the city and the campagna. In a letter of 3 April 1516 to Bibbiena, now in Fiesole, Bembo said that the pope was away hunting and that he was going to Tivoli the next day with Navagero, Beazzano, Castiglione, and Raphael. He has not been there for twenty-seven years (T II, 368). This is to please Navagero, who is soon to return to Venice.214 This letter also reveals a more attractive side of Vatican life than the court of Leo X. Bembo writes of his tears at the death of Giuliano de’ Medici, his old friend from Courtier days, then tells Bibbiena that he has seen Giuliano’s illegitimate son, Ippolitino, twice recently: He was quite a while in my room yesterday and in my arms. He is well, but seemed somewhat sad, as though he knew his loss. I took him to his uncle, the pope, who cuddled him a good bit. I will see him continually, and will have him eat with me as often as possible [Bembo obviously avoided the pope’s table]. Ippolitino is well looked after by Francesco and is beginning to learn to read (T II, 368). In another letter, of 25 April 1516, to Bibbiena in Modena, Bembo says that he saw Ippolitino in the pope’s garden and that he is more beautiful than any flower (T II, 372). On 27 May 1516 Bembo wrote again about Ippolitino to Camillo Paleotto, Bibbiena’s secretary, in Modena. He had had him to lunch. This had given him, Bembo, a great deal of pleasure. “Oh what a sweet and pleasing little boy”(T II, 374). In another letter, of 30 April, to Bibbiena in Modena, Bembo wrote that he had visited Ippolitino that morning when he was being dressed and Francesco was combing his hair. “He is beautiful like a rose.” He remembers himself to you, his own words, and asks you to bring him from Florence one of those musical balls (T II, 375). Again, on 20 June 1516, Bembo wrote to Bibbiena in Florence that Ippolitino is beautiful like a beautiful rose and that he is becoming the sweetest little boy in the world. Elsewhere in the letter Bembo tells Bibbiena of his two bouts of fever (T II, 377). In his letter of 30 April 1516 Bembo gives a further view of normal life in the Vatican community. He had not visited Ippolitino for three days

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because of Andrea Tebaldi’s accident. Tebaldi had come from Florence to Rome and was lodging in Bembo’s apartments215 while Bembo was in Tivoli. On the evening that he returned216 Tebaldi fell down the little flight of stairs that leads to the dining room and struck his head so hard on the wall that a lot of blood poured from his ear and he was unconscious until this morning. The doctors almost despaired, but this morning, the fourth day, he has come round and is better (T II, 375). There are a number of interesting references to Raphael both in Bembo’s official correspondence on behalf of the pope, the briefs, and in Bembo’s own private letters to friends. On 1 August 1514 Leo X appointed Raphael master of the works at St Peter’s, with 300 gold florins per annum. The pope wants the church finished as magnificently and speedily as possible and has authorised immediate payment of bills.217 A year later, on 27 August 1515, the pope told Raphael that they could find stones and marbles for building St Peter’s at their doorstep in the ruins of Rome. Raphael can claim all stone and marble found in Rome and in the countryside within a ten mile radius. Raphael is to pay for it. All men must report to Raphael the stones they dig up. If they do not do so within three days they will be fined 100–300 gold pieces. Inscriptions must be preserved. Masons cannot cut inscribed stones without Raphael’s permission.218 Fra Giocondo, the extraordinary friar from Verona who had been in charge of St Peter’s after Bramante’s death and had trained Raphael219 had impressed upon the pope the prime importance of inscriptions for historians.220 Rome, the first city in Europe for Christians, was now a mutilated corpse. Important ruins were being quarried for new palaces in the Renaissance building spree, marbles were burnt to make lime, columns were broken and split in the middle, architraves and friezes were being carried away.221 Modern via Marmorata in Rome takes its name from the activities of the stone masons of that period. The pope also instructed Raphael to make a pictorial record of ancient Rome. Raphael died at thirty-seven before he could do it but his report, probably written by Castiglione with some contribution from Bembo, was presented to the pope in 1519.222 On 19 April 1516 Bembo wrote Bibbiena in Rubiera near Modena that he was sorry to hear that he had had a chill and fever. He must not work so hard. Then, in what is a very chatty letter, he says that Raphael has painted Tebaldeo and that the portrait looks more like him than he does himself. He adds that, in comparison with this, the portraits of Castiglione and of Duke Guidubaldo look as though they were done by one of his assistants. He thinks that he will have Raphael paint him one day. He had just reached this point in the letter when Raphael came in. He wants to know what stories Bibbiena would like him to paint next in his bathroom.223 The current lot will be finished by the end of the week. Then Castiglione came

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in and said that he had decided to spend the summer in Rome, so as not to break his routine, especially since Tebaldeo was staying (T II, 371). This was the news. Six days later, on 25 April 1516, Bembo wrote to Bibbiena, now in Modena, making a typical Bembo request. Raphael had told him that there is no space in the new bathroom for the little marble Venus which Giangiorgio Cesarino had given him. Therefore, would Bibbiena give it to him? He would hold it very dear and could put it in his study, between the Jupiter and the Mercury, her father and her brother. He would enjoy it more than Bibbiena could because Bibbiena was always away on business, and Bembo would give it back whenever he wanted it. Please do not refuse. Raphael had encouraged him to ask and he has already made a nice place for her (T II, 372). Four days later, on 29 May 1516, Bembo wrote to Bibbiena’s secretary, Camillo Paleotto, in Florence telling him about the statue and asking for his support (T II, 373). There is no indication of the outcome of this request, but Bibbiena left Bembo another antique he craved, a bronze Diana, when he died in 1520, so Bembo had probably acquired the Venus.224 Finally, in a letter of 20 June 1516, Bembo wrote to Bibbiena that the loggia [Bibbiena’s quarters were to be in the new BramanteRaphael loggia built on the side of the medieval Vatican palace] is ready along with his bathroom, his other rooms, and his leather hangings. Everything is awaiting his return (T II, 377). Bembo continued writing papal briefs to the leaders of Europe, twentyfour to Francis I between 1515, when the pope was trying to make peace with the French after Marignano, and 1521, when Bembo retired from the service of Leo X.225 In 1515, after his victory at Marignano, Francis I wanted to go to Rome with his whole army to kiss the pope’s foot and visit the churches of the apostles. Leo, mindful of Charles VIII’s visit to Rome with his army when Alexander VI was shut up in Castel Sant’ Angelo, would have nothing of it. Instead, Leo said that he would receive Francis I in the papal city of Bologna, where the king would need only his body guards. The cardinals at first objected to the scheme, considering that it was unfitting for the pope and his court to go so far to meet the French invader, but they yielded to the pope’s shrewder judgment226 and all, including Bembo, went to Bologna in December 1515. They then went to Florence for Christmas where the pope sang mass.227 Lucrezia Borgia sent Bembo a brief note at this time, apparently to Bologna, alluding to a message which he would receive by word of mouth.228 Bembo replied from Bologna on 18 December 1515: “Your Excellency already knows my usual luck, which always grants me less what I desire more. I am unable to gratify my desire to come and do you reverence, as I had planned and as you request, because I have to return to Florence with His Holiness. Therefore Your Excellency will pardon my misfortune, which I will pardon never.”

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He hopes to be able to come to see her in Ferrara for three days before the end of carnival, as the porter of this letter, Agostino Beazzano [his secretary], will explain (T II, 365). Bembo wrote many letters to Italian rulers, heads of religious orders, papal nuncios issuing instructions, and private individuals, for as a priest the pope exercised pastoral care. At the beginning of 1516 Leo instructed Bembo to write from Florence to Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola, Bembo’s correspondent in the discussion of imitation in literature, to censure him for his treatment of his widowed sister-in-law and her son. He has been delinquent in not handing over their inheritance. The same day he wrote to the sister-in-law, Francesca Trivulzio, telling her that he had instructed Pico to fulfil his obligations, then rebuking her for not having tried to work out her differences with her brother-in-law. It does not befit women to seek revenge. “For there is nothing in a woman more praiseworthy than self-restraint, readiness to be pleased, and gentleness, and nothing fouler than audacity and temerity.”229 Pico got into trouble with the pope again, in 1518. Bembo wrote to him on 27 August telling him that the pope has been informed of Pico’s sons’ raid on a villa in the Carpi district which belongs to the See of Bologna, of their breaking into many barns and carrying off grain. He orders Pico to make restitution.230 In March 1516 Leo sent Bembo on a mission to Ravenna as mediator to deal with problems relating to the possessions of private Venetian citizens in that city which had been Venetian and was now under papal control. After four days, on 15 March 1516, Bembo wrote to the pope that he had to give up because there were so many difficulties that to continue could cause discredit to His Holiness. He is returning the next morning and will explain by word of mouth (T II, 366). Bembo was again unsuccessful in carrying out papal policy affecting Venice. It was shortly after his return to Rome that Bembo had heard of the death of his old friend from Urbino, Giuliano de’ Medici (T II, 369), and of the bereavement of his little son. Ippolitino. Giuliano’s death had unexpected consequences. It freed Giuliano’s brother, Leo X, to act against Urbino. Leo had Borgia-like desires to create great states for his family in Italy. After the battle of Novarra in 1512, in which the Swiss, acting for the pope and the Emperor Maximilian, had defeated the French and restored Milan to Italian rule, Leo had bought the city and state of Modena from the emperor to unite it with Reggio Emilia, Parma and Piacenza, and even Crema and Cremona. He wanted to create for his brother Giuliano a Medici buffer state along the via Emilia protecting Medici Florence and the papal states against aggression from the north.231 After the plans to create a state for Giuliano in north Italy collapsed as a result of the new war, Leo thought of seizing the duchy of Urbino, a papal fief ruled by Julius II’s

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nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, whom he considered untrustworthy. He called him a man without faith or honour.232 Having been commander of the papal forces, when the pope replaced him in favour of a member of his own family, della Rovere had refused to serve under him against Francis I at Marignano. He could have been partly responsible for the French victory. Therefore Leo determined to seize the duchy from him and give it to his cousin, the new commander of his forces, the young Lorenzo de’ Medici, son of Piero de’ Medici, who had lost Florence to Savonarola in 1494 through his deal with the French.233 Since Urbino was a papal vicariate Leo could legally change his representative and dispossess della Rovere. Giuliano, however, dying of tuberculosis in Florence, opposed Leo’s plan. He considered it criminal. He felt great affection for the rulers of Urbino who had sheltered him in his exile, treating him with kindness and courtesy.234 But on Giuliano’s death Leo put his plan into operation, and brought war again to central Italy. Lorenzo de’ Medici led the papal forces against Urbino, but was wounded in the capture of the city in April 1517. Leo then put Bibbiena in charge and the army fell apart. Della Rovere was soon back.235 Lorenzo returned to rule Florence while a band of cardinals, led by Raffaele Petrucci of Siena, supporters of della Rovere, plotted to poison the pope.236 They were discovered. On 19 May 1517 Bembo wrote to Latino Giovenale, nuncio in Venice, informing him of the plot and telling him that the guilty cardinals were locked up in Castel Sant’ Angelo (T II, 383). A brief from the pope to the doge would follow. In June, in the consistory on Pentecost, Bembo read out the sentence against the cardinals amidst shouts and disturbances. The cardinals were deprived of all their goods and benefices and handed over to the secular arm.237 The pope then, on 1 July 1517, created thirty-one new cardinals; realizing that he did not have enough titular churches for them, he had to invent some. One of these new cardinals was Alfonso, the Infante of Portugal. He was seven years old, while two of the new Florentine cardinals were still beardless youths.238 One of Bembo’s correspondents at this time was Sannazaro, the Neapolitan poet. He wanted the secretary to use his influence with the pope to secure justice for a woman whose cause he had embraced and whom he loved, to prevent a disgraceful divorce sought by her husband to improve his status.239 In gratitude for Bembo’s efforts Sannazaro had sent him various gifts, first two shirts and two napkins delicately worked with gold thread by his friend,240 now, apparently for Christmas, two boxes of luxury soaps. Bembo wrote on 24 December 1517 thanking him effusively for the most generous presents he has received in five years in service to the pope, saying that he does not deserve such valuable gifts for what little he has been able to do for him (T II, 387).

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On 3 February 1518 Bembo wrote on behalf of the pope to the acting head of the Augustinian order, Gabriele Avolta, addressed as Gabriele Veneto. One of his friars, Martin Luther, had been starting a revolution in Germany, preaching new dogmas to our people. Nip this in the bud, write to him and send learned and upright messengers to try to placate him. If he acts quickly the pope believes that it will not be difficult to extinguish the flame before it has taken hold. Otherwise it can grow out of control.241 The infamous sale of indulgences to build St Peter’s had begun in March 1517. The purchasers and their relatives were forgiven every conceivable sin, already committed or to be committed, and promised immediate entry into heaven, bypassing purgatory. The sale of indulgences was pushed particularly hard in Germany because half the proceeds were earmarked to pay off the staggering debts of the young archbishop of Mainz. Luther protested and when on 31 October 1517 he nailed his ninety-five theses, emphasizing salvation by faith alone, to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg, the Roman church ceased to be universal in the west, though it still called itself Catholic.242 The weather in Rome in the winter of 1517–18 was appalling. There was incessant rain from October to mid-February. There were many thunderstorms. The angel on Castel Sant’ Angelo was struck by lightening and there was serious flooding. The second of March 1518 was the first day completely without rain since October.243 Now Bembo fell ill. Writing to Bibbiena from Rome on 1 August, Bembo, now convalescent, refers to having been bedridden already in April when Bibbiena left. He says that he was in danger of death as recently as twenty days ago. Then he began getting better, and recovering from the fatigue and fever which had appeared to be going to carry him off, as it did the gentle and wretched Camillo Paleotto [Bibbiena’s secretary]. Today he was able to go on foot to mass in Sant’ Apostolo, from whose garden he was now writing. He has apparently been staying in the accomodation there, but now thinks that he could shortly return to the palace, that is, the Vatican, if it were not so hot. The doctors say that he should rest while he is so weak and the weather so hot, walking among the citrus trees, myrtles, and laurels for a little while in the cool of the day and sometimes riding to build up his strength. He can see well and has shaved – his beard had grown quite long – but his feet are still not trustworthy. He wishes that he were with Bibbiena in the cool air in the north (T II, 388). Rome had another bad winter in 1518–19 with heavy snow and extreme cold.244 Bembo, still ailing, received permission at the end of April to spend the summer in the Veneto. In his letter of 25 April 1519 to Bibbiena, now papal nuncio in France, Bembo said that he was leaving for Venice the day after tomorrow for those parts which will be better for his health and that he hoped to arrange the marriage of one of his nieces during this trip (T II,

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389). It appears that he took Morosina with him, a clear indication of his intention to resign soon from papal service and return to the Republic.245 Bembo was in Bologna, probably trying to sort out the problems of his commenda, when he received a letter from Bartolommeo that their father was gravely ill. Bembo reached Venice on 2 June to find that his father had died on 27 May and been buried in San Salvador on the 30th. Bembo now had his father’s estate, mostly debts, to settle, as well as his niece’s marriage to arrange. The pope was also sending him on a mission to Mantua. He would spend eight days at the baths of Caldera near Verona on his return. The doctors believe that this will help him a lot (T II, 391 of 20 July 1519). While on leave in the north Bembo continued to write letters on behalf of the pope.246 On 1 October 1519 Bembo wrote Bibbiena a five-page letter from Venice about his accumulating problems and the comfort that Bibbiena’s affectionate letter of condolence had given him. He replies to Bibbiena’s concern about his health. He did not go to the baths, he has virtually given up taking medicine, his main treatment is healthy living with a little walking and riding, while he profits from the good air of his native land. The trouble with his back, which tormented him for such a long time, has almost disappeared. He expects to be completely free of it in a couple of months. He still has a cold, which went down from his head to his back, and which he has not been able to shake. However it seems to be going away, and he expects soon to be free of it and as good as new. Bembo’s real problem is not his physical health but the state of his finances. He has discovered so many obligations from the death of his father that he does not know where to turn. He wants to keep the family villa, Noniana, outside Padua. His factor who was in charge of the commenda in Bologna has robbed him of 600 gold florins in a year and a half. His medical expenses in the course of his long illness have impoverished him and left him considerably in debt. He had to marry his niece with a 3000 florin dowry, not in cash but as an annuity to her husband from his own income, with only a few hundred florins needed as a down payment. But there are two other marriageable girls on his back, and there are other problems, both in Venice and in Rome, which he will not mention. He has never been so troubled in his life. But, leaving his troubles aside, he has married Marcella to Giovan Matteo Bembo, a worthy, though not rich, young man of twenty-eight years of age, with whom he is well pleased. He has no further good news himself, but he is glad to hear that Bibbiena enjoys quiet and repose. That is the one thing that he himself wants in this life. He thanks Bibbiena for his various invitations and comments at length on Francis I, his patronage and his poetry, which he would like to see. He hopes that Bibbiena will be able to stop off in Venice on his way back to Rome. He could take the boat on the Po from Torino (T II, 392).

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Bembo wrote to the pope on 4 November 1519 asking him to bless the marriage of Marcella and Giovan Matteo Bembo (T II, 394). The pope’s letter gave Giovan Matteo great pleasure (T II, 394). Since Bembo had to look after his sister’s children it would appear that her husband is now dead. Sebastiano Marcello did not die in Corfù on 15 April 1501 as Sanuto reported,247 though he was perhaps incapacitated, because he no longer went to sea. Sanuto later mentions Sebastiano’s appointment in March 1509 as deputy for the district of Santa Sophia to carry out the census there248 and he lists him, along with himself, among the Venetian gentlemen who decided to leave Padua on 15 August 1509, before the siege.249 Sanuto makes no further mention of him, but Bembo complained to the patriarch of Venice on 7 July 1510 about his brother-inlaw’s treatment of his sister Antonia (T II, 299). A later letter, to his “dearest brother-in-law”(T II, 345) was dated 4 December 1514. There are no further references to his “brother-in-law” in Bembo’s letters, so Sebastiano presumably died between 1514 and 1519. A Pietro Marcello, presumably the girls’ uncle, is mentioned in two letters of the spring of 1526 discussing arrangements for the marriage of Bembo’s niece, Giulia Marcello, Sebastiano’s daughter (T II, 647, 648). Strangely enough, Sanuto also erroneously reported the death of Bembo’s sister, Antonia, on 4 March 1510.250 She survived to be mentioned in her brother’s letters up to 1521.251 On 15 November 1519 Bembo wrote to the pope from Padua, telling him that he had gone there to consult the excellent doctors and that he would return to Venice and Rome as soon as his health permitted (T II, 395). Meantime he continued to perform some duties for Leo X. A letter in Leo’s name, to Leonardo Loredano, doge of Venice, dated 26 December 1519 expressed the pope’s joy and relief that the commander of the Venetian fleet, Paolo Vettore, who had been captured by Tunisian pirates, had been ransomed.252 Bembo eventually returned to Rome, not yet completely recovered, in the spring of 1520.

7 Retirement and Domesticity in Padua

Bembo returned to Rome in the spring of 1520. He described his journey in a letter of 29 May 1520 to Christoforo Longolio, now in Padua. He had waited to write until the pope came back from hunting at Magliana. He had not been well enough to go there himself. The trip over the Appennines to Florence had exacerbated his ill health. He had gone to Florence to see Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, the pope’s cousin and the future Clement VII, now governor of the city, to try to buttress Longolio’s defence against charges of hostility to Rome.1 But now he had good news for Longolio. The pope approved Longolio’s decision to continue his studies in Padua for two years and was giving him a bursary. Bembo had seen to it that the first installment was included in the letter.2 He then commented on Longolio’s remark that his puppy, another Bembino(!), was pining for his master. Bembo misses him too, and regrets having left at home3 such a faithful companion who was no trouble at all and so devoted, so lively, so playful. Without the puppy’s affection he seems to have lost all joy in life (T II, 399). Christoforo Longolio, the Belgian Christophe Longueil, was a victim of Roman chauvinism. When he arrived in Rome in 1517 the Romans fêted him for his excellent Latin. Then, in 1519, they learnt that when he was a student at Poitiers, he had eulogized St Louis, blamed Rome for bloodshed, and proclaimed the superiority of the French. This was a touchy moment since Francis I had just won the battle of Marignano in Lombardy. Those who had praised Longolio turned against him, and in the face of fierce hostility Longolio fled Rome in May 1519, though Leo X, Bembo, and other humanists stood by him.4 Longolio went to Venice, the usual sanctuary for refugees, where his friend, Bembo, now on sick leave in the north, arrived on 2 June and took him under his wing. A letter sent from Rome on 2 January 1520 to Longolio in Venice by Bembo’s friend and fellow secretary, Jacopo Sadoleto, praises Bembo’s kindness to Longolio: “What you say

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about our Bembo’s humanity towards you and his liberality is no news to me. For that man is first-rate on every account ... I am delighted that he has taken you in and I am somewhat envious of the most agreeable companionship and excellent conversation which you enjoy.”5 There was no mention of Morosina in Bembo’s letter to Longolio but she too had been left behind in the Veneto and he missed her too. In a letter of 26 June 1520 to his newly-acquired nephew, Giovan Matteo Bembo, the man to whom he had just married his niece Marcella he says “that he is pleased that you are often in my house6 with Madonna Morosina and that she comes sometimes to be with you. It is true that I am a bit envious of you. The more love you show her the more you will please me and I will be indebted to you ... Marcella, dear little girl, I kiss you from here; you will kiss your sisters for me.” He addresses Giovan Matteo as dear son and signs himself Bembus pater (T II, 400). Bembo was an affectionate family man. He was glad, in this letter, that his sister, Antonia, was with the new family. Antonia was Marcella’s mother, and as appears from the following letter to Giovan Matteo, Marcella was pregnant. In this letter, of 28 July 1520, Bembo says that he is happy to hear that Marcella has entered the ninth month, that the trials of pregnancy will soon be over. If it is a boy he would like him called Quintilio, if a girl, Lucina.7 Then he goes on to reply to a request of Giovan Matteo: “As for the brothers of S. Maria dell’Orto, who have been despoiled by the Patriarch, whom you recommend so warmly to me, although I trouble myself very unwillingly in the affairs of brothers, through finding many times with them all human wickedness covered by diabolical hypocrisy, nevertheless, for your sake, I have done for them what I would have done for you” (T II, 402). Bembo has invited the ambassador here to dinner in the palace,8 so that he can talk to Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci about it. He has also spoken to the Rev. Flisco [Nicolò Fieschi, later cardinal], protector of the order, whose support of the Patriarch will make matters very difficult. A complicated case like this cannot be solved in a day, especially if their protector is against them. It would be good to have a warm letter from the Signoria to the protector, who would have to pay attention to it (T II, 402). This gives us a glimpse of how Bembo worked and how business was done at the Vatican, not too differently from how business is conducted in many circles today. Personal contacts and an influential person to push a petition were all-important. Bembo’s next letter, of 20 August 1520, to Longolio in Padua, reveals that he has been ill again and that he is no longer happy in his job in Rome. He suddenly hates writing, nothing is more difficult and more depressing ... why? He thinks that it may be “because for many years I have been forced to write what I cannot stomach, now I do not like having to write what usually pleases me, all writing bothers me so much. Unless perhaps

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my long-lasting illness has made me sluggish and lazy about everything. Whatever it is, I hope that I will soon return to my previous eagerness to pick up my pen, for now I am well enough, almost completely recovered.” He answers Longolio’s three letters, then goes on to comment further on his health. He has not been able to go to Castel Sant’ Angelo so often, presumably in Longolio’s interest, because of his physical weakness, and the great heat during which even those in the best of health avoid effort and fatigue (T II, 403). It appears that Bembo had again taken refuge in SS. Apostoli in the summer of 1520, as he had when he was ill in the summer of 1518 (T II, 388). He refers to this illness again in a letter of 13 September to Gabriele Veneto, Master of the Augustinian Order, who had looked after him in Rome. Gabriele did not give him a potion or drug, but made him better with his visits and sweetest and wisest conversation (T II, 405). This illness concentrated Bembo’s mind on family responsibilities. On 6 January 1521 he wrote to Giovan Matteo about Carletto, the illegitimate son of his illegitimate half-brother, Bartolomeo. “If I were to die one day, as I almost did these last years, and as people die often in Rome ... my sister would inherit everything that I left ... and my brother and his son would get nothing, and they would have to live as toll collectors on the Moranzano canal.”9 He would deserve much blame for this, because Bartolomeo has done a lot for him over the years in accordance with his abilities. Therefore Bembo has decided to leave the abbey to the boy so that he and his father would not become beggars. He is happy that Giovan Matteo had also thought of this branch of the family. He is glad that Marcella is pregnant again. This means that Giovan Matteo will not lack children. However, he is sorry for her, because she will grow old too soon (T II, 412). The abbey to which Bembo referred was the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Villanova, outside Vicenza, twenty-two kilometres east of Verona on the present highway 11, on the northern outskirts of the small town of S. Bonifacio. Leo X had granted Bembo this benefice in the summer of 1517 as part of the spoils of Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci, executed for his part in the plot to poison the pope.10 The abbey comprised a 12th century church with an independent bell tower and a quadrangular monastery attached to its south side. Nearby was farmland and housing for the peasants. The church had an attractive interior with medieval frescoes and sculpture. In good times it could give Carletto a nice little income.11 The inheritance of benefices was one of the scandals of the Renaissance church and from Julius II’s Lateran Council12 onwards half-hearted efforts were made to suppress it. Nevertheless, when Bembo finally left the service of Leo X on the grounds of the ill-health which had plagued him since March 1518, the pope wrote him, on 3 April 1521, giving him the right to bequeath his ecclesiastical income as a reward for his many years of hard work for the Apostolic See. The letter states that the pope is doing this on

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Bembo’s Abbey of Villanova, “S. Pietro Apostolo,” Bonifacio, Verona. There is a monastic building to the right side of the church and barns and fields behind.

his own initiative, not in response to a petition from anyone.13 This is hard to believe, especially considering Bembo’s January letter about leaving his abbey to Carletto. This authorization by the pope gave Bembo a free hand with fairly considerable resources. By the time he left the Vatican in the spring of 1521 he had managed to accumulate twenty-seven benefices, worth on paper about 1600 ducats per annum14 but in fact much more. The official registers grossly understated the income from many of them, although in many cases it was hard to collect and the constant wars created havoc. Bembo’s most valuable asset was the commenda of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Bologna. This was the fruit of his assiduous cultivation, in his Urbino days, of the young Cardinal Galeotto della Rovere, the pope’s nephew and vice-

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Bologna, Piazza Maggiore. Bembo’s commenda from the Knights of St John of Jerusalem was on this square, opposite the building with the clock tower, now the Palazzo Comunale, formerly the palace of the papal governor with whom Bembo was in dispute over the payment of taxes to support San Petronio, the basilica up the steps to the left. The solid gothic building with battlements is the Palazzo dei Notai, a legal centre. A model in the Palazzo Comunale of the area around the square before modernization shows the medieval timbered buildings of Bembo’s commenda opposite the Palazzo Comunale.

chancellor of the Church. Julius II states this explicitly in his bull of 14 January 1508 conveying the commenda to Bembo when it fell vacant.15 A commenda was an ecclesiastical property given to a manager in trust. He was expected to maintain it, administer it, and hand over to the religious order to which it belonged a portion of the income generated, typically one third in the case of the Knights of St John.16 The Knights’ magione or manor was situated the main square of Bologna, to the left of the cathedral of S. Petronio. It comprised approximately the modern block bounded by the piazza Maggiore, via Clavatura, via delle Drapperie, and via delle Pescherie Vecchie and included the church of S. Maria della Vita in via Clavatura.17 There were shops on the ground floor on the piazza Maggiore side, as there still are in an arcade built by Vignola in 1565 to hide the medieval jumble behind.18 There was also a hospital in the complex.19 In addition, the manor possessed an estate in the

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country near Bologna with farmland, houses for the peasants, a vineyard, woods, horses, and cattle. The farm was the main source of revenue for the knights and the support of the hospital.20 In Julius II’s bull of 1508 Bembo was required to join the Order in six months or lose his benefice which the pope valued at 600 ducats per annum.21 Bembo did not, in fact, take his vows during the specified period but somehow gave the pope, and other people as well, the impression that he had so that he received another commenda from Julius II, that of Pola and Aquileia, in 1512-13.22 He apparently renounced this early on in favour of a friend of Giuliano de’ Medici, his companion in Urbino, now the ruler of Florence and the new pope’s brother.23 Bembo then managed to get two-year derogations throughout the reign of Leo X, always with the understanding that he was about to join the Order but when the austere Dutchman, Adrian of Utrecht, was elected to succeed Leo in January 1522, Bembo dared not ask for another derogation.24 In 1517 he had received another commenda from Leo X, Benevento. He had also been made Prior of Hungary in the Order of St John of Jerusalem.25 He had been receiving benefices from the Order for fourteen years. The new pope was unlikely to overlook the fact that he had not yet taken vows, so in Padua in December 1522, Bembo finally became a knight of St John and donned the habit with the eight pointed cross, though he was now living openly with Morosina. The clergy of the day were not noted for their chastity, from the humblest monk to the princes of the church and the popes themselves, but it seems that Bembo must have had something of a conscience to have postponed taking his vows for so long, though not enough to inhibit him from grabbing benefices whenever he saw the opportunity. People all around him battened off the Church. He too wanted a good income, but taking vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity presented a difficulty which he overcame only when his livelihood was seriously threatened. There is a sixteenth-century account of the ritual of profession in the order: After confession the nobleman,26 wearing a long loose robe, must kneel at the altar with a lighted torch in his hand, signifying love. He must hear mass, take communion, then humbly request admission to the Order to serve Christ’s poor. He must promise obedience. After being asked if he is a member of another order, married or in debt, the postulant is given an opened missal on which he places both hands and standing swears,”I swear and promise to Almighty God and to the Blessed Mary ever Virgin and Mother of God and to St John the Baptist to observe perpetually, with the aid of God, true obedience towards every superior given me by God and this Order and to live henceforth without any private property and to observe chastity.” Then he lifts his hands from the missal and the brother who is receiving him says, “We recognize you to be a servant of the poor and of the infirm of the Lord and consecrated and dedicated to the defence

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of the Catholic faith,” and he replies, “And I recognize myself to be such,” kisses the missal, places it on the altar, kisses the altar, and returns the missal to the brother as a sign of true obedience. Then the brother invests him with the black robe with the eight pointed cross on his left breast.27 The rules of the Order state that a member may not keep a concubine in his house nor have one outside the house – the Order obviously had experience of legalistic knights. If he is proved to be doing so and refuses to terminate his attachment the member will lose his commenda.28 The Grand Master in Bembo’s day, Philippe de Villiers, added: “If anyone of our brothers recognises as his son one born of fornication ... and he gives him his name ... he cannot continue in any office, benefice or dignity of our Order.”29 Eleven months after Bembo made his profession, in November 1523, his first son, Lucilio, was born.30 Taking his vows seems to have been therapeutic for Bembo’s conscience. He had not been struck down by a thunderbolt or been denounced. Now he could savour the joys of married life, which he had praised to Giuliano de’ Medici on his marriage in 1515: “I believe, without any doubt, that the contentments of marriage are the greatest experienced in this life” (T II, 363 of 11 March 1515). Although they secured him a decent income, none of Bembo’s benefices provided it trouble free. He received no money from the commenda in Bologna until 1517, nine years after it had been granted him, because he had to wait for the current incumbent to move on.31 Then this manor, for whose welfare he was responsible, caused him much worry because of the constant wars in the north of Italy and its occupation by Spanish and German armies.32 Travi prints eighty-nine letters about the commenda, mostly dealing with financial problems, including the conduct of Bembo’s agents, efforts to escape taxation, and arrangements for its inheritance.33 The situation was even worse in the commenda of Benevento because of the disruption in the kingdom of Naples, wars, and plague. Early on Bembo used his fellow poet, Sannazaro, to try to collect what was due him from his managers there,34 but often there was nothing for him to pass on to the Order.35 He also sought help from Vittoria Colonna who, for a time, governed the papal enclave of Benevento in her husband’s name, and through her received help from her cousin, the powerful Cardinal Pompeo Colonna.36 In addition he had been appointed Prior of Hungary in 1517,37 head of the Order in that country, and when he finally decided to take the robe of the Order of St John he wrote to Elisabetta Gonzaga, duchess of Urbino, that he was taking it as Prior of Hungary (T II, 429). He used that title to the end of his life,38 although he was never able to take possession. The Turks invaded Hungary in the 1520s and between 1526-29 made it an Ottoman dependency. There was also civil war.39 Nevertheless Bembo never gave up his struggle to be Prior of Hungary.40 He liked the title and

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the benefice was theoretically wealthy, with vast possessions in the country and the seat of administration near Sibenik on the Adriatic coast41 in what is now Croatia. Another benefice on the Adriatic coast which Bembo was never able to enjoy, although he eventually received an income from it, was the Benedictine Abbey of S. Pietro in Valle in the diocese of Arbe, a small island now called Rab, in the Kvarner Gulf off Croatia. The sixth-century abbey still exists. This was the first important gift Bembo received from Leo X,42 perhaps granted in November 1514 to encourage him on the hopeless mission to try to persuade Venice to yield Verona to the emperor. Bembo’s representatives, whom he had sent to take possession of the abbey in his name, had written that it was totally ruined and broken down and that he could not expect a penny from it for a couple of years. Nevertheless, he had written to his friend, Cardinal Bibbiena, that the possession of the abbey made him feel as proud as the Grand Turk of Cairo. He had sent one hundred or so gold ducats to Venice for necessary repairs and would send more if he had them (T II, 384). However, there was a more serious impediment to Bembo’s enjoying any income from the abbey than the poor condition of the abbey estate. The abbey had salt pans and it was in the Venetian province of Dalmatia where the Venetian government had a monopoly. Bembo could not sell the salt.43 This infuriated the pope, who told the Venetian ambassador in front of Cardinals de’ Medici and Bibbiena that he would do nothing for the Signoria until he was satisfied with the arrangements for Bembo’s enjoyment of his benefice.44 On another occasion he said that he wanted his salt from Bembo’s abbey.45 Eventually, through the pressure of Cardinal de’ Medici and the papal nuncio, the Senate was forced to make a settlement: The abbey would be attached in perpetuity to the church of St Mark and Bembo would receive a perpetual rent of 300 ducats and the value of the salt already harvested.46 This settlement was made in 1519, but regular payment could not be counted on. Bembo even had to dun the doge, Andrea Gritti, for his 300 ducats in March 1524, hinting that he could complain to the pope if the money were not forthcoming since he was on his way Rome (T II, 473).47 Of the twenty-one remaining benefices Bembo acquired before he left Rome in 1521 seven consisted of parishes, one was a chaplaincy,48 one deanship, six were canonries,49 and two combined deanships and canonries. There were three pensions on ecclesiastical income from benefices other people held and various benefices, undefined, in the diocese of Foligno.50 The most valuable of these benefices was the canonry in the cathedral of Padua, which he never really possessed but which, from 1525 onwards, yielded an income of 250 ducats per annum, 300 minus the 50 he had to pay to the man who actually occupied the post.51 Despite this,

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however, and no doubt because of his fame, Bembo’s portrait as a cardinal with a long white beard was placed at some date in the sacristy of the cathedral, along with those of other distinguished canons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The acquisition of these benefices had been one of the major preoccupations of Bembo’s sojourn in Rome from 1512-21, and managing his portfolio in his own interest and that of his heirs, not of the Church or the devout, was to occupy a great deal of time and effort during the rest of his life. Bembo had also bought offices while in Rome. It was a normal practice to pay a lump sum to buy an expected future income. Vatican officials did not receive salaries but sold their services for drawing up documents and getting them sealed. Since many disputes went to Church courts, having the title to one of the supervisory posts in the bureaucracy could be a lucrative arrangement.52 So we find Bembo, on 25April 1516, writing to Cardinal Bibbiena in Modena, moaning over his personal finances because he had had to give the pope more than 1000 ducats, which he had to borrow, for the scrittoria vacated and promised to him; then, for the piombo,53 which is still vacant and also promised to him, he had to find another 1600. Cardinal de’ Medici, later Clement VII, lent him a large part of the 2,700 ducats he needed. The banker, Agostino Chigi, also helped out, as always, but Bembo thinks that he will not be out of debt this century (T II, 372). The sale of offices was an important part of papal income and helped to fill Leo’s depleted coffers. I have not been able to discover what his investments brought Bembo. I expect that he sold them, as we would trade on the stock market.54 One of Bembo’s last letters before he left Rome again in April 152155 to restore his health in the north (T II, 428) gives interesting information about the long distance courier service. On 16 February 1521 he wrote to Giovan Battista Ramusio, secretary to the Signoria, asking him to reject a regulation being submitted by the Venetian couriers which would require clients to dispatch the next in line, as in a modern taxi rank. Bembo argues that this is not in the interests of the couriers themselves. If a client cannot chose the Venetian right for the job he will use foreign couriers instead. A Florentine was sent recently by a Venetian merchant because the Venetian waiting his turn was unsuitable. If this order, or rather disorder, goes forward Bembo himself will be one who will use foreign couriers, Florentine or English (T II, 414). It is a bit surprising that English couriers offered an internal postal service in Italy in the early sixteenth century. It is not known exactly when Bembo reached the Veneto but he is recorded as having attended the funeral in Venice of Doge Leonardo Loredano on 25 June 1521.56 Then he settled happily in his villa outside Padua with Morosina (T II, 417) and resumed his contacts with the talented

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and learned young men who had been attracted to the university. Longolio visited him at the villa for a couple of days in early July and brought a letter from Reginald Pole, now a student in Padua, asking for his friendship. Bembo was delighted. He wrote to Pole on 11 July 1521: “I cherished you previously when I first knew you as an adolescent when, though of royal blood, you came to Padua from the farthest boundaries of the earth, fired with a passion for learning ... Now I embrace you”(T II, 419). Then Bembo fell ill again. On 2 August 1521 he wrote to Paolo Giustiniano, his old Venetian friend who was a friar in the monastery of Fonte Avellana and who had asked him to intervene with the pope on a financial matter. Bembo says that he has suffered from a fever for many days. It has left him weak and extraordinarily emaciated, so that he has had to postpone any idea of going back to Rome that autumn. As for writing to the pope, the moment is not propitious. He is not making any financial concessions at the present because of his war (T II, 422). Leo X had continued Julius II’s policy of trying to drive the foreigners out of Italy, in this case the French from Milan,57 and the news of his victory there is thought to have been the cause of his death, though it may have been an attack of malaria from which everyone suffered.58 The pope was at his hunting lodge at Magliana when, on the night of 24 November 1521, he received the news that his army had entered Milan. Leo rode to Rome triumphantly and ordered festivities in which he exposed himself to the cold, raw weather. A week later, on 1 December 1521, he died, unexpectedly of the chill he had contracted. Only his clown, Fra Mariano, was with him at the end. He is reputed to have admonished the pope, “Remember God, Holy Father!”59 Leo died without the sacraments. Soon an epigram was circulating in Rome by the Neapolitan poet, Sannazaro, who as a devout Catholic had been scandalized by Leo’s behaviour: “If you ask why Leo could not receive the sacraments at his last hour, he had sold them.”60 Pasquino also made his contribution: “He entered like a fox, lived like a lion, died as a dog.”61 Giovio, in his life of Leo X, quotes what he says was written on his grave: “The delights of the human race, Greatest Leo, as they dawned with you so, with you, they have perished.”62 Hardly the sort of epitaph one would expect for a pope, even in the humanist era, and one which certainly does not appear on his tomb in S. Maria sopra Minerva or on his statue in S. Maria d’Aracoeli, where he is praised for his contribution to the arts. A successor regime often reaps the glory of its predecessor’s innovations. Because of the myth of the Medici, the easy-going, pleasure-loving Leo X rather than the dour Julius II is regarded as the creator of the golden age of Rome but it was Julius, in fact, who had put everything in place. He started the rebuilding of St Peter’s and of Rome, employed Bramante, Michelan-

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gelo, Raphael, and half a dozen other great artists on the Sistine Chapel, and fostered humanism. Leo X’s funeral took place in the Sistine Chapel on 9 December 1521. With his indolence, self-indulgence, and clownishness he had been a preposterous head of the Catholic Church which, thanks to him, would soon cease to be universal. Now the College of Cardinals had to find a suitable successor. They elected the austere theologian of blameless life, Adrian of Utrecht, who was not even at the conclave trying to buy office. From Christoforo Longolio’s letter from Padua on 13 December 1521 to Jacopo Sadoleto, Leo X’s other domestic secretary, in Rome, we learn that Bembo was still too ill in December to be able to advise Longolio what he should do now that the pope was dead.63 According to Bembo himself, writing from Padua to Elisabetta Gonzaga, dowager duchess of Urbino, on 25 April 1522, he had been ill for four years and had been suffering from a quartan fever for the past eight months. Now he is recovering and rejoices in the duke’s reinstatement in his duchy after Leo X’s attempt to turn it into a family fief. He hopes that he will be able to return to Urbino one day, to the happiness and contentment which he had known there in the past (T II, 426). It would appear from this letter, and two others to the duke of about the same date (T II, 424, 425), that Bembo was ill until April 1522.64 There were many deaths from fever. Bembo’s old friend Bernardo Dovizi, Cardinal Bibbiena, had died of it in 1520.65 Now Bembo’s protégé, Longolio, fell ill with a fever that August and died in September 1522, leaving his books to Pole.66 Bembo wrote an elegant epitaph.67 Bembo wrote few letters in 1522. As he explained to the Duchess Elisabetta of Urbino on 2 October, having had to spend the best years of his life writing letters for others has put him off writing on his own account. He would rather pick up an oar than a pen, and gossip all day than write a verse. He has more or less recovered his health and lives in his villa most of the time. It is in this letter that he said that he was thinking of donning the habit of the Order of St John in a few days as Prior of Hungary. He thanks her for helping him gain his first benefice with the Order (T II, 429). In an earlier letter (20 July) to another old Urbino friend, Federigo Fregoso, of Genoa, Archbishop of Salerno and now papal legate in France, Bembo expresses sympathy for his losses in the sack of Genoa, then brings him up to date on his activities: I left Rome and Pope Leo, apparently asking permission for a short leave, to

restore my health in this part of the country, but, in effect, not to return again, and to live for myself whatever life, long or short, remained to me ... I’ve settled in Padua, a city of most moderate climate and very beautiful

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in itself and above all convenient and restful and most suitable for literary leisure and study ... better than any place I’ve ever seen. And I am sometimes in the city and sometimes in the villa, free of all cares ... (except for some financial ones, which are bearable and do not upset me). Bembo urges Fregoso to visit him in Padua. He will not easily find such brilliant men anywhere. “If I had been able to do this, as you can, much earlier than now, I would have done it, nor would I have thrown away a little less than ten of the best years of my life; thrown away, I said, in every other respect, only that they gained me a little money and liberty.” He then goes on about his health. A month of continuous fever which nearly carried him off was followed by eight of a very nasty quartan, then three months of convalescence which have not yet restored him completely. In conclusion he returns to the sack of Genoa. He is sorry that Ottaviano, Federigo’s brother, another old friend from Urbino, and sometime doge of Genoa, has been taken prisoner. He would go to visit him and spend a month in prison with him if Lombardy were not inundated with armies and soldiers. He still will do it if he can, and he is offering some modest financial help (T II, 428). In fact Ottaviano died miserably in 1524 as prisoner of the marquess of Pescara, some say of hunger and privation, some of disease. Castiglione had tried, unsuccessfully, to intervene in his favour.68 To another friend, Cardinal Egidio of Viterbo, Bembo describes his new life of retirement. He is content, without ambition or desire for possessions he does not have. He beguiles himself with his studies as far as his weakness permits but he cannot help having feelings for those good and studious men who suffer because of the actions of those who are neither good nor studious, an allusion to the disturbances in both Rome and northern Italy at the time (T II, 436 of 4 March 1523). Bembo was, in fact, enjoying an idyllic life in his villa outside Padua. This is how he described it in a letter of 6 May 1525: I read, I write as much as I want to, I ride, I walk, I stroll very often in a little wood at the top of my garden. In that garden, which is very pleasant and beautiful, at times I pick, with my own hand, vegetables for the first courses of the evening meal and at times a basket of strawberries in the morning, which afterwards perfume, not only the mouth, but also the whole table. I do not need to mention that the garden and the house and everywhere is full of roses all day long ... Also, with a little boat, first by a lovely little stream which runs continuously opposite my house, and then by the Brenta – into which this little stream flows after a very short course and which is a beautiful and very swift-flowing river and it also, on another side, washes my fields – I go in the afternoon for a good spell, enjoying myself whenever the water attracts me more than the land.

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He contrasts this with the hurly-burly of Rome: “I do not hear sounds except for nightingales ... and many other birds, all of which seem to strive to please me with their natural harmony” (T II, 528). Leon Battista Alberti had described a villa as a sanctuary, a country retreat of unconditional happiness, intellectual bliss, relief from mundane care. A lord in his villa was a practising humanist, his life one of leisure and contemplation.69 This is what Bembo had achieved. But an additional source of happiness, which he did not describe to his ecclesiastical colleagues, he put in his verse. This was the love, warmth, and companionship of Morosina, who was nursing their first child. Returning from a trip, perhaps the two or three days he spent in Padua from time to time (T II, 528), Bembo found Petrarchan imagery to express his genuine feeling for the place where he found happiness and the woman he loved: From afar I scent the perfume, and the coolness, and the breeze / from the green fields where she lives / whose beautiful eyes deck the woods / with branches and the meadow with flowers. / … Rise from the waves before your wonted time / tomorrow, O Sun, and swiftly return to us, / that the sun which brings day to my nights / I may earlier see, and you may too / ... Because you know wherever you bring warmth, wherever you turn, / you do not gaze on beauty and loveliness so fresh and so great. / ... And if the kind of soul that fair veil cloaks, / you also knew, and how lofty the desires, / you would bow down to her as a holy thing. (Rime C )

Bembo’s great-grandfather, Bernardo di Giovanni Bembo, had bought the villa from the republic of Venice on 19 August 1406, for 16,000 ducats.70 It was called Villa Bozza after the previous owner, Bozza da Non, a soldier of fortune,71 or Villa Noniana because it was in the village of S. Maria di Non, at the confluence of the Piovego and the Brenta.72 Pietro’s father, Bernardo di Nicolò, inherited the villa and it is believed that he restructured it under Tuscan influence after his first visit to Florence in 1476.73 He also added a mill with three water wheels, in accordance with building regulations,74 which were to be the subject of much litigation for Pietro in later years. The property consisted of the main house looking on the Piovego with a courtyard, a house for the steward, an orchard, rose garden, dovecote, separate stalls for the horses, a little wood, a vineyard, meadows with two thatched cottages for the workers on the Brenta side, and eighty fields.75 Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli (c1440-c1524), the poet from Rimini whom Bernardo Bembo had met in Florence and taken into his household (possibly as an Italian tutor for Pietro, Carlo, and Antonia), described the villa as very lovely.76 Benedetto Maffei in a book on agriculture also praised it.77 In the autumn of 1523 an event took place which disturbed the quiet tenor of Bembo’s life in his Paduan villa. Adrian VI, whose election had

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Bembo’s villa Noniana, the poet writing by the Piovego. His portrait is based on the Belli medal. The villa still existed in the eighteenth century when this engraving was made.

impelled Bembo to regularize his relationship with the Knights of St John, died after only 18 months’ reign. After two months of deliberation, the longest conclave ever, the cardinals elected Giulio de’ Medici, Leo X’s cousin, as the new pope. He took the name of Clement VII. As soon as he received the news, on 21 November, Bembo took up his pen, scenting profit. He had been long associated with Cardinal de’ Medici in Leo X’s government and Giulio had been a fellow knight of the Order of St John. Bembo wrote him an effusive letter of congratulations, praising God for having allowed him to live to see this day. He apologized for not being able to come immediately to kiss his most holy feet because of his physical weakness and the bad winter weather (T II, 460). On the same day Bembo wrote three other letters to high-ranking Vatican officials. The first of these was to Gian Matteo Giberti who had been Cardinal de’ Medici’s secretary and who, Bembo correctly foresaw, would receive the greatest benefit from his cardinal’s elevation (T II, 458). Giberti, a great scrounger of benefices under Leo X and therefore already a wealthy man, immediately received the lucrative post of datary.78 The datary received fees for the registration of papal bulls and for grants of special graces and dispensations and was one of the main papal officers, with key importance in Vatican finance.79 Under Clement VII Giberti managed one quarter of the income of the Church.80 The datary has also been described as a kind of papal secretary of state. All the affairs of the Church, internal and external, passed through his office.81 Bembo’s second letter was addressed to Nicolò Schomberg, Archbishop of Capua and Giberti’s colleague in Cardinal de’ Medici’s chancellery.82 As in the Giberti letter Bembo emphasized that they had been colleagues in the Vatican curia and devoted to Cardinal de’ Medici. Since Bembo is not yet

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able to rush to Rome to kiss the pope’s feet he asks Schomberg to see to it that the pope does not forget him. He is also lyrical about the elevation of their cardinal (T II, 459). His third letter is addressed to Agostin Foglietta who, he is sure, will now receive his just reward. Again Bembo expresses his joy at this turn of events and asks Foglietta to kiss the holy feet on his behalf (T II, 461). His ability to write four different letters on the same subject on the same day without unduly repeating himself is a tribute to Bembo’s literary skill. Three weeks later, on 11 December 1523, having heard of his appointment as secretary to Clement VII, Bembo wrote to Benedetto Accolti, bishop of Cremona, congratulating him on his promotion to serve one who, he believes, will be the greatest pope, the most prudent and most honoured and revered for many centuries. He is glad that Accolti has not forgotten him (T II, 464). Three days later Bembo was also glad to receive a letter from Giberti, the new datary, which he had written shortly after his appointment. He cannot believe that Giberti could have found time to write to him in the midst of the celebrations on Clement VII’s creation and on his own elevation to such high office. Again Bembo emphasizes his joy at the news. He thinks that it is a long time since the Church has had such a clever pope. This is what we need in this split in the Christian community, Bembo’s first reference to the Lutheran challenge. Now he asks Giberti not to forget him when he needs his help and again prays for long life for the pope (T II, 465). On 15 February 1524 Bembo wrote to his old friend and colleague in the service of Leo X, Jacopo Sadoleto. Sadoleto had left Rome for his bishopric of Carpentras the previous year83 and had now been recalled by Clement VII to be one of his two private secretaries. Bembo thinks that Sadoleto will be happier in this position than he was in the previous one. Now he embraces him by letter. He hopes soon to be able to embrace him in reality (T II, 470). With the beginning of spring Bembo decided to go to Rome to explore the possibilities of the new dispensation. His first child, Lucilio, had been born in November 1523 and he undoubtedly hoped to increase the family income. On 21 March 1524 he wrote to Doge Andrea Gritti that he was leaving for Rome that very minute and asked him for the 300 ducats due on his abbey of Arbe. His nephew, Giovan Matteo Bembo, will collect the money for him (T II, 473). However, things did not turn out as Bembo had hoped. On 3 April 1524 he wrote to his nephew from Bologna. He has been held up by heavy rains, but hopes to be able to leave tomorrow, hale and hearty, with all his people. He is writing now to remind Giovan Matteo to collect the 300 ducats he needs. Kiss Luigi and Quintilio – Marcella has apparently had a second

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son. In a ps he says that he has had to stay over more days because of heavy rain. He has given up the idea of going to Rome until the autumn because the road is cut in many places and there is plague in Rome (T II, 474). He asked Giberti to excuse him with the pope (T II, 477) and wrote his own excuses to the Grand Master of the Knights of St John, now in Viterbo, whom he had hoped to visit on his Roman excursion. He has instead paid his respects to the ambassadors of the Order now in Venice (T II, 479). So Bembo returned to domestic life in his villa and to his seminal work on the Italian language, Le Prose della volgar lingua. In June he went to Padua, leaving his old friend from student days, Trifon Gabriele, as his guest in the villa, with Morosina who was breast-feeding six-month-old Lucilio. Morosina was treated as Bembo’s wife and had an easy relationship with his patrician friends. She obviously felt at ease with Gabriele, and that she could confide in him. Worried that she might be pregnant again she asked him to write to Bembo’s secretary in Padua, Apollonio Merenda, to find Genevra, the wife of the former steward at Villa Bozza, and ask her to visit Francesco Vanozza’s niece to find out if, when she thought she was pregnant, but was not, she had milk in her breasts. He must not let anyone know the source of this request.84 Morosina was, in fact, not pregnant for a couple more months but a second boy, Torquato, was born within the year, on 10 May 1525.85 During this summer Bembo was also carrying on a literary romance with Camilla Gonzaga da Porto,86 a beautiful woman whom he had apparently met when he was held up in Bologna for a month in the spring and who kept asking him to send her his poems. This was typical of high-ranking ladies of the day who cherished the arts and presided over literary salons. Isabella d’Este hounded Sannazaro, but Bembo was more susceptible to female flattery than Sannazaro and there was certainly a warmth in his letters to Camilla which was lacking in his later letters to the plain Vittoria Colonna87 or in Sannazaro’s replies to Isabella.88 On 6 May 1524 Bembo sent Camilla the canzone he had promised in Bologna (T II, 478). On 7 July 1524 he replied to two letters he had received from her and her sister, the Contessa. He would send more poems if he could but the intense heat has dried up his poetic vein, as well as the earth (T II, 483). On 29 July 1524 he wrote to his friend, the poet Francesco Maria Molza, one of Camilla’s court, who had delayed in forwarding her four letters which are so sweet and so dear that he is keeping them as four beautiful and precious gems. He asks him to tell this to Camilla and her sister, if he can find time in his frenetic pursuit of pleasure89 (T II, 487). On the same day Bembo wrote from his villa to Filippo Maria de’ Rossi in Bologna, thanking him for sending him a letter by Petrarch. “It is certainly a fine letter and could be by Petrarch, although the style does not seem to me to be his.” Bembo is pleased that Filippo has been staying with

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that most lovely lady, although he is a bit envious. But he will feel less envious if at times Filippo recommends him to her with that fine rhetoric that he knows how to use (T II, 485). Molza replied to Bembo on 13 August 1524: “Filippo went to sleep with your letter in his hand. No sooner had he closed his eyes than the lady skilfully slipped the letter from his hand.”90 Bembo replied on 1 September 1524 that he was glad that Madonna Camilla had led him to writing again and asks him to thank her. He will write her when he has something to send. He is glad that Molza has stayed in Bologna and looks forward to seeing him in October when he resumes the trip to Rome that was interrupted the previous Easter. He sends his greetings to Messer Filippo de’ Rossi (T II, 492). After this exchange the epistolary flirtation with Camilla tapered off, though Bembo did send her a kiss in a letter from Rome to Molza on 6 January 1524 (T II, 510), and on 18 December 1527, some poems via the Venetian ambassador in Rome (T II, 840).91 Bembo did start for Rome again in October. On 10 October 1524 he wrote to Piero Ardinghelli in Florence that he already had his foot in the stirrup when he received Ardinghelli’s letter telling him that his son, the Rev Nicolò, was coming to Padua. He would not be there to see him but he has told his people to receive Nicolò in his house and to look after him. He must not hesitate to ask for anything he wants. Bembo loves him as a son and honours him as a brother (T II, 496). In another letter written the same day to Taddeo Taddei in Florence, answering his recommendation of Nicolò, Bembo assured him that he valued Nicolò and would see that he is well looked after. Bembo then told Taddeo that he would not be visiting him in Florence on the way to Rome because of the plague in Bologna and reports that it still exists in the Florentine countryside, if not in the city itself. He has therefore decided to go via the Marche, but perhaps he will be able to stop in Florence for a couple of days on his way home and hear Taddeo’s thoughts. He sends very warm greetings to Taddeo’s family (T II, 497). On 19 October 1524 Bembo wrote from Ferrara to Simone de’ Torri, apparently in Bologna, telling him that he had received the horse in Padua but it was too thin to use. It could not carry his bed, which is what he wanted it for. Therefore he is sending it back to Padua with some chests of fruit. Now he has another horse. He asks Simone to send him, in Rome, care of the secretary to the archbishop of Ravenna Pietro Accolti, the 200 ducats they talked about in Venice and the things he left with him. There is plague in Ferrara (T II, 498). Bembo wrote again, on 7 November, from the archbishop’s address, saying that the ducats had not arrived. Please send them immediately, as well as the things he left with him in Bologna. He also asks Simone what he would like Bembo to do for him, undoubtedly an incentive for action (T II, 499). A third letter, of 12 November, begs Simone

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to send the money and his things by the first mule driver. If he does not get them soon it will be a disaster (T II, 500). In a fourth letter written three days later, Bembo repeats his desperate request (T II, 501). On 19 November 1524, a month after his first request, Bembo wrote Simone that he had received his letter of 12 November with a second letter of exchange. He never saw the first one. His things still have not turned up. Now that Simone has been vindicated Bembo tells him that he wants him to take over the management of the Magione, the manor, in Bologna and would like to know what he would charge (T II, 502). On 28 November Bembo received Simone’s letter of the twenty-first with the third letter of exchange which he does not need since the second one has been honoured. The first one has still not appeared. He discusses tax demands that Simone has reported and authorizes payment, but would like to know on what basis they have been charged. He would not like to pay robbers money he does not steal himself. He gives other practical instructions about the administration of the Magione, which Simone has obviously taken over, then complains that his things have not yet arrived. He is in despair. “The olives, if you want to send them to me, it is up to you. But give them to a mule driver who does not keep them for a year” (T II, 503). Bembo apparently had some self-catering arrangement in Rome because he took his cook with him (T II, 525) and even had to take his own bed. Literary scholarship was still the subject of keen interest in the Roman curia. On 20 December 1524 Bembo wrote to Felice Trofino, bishop of Chieti and currently the datary, that in the night he had suddenly realized what Petrarch meant in his second and third sonnets in the Canzoniere. They had been discussing Petrarch the day before in the pope’s rooms and Trofino had asked him how he understood these two sonnets. Bembo replied that he had read them without understanding them for the past forty years. Now the meaning has suddenly struck him. He explains. He would have come to discuss this with Trofino as soon as he got up but he has caught a cold, so he will stay in that day (T II, 504). The following summer Bembo again wrote to Trofino, answering questions about Petrarch, explaining the difference between a canzone and a frottola, then quoting a frottola by Petrarch which he has found in an old book (T II, 531 of 20 May 1525). On 6 January 1525 Bembo wrote a light-hearted letter to his friend Molza in Bologna. He would envy Molza’s being shown a great part of Trissino’s treasures 92 if envy were not a mortal sin, “and I am here in Rome in the Jubilee year in which one has to go pure and without sin to the indulgence.” Then, after commenting on the poems Molza had sent him, Bembo asks him to kiss Madonna Camilla’s hand for him, “I would say her lips, if French customs had come to Italy along with the king”

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(T II, 510). So much for Jubilee year purity! Of course Bembo had not gone to Rome for the indulgences of the Jubilee but to court Clement VII. Bembo felt that things were going well for him in Rome. On 8 January 1525 Bembo wrote to his factotum Cola Bruno to give Simone 100 ducats for his efforts, in addition to the expenses for the management of the Magione. He is also arranging for Simone to get some preferment from the papal legate in Bologna. He believes that his own affairs will prosper in Rome because the pope shows him much affection. Then he asks Cola to send him 200 ducats immediately, even if it is not the time for his payment. He can withhold this from the money due to the Magione (T II, 511). On 12 January Bembo wrote to his old friend Ridolfo Pio da Carpi that every day sees the papal court reforming itself and adopting more praiseworthy customs and laws. He will be in Rome for the whole of this month (T II, 512). From his next letter we learn of Bembo’s trump card to win the pope’s favour. On 18 January he wrote to another old friend, Federigo Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, who was in Vigevano, obviously observing the activities of Francis I who was besieging Pavia: Bembo has been in Rome for two months to kiss the feet of the pope, and “not wanting to come empty-handed, I have brought him my composition on the vulgar tongue which I had begun in Urbino and was still working on in Rome, in your house, when Leo’s creation took me away from it. You are one of the speakers in it. I have finished it this year and dedicated it to His Holiness and now have given it to him. I think, when I have returned home to Padua, I will send it to Venice to be printed. I have been here longer than I expected, detained by a problem which can be solved in a couple of weeks. Then I will leave and go to hide myself in my little villa” (T II, 513). In three other letters written at this time (T II, 516, 517, and 519) Bembo says that he will be home soon, in the last letter, to Trifone Gabriele, to his “dolce vita” in his delightful villetta (T II, 519). On 1 February 1525, as a patriotic Venetian, he wrote a letter to Marco Dandolo in Venice on the political situation concluding, “May our Lord God govern us because it seems to me that we have a great need of it” (T II, 520). Francis I was defeated at Pavia that same month. Bembo had still not returned home by 25 February 1525 when Morosina wrote, addressing him as Prior of Hungary: My dear love, I suspect that you will be longer than you think because all affairs of that sort are long-drawn-out more than people reckon. For myself I would wish that you made some good agreement together and not clash head on with a gentleman like this. I believe that you are convinced that he to whom this canonry belongs will want to defend himself as long as ever he can. Now I want you to think what great inconvenience you will suffer and expense and being outside your house for such a long time. But that person who instigates you not to make an agreement, I

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would like him to show the hatred which he bears to that gentleman at his own expense. What I write to you I do not say because I wish to instruct you, but because I desire you to return quickly to your house to rest and enjoy what God has given you and not want to give anyone cause to hear badly of you, above all because this agreement is not your loss. Madonna Cecilia and the girls93 want to be remembered to you. And I also, and I kiss you 1000 times even from here. Lucilio is so naughty as I already wrote you and he is cutting teeth now and he is not too well.94

On 18 March 1525 Bembo wrote to his nephew Gian Matteo Bembo. He has had a very bad cold, but is now better, though not yet strong. He hopes he will be strong enough in ten days’ time to start the return journey. He greets Quintilio, Luigi, and the little girls and sends a kiss to Marcella (T II, 522). By 10 April he had reached Pesaro where he wrote to Elisabetta Gonzaga, the dowager duchess of Urbino, telling her that he regrets that he could not visit her in Urbino or Pesaro because he has to get to Bologna for Easter. Her sister-in-law, Isabella d’Este, has been in Rome, much honoured and well escorted with her coaches, now here, now there. He has been ill and is now going to the leisure of his villa from which Rome will never remove him again. Perhaps one day he will be able to spend the whole summer in Urbino, but he wants to wait until the walls are finished (T II, 523). The next letter is worth quoting in full. On 22 April 1525 Bembo wrote to Cola in Latin: We have planned our journey so that we will dine at home tomorrow. And so I have ordered my cook to go on ahead to tell you this and to be there with you if you needed him for anything. Make all the preparations for receiving us. Also you will set up the library with the little figures and other ornaments so that as soon as I come I can be gladdened at the sight in which, as you know, I take great delight. You will tell the women to invite Cecilia to dinner with us, for I want to see her as soon as possible. Kiss my son, Lucilio, who I hear is lovable and lively and who is, I know, a very great joy to you. Greetings to Morosina and the Marcelli. I wrote this after lunch on the banks of the Po when sleep overcame me which had not arrived almost the whole night in Ferrara when I was at the house of my long-standing host, Guido Strozzi. (T II, 525)

In another letter, of 6 May, to the Vatican official Agostin Foglietta, Bembo described his trip north: I mounted, as you saw, fairly weak from the illness that Rome gave me as a reward for my having come to see her again. Nevertheless, as I rode on I also regained vigour and strength with the result that at the end of the trip I felt my usual self ... I spent Holy Week in Bologna and the festival of Easter, where I visited Monsignor

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di Fano who governs that city so well, both in the administration of justice and in the other parts of his office, that I could not praise him enough. When I had reached Padua I visited my friends and was visited by them, then I went here to my little villa which received me very joyfully. Its tranquillity is a complete contrast with Rome where I suffered distress and annoyance. I do not hear troublesome and upsetting news, I do not think of problems, I do not speak with Procurators, I do not visit Auditors of the Rota,95 I do not hear sounds except nightingales. (T II, 528)

Four days later, in this idyllic setting, Bembo’s second son, Torquato, was born. Bembo did not long remain pleased with the governor of Bologna. He wrote to the governor, Goro Gherio, Bishop of Fano, on 23 May 1525: My lord, I hear that, having eliminated the sale of goods and pottery from the piazza of the city you want to burden my potters, who are in the shops of the Magione, with a tax to permit their working in the street in front of their shops in place of the tax which they paid in the piazza and you are doing this so as not to cause harm to the church of S. Petronio to which that tax belongs. For that reason I have undertaken to pray you not to harm me and my Magione unjustly to help S. Petronio which does not need anyone’s help. Because if you love more the elegance of your piazza than its usefulness ... please do not burden, with a new and unaccustomed charge, my shop-keepers who have always kept, and been allowed to keep, their clay in front of their shops and have never paid anything for it. A short while ago I paid forty gold florins to cobble the street in front of my shops and S. Petronio did not help me pay for it. Why should I now suffer a loss ... to help S. Petronio? If you gave my shop-keepers a new place, and a place which did not belong to me, it would be fair if you had to put a tax on that. But when you are not giving them anything ... why do you want to impose on me a new burden and a new loss? I would have thought that you would have done the opposite, lifting some old and out-of-date charge, which you could have done without criticism ... I will certainly not consent that on my shops, which are free, a servitude should be imposed such that they are no longer free, as they are now. (T II, 532)

Bembo feels that some enemy has suggested this to the governor and he asks him to listen to Simone, the governor of the Magione, who will speak on his behalf. He concludes with expressions of devotion to Bishop Gherio. Bembo argued successfully over the years that property belonging to the Knights was exempt from papal taxation,96 but I have not found any indication of what happened in this case. Now Bembo learnt that his trip to Rome had paid off. He had received the canonry in Padua cathedral, worth 300 ducats per annum, from which he had to pay a pension of fifty per annum to the other claimant who

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would occupy the post.97 The compromise Morosina had urged had taken place. In the letter in which he thanks the papal secretary, his old colleague, Jacopo Sadoleto, reinstated, for helping him to get this benefice, Bembo asks him to beg the pope not to let the book on the Florentine tongue out of his hands until it is published, which will be soon (T II, 533 of 24 May 1525). Most of the rest of Bembo’s correspondence for that summer was concerned with the publication of Le Prose. He wrote Sadoleto again on 3 July, telling him that there had been a delay while good paper was being made. The printer would now like a letter from the pope giving him copyright in the papal states. Would Sadoleto please ask for it (T II, 543)? On 20 July Bembo wrote to the Duke of Milan’s ambassador in Venice asking him to get a letter from the duke giving the printer of Le Prose ten years’ copyright in the duchy. He will pay the bearer whatever is due (T II, 555). On 25 July he wrote to Cola, who was in Venice, obviously looking after the publication, telling him that he has seen the first sheet of the printing and wishes that the printers had not crowded the words so close together that the punctuation was lost in the final letters of the words. He adds some personal news. Lucilio is becoming better looking every day and more daring and more lively. The baby – the first reference to two month old Torquato – is still well. Greet Morosina. She must have gone with Cola to Venice and they must now have a wet nurse for the baby (T II, 560).98 There are two more letters about copyrights for Le Prose, one to Taddeo Taddei requesting copyright for Florence (T II, 571 of 5 August 1525), the other thanking the secretary of the duke of Ferrara for the copyright in the duchy (T II, 579 of 15 August 1525). Apart from his preoccupation with the publication of Le Prose and his usual studies, “without which life is more or less nothing” (T II, 530), Bembo now led the life of a country gentleman and kept warm in the winter with a warming pan from Venice (T II, 435). He ordered supplies, barley (T II, 526), a new lantern with different specifications, stemmed drinking glasses, and little carafes from Murano (T II, 583), and he engaged in negotiations to increase his woodlands (T II, 627). He extended warm hospitality, inviting Nicolò Tiepolo, who had just been appointed podestà of Brescia, and his wife, Bembo’s goddaughter, to stop off at his villa on their way there and stay some days. When they want to leave he will offer them all his stable, which they may perhaps need. He is much happier here than he was in Rome the past winter. He has no envy of that grandeur (T II, 536). Later he gave his favourite horse to the duke of Urbino since his son, Guidobaldo, had enjoyed it (T II, 589 and 594). On 24 July 1525 he thanked Luca Lumici, archpriest of Contarolo, one of his benefices, for the fine, fat little birds which he sent yesterday and the good cheese today. Morosina and Aunt Cecilia both enjoyed the first gift,

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The University of Padua in the sixteenth century.

because he was not there at the time. They will all enjoy the second (T II, 559). Bembo, wearing the robe of the Knights of St John, did not hide Morosina from the local clergy. On 29 July 1525 Bembo wrote a humorous letter to Luigi da Porto in Venice: The dog you said you were sending me either did not know the way or had no one to show him it. I have not seen him yet and it is ten days since I received your letter. If he comes I will receive him gratefully for love of the donor, apart from the fact that I need him. I have waited in vain for some from Friuli which ought to have come some time ago. I begin to think that they do not know the way either. About that other one which you say you will get for me, I will reply when the first one has arrived. ... I am sorry to be troubling you. I would rather be giving you pleasure. (T II, 563)

Bembo also developed a keen interest in his old university of Padua. On 17 August 1525 he wrote to Ramusio, the secretary of the Signoria, suggesting how the Republic could retain, at little cost, a distinguished scholar, Spagniuolo, who was requesting permission to leave. Bembo believes that he would accept an increase of one hundred ducats per annum with the

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promise of intervention in Rome to get him a benefice worth another 200. This should be fairly easy. He is already a cleric and has other benefices. If he stays this year, Padua will have the majority of the liberal arts students of the University of Bologna. Already Ercole Gonzaga, the marquess’s brother, who has spent three years or more in Bologna to hear Peretto’s lectures, is looking for a house here to hear our man (T II, 580). Venice did not make this competitive offer, so Spagniuolo left, to Bembo’s distress. He would have offered 100 of the 300 ducats Venice paid him for his abbey on Rab to retain him (T II, 606). On 6 October 1525 Bembo wrote an indignant letter to Ramusio. Its governor has wanted to destroy this fine and honoured university and he has certainly succeeded. If he does as well in his other enterprises he will be a very successful man. The lecturer he has brought in, Otranto, is hated by all the students, who laugh at him in disdain. They say that his teaching is barbaric and confused and that he is a simple Averroist. All modern scholars have turned from him to the Greek commentaries and are making progress in the analysis of the text. Otranto has only the dregs of learning: Be assured that this poor university this year, as far as the arts are concerned, will not have four students other than Venetians, who have to stay, and it will be the bottom of the league. I have no personal interest except that, since I am from this country, it grieves me to see things which are important for public honour go this way, very far from what ought to be desired and sought after. They have given Spagniuolo authority and fame, which he did not have very much of, and have kept him here while he became great and illustrious, because it is Padua which has really made him what he is. In short, now that he is excellent and unique they do not know how to use and enjoy him but are letting him leave at the precise moment when they should retain him. These are the decisions of M. Marin Giorgio who appears to hate all those who know fine and good literature or who want to learn and know it. And this last year he let M. Romulo leave, who was more needed than any lecturer here, and he let him be taken by the Bolognese ... who had three other lecturers in the humanities, and they are all better than the only one remaining here, whose lectures no one wants to go to ... We certainly should have another one, for those who want to learn good literature will all leave with M. Romulo, I mean the foreigners, and are now at Bologna with him, to the great disgrace of the Signoria, which has not known how to retain the top-flight lecturer in the humanities in Italy, especially since he was one of its subjects. In addition, with the departure of M. Romulo some of our gentlemen who had begun learning Greek from him have had to interrupt their studies through having no one to teach them ... Please inform the Doge who, if he will not undertake the protection of this badly governed school ... I see it on the road to ruin. (T II, 611)

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Donato Giannotti’s Della Republica et Magistrati di Venetia (Venice, 1591; the first version dates to 1525-26)99 provides an interesting picture of Bembo’s intellectual circle in Padua at this time. Giannotti, who is described as the third great political theorist and secretary of Florence after Machiavelli and Guicciardini,100 tells about a meeting at Bembo’s Paduan villa. There, he and another Florentine, Giovanni Borgherini, both students in Padua at the time, discussed the Venetian constitution with two Venetians, Trifone Gabriele, a guest at Bembo’s villa every time he went to Padua from his own villa in the neighbouring countryside,101 and Girolamo Quirini,102 together with the Paduan Nicolò Leonico.103 Bembo’s villa was so crowded with visitors because of his fame that Trifone had to lead the group into a back room. Here it was argued that Venice’s wealth and stability were due to its rule by patricians and its administrative structure of Great Council, Senate, College, and Doge. Sometime in 1525, as in most other years, Bembo was seriously ill. On 25 August he wrote to Reginald Pole that he had just discovered, in Cicero’s letters, a letter which he had written to Pole. He thinks that his secretary did not send it because he was terrified when Bembo nearly died (T II, 588). The letters of the last quarter of 1525 continue in character. Most of them concern the difficulty of collecting money from Bembo’s benefices and the money owing him (T II, 590, 591, 593, 604, 608, 616). In one surprising letter he tells Cardinal Egidio, of saintly reputation, that he has learnt how he could easily double his money from his patriarchy of Crete, enriching himself justly, if he wants to do so (T II, 577). The cure of souls is never a consideration.

8 Le Prose and the Question of Language

It may seem surprising that Bembo, a brilliant Latin scholar who, in the heyday of European humanism, undertook the long and hazardous journey to Messina to perfect his Greek with the famous Constantine Lascaris, should then, on his return to the Veneto, evince a passionate concern for the vulgar tongue. Ludovico Beccadelli, a personal friend and one of Bembo’s early biographers, stated that his father, Bernardo, had taken eight-year-old Pietro with him to Florence in 1478 so that he could learn Tuscan.1 Bernardo had precious manuscripts of both Petrarch and Dante. Presumably he wanted Pietro to be able to appreciate them. It could be argued that this sojourn in Florence was the genesis of Bembo’s love affair with the Tuscan language. He delighted in its musicality to the end of his life, as he makes clear in Le Prose. However, although vernacular literature continued to flourish in Florence, as it did in Ferrara, to which Bembo accompanied his father at a later date, the Florentine society into which Pietro was introduced was strongly humanist. Florence was, along with Naples, the leading centre of the classical revival and Bernardo’s friends, from his previous appointment as Venetian ambassador to Florence were famous classical scholars like Cristoforo Landino and Marsilio Ficino,2 whose Neoplatonism later influenced Bembo’s thinking and who may have fired young Pietro’s ambition to learn Greek. Pietro also met Lorenzo de’ Medici, who wrote popular lyrics in contemporary Tuscan, but when Bembo mentions him in Le Prose it is to praise his support for Greek studies, not his use of the vernacular.3 Another important writer in Tuscan in the 1470s was Angelo Poliziano, who began Stanze per la Giostra in 1475 but abandoned it in 1478 after Giuliano de’ Medici’s murder in the Pazzi conspiracy. That was the year Pietro went to Florence. The following year, Poliziano went into exile in Mantua where he wrote a musical drama in Italian. Orfeo4 was his last composition in the vernacular and there is no indication that the Bembo

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knew either of these works or Poliziano’s vernacular lyrics, though they certainly knew Poliziano. In 1491 Poliziano went to Venice to study Bernardo Bembo’s third-century manuscript of Terence’s plays. Pietro, now twenty-one and an accomplished Latin scholar, helped him collate the manuscript with an existing printed text.5 Poliziano showed no interest in Bernardo’s Petrarch and Dante manuscripts. It hardly seems likely, then, that Poliziano pushed Bembo toward an interest in the vulgar tongue. In fact Bembo left Venice the following year to study Greek in Sicily. This enthusiasm for Greek was perhaps partly inspired by Poliziano since Poliziano fancied himself as a Greek scholar. 6 In any case, after his return from Sicily and the publication of his account of his Greek studies, in De Aetna, Bembo suddenly devoted himself to the mother tongue. He, or as the story would have it, his brother, Carlo, took their father’s autograph manuscript of Petrarch’s lyrics to the great Venetian publisher of the classics, Aldus Manutius, and arranged for its publication in 1501. Pietro as editorial assistant insisted that the text appear more or less as Petrarch had written it, unmodernized.7 Petrarch was also printed in the elegant courtly script which has since been called italic, so that it has a distinctly Italian rather than a humanist look about it, unlike De Aetna which was printed in a Roman type since called Bembo. An edition of Dante, again with Bembo’s participation, followed Petrarch.8 At the same time Bembo, whom Leo X appointed apostolic secretary a decade later because of his superb Latin style, was writing the courtly dialogue Gli Asolani on a typical medieval theme, the nature of love, in a language learnt from Petrarch and Boccaccio. How can this be explained? Did Bembo’s ride south through Italy, encountering one almost incomprehensible dialect after another, suddenly bring home to him the fact that the heirs of the Romans no longer had a common language in which they could communicate? There was still Latin for the learned, but the people had nothing comparable. Yet everywhere Petrarch’s lyrics were popular. The masses could understand them. Petrarch, therefore, could provide a common language. His father’s library with its manuscripts of Petrarch and Dante gave Bembo material to study. His childhood tutor in Italian, Giovanni Aurelio Augurelli, who had lived in the Bembo household, may have sown the seed which was now to bear fruit. According to Trissino in his dialogue about language, Il castellano, published in 1529, Augurelli had initiated Bembo into the rules of Petrarch’s Tuscan.9 He had also urged humanists to study Petrarch and had argued for Petrarch as a linguistic model.10 Finally there was the influence of Ferrara where Bembo lived between 1497 and 1499 when his father was visdomino. Ferrara had a flourishing vernacular literature fostered by the court, and the ducal library contained medieval French and Provençal manuscripts, examples of the triumph of

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vernacular languages elsewhere.11 It was in Ferrara that Bembo worked on Gli Asolani, writing in the vernacular, but in old Tuscan. He also discussed Provençal poetry, the first important vernacular poetry, with Bernardo Tasso, Torquato’s father.12 When he was criticized for writing in the vulgar tongue Bembo wrote a Latin poem, “Ad Sempronium,” in which he stated that it was disgraceful for a man not to know the language of his forefathers, of his sisters, his aunt, his very mother, and one could add, considering Bembo’s proclivities, of his wife and mistresses.13 Bembo was clearly not drawn to the stern life of service to the Venetian Republic which was a birthright he found oppressive. Though he was trained in the classics, philosophy, and law, and talks of his studies as virtually his life blood (T II, 530), the study which keenly interested him soon became language, human expression, rather than philosophy. He enjoyed the company of people, especially bright, witty, intelligent men and women, and shone in their society as a brilliant conversationalist.14 He loved women, the countryside, art, and elegant living. He once used the phrase so familiar today, the “dolce vita,” to describe the life he adored (T II, 519). His tastes, in short, drew him to the language of society. Lighthearted company did not converse in Latin, Latin was not the language with which to captivate a pretty young thing. Italian was the language of the world he lived in, Latin and Greek, “marble villas on distant shores.”15 When Bembo began working on the Italian language he was taking a stand in a controversy which had flourished for a century. Latin was being honed to approach a narrowly defined classical perfection which Bembo described in his letter to Pico on imitation.16 As classical Latin was revived, medieval Latin was reviled. But what of the vulgar tongue, the language of the people? Could there be any popular language which could be a substitute for Latin, to rival its universality? And if so, what might it be? Dante, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, had written a treatise, De vulgari eloquentia, in which he came down in favour of a language of the court, a kind of king’s English, in which he claimed that he wrote, rather than in Florentine.17 De vulgari eloquentia was not published until 1529 by Bembo’s sometime friend, Giangiorgio Trissino, who had found the manuscript in Venice, but he had shown it around and allowed Bembo to transcribe it in Rome.18 It did, therefore, have an impact on Le Prose. Dante had stressed the profusion of popular languages. He said that there were 1000 different vernaculars in his little corner of the world.19 There were even different dialects in the city of Bologna, that of the Borgo S. Felix and that of the Strata Maior.20 They spoke differently on each side of the Appennines, across the Alps in Provence, and across the sea in Spain.21 Most of these vernaculars which had replaced the common Latin of the Roman Empire were mutually incomprehensible.

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Across the Alps lyric poetry had evolved, especially in the southern half of France, and the itinerant troubadours, the pop stars of their day, had become welcome entertainers in the northern Italian courts. For them Italy became a second home. Italians learnt troubadour love songs and treasured volumes of Provençal poetry, at times illuminated, at times accompanied by musical notes.22 Italian poets wrote in Provençal, the language of poetry,23 and Provençal poetry was even taught at the University of Bologna. Provençal dictionaries and grammars were written for Italians.24 Provençal poetry was also imported to the court of the Emperor Frederick II in Sicily, where it inspired Italian lyrics in Provençal forms.25 Provençal verse forms were then adopted by the first northern Italians who began writing lyrics in their own vernaculars, like the Bolognese Guido Guinizelli whom Dante praised and who introduced Dante to Provençal poetry.26 It was here, in the Sicilian Provençal school whose writings copyists Tuscanized and whose themes were developed by northern poets like Guinizelli into the “dolce stil nuovo,” (“the sweet new style”) that Dante found examples of the “volgare illustre” which he thought should be the Italic language for all Italians, an illustrious, courtly tongue.27 But Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia was unpublished and unknown. So in addition to the borrowing of literary form, motifs, and conceits from the Provençal, which was characteristic of the first Italian poets, there was the problem of language. If one decided to write in the vulgar tongue, which dialect should one use to reach a wide audience which, as Bembo pointed out in the introductory letter to Le Prose, is what every author wishes. After Dante, in the mid-fourteenth century, both Petrarch and Boccaccio, each exceedingly popular, the one for his love lyrics the other for his racy stories, wrote in Tuscan, bestowing great prestige on that dialect. Nevertheless, in the next century still more than half the population of Italy in both the north and the south spoke and wrote in other idioms.28 The fifteenth century also saw the great humanist revival of Latin with lively, readable authors like the Umbrian Pontano, Neapolitan by adoption, writing both love lyrics and social and political satire in Latin.29 Until the last quarter of the fifteenth century, the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici, no more poets wrote in Tuscan. The outstanding literary figures in Florence were all latinists, Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Cristoforo Landino, and Leon Battista Alberti, though Alberti also wrote in a latinate Italian, mixed with popular Florentine,30 and composed a Latin discourse on the popular language in which he declared Italian not inferior to Latin.31 Other Latin humanists discussed the language of the people and argued over its origin. In 1435 Leonardo Bruni maintained that the vulgar tongue had always existed in ancient Rome, alongside literary Latin, and that the latter had been virtually incomprehensible to the plebs.32 Flavio Biondo

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contradicted him in 1437, arguing from examples that the modern vernaculars had evolved from Latin over the centuries, with some admixture of words of Germanic or Lombard origin.33 In the south Pontano analyzed the nature of the vernacular at the request of his friend, Marino Tomacelli, long-time Neapolitan ambassador to Florence, who had been struck by the differences in pronunciation between Naples and Florence. In Neapolitan army camps, far from books, amidst the shouts of soldiers, Pontano wrote in Latin an extraordinarily learned account of aspiration34 in Italian, Latin, and Greek. He analyzed the sounds of Italian, the occurrence of aspiration with consonants and vowels in both the beginning and middle of words, and its use in poetry. The caesura in verse is never followed by aspiration. He described different Italian dialects, with examples of the differing pronunciations of the same words. Neapolitan Audi was Florentine Odi, and Lombard Oldi. He also noted the displacement of Latin roots by barbarian roots, for example, bello by guerra and the corruption of Latin vocabulary by barbarian gutturalism, vastare becoming guastare. The battlefield obviously suggested military examples and the barbarians had certainly been war-like. Pontano’s De Aspiratione was in circulation in Florence in 1469.35 It was first published in 1481. Pontano also wrote an extended essay on speech, De Sermone, in 1501, in his seventy-third year, when Italy was being overrun by French and Spanish armies and he was now powerless to do anything. Conversation, and that is the sort of speech he is writing about, not oratory, is one of the joys of life, providing relaxation and restoration after worry and work. He describes the different sorts of conversation, the urbane, the witty, the different subjects of conversation and how they are treated, and the different personalities of speakers. But he was writing in Latin, and although people are obviously imagined as speaking Italian, there is no discussion of language itself.36 The same is true of Pontano’s dialogue, Actius, named after Sannazaro, in which members of the Neapolitan Academy discuss writing in both verse and prose.37 Also in the south Pontano’s contemporary Masuccio da Salerno wrote an extremely popular collection of fifty short stories in the Boccaccian tradition and in his vernacular language, with southern linguistic colouring. He did not fuss over the words, he just wrote them as they came. There were several Venetian editions of his Novellino, including one published in 1525, the same year as Bembo’s Le Prose. At the same time, and still in the south, the Neapolitan Sannazaro wrote Arcadia in the language of Boccaccio and Petrarch and in a mixture of prose and verse. He started it earlier than and published it more or less simultaneously with Gli Asolani.38 Obviously the language of Petrarch and Boccaccio seemed right for a work to have general appeal. A pirated edition of Arcadia was published in Venice in 1502 and a correct version in

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Naples in 1504 while Sannazaro was still in exile with his king in France. Bembo published Gli Asolani in Venice in 1505. However Sannazaro, unlike Bembo, did not theorize about language, so although the theme of Arcadia was internationally influential, it was Bembo who became the father of the Italian language. Before Bembo began researching fourteenth-century Tuscan, on analogy with the retrieval of classical Latin, there was no committed advocate of a specific vernacular which all Italians could adopt as a common language. Bembo’s stance was of primordial importance. Here was a Venetian patrician whose native dialect was widely known and used as the language of commerce,39 yet he preferred Tuscan as a more musical tongue and specifically the language of Petrarch and Boccaccio, not contemporary Tuscan, because their works had endured the test of time and were widely read. This offered the possibility of an enduring language. Bembo therefore set about writing Gli Asolani in what was an archaic tongue. Gli Asolani, then, along with Sannazaro’s Arcadia, became the first prose work written in Italy, in the Tuscan dialect, by someone who was not Tuscan, either by birth or education. A need for a respected national language had been felt in both north and south Italy. Bembo had obviously been thinking about Tuscan since at least 1497, the year after the publication of De Aetna, when he began Gli Asolani (T I, 22). In 1500 he answered Maria Savorgnan’s request for criticism of her letters by saying that he was making some notes on the language (T I, 106). The context of Maria’s request, asking Bembo to do for her what she had done for him in her criticism of his imitation of Petrarch in one of his canzoni, shows how popular Petrarch was.40 Maria also wrote Bembo a letter asking to borrow Boccaccio’s Decameron, the Cento, “The Hundred” as it was popularly called.41 Maria’s requests were a confirmation of Bembo’s conviction that Petrarch and Boccaccio could provide the basis for a common language for all Italians. In 1501 and 1502 Bembo worked with Aldus on editions of his father’s manuscripts of Petrarch and Dante. Then, when he was staying at Ercole Strozzi’s villa near Ferrara in 1502, he transcribed all of Dante, all of Petrarch, “to imprint on his memory the phraseology and thoughts and lovely and noble conceits.” These manuscripts are preserved in a fine folio volume in the Vatican library with a note at the end “Finished in Recano, the country place of my friend, Ercole Strozzi, 26 July 1502.”42 Bembo worked on his treatise on the vulgar tongue during his years at the court of Urbino and the year he spent with Federico Fregoso in Rome before he was appointed apostolic secretary in 1513 (T II, 513). In 1512 he sent the first two books of the Prose della volgar lingua to Trifon Gabriele in Venice for criticism by a group interested in language (T II, 314, 315). Then, during his service in the papal curia, the work lay more or less dormant, though Bembo did find time to make a diagram of sins to illustrate the 1515 Aldine

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edition of Dante.43 This suggests that he was still working on and thinking about the Tuscan language when he could. On his retirement to Padua in 1521, after he had recovered his health, Bembo returned to Le Prose and wrote a third book, a grammar of the vulgar tongue as he envisaged it. On the death of Adrian VI and the election of Clement VII in December 1523, as mentioned earlier, Bembo decided to take his new work, Le Prose della volgar lingua, to Rome as a gift to the new pope. This was an obvious bid for patronage. He started out in the spring of 1524 and got as far as Bologna, but bad weather made the roads over the Appennines impassible; that and the widespread plague forced him to return home (T II, 474, 477). He started again in the autumn of 1524, reached Rome in November, and presented a copy of his manuscript to the pope. The dedicatory letter to each of the three books address him as Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici to stress the fact that the work was written before he became pope. And in the text itself, Giulio’s cousin, Giuliano de’ Medici, is referred to as duke of Nemours, a title he received from Francis I in 1515. He is also represented as still alive although he died in 1516. Bembo, in short, sought to give the impression that the work was complete in 1515 and therefore predated his fellow Venetian Fortunio’s Regole della volgar lingua of 1516.44 To further emphasize his priority in the field Bembo set the work in 1502,45 a time when he was certainly working on Tuscan but when he certainly did not yet have the expertise displayed in the published work of 1525. In his introductory letter to the cardinal/pope Bembo laments the lack of a common language for all mankind, then brings up the writer’s problem, how, in these circumstances, to communicate with as many people as possible, both in the present and in the future. Once Latin was a truly international language, but now there is a wide variety of different languages. In Italy alone there is a great deal of variation in the way people speak. What model should be chosen for a written language? Since this is a topic of lively interest Bembo thinks that the pope will like to hear about a discussion which took place at his brother Carlo’s house in Venice in 1502 when he himself was absent in Padua. This conversation was reported to him a few days later. This is the same sort of conceit Bembo adopted in Gli Asolani and Castiglione used in The Courtier. On his birthday, 10 December, Carlo had invited three friends to dinner, the pope’s cousin, Giuliano de’ Medici, then in exile from Florence, Federico Fregoso, in exile from Genoa, and Ercole Strozzi, the Latin poet from Ferrara. After dinner, a midday meal, Giuliano suggests that they move close to the fire because of the cold north wind which has blown all morning. He uses a Tuscan word, rovaio, for the north wind and this word, which Strozzi has never heard, starts the discussion of language. How can one write in the vulgar tongue, which is so various, when Latin is universal and unchanging? Carlo, Bembo’s fictional mouthpiece, repeats what Bembo said in “Ad Sempronium”

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about not building marble palaces in distant places and living in slums at home. We must construct a fine language of our own. Ercole, the Latinist, then initiates a discussion of the origin of the vulgar tongue, and the company go over the theories. Bruni’s, that it has come down from ancient Rome, is refuted with Biondo’s argument that there are no vestiges of any language other than Latin in antiquity. Latin may be misspelt in some inscriptions, but it is still Latin. In ancient Rome Latin was the common language, Greek the language of the learned, as Latin is today. Federico then rehearses Biondo’s argument46 that the vulgar tongue evolved during the barbarian invasions when imperial Rome became servile. Giuliano immediately spots a dreadful parallel. Much of Italy today is occupied by the French and the Spaniards, summoned by Italians, he bitterly remarks, to fight against Italians.47 Accepting that contemporary dialects are Latin battered by barbarians, Ercole then brings up the question of modern rhyming verse. Where did it come from? Federico, who says that he had spent part of his youth in Provence, immediately answers that it came from Sicily and Provence, from which Tuscan poets adopted it in the century before Dante. This leads Giuliano to ask Federico about Petrarch’s poetry48 and gives Bembo the opening to display his research. In his funeral oration Benedetto Varchi said that Bembo believed that, just as one had to learn Greek in order to understand Latin, so one had to learn Provençal in order to understand Tuscan.49 Bembo therefore sought out Provençal poetry throughout his life and for many years hoped to be able to put together an anthology accompanied by biographies of the Provençal poets.50 Though he never succeeded in doing so, his literary remains show that he was well advanced in the project51 and it has been said that the Venetian interest in Provençal poetry was exceedingly important in assuring its survival.52 Bembo now puts in Federico’s mouth, since he is someone who supposedly knows Provençal, a lengthy account of the debt of Tuscan to Provençal, both in terms of verse structure and vocabulary.53 Dionisotti, in his note to this passage in Le Prose, stresses that Bembo was the first critic to give a precise account of the importance of Provençal for Italian poetry and that his selection of early Italian poets writing in Provençal under troubadour influence is substantially valid today.54 Ercole then returns to the question of language, the uniformity and permanence of Latin in contrast to the variety and variability of the vernaculars. This leads Bembo to a discussion of a book whose author, Calmeta,55 was a fellow member of The Courtier team. Since The Courtier was set in 1507 and Le Prose in 1502, and Le Prose was published in 1525 and The Courtier in 1528, they purport to reflect the concerns of the same period. However, although the appropriate language for the courtier was discussed at considerable length in book one, Castiglione gave Calmeta nothing to say, yet his

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book, though unpublished, was known at least to Bembo, and probably to the rest of the group, during the period when The Courtier was being written.56 In The Courtier Federico makes Bembo’s argument in favour of old Tuscan, the same argument Carlo is to make in Le Prose.57 He also puts forward Bembo’s argument for Vergil and Cicero as literary models in Latin.58 On the other hand, the Tuscan, Giuliano, says that he would not use, in either speaking or writing, some of the old words that Petrarch and Boccaccio used.59 Bembo elaborates this argument in Le Prose I. But why is Calmeta given nothing to say about language in The Courtier, since his views were akin to those of Castiglione himself? Because Castiglione had already expressed them in his introductory letter to Don Silva and did not want to appear to be indebted to anyone? Bembo, as a character in The Courtier, says nothing about language. Was this because Castiglione did not want to detract in any way from the impact of Le Prose or because he disagreed with Bembo on language? Bembo, instead, makes the lengthy concluding speech about love and beauty. To return to Le Prose, Calmeta, in his book, now lost, had argued in favour of a courtly Italian, as had Dante in De vulgari eloquentia. However, as Giuliano is quick to point out in Le Prose, language varies from court to court, and the Roman court Calmeta had praised is the worst of all. It is full of foreigners who introduce words from their own languages. When you have a Spanish pope you have a Spanish Italian. Moreover, the composition of the Roman court is constantly changing and with it the language. Giuliano also argues that there is no language without literature, and who has ever written in the language of the Roman court?60 Ercole then asks Carlo why his brother wrote Gli Asolani in Tuscan rather than in Venetian. Carlo replies that it was for the same reason that many Greeks who were not Athenians wrote in Attic, because it was the loveliest and noblest language. There follows a comparison between Venetian with its clipped and syncopated words, and singing Tuscan with its fullness of sound and its obedience to grammatical rules, tenses, numbers, articles, persons. There are no prose writers in Venetian and few poets. Venetian poets write in Tuscan, as do other Italians, and Giuliano, the Tuscan, adds that some of them write better in our old language than we do ourselves. However, language changes. Giuliano outlines the history of Tuscan literature, concluding that one must write in the language of one’s own time. Petrarch and Boccaccio did not use the language of Dante.61 Carlo immediately disagrees with him. One must write for both present and future generations and therefore establish a standard language. One cannot write in a popular style which will soon go out of fashion and be incomprehensible, even in the area where it evolved. Trendy language dates. For long-lasting communication one needs a language to approach Latin in its stability. The orators, Demosthenes and Cicero, addressed the

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people, but in standard Attic and Latin, not in colloquial speech. This linguistic conservatism does not preclude neologisms appropriate to changed circumstances, which can easily be grasped in the context. Language must evolve, but good usage must be perpetuated.62 Federico agrees with Carlo, then points out that it is getting dark, that they must be going. Ercole, who says that he has learnt a lot about the vulgar tongue, wishes that they could continue the discussion. Since they are all free tomorrow they decide to meet again at Carlo’s after dinner. They then go down the stairs to the doors onto the water and leave in one of Carlo’s gondolas.63 The second book of Le Prose opens with a letter to the pope, still addressed as cardinal, arguing the case for the man of letters as opposed to the man of action. Both choices in life are good, but no one would know of good actions and have them as guiding examples if they were not recorded. Bembo then gives the pope a survey of early Italian literature based on two anthologies and Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia.64 He includes Sicilian poets with those from various northern Italian states as well as Tuscans. In Petrarch all the graces of the vulgar poetry combine to form perfection. Then Bembo lists prose writers and those who wrote both poetry and prose like Dante and Boccaccio. Boccaccio only came into his own in prose. But after this great efflorescence of the language under Petrarch and Boccaccio, nothing comparable, let alone superior, was written. Writers turned to the purification of Latin from its medieval barbarisms and restored its antique splendour. We must do the same for our young language.65 Bembo now returns to the 1502 discussion. The three returned to Carlo’s rooms after dinner and sat by the fire because the day was again cold and windy. Then Giuliano told Ercole of a dream. He was at a beauty spot on the banks of the Arno, under the shade of laurel trees. Grass, flower-bedecked, descended to the river’s edge. The river itself, as far as one could see, was covered with the whitest of swans who sang in harmony as they paddled about. Suddenly, a very large swan, most brilliantly white, landed in their midst and was treated with the greatest honour. He had flown in from the Po, after having spent some time on the Tiber. Now he wanted to join the flock on the Arno. Giuliano hoped that this dream was a sign that Ercole had been persuaded in yesterday’s discussion to turn his studies to Tuscan. He urges Carlo and Federico to continue persuading him. Carlo assures him that they will turn Ercole, the swan, into a phoenix, born again. Ercole, protesting that they flatter him too much, assures them that he will now write in the vulgar tongue. But how does one learn to distinguish the best, what are the rules? Carlo replies that in all literatures the best writers are those most praised. In the case of the vulgar tongue they are Petrarch and Boccaccio. Therefore one must study them to learn how to write well.66 Carlo explains that the same rules apply to good writing in Tuscan as in Latin. First of all,

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one must consider one’s subject and the form in which one wants to treat it. Then comes the choice and disposition of words to express one’s thoughts and to create harmony.67 Not all similar words have the same resonances, nor are they suitable for every sort of subject. One must above all avoid tedium and mix words of variable weights. The most general and universal rule is always to choose the purest, cleanest and clearest words, the most beautiful and the most pleasing possible. If one cannot express something without recourse to vile, harsh or injurious words then it would be better to remain silent.68 Giuliano gives examples from a Petrarch manuscript to show how the great poet revised his verses until he found a phrase which best and most forcibly expressed his meaning.69 The discussion then moves on to word order with an image from shipbuilding about finding the exact materials each job demands: which verb, which noun, the gender and number of nouns, the tenses of verbs.70 Phonetics and spelling come next, setting the sound of the communication.71 In poetry word music has the additional enhancement of rhyme, a most graceful invention. Bembo then goes on to describe the various verse forms, terza rima, where triplets rhyme together, perhaps invented by Dante, ottava rima, eight-line stanzas believed to have been invented by the Sicilians, though they used only two rhymes. It was the Tuscans who added a third rhyme in the concluding couplet. Then there is the sestina, the six-line stanza created by the Provençal poets. These are all regulated forms of verse. Other poems, like madrigals, are written in free forms at whatever length and with whatever rhythmic pattern, rhyme scheme, suggests itself to the poet. Finally, there are the mixed verse forms which are partly regulated and partly free, like sonnets and canzoni. In the case of sonnets, the number of verses is prescribed and the number of rhymes which can be used in the first part, the octave, but there is free choice in the second part, the sestet.72 In writing canzoni, one can construct the first stanza with whatever number of verses and rhymes one wishes, but then one must repeat the pattern throughout. The same is true of ballate.73 A description of the various sorts of rhyme follows, including internal rhyme. There are many illustrations from Petrarch, whom Bembo distinguishes from his Tuscan predecessors and the Provençal poets.74 A discussion of rhythm follows, and stress, with an analysis of phrases from Boccaccio, then Petrarch, showing how they achieved their effects.75 Federico, still the speaker, now turns to the third requirement for writing well, variation. To avoid tedium long words should be mingled with simple ones, words should be chosen with the stress on different syllables and with syllables of varying lengths. Again there are examples from Boccaccio and Petrarch.76 Finally he discusses a fitting vocabulary to persuade the reader “to assent to what he reads “ a forerunner of Keats’s “willing suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic truth.” This applies both to

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serious writing and to writing to entertain. All the aforementioned qualities are abundant in Boccaccio and Petrarch. No other writers equal them in prose and verse. Contemporary Tuscans do not write so well.77 When Federico had concluded his exposition Giuliano brought up Dante. Who is the greater poet, Dante or Petrarch? Both have their partisans. Giuliano thinks that the Dante clique are impressed by his subject matter. Subject matter is important, but it does not make a great poet. One can write badly on the noblest theme and beautifully on a lowly subject, like Theocritus on the concerns of Sicilian shepherds.78 This reminds Ercole of a conversation which took place in his garden in Ferrara when Carlo’s brother, Pietro, was on his way back from Rome with his friend, Paolo Canale. They stopped off for a few days at his house to recover from the long ride. Ercole’s friend Cosmico, came to see him and the three guests, strolling around the garden, fell to discussing Dante and Petrarch. Pietro was amazed that Cosmico made the argument Giuliano had just cited, that the magnificence of his subject and his vast knowledge throughout Dante’s work proclaimed his superiority. Carlo immediately replied that this was the usual argument but that in displaying his learning, his mastery of the seven arts, philosophy, and Christianity, Dante did not take sufficient care with his writing. In trying to write about abstruse subjects not easily managed in verse he sometimes used Latin words, sometimes foreign vocabulary, obsolete Tuscan, unfamiliar and crude words, foul and ugly ones, at times the harshest, at the same time changing and spoiling pure and noble words, so that his Comedy is like a field of grain full of weeds. Giuliano added that Dante also used Venetian words and contrasts Venetian with standard Tuscan.79 Dante’s poetry, in short, was rough and rugged, ransacking a vast warehouse of words to express difficult concepts, something which appeals to twentieth-century artistic taste but was increasingly out of harmony with Renaissance aesthetics. In the 1400s and the early 1500s the taste was for perfection. In the plastic arts this meant the smooth, regular, and polished, the true essence of that which was being represented, its Platonic beauty, not the actual reality. The romantic idea that one’s aim should exceed one’s grasp was inconceivable. That would only demonstrate incompetence. In literature clarity, precise vocabulary, harmonious phrasing were the ideal. [In Le Prose, then, as well as in his letter on imitation, Bembo was enunciating the principles of classicism.] Ercole now expresses his delight with the discussion, but would like to hear more. So far they have been discussing generalities. Now he would like to hear about the nitty-gritty. Giuliano would be willing to help this convert to the Tuscan tongue, but it is getting dark, “the day is tired,” as they must be too. Carlo invites them to return the following day.80 The third book of Le Prose opens like the previous two with an address to Cardinal Giulio. Artists flock to the city of Rome and draw and make

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wax models of ancient works to learn how to improve their skills. Two of them, Michelangelo and Raphael, now equal the ancients. But in the highest art, writing, which alone preserves the memory of greatness, much work remains to be done in our vulgar tongue. There have been many writers, but few good ones.81 Bembo then returns to his story: On the third day the three meet again in Carlo’s rooms and settle down by the fire. Federico remarks that Giuliano, the Tuscan, who is to be the main speaker that day, on the Tuscan tongue, was luckier than he and Carlo had been because now the wind was hushed to hear him [As in Gli Asolani and in The Courtier the last speaker makes his argument in privileged circumstances]. Giuliano adds that he and Ercole had an easier time getting there in the gondola. Having extracted a promise from the other two that they will help him out when he needs it, Giuliano begins a complete description of the Tuscan language, including those features it shares with other Italian dialects as descendants from Latin. He starts with nouns and describes grammatical gender, now restricted to masculine and feminine, singular and plural endings, the abandonment of declension with the adoption of the Latin roots rather than the Latin nominative forms, so that virgo became virgine for example, the exceptional endings of some family names, poetic licence which seemingly breaks the rules, and exceptions like città, invariable in singular and plural. Giuliano supports his statements with examples, mainly from Boccaccio, but also from Dante and Petrarch.82 He moves on to adjectives and their agreement,83 then participles as adjectives,84 articles and their combinations with prepositions.85 Then he treats idiom, which is grammatically exceptional, and explains to Ercole the rationale behind his examples.86 Pronouns and their use follow in a very lengthy section.87 Then come verbs: voices, tenses, usage, another very long section.88 Servants enter with lights – it is winter – and Carlo orders supper so that the discussion can continue.89 Giuliano moves on to the conditional and subjunctive, where Tuscan is richer than Latin,90 then to the passives and inceptives, with an excursion into irregular verbs.91 Finally he treats participles, present and past, as derivatives of verbs, as well as gerunds and gerundives.92 Adverbs come next, with many illustrations, then prepositions.93 When Giuliano has finally completed his exposition of Tuscan, having lavishly illustrated its subtleties and delicacies, Carlo orders tables to be set and water brought so that they can wash their hands. Then they sup happily and sit by the fire well into the night.94 Le Prose III has been hailed as the first important grammar of the Italian language because that is what fourteenth-century Tuscan became under Bembo’s impulsion, though he did not give that name to the vulgar tongue.95 Le Prose put Italian on the same footing as Latin and gave Italian rhetoric its rules. Henceforth Latin classics were abandoned for Italian classics and it became axiomatic that poetry must follow Petrarch and prose Boccaccio.96

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But Le Prose III is much more than a grammar. It is a very detailed, sophisticated and sensitive analysis of fourteenth-century Tuscan. And it is a work of literary criticism and linguistic analysis based on decades of painstaking study.97 There is so much precise detail that one wonders how Bembo kept his notes – in dictionary form, under grammatical subheadings with idiomatic exceptions? He obviously stored a great deal in his memory, as one can see in his Rime, many passages of which are a pastiche of Petrarch.98 With Le Prose Bembo was taking a strong position on a subject of burning interest, the popular language. In the first quarter of the sixteenth century many lectures and tracts attacked the vulgar tongue. Latin was the universal language. Fathers and teachers forbade the young to read works in Italian. The Florentine, Benedetto Varchi, who became a follower of Bembo and later wrote about the language himself, was almost expelled from school for reading Petrarch surreptitiously. Even in Florence the vulgar tongue was despised.99 It was nevertheless discussed in theoretically latinate Rome.100 Pierio Valeriano (1477-1558), another scholar from the Veneto who was in Rome from 1509-24, patronised by Julius II, Leo X and Clement VII, wrote an amusing Dialogo sopra le lingue volgari which gives a lively picture of the society in which Bembo moved and its interest in language. The speakers were Antonio Marostica, Agnolo Collozio and Lelio Massimi. Marostica complains that Collozio [Angelo Coluccio of the famous garden] did not turn up for dinner yesterday, as he said he would, so they did not enjoy their food because they did not have his sugar and pepper to flavour it, a more practical offering to the host than is usual today. Collozio explains: He was coming from his vigna, i.e., garden, to join them when, outside his door he met Cardinal de’ Medici, who was going to his, with many men of letters. “I bowed to him and let him pass and was going on my way when he sent a groom to invite me to join them. I could not refuse, because I need him to recommend my case to Leo and had no one to send to inform you.” Collozio says that they discussed their language, whether ... it was Tuscan or not, and whether we can write in the vulgar tongue otherwise than with Tuscan vocabulary, and if Tuscan is just the language of Florence and, above all, what is fitting for a man of standing. The speakers at Cardinal Giulio’s gathering were Giorgio Trissino, Alessandro de’ Pazzi, Antonio Tebaldeo, and Claudio Tolomei, two Lombards and two Tuscans. The Tuscans said that the vulgar tongue in which we write is Tuscan and the Lombards that it is Italian. Then Marostica told his story about the current obsession with language. The other day, since he had heard that we had to learn to speak and that Monsignor Bembo had had gone to a prison to learn even more about how we speak, he had gone to pay his respects to his lordship, because he wanted to hear how he spoke. For this reason he stayed for dinner, discussing various subjects with Bembo. “Finally I found that his lordship used that simplicity of speech

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which I brought from our house and I did not find that he had changed his language for any other, so that I was very satisfied.”101 They then return to the dispute about language. There is another account of Bembo’s speaking in Vincenzo Borghini’s discourse on della Casa’s biography of Bembo. Bembo was in Florence and fêted by the people. He made the young people talk on various subjects, carefully noting their pronunciation and taking incredible pleasure in finding that they were using the language he had written about. However, he did not speak as he wrote and often made mistakes in his pronunciation, which made his audience laugh.102 Bembo’s attempt to speak fifteenth-century Tuscan obviously struck contemporary Tuscans as bizarre. To return to essays on the language: In 1510 Paolo Cortese in De cardinalatu considered language an essential topic to discuss, as did Castiglione in the contemporary Courtier. Cortese (1465-1510), who had been apostolic secretary to Sixtus IV, described the ideal cardinal as Castiglione described the ideal courtier. Although Cortese had written, in 1489, about modern Latin from Dante to the present and advocated Cicero as a model, in De cardinalatu he dealt solely with spoken language, presumably because people like him did the writing in the Vatican. He regretted the growing tendency to drop Latin as the language of the court in favour of Italian and an Italian which was often bastardized Latin, larded with vocabulary from across the Alps. Dante and Petrarch had improved popular speech, but there were many dialects in Italy. Which one should the cardinal adopt? Cortese praises Tuscan, which delights more through the sweetness of its vowels, which make for gentler speech. He then discusses vocabulary, including foreign borrowings, neologisms, barbarisms, solecisms, and figures of speech, then elocution, voice, gesture, and deportment. Cortese’s was the first and most important document treating Italian rhetoric before Le Prose II.103 While Cortese was concerned primarily with speech, Gianfrancesco Fortunio’s Regole grammaticaIi della vulgar lingua (1516) concentrated on correct writing, consistent spelling and proper grammar. In “To the reader” Fortunio stated that when he had had free time in his practice of civil law in Venice he had read Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, presumably the first two in the Bembo-Aldine editions, where, “like stars in a serene night, I saw the lights of an ars poetica e oratoria.” There he found the grammatical rules and exceptions, the singulars and plurals of nouns, appropriate pronouns, conjugations of verbs. He saw that the vulgar tongue needed grammar like Latin. In different parts of Italy, in different cities, different castles there are different ways of pronouncing Italian. He wants to establish the norms of the Tuscan language. His first two books treat correct speaking and writing, book two concentrating on spelling.104 He gave examples from Dante and Petrarch, whom he corrected, applying the techniques of classical philology, a milestone at that date.105 It has been sug-

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gested that he was influenced by Bembo, the first two books of whose Prose had been circulated in Venice in 1512.106 Fortunio was followed by another Venetian, Nicolo Liburnio, who published De vulgari elegantie in Venice in 1521. He acknowledged Fortunio as his predecessor and referred his readers to him for grammar.107 Liburnio concentrated, rather, on how to write. Like Bembo he praised Dante and Petrarch for poetry and Boccaccio for prose. This trecento flowering of Tuscan literature was followed by a dark age from which it is just emerging. Now there is a revival of the vulgar tongue. Most letters between courts are now written in Italian. (He could have added “and many letters from the papal curia.”) Leo X had appointed an Italian secretary in tandem with his two Latin apostolic secretaries, Bembo and Sadoleto.108 Liburnio regrets the decline of Latin, but since that is the case, one must now learn how to write the vulgar tongue with elegance and harmony. It must have all the qualities of Latin. In his first book he will give examples from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio of various sorts of elegance in treating various subjects and emotions, rather in the manner of the handbooks on letter-writing. In book two he will treat adverbs and prepositions as used by the triumvirate, as well as spelling. In book three he will discuss contemporary Tuscan, its pronunciation and writing. In book one, then, there are examples of elegant writing on subjects arranged in alphabetical order, starting with love [amore] and beauty, and going through to virtue. Liburnio also lists appropriate epithets for various nouns, water, for example, like the Gradus ad Parnassum. Then he discusses how to write to various sorts of people. Finally he treats particular words or expressions and refers readers to Fortunio for grammar. Books two and three are more technical. Bembo far surpassed Fortunio and Liburnio. He was the towering figure, with his own elegant style. He did not merely quote elegances, he displayed them in his own writing with his appreciation of the quality of words, their expressive capacity, their musical harmony. He also gave more life to his treatise on language by using the popular Ciceronian dialogue form of De Aetna and Gli Asolani. This provided the added interest of a slender story line. But there was another fine stylist who challenged Bembo and whose work has survived as a classic of European literature109 though it did not, like Bembo’s Le Prose, determine the shape of the Italian language for centuries to come. This was Castiglione’s Courtier. With its complete picture of an admittedly restricted society, The Courtier is much more interesting than a treatise on language and style, although by modern standards it too has its longueurs. The Courtier treats language, too, both in the introductory letter and in the first book. Castiglione, like Dante, argues in favour of a courtly language, an eclectic vocabulary drawing on the best from various Italian dialects and admitting latinisms, foreign words, neologisms, and popular expressions.

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In the introduction to Don Michel da Silva, obviously answering Bembo, Castiglione says that he is not following Boccaccio and writing in Tuscan. Boccaccio wrote differently on different subjects. Castiglione could not imitate him in language any more than he could imitate him in subject. “In language, it seems to me, I should not have imitated him because the force and true rule of speaking well consists more in usage than in anything else and it is always a vice to use words which are not current.” Tuscan speakers no longer use much of Boccaccio’s vocabulary. But Castiglione does not want to imitate current Tuscan either ... Language is a living thing, constantly changing, inventing or borrowing new words, as Boccaccio did from French, Spanish, and Provençal. “It seems to me that customary speech in the other noble cities of Italy, where wise men assemble, gifted and eloquent, and treat great subjects, the government of states, literature, arms and business of various sorts, is by no means to be scorned. I believe that it has been reasonable for me to employ some of the words that are used in these places, those which have grace in themselves and elegance in their pronunciation, and are generally considered to be good and expressive, although they are not Tuscan and may even have originated outside Italy.” He has used Lombard vocabulary as a Lombard, but this is discussed in book I. In short, he has written as he speaks, and as those speak who speak like him.110 Castiglione’s views on language are developed further by Count Ludovico Canossa in book I of The Courtier.111 Castiglione had asked Bembo to criticize The Courtier in 1518 so he was quite aware of Castiglione’s views when he was completing Le Prose,112 but he did not directly argue with them. This was a subject they must have discussed over the years, when they were together both in Urbino and in Rome, so there would have been no surprises on either side. However, perhaps because of the success of Le Prose, Castiglione felt that he had to explain and defend himself in his dedicatory letter to Don Michel. And Bembo’s Le Prose of 1525 was a great success. In the light of it Ariosto revised Orlando in 1532, paying tribute to Bembo in canto xlvi,113 while Guicciardini based the language of his Historia d’Italia on Bembo’s Prose.114 A manual was soon written codifying the grammar.115 And a pirated edition of Le Prose, an indication of its popularity, appeared in Venice in the very year of its publication, much to Bembo’s annoyance. It was full of errors. Bembo complained to Ramusio, secretary to the Signoria, that copyright had been breached. Alessandro, who sold the authorized Le Prose, was also selling the pirated edition, presumably cheaper. He was handed over to the police, but they let him go. The printer, bankrupt, had fled. “It seems that everywhere else where I have been I have always received honour and affection and advantages. From my own country I have always received only humiliation and disaffection and disadvantages.” Bembo asks Ramusio to ask the doge to put pressure on the police

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to do something. “I regard this as worse than theft, bringing me dishonour” (T II, 637 of 10 January 1526 and T II, 633 of 3 January 1526). A letter of 3 February 1526 expresses satisfaction at the doge’s action and asks Ramusio to thank him (T II, 664). The discussion of language continued throughout the century.116 The protagonists could be divided into two camps, those who supported Bembo and those on the side of Dante and Castiglione who favoured an eclectic courtly Italian. An exception was Machiavelli, who composed a Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua about 1516. It is thought that this was inspired by discussions in the Orti Oricellari, of Dante’s as yet unpublished De vulgari eloquentia, a manuscript of which Trissino had taken to the city. Machiavelli, adopting the position of a linguistic nationalist, attacked Dante for his advocacy of a courtly language and his rejection of Florentine.117 Trissino published a translation of Dante’s treatise in 1529, though not the original.118 In the same year he also published Il castellano, a dialogue on Bembo’s model, with real people discussing the language question, including Giovanni Rucellai, the castellan of Castel Sant’ Angelo, from whose title the dialogue gets its name.119 Typically, the dialogue is set in a garden, here that of Castel Sant’ Angelo by the Tiber. Again, as in Ercole Strozzi’s anecdote in Le Prose, a conversation among the host, the castellan, and the speaker is interrupted by the arrival of visitors, Sannazaro and Antonio Lelio, then Filippo Strozzi. They all sit down in a loggetta and discuss Trissino’s letter to Clement VII proposing the addition of new letters, adapted from the Greek, to the Italian alphabet to give a fuller representation of the sounds of the language, which should be called Italian, not Tuscan. Trissino says that he is not hostile to Tuscan, but that there were other good poets, like the Bolognese Guido Guinizelli, before Dante. The castellan agrees on the need for a general term to describe the language spoken in various dialects throughout Italy. People all over Italy understand Dante and Petrarch, including women who speak in local dialect, but it has been the Venetians who have laid down the rules for a common, illustrious, and courtly language, the one used by the non-Tuscan Sannazaro, to which pure Florentine cannot compare. Tuscan is not a single dialect. The language varies in Florence, Pisa, Arezzo, Siena, etc. Therefore the general language, purged of dialectal pecularities and regulated by grammar, like Latin, must be called Italian, not Tuscan. It is what Dante meant by lingua italica. The speakers read many extracts from Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia, which Trissino had just published in Italian translation, Sannazaro agrees with the castellan that the language of Dante was Italian. The conversation is now interrupted and the dialogue brought to a conclusion by the arrival of Cardinal Ridolfi, the usual device to add realism to a literary dialogue.120 Sperone Speroni, professor at Padua, another scholar from the Veneto,

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supported Bembo. His Dialogo delle lingue consisted of two debates, the first about writing in Latin or in Italian, where Bembo was the propagandist for Italian, the second about the choice of courtly or fourteenth-century Italian. Speroni supports Bembo’s arguments for literary writing but apparently considers all dialects of equal value for everyday communication.121 Speroni goes beyond Bembo in separating language from style. He argues that one can imitate the Greeks and Romans as well as the great Florentine trio in the vernacular. The magnificent achievements of the classical past must not be forgotten.122 Next the Florentine Claudio Tolomei wrote Cesano, de la toscana lingua in symposium form. Here a number of distinguished speakers present uninterrupted arguments for each side of the language debate. Speakers include Trissino and Castiglione. Bembo arrives and is much praised for having elevated the vulgar tongue. No conclusion to the discussion is reached, but the weight is pro-Tuscan, though not in favour of the archaic.123 The Dominican friar Matteo Bandello, who published his Novelle in 1554, discussed language in the dedicatory letters to his stories and in his introduction to the four parts of the Novelle. Although he referred to Bembo’s fame for his rare and most excellent gifts and works in both languages,124 Bandello stated that he, as a Lombard, was writing in his own language. He believed that his stories could delight, whatever their language.125 His feeling about Bembo is perhaps indicated in one of the stories in which Bembo is teased and embarrassed by someone who pretends to be an old relative, also called Pietro Bembo.126 In fact, Sanuto does record another Pietro Bembo in the early sixteenth century, although there is no reason to believe that Bandello knew him or had him in mind.127 A second edition and two unauthorized reprints of Le Prose had appeared in 1538.128 A third edition, representing Bembo’s final thoughts, was published in Florence in 1549 by Benedetto Varchi. In 1560129 Varchi wrote his own treatise, L’Ercolano, “a dialogue in which languages are discussed.” This is a very schoolmasterish work following the scholastic question and answer technique. There are long didactic speeches with no conversational interchange. Varchi rehearses the arguments over the origin of Italian, discusses various dialects, congratulates Bembo on his discovery of Provençal influence and quotes Bembo lavishly throughout. L’Ercolano is a tedious work, pervaded by the atmosphere of the Counter-Reformation.130 The predominance of Venetians, Fortunio, Liburnio, Bembo, Trissino, and Sperone in the discussion of language was the result of the cosmopolitanism of the Venetian republic and of Venetian domination of the book trade, as well as of its devotion to classical philology, whose techniques were now applied to the vernacular.131 In no other part of Italy were classical and vernacular studies closely associated.132 And there was no

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linguistic nationalism here. In the late middle ages the Veneto, together with neighbouring Lombardy and Emilia, was a zone of multi-lingual litterati writing in their native dialects, Provençal, French, Latin, and Tuscan.133 Both Dante and Petrarch had been exiles in Venice and had left their legacies there. It was in this conjuncture that Bembo was able to make his great contribution to the Italian language with the publication of Le Prose.

9 Troubled Times

Having decided to live in Padua and off his benefices, Bembo had to find a town house. His nearby country villa was a delightful retreat, but as a scholar he needed to be closer to the intellectual powerhouse of the Venetian republic.1 When he first returned to Padua from Rome he had written to his friend, Federigo Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, now papal legate in France, that Padua was a “city of a most temperate climate and, in itself, very beautiful and, above all, comfortable and restful and just right for the leisure of writing and for studies, more than any other city that I have ever seen – much more so” (T II, 428). Years later, when Fregoso wanted to escape from harsh, boring Gubbio, where he was bishop, Bembo urged him to come to Padua where he could enjoy the conversation of many learned men, a great and incomparable delight to a man of learning. It also has a healthy climate, the comforts of the good life, and is convenient for Venice (T III, 1282). However, it was not easy to find a suitable place to live there. Bembo started out in rented accomodation. In his letters he mentions Palazzo Foscari, one of the great houses ringing the Roman arena near the Scrovegni chapel Giotto had frescoed. On 23 October 1526 he wrote to his nephew, Gian Matteo Bembo, in Venice: Give the most distinguished Marco Foscari a million thanks for the courtesy he has shown me in letting me have his house in the Arena.2 I will never forget it. In truth I believed, when I saw it, that it was bigger than I found it … because the ground floor rooms are so damp that it will be impossible to live in them. Then these proprietors are sorry that I am leaving this house, although I do not regret wanting to leave it because I do not want, on any terms, to have anything to do with such crooks. Anyway, I will stay here until Easter and in this way provide myself with a place which is convenient for me. I am nevertheless as obliged to Messer Marco as I would be if I had used it for all my needs and I am that much his debtor. (T II, 713)

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Then Bembo saw a house he wanted, one the Venetian republic had confiscated from the Borromeo family, then given to a retired Venetian condottiere, Count Bernardino Maffei, as a kind of grace-and-favour dwelling during his life time.3 A wealthy man, Mafeo Bernardo, had bought this house from Count Bernardino for 1000 florins, a speculative purchase because the house was then put up for auction in Venice. When Bembo learnt of Bernardo’s purchase he wrote him a wheedling letter, dated 18 July 1527, which cannot be completely truthful: If you have not yet fallen so much in love with the house you bought from Count Bernardino that you could not yield it to someone else without displeasure I will tell you that for two years I had thought of buying it and arranging it for myself as a nest and place of repose for my old age because I have decided to spend my life in this city, and because of that I had instructed someone, who has not been very vigilant, to arrange the purchase for me. However, if I had known that you wanted to buy it I would not have tried to purchase it because I would not have wanted to compete with you since you can spend gold as I cannot lead, or anything else. And, because I do not believe that you are thinking of living in this city but have only taken the house to have a place to come to for amusement, I have been emboldened to ask you ... if through your magnanimity, which I hear is equal to your fortune, you would be kind enough to cede me the house for what you paid for it. If you will grant my request I will always admit to owing you a greater obligation than the value of the house, by as much as courtesy surpasses all prices. If you do not, I will attribute that to my feeble fortune, which could not compete with your very robust one ... yet he triumphs who allows himself to be overcome. (T II, 787)

He enclosed this letter in another, of 18 July 1527, to Marco Molino, Procurator of St Mark, asking him to be his advocate in his request to Mafeo Bernardo, providing that he did not consider his letter too demanding or tactless (T II, 788). A week later he thanked Molino for his support (T II, 791). However, Bernardo did not give way. Bembo then lined up additional support, with Ramusio, the doge’s secretary,4 and his nephew, Giovan Matteo Bembo, who bid on his behalf when the house came up for auction in mid-August 15275 (T II, 813, 814). Bembo got it for 1460 florins, almost half again more than he had hoped to pay. He had to pawn his silver6 and take a loan to be able to make the purchase (T II, 814) and did not receive possession of the house until the count died five years later (T III, 1391 of 19 July 1532). Even finalizing the documents took time,7 and then the loan was called in earlier than he had expected, in bad times, when Bembo’s own income had been interrupted (T II, 856, 860). Finally, there was a tax demand on the house in 1529 which Bembo asked his nephew to challenge because “the house is not worth 1500 ducats, it is completely ruined and

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The house Bembo bought in Padua, 59 via Altinate, now the museum of the Italian Third Army.

needs 500 ducats spent on it to make it habitable ... and I cannot have it until after the death of Count Bernardino who could live for years” (T III, 1005). Even after the count died in 1532 Bembo had to allow the countess to stay there for a little while. He then put his secretary, Cola, long-time manager of his affairs, in charge of its restoration. “It will cause a good bit of trouble and no little expense” but “Cola is being a good architect” (T III, 1391). For the first time since moving to Padua ten years earlier, Bembo would at last have his own house, one built in contemporary Renaissance style.8 The property was large. The substantial three-storey building was on the via Altinate, a large garden at the back reached down to the paved road running along the Brenta, and in the garden were a second, smaller house, which Bembo rebuilt, a gardener’s house, and several small outbuildings.9 Bembo had the interior of the main building redeveloped to create a library and museum where he could show off his growing collec-

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tion of classical antiquities and contemporary paintings. Benedetto Varchi described Bembo’s residence as a temple dedicated to Minerva. Pietro Aretino said that it appeared that Rome itself had been transferred to Padua.10 Morosina and the children probably lived in the smaller house in the garden, while Bembo, Cola, Giorgio Palleano, his secretary, and Bembo’s scholarly visitors lived in the palazzo. Bembo and Cola created a botanical garden with loving care.11 It survived into the eighteenth century.12 There was also an iron loggetta in the garden which Bembo had covered with ivy so that they could dine there in the summer.13 A letter from Cardinal Pole to Vittoria Colonna, dated 14 October 1546, written from Bembo’s house where he had stopped over for about a month on his journey back to Rome from the Council of Trent exclaims at his feeling of security and spiritual contentment there, as though he were in his father’s house. The comfort could not be bettered, and he took special delight in the library and garden, which were exactly to his taste, and in the affectionate treatment he received from the servants.14 Bembo had clearly created an appropriate niche for an important Renaissance scholar and man of letters. As aspiring young men flocked to the great man’s court and the University of Padua, Bembo prepared his writings in Italian and Latin for publication, struggled with the management of his benefices and the burden of Roman and Venetian taxation in time of war, presided over his growing family and the education of boys and youths friends and relatives sent to him, and tried to maintain, in his suburban villa, the life of a country gentleman bound to the seasons and the bounty of the soil. Between recurrent bouts of fever he enjoyed a full and active life. Bembo took particular interest in the University of Padua where he and his father had both been students and earned the prized doctorate in law. A family friend and well-known scholar, Romulo Amaseo, had left Padua for Bologna in 1525 (T II, 611). Bembo tried to woo him back in a letter of 23 September 1526, when an opening occurred at the university on the death of one of the lecturers. He told Amaseo that he was sounding him out secretly, on behalf of his friends, because if he were offered the position publicly, as a citizen of the Republic, he would have to accept it or suffer confiscation. Bembo said that Amaseo would receive the same salary as his predecessor, perhaps more, and reminded him of the good air of Padua and the foul air of Bologna, the quiet and greatness of the university, a better salary than at Bologna, a more distinguished title and his good friends in Padua who are perhaps of higher rank and more affectionate than those he has in Bologna. Bembo assured him that coming to Padua would not affect his hopes for Rome for one of his sons (T II, 705). The last sentence explains why Amaseo had moved to the papal city of Bologna, in the hope of gaining preferment

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for a son. In 1529 he attracted attention by making a speech before the Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VII on the retention of the use of Latin but after Le Prose there was no way back.15 Amaseo also presumably established contacts which assured his son an appointment in the Vatican bureaucracy. Bologna was a safer bet for that purpose than often bolshy Venice. However Amaseo may have remained open-minded about his career interests for a while because he had left a daughter, Eugenia, in the convent of the sisters of St Peter in Padua whose abbess was related to Bembo. The little girl was thus in a sense entrusted to the care of the Bembo family and Morosina visited her frequently. One of Morosina’s three surviving letters, dated Padua, 27 April 1525, is addressed to Amaseo’s wife Violante: I give you 1000 thanks, my dear old friend,16 for the affectionate memory that you show that you have retained of me since you left our part of the world and for the news of your good health which you give me in your letter which I received recently, which news is that much dearer to me because I was eagerly waiting for it since, after your departure, I was not able to get any news and I certainly had it in my thoughts. I will not be able to write similarly about my health, if I am truthful, because there are many days when I feel rather ill. That is why I cannot write to you in my own hand. I ask you to pardon me for this, assuring you that you are not the only one who wishes that we could see one another, because I do not desire it less than you do. May it please God that it may be soon. I often see your sweet little girl who, thank God, is well and is a very pretty and charming little thing. May the Lord God preserve her for you with all your others. And to you and to your dear husband17 and to your good little boys I recommend myself with all my heart ... See to it that you keep well, remembering me some times.18

This letter reveals Morosina’s warmth and her self-confidence as Bembo’s de facto wife, completely integrated into his circle and accepted. It also reveals the simple goodness which, coupled with her beauty, constituted her appeal to Bembo. She had neither Maria’s intellectual enthusiasms nor her demanding and possessive nature. And she was not a dangerously high-born lady with a powerful husband like Lucrezia Borgia. Although there was some mysterious husband somewhere in the background, Morosina was emotionally free and psychologically capable of giving herself wholly to Bembo. She was a simple, loving, motherly soul and a devout Catholic. She was also by no means unintelligent, though little educated. She had been bred in Vatican intrigue and her letter to Bembo of 25 February 152519 reveals a perhaps more realistic assessment of the likely impact of his litigation in Rome in the winter of 1524-25 than his own. From the self-abasing but at the same time confident

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tone of that letter it is safe to assume that Morosina often discussed practical matters with Bembo and gave him advice. In neither of these two letters, a couple of months apart, does Morosina ask for sympathy because of her pregnancy. Torquato was born two weeks after this second letter. On 5 July 1527 Bembo wrote to his old friend Girolamo Savorgnan in Venice: “He who lives in Padua cannot not involve himself at times, either by choice or necessity, in the intrigues and machinations of the scholars. Therefore you will not be surprised if I, more than all the others, cannot stay aloof from these troubles, and if I now pass them on to you also.” There are two parties at the university, those who are serious and scholarly and another lot, led by people from Vicenza “of whom some are as unjust and insolent at the University of Padua as they usually are at home in their own city.” They have caused trouble over a particular student. Bembo begs Savorgnan, as an influential native of Vicenza, to intervene but not let anyone know that Bembo has put him up to it, since the common crowd thinks that this sort of involvement is not appropriate to one of his age (T II, 781). Bembo’s closeness to the university is revealed in another letter of that summer, of 29 August 1527, in which he sends a message to Girolamo Campo through his old friend, Trifon Gabriele. Campo should be in Padua next Friday because the voting on the lectureships is taking place on that Saturday. Bembo is sending two mounts for him. He can return to Gabriele and his studies in Ronchi on Sunday, and perhaps Bembo will accompany him (T II, 810). On 2 November 1527 Bembo wrote to Marin Giorgio [Zorzi], one of the governors of the University of Padua whom he had accused of trying to wreck the university in a letter to the doge’s secretary, Ramusio (T II, 611 of 6 October 1525).20 Again it was a case of a lecturer in Greek. Giorgio had asked him about a candidate, of whom Bembo obviously thought very little. Bembo wrote that he knew a good bit about the person concerned and did not wish to speak ill of anyone but regrets that Giorgio had given notice to the previous lecturer, a good man and a learned scholar, who had apparently wanted an increase in salary. Bembo urges Giorgio to get him back from Capodistria with the offer of a little more money. There is a great demand for Greek at the university. “If you give 1000 florins to a lawyer, you should not be so parsimonious with lecturers in Greek or Latin, in what we call the humanities, which are the basis for all fields of knowledge and which we have to learn perfectly. The love which I bear for this most excellent university and your honour make me speak like this” (T II, 829). On 26 September 1528 Bembo wrote to a new governor of the University of Padua, Nicolò Tiepolo, of his pleasure on hearing the news of

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Tiepolo’s appointment. He thinks that the university will have, in future, more ornaments than it has had these past few years. “This will be to the honour of our country and useful to the students ... who were, in many respects, less well looked after and helped less than they could have been.” He adds that, because of their old friendship and the fact that he lives in Padua, Tiepolo must expect him to recommend someone to him from time to time who, he can be sure, will deserve his consideration. Bembo is now recommending Giovan Francesco Tolentino, who has been a lecturer at the university for many years and who deserves promotion and favour (T II, 905). In 1532 and 1533 Bembo was engaged in a campaign to recruit the distinguished jurist Andrea Alciato21 as law lecturer for Padua. On 7 July 1532 Bembo wrote to the doge’s secretary, Ramusio, complaining about the efforts of jealous academics at the university to block Alciato’s appointment, which he understood had the doge’s approval. A number of lecturers are afraid that they will lose half their students if he comes. At the same time Bologna is after him because it knows that it will lose half its students if he goes to Padua. Bembo has no personal interest whatsoever in Alciato’s appointment. He has never met him. He only wants, as a loyal Venetian, that the University of Padua have the best (T III, 1387). A week later, on 15 July, Bembo wrote a formal Latin letter to Alciato in Bourges, urging him to come to Padua as a lecturer in civil law and praising the brilliant city, the throng of learned men and eager scholars who are most desirous to have him join them and the city of Venice itself, at whose command his supporters are writing to Alciato. He had given the impression that he sought such an appointment if the Republic agreed to his salary. Bembo wonders if there is some money problem. If there is, it will be sorted out. He has heard that Alciato’s mother would be very happy if he left foreign parts. Alciato’s writings have gained Bembo’s devotion, hence this letter (T III, 1389). On 25 January 1533 Bembo wrote to his nephew, Giovan Matteo Bembo, asking him to apply pressure to get Alciato’s appointment made quickly. This will be Nicolò Tiepolo’s most outstanding achievement (T III, 1450). On 7 February 1533 Bembo wrote to Giovan Matteo again, asking him to tell Tiepolo that the story which is going the rounds that the duke of Milan, whose subject Alciato is, had forbidden him to go to Padua was not true. Milan has no university at present and even if it had, the duke would not deny Venice such a little thing when he owed her so much. This is only another example of jealous lecturers resisting new appointments. Bembo is getting tired of the delays and sometimes regrets his love of honour and the public good (T III, 1460). A couple of weeks later, on 23 February, Bembo wrote again to Giovan Matteo wondering if his involvement could be holding up Alciato’s official

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appointment. He goes on again about the intrigues of the academics who do not want a brilliant colleague who would elevate the university. This affair has been dragging on for six or eight months and Alciato has written asking what is happening because he had already been invited by the preceding governors. His nephew should urge Tiepolo to do something, one way or another (T III, 1469). In March 1533 Bembo heard from various sources that the formal letter of appointment had been sent to Alciato (T III, 1481, 1484). Then Alciato did not come. A year later, on 21 April 1534, Bembo wrote to Alciato in Milan, answering his letter. He accepted his excuse for not coming to Padua the previous year as he had promised. He is very willing to free him, whom he cherishes and esteems very highly, as he ought to, of all fault, and the charge of not keeping his word. He wishes that the authorities of the University of Padua were so fair and were not completely persuaded that he had used the offer he sought from Padua to secure a higher salary from his duke. In fact, they even accuse Bembo of having deceived them that he was coming, with the result that they had no time to find a substitute. But, let us not go over the past. Bembo is sorry that Alciato is not enjoying Pavia [the site of Milan’s university at this time], especially since nasty rumours reach here about the French king. Unless he quiets down, Bembo expects that Alciato will not stay there. He thought that Alciato must be joking in his letter when he suggested that Bembo had turned against him. Bembo just had no news to send, and therefore did not write. “You have my excuse, not a little more just than yours which, however, as I said at the beginning, I had accepted most willingly, to please you, whom I greatly cherish. If you treat my excuse in the same way, I will be grateful to you” (T III, 1561). A sly and very unpleasant letter, but, as was his wont, Bembo later forgave Alciato, and a year later, on 21 April 1535, wrote a very warm letter thanking him for sending his youthful poems (T III, 1672). These were Alciato’s Emblems which were to start a fad throughout Europe.22 But Bembo did not restrict his interest in the University of Padua to his own subjects, Greek philosophy and law. He was also concerned about the teaching of the sciences. The mathematician Federico Dolfin, author of a treatise on the tides and an important teacher of a new generation of scientists, lived in his house for many years. It has even been said that Bembo laid the foundation for the arrival of Galileo at Padua at the end of the century. Bembo was also responsible for the establishment of a chair in mathematics in Venice in 1530.23 Bembo’s interest in education in Padua was not restricted to intervention in the university. Over the years a number of children and youths, relatives and offspring of friends from all over Italy, stayed in his house and he tutored some of them himself, then sent them out to teachers in town. He

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kept their parents informed of their progress or lack of it. He also tried to find places at a much sought-after secondary school, the Collegio delli Spinelli, in Padua, for deserving boys, not just the rich and privileged, from as far afield as the Kingdom of Naples. He was as persistent in pursuing vacancies at the college as he had been in trying to get Alciato for the university and relentlessly hounded the governors.24 Bembo had some notable successes with the boys and young men whose education he supervised. Cosimo Gheri, who went to him as an adolescent, became bishop of Fano at an early age (T III, 1681), taught in Padua (T III, 1734), and was one of Bembo’s dearest friends. On his early death in 1537 Bembo wrote that he had never seen in his time a more learned young man who led a better and holier life, who had a greater heart, a loftier intellect, truer gravity or greater promise (T III, 1910). It was to him that Bembo sent another one of his successes, Goro Gualteruzzi, son of his Roman friend Carlo, when his father sent the boy to Bembo in Padua to be educated. Bembo’s regular correspondence with Carlo Gualteruzzi over his benefices always included notes about Goro, Carlo’s son who was boarding with him. These letters provide a glimpse of a Renaissance schoolboy growing up. Bembo’s first reference to Goro was in a letter of 17 December 1533. In it he told Carlo that Goro attended school diligently in the house of the bishop of Fano who has a very good master. The school is only a few steps away (T III, 1534). In another letter Bembo had said that he and the bishop could see one another from their windows (T III, 1528). Bembo watches over Goro as a son, as he deserves this for his modesty and discretion (T III, 1534). In following letters Bembo wrote that Goro is well and learning diligently (T III, 1546); that Goro is a good boy and learning diligently. “I have the highest hopes for him” (T III, 1547); that Goro is turning out to be a nicer little boy every day and Bembo has high hopes that he will make his father very happy (T III, 1548); that Goro is well and attending to learning (T III, 1552) [school reports are always difficult to write]. Then Bembo made a rather longer comment: I do not treat Goro other than as my son. And I also admonish him and reprimand him in the way I think you would do if he were in your care. He has a good and very lively mind and he is a little bit undisciplined, as a first son. For this reason I think that it has been a very good thing to have sent him here, to have distanced him a bit. Do not worry about it. Between the bishop of Fano, Messer Ludovico [one of the bishop’s household, T III, 1451, perhaps the master referred to above] and everything will be done for his education and moral development so that he will be even dearer to you. (T III, 1566)

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In following letters Bembo reports that Goro is very good and learning well, that his achievement gives Bembo great pleasure, and that he loves him as a son (T III, 1584, 1588, 1599). At his father’s request Bembo is now arranging for Goro to have the first tonsure. Obviously Goro was destined for a career in the Church which would provide a good, secure living. Bembo is thinking of sending him to the papal legate in Venice in the company of his steward (T III, 1612). A following letter confirms that he has been tonsured and that the bull has been sent to his father in Rome. Goro continues to be well and is an excellent student (T III, 1618). After other letters telling about his excellent progress (T III, 1635, 1659), Bembo tells Gualteruzzi that he has given Goro a theme to treat in verse [obviously Latin] and has asked him to show it to him before he gives it to his master because what he has brought home from school is so good that he suspects it must have been written, not just corrected, by his teacher (T III, 1662). Bembo kept a close watch on Goro’s schooling. After about two years with Bembo, Goro was sent to Bologna for the summer with the bishop of Fano’s brothers (T III, 1684). He returned in the autumn with a good report and had grown almost as tall as his father (T III, 1717). Goro continued with his Latin verse and wrote an elegy on a subject set by the bishop of Fano which showed great talent and held out great hope for his future (T III, 1734). Then the bishop of Fano left Padua, to everyone’s sorrow, but Bembo reassured Gualteruzzi that Goro would continue to be well looked after. He was in the care of Bembo, Cola, and Giorgio, Bembo’s secretary, whom Gualteruzzi knew because Bembo had sent him to Rome to deal with some of his affairs (T III, 1636, 1698, 1705, 1712, 1769), as well as by all Bembo’s household (T III, 1782). A month later Bembo told Gualteruzzi that he, Cola, and Giorgio had taken Goro on a walk to a beautiful villa three miles outside Padua (T III, 1789). On 1 November 1536, Bembo told Gualteruzzi that Vittoria Colonna had persuaded the pope to allow him to resign the commenda of Benevento in favour of Goro (T III, 1803). Bembo was indeed treating the boy like a son. Goro continued to be the model student for a few more months (T IV, 1816), then things began to go wrong. Was it perhaps the loss of the young bishop of Fano’s guidance, as well as adolescent hormones? His father decided that he should return home. In his letter of 7 March 1537 Bembo applauds this decision because he feels that Goro needs his father. He will send him with good company to Bologna, as Gualteruzzi requests. Bembo loved him as a son and reprimanded him when he thought that it was necessary, as his father would have done. But in the end he recognized that this did not do any good. Goro has a good mind and, if he will determine to use it well, he can turn out to be a man of

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standing. But Bembo is afraid that he does not have a good character. He hopes that God will make him a liar (T IV, 1831). After Goro returned to Gualteruzzi, he wrote Bembo recognizing his son’s faults and apologizing to Bembo for the trouble he must have had. Bembo replied, urging Gualteruzzi to be patient with Goro. From what Bembo said it appears that Goro had become insolent and arrogant (T IV, 1834). A bright teenager had become rebellious. Two years later, in a letter which must be dated 1539 because he is now a cardinal in Rome, Bembo wrote to Andrea Alciato, now lecturing in Bologna, recommending Goro as a youth of very great modesty and probity, full of enthusiasm for the study of law. He regards him as his own son and urges Alciato to accept him as his student (T IV, 1888). Bembo had now heard good things about Goro, who had apparently outgrown his difficult phase and was determined to do well (T IV, 1915, 1919). Five years later, in September 1544, Goro presented a dissertation at the University of Padua which received some petty criticism but which was accepted by the governor, Nicolò Tiepolo, with whom Bembo had dealt so many years before over the appointment of Alciato. Bembo wrote thanking him for his support of Goro (T IV, 2447). Then he wrote to his old friend, Girolamo Quirino, who had intervened with Tiepolo on Goro’s behalf, telling him how pleased he was with Goro’s success. He asked Quirino to thank Tiepolo again. He was delighted to hear how well Goro was thought of in the Republic. “He cannot receive any honour which is not less than he deserves for his goodness and his sincerity and his worth” (T IV, 2448). In the end, Goro was one of Bembo’s triumphs. Another of Bembo’s good boys was Count Agostino de Landi, son of Costanza Fregoso with whom Bembo had maintained an affectionate relationship since Urbino days. Count Agostino was sent to Bembo when he began his university studies in Padua and Bembo looked after him like a very dear son (T II, 870, 871). This entailed chastising him at times (T III, 1210). Count Agostino obviously took paternal admonitions in good part and even wrote to Bembo later for advice about marriage. Should he marry as his mother wants him to (T III, 1043). Bembo also encouraged boys of more modest backgrounds. The son of his steward in Bologna wrote to him and Bembo answered, praising his fine, long letter in Latin, as well as his penmanship, and asking him to write frequently so that he can monitor his progress (T II, 776). But not all the young people sent to Bembo were like Cosimo and Goro. Some were very badly behaved and disinclined to learn; one, his nephew Carlo, was even charged with a criminal offence.25 The nephew of his good friend Angelo Gabriele was an impossible youth. This is what Bembo wrote to Gabriele on 10 April 1528:

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I received your Cornelio, not voluntarily, as far as I was concerned, for the reasons I gave you before by word of mouth, but in good part, because of you, to whom I owe everything, and with the intention of holding him dear for love of you. And first I began to teach him grammar and I bought him the books he asked me for and I would have bought all that he needed if I did not see very early that a letter could not enter that head and he did not care that it should. And all the same, urging him and reminding him of his own good many times, in the end I became absolutely convinced that every effort expended on that was completely superfluous and vain. And because he did bad things very often, in fact, every day, I would criticise him affectionately, and correct him, so that he would change, and adopt good behaviour and abandon wickedness, and sometimes I threatened him, to the end that, at least through fear, he might mend his ways. All of which was always in vain. On the contrary, the more he was instructed or threatened, by me or by the others, the worse he always appeared to try to be. He did not tell the truth, nor do what he was told to do, except reluctantly, nor did he obey me more than the others, nor was there ever a neglect of everything like his, nor could one see a kitchen boy more filthy or gluttonous or more greedy than he because, not only at home, but also throughout the whole neighbourhood, he went about challenging people to competitions in eating and drinking ... And already he has been seen to gulp down so much milk ... that I am amazed that he did not explode. He never spoke other than stupidly, and with a rough and loutish voice so that I, having lost all hope of correcting him, no longer wore myself out picking him up and I let him be, imagining that I had a madman in the house, as lords have at times ... and I fed and dressed him willingly, for love of you who gave him to me. And I wondered in my heart how it was possible that your brother and that lady, who I heard from everyone was so civilised and so nice, could have given birth to this monster. But then, as he grew more in all these vices ... from day to day and now brought shame upon me 1000 times, not just at home, but also everywhere I went, and brought me grief and vexation each day, he became so insolent and bestial that he began to want to beat my servants and to threaten to stab them in the chest and to set about them and a little while ago he almost broke one of my steward’s legs ... I took up my pen to inform you of this and to beg you that now that he wants to go to Venice because he says one of his uncles has died and left him 200 florins ... not to send him back to my house, because I cannot any longer endure such an irrational and dissolute ... animal who lacks no vice and has no virtue ... he gambles both his hose and his caps and his coat and his shirts so that no guardian can keep him clothed ... as I certainly wanted to do ... and I bought his coat back a little while ago ... and I recently bought him four shirts because he had gambled those that he received from his mother and from you. And if ... he wins anything gambling, do not imagine that he spends it on clothes, because everything goes down his gullet, as if he did not have anything to eat in my house. This one ... is not a man to stay in any gentleman’s house ... but to be kept at sea continually on some ship ... Do not send him back to me on any account ... Your

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priest knows, who brought him to me ... I cannot stand him any longer in my house ... (T II, 866).

Another difficult boy was Bembo’s great-nephew, Marcuzzo. He was the son of Giovan Matteo Bembo, who looked after Bembo’s interests in Venice, and Marcella, daughter of Bembo’s sister Antonia. In a letter to Giovan Matteo of 12 February 1533, Bembo asked him to take Marcuzzo back home when he returns from Vicenza. “He does not want to stay here any longer because he cannot leave the house with the freedom he had in Venice. Nor does he care much about learning, although he has settled down somewhat in reading compared with the way he was. He is pigheaded and wilful and should be smacked from time to time to make him give up his obstinacy. Morosina will not do this, in any circumstances, because she would not want to upset Marcella” (T III, 1465). People not only sent their offspring to Bembo for education, they also sent their literary works for criticism. Some were important works, like Castiglione’s Courtier, which Bembo published for him in Venice in 1528 (T II, 851, 852), or Fracastoro’s Syphilis,26 while others were sonnets or canzoni, of which an endless stream flowed from the pens of men and women of sensibility in sixteenth-century Italy. Fracastoro sent his Syphilis, which gave its name to the new plague devastating Europe and described what became the classic mercury treatment used until the twentieth century, to Bembo for criticism in November 1525. Writing to Fracastoro on 26 November Bembo admitted that he had seen a surreptitious version of the poem two or three years previously but now that he had the genuine text he had read it avidly, and reread it many times, each time more enthusiastically, over several days. It is a very fine work, equal to anything written this century. In the first book Fracastoro writes of philosophy more poetically and more gracefully than Lucretius. The little section where he addresses Bembo (I, lls 15-19), to whom the book was finally dedicated, could have been written by Vergil. Bembo was also pleased with the reference to himself at the end of book two (lls 43-5). Bembo goes on to cite various passages he considers outstanding, including the account of the death of one of Fracastoro’s friends, carried off in his prime. He praises the doctor’s descriptions of various herbs and medicines and the fable about wood in book two, which could not be better thought out nor better placed. Since he has been asked for criticism, Bembo has appended some notes to the letter (T II, 621). Bembo’s notes were published in 1955.27 They show him to have been a careful but outspoken critic explaining, with a wealth of classical learning, his suggestions for improvements. Bembo obviously read both the classics and Fracastoro with great sensitivity. His severest criticism was of the fable about mercury which Fracastoro had introduced in the beginning of book

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two. He thinks that it should be totally struck out. Two long fables in one book are too much, and the one about wood at the end of book two frames the whole work beautifully. Fracastoro should not follow Pontano in this respect, whose Urania is stuffed with fables, to satiety. Remember Vergil, who used only one fable, that of Aristeo, in the whole four books of the Georgics. Also, the mercury fable is too derivative from Vergil, whereas the one about wood is something new. Bembo realizes that Fracastoro will not want to throw out something on which he has lavished much thought, but he must for the sake of the whole work.28 Fracastoro replied, disagreeing with Bembo about the mercury fable and telling him that he had decided to add a third book. Bembo wrote back immediately, on 5 January 1526, telling him that he thinks Fracastoro is making a great mistake. The fable about mercury is trite and familiar to everybody. He must not adopt Pontano’s vices, only his virtues. Also, a third book would be too much. He has already said everything in two. A third would be bringing water to a fountain. Do not be like those painters who cannot leave their works alone. Perhaps Bembo is saying too much, but it is because he cares about Fracastoro and his work (T II, 634). Fracastoro adopted many of Bembo’s individual verse revisions, but kept his fable about mercury and added his third book. He dedicated the whole work to Bembo in 1530.29 Bembo was kindly rather than condescending in his criticism of literary works unknown authors sent to him for appraisal. His old friend of Messina days, Angelo Gabriele, sent him the works of one of his friends, Antonio Corraro. On 12 October 1527 Bembo replied that Corraro was a lofty poet and a very good and saintly man. He is returning some of his verse corrected ... as best he can. The tragedy is good and the satires very good. He does not like any other of his poems. The epigrams, above all, should not be published ... Corraro’s prose is that of a good and religious ecclesiastic, but his Latin leaves something to be desired. One can excuse this because he has been mostly involved in Church affairs.30 The epilogues are poor and weak work. Bembo concludes by asking Gabriele to kiss his charming children for him, a frequent conclusion to a Bembo letter since he seems to have been genuinely fond of children (T II, 823). When another friend sent him a work on the Latin language by Bartolomeo Riccio, Bembo replied that it should be published, but that some things should be omitted which every boy knows and understands. This will make it a better work. The scribe has also made some errors in copying which Bembo has marked (T III, 1395 of 21 July 1532). To Riccio himself, who then sent him his writings directly, Bembo wrote a month later (21 August 1532) that he regrets that Riccio has lived in Venice for several years and that he has never met him. He praises him for using his learning

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and industry for the benefit of others, then advises him to remove those sections of his study which are familiar to everyone, even those with little Latin. This will preserve people from boredom and give the work more dignity, splendour, and charm (T III, 1396). To yet another unknown writer, Anton Mezzabarba of Verona, Bembo wrote on 20 September 1530 that he had reread his canzone on the cross more than once. He comments on the unusual rhyme scheme, in which one rhyme is repeated sixteen times, another fifteen. This is unique, and readers will marvel at it [a tactful reply] (T III, 1151). To Lodovico Parisetto, a young man from Reggio, Bembo wrote on 28 January 1533 that he had received his very fine letter in heroic verse, written in the manner of Horace. He is astounded that he had not heard of one so learned. The writing is amazing. It is so clean, pure, lovely, and full of the brilliance of the age of Augustus. Bembo is flattered that such an extraordinary and illustrious poet has dedicated a work to him (T III, 1454). As we have seen, Bembo was more outspoken to people he knew. On 26 September 1528 he wrote his dear friend Vettor Soranzo, thanking him for his sonnet, which he praises. However, he warns Soranzo to write few things that are well thought out rather than much that is trite. Bembo says this because of his affection for Soranzo. He then criticizes his friend’s vocabulary and some awkward word usage, with excessive elisions, which should be avoided (T II, 904). A year later, on 25 September 1529, Bembo wrote Soranzo about another sonnet, then asked Soranzo to revize one of his, Bembo’s, sonnets, on the death of Navagero (T III, 1017). Soranzo was helping with the 1530 edition of Bembo’s Rime (T III, 992, 1012, 1095) until Cola was able to take final responsibility (T III, 1035, 1059). To another friend, Francesco Maria Machiavello, in Vicenza, Bembo wrote on 23 January 1534 to say that he had read his three sonnets with pleasure, but that they were not as good as the one he had enclosed by Caterina da Piovene, which is excellent. She is as good as Vittoria Colonna (T III, 1545). Bembo wrote more naturally, with greater ease, to poets of genuine talent. On 2 August 1528 he wrote his friend from Ferrara, Bernardo Tasso, Torquato’s father, now in Paris, thanking him for his sonnet and the three canzoni on the eye which reveal his genius. One would have thought, after Petrarch’s three canzoni on such unmanageable material, that no one else could write ten lines on the subject, but Tasso has had the courage to write three more canzoni, almost in competition with Petrarch, so that their own century would not lack this praise (T II, 897). On 20 January 1530 Bembo wrote to Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, asking her to do him a favour, obviously related to his commenda of Benevento, then praising her sonnets on the death of her husband which he has just seen. As her hus-

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band was the greatest military man of the age, equal to the heroes of antiquity, so she is the greatest woman poet of the century. It would not have been thought possible that nature would have granted such an outstanding gift to her sex. He kisses her hand (T III, 1044). The following year, on 16 June 1531, Bembo wrote to Veronica Gambara commenting on the two sonnets she had sent him on the death of Sannazaro. They are very fine, pure, lovely, liked, and greatly honoured (T III, 1239). In a second letter of 11 May 1535, Bembo gently criticizes a sonnet Gambara has written in his honour and suggests an emendation to line three (T III, 1683). But the poet whose gift really impressed him was Garsilaso de la Vega.31 Onorato Fascitelli, a monk at Montecassino, had told him in Venice about Garsilaso (T III, 1711), and Giralomo Seripando, master of Bembo’s Order of St John of Jerusalem, had sent him Garsilaso’s odes for comment. Fascitelli can tell Seripando that that nobleman is also a beautiful and noble poet. Bembo has found his writings exceptional. They enjoy singular merit and praise. “And that honoured spirit has far excelled all his nation and, if he does not weary of his diligent study, he can also surpass those of other nations which consider themselves masters of poetry” [unfortunately Garcilaso, like many other talented poets, died young, in battle]. Bembo typically, for he was vain, thinks that the ode which Garsilaso dedicated to him is the loveliest and most elegant and most sonorous and sweetest. He asks Fascitelli to let Garsilaso know that he loves him and esteems him greatly and wants to be loved by such a brilliant intellect (T III, 1707). Two weeks later, on 26 August 1535, Bembo wrote to Garsilaso himself in Naples. He is very pleased at Garsilaso’s regard for him, “for what is there which can be compared with the love and kindly feelings of a most outstanding poet? For all other things which men hold honourable and dear perish in a short time with those who possess them: poets alone live and are long-lasting and they bestow the same longevity on those they wish.” Bembo goes on to say that Garcilaso surpasses all Spanish poets and inspires the Italians. He has read almost nothing written in this age more elegant or generally more excellent and purer and certainly more dignified than Garsilaso’s odes. Bembo then goes on to recommend the monk Onorato to him, whose brothers lost everything in the French war. They are seeking restitution from the emperor Charles. Garsilaso is so highly regarded by the emperor that Bembo feels that his support would restore them to their former state. Bembo will regard what he does for them as being done for him (T III, 1711). Bembo not only criticized other people’s writing. He also asked friends whose taste and judgment he trusted to criticize his. He had sent both Gli Asolani in 1502 (T I, 45) and the first two books of Le Prose in 1512 to

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Trifon Gabriele for comment and correction by him and a coterie of friends in Venice interested in language (T II, 315). He sent his Latin dialogue on the death of Guidubaldo, duke of Urbino, to Sigismondo of Foligno for correction in 1510 (T II, 302), and in 1526 told Sadoleto that when the roads were safer he would send it to him because he was thinking of publishing it, but only after Sadoleto had seen it and corrected it and given his opinion (T II, 726 and 883). Later Sadoleto sent Bembo his own work on the education of children for comment. Bembo wrote a detailed criticism of some of Sadoleto’s Latin phrasing, at the same time admitting that he had made a mistake himself in his previous letter, which he had realized as soon as it was in the post (T III, 1456). Reciprocal criticism, sought and accepted, was characteristic of Bembo’s generation and a far cry from the abusiveness of earlier humanists, like Poliziano, for whom any criticism was anathema and led to scurrilous attacks on the critic, his mother, and his father. Bembo’s reputation as the leading light in contemporary literature drew a throng of bright young men to Padua, either as students at the university or as part of a fluid court. These young people came and went as other commitments permitted and enjoyed intermittent hospitality at Bembo’s house. Many were Florentines, for Bembo had made Padua a centre for the study of Tuscan.32 Some, like Giovanni della Casa and Benedetto Varchi, remained devoted to Bembo throughout their lives. Bembo was to die in della Casa’s house in Rome and della Casa would write his biography,33 while Varchi wrote a dialogue, L’Ercolano, supporting Bembo’s position on language.34 Bembo’s influence led to the formation of societies dedicated to the study of language. On 6 July 1530 he wrote to Giulio Porcelaga in Brescia that he was glad to hear that many young men there had formed a society dedicated to the vulgar tongue and that they held discussions on all holidays at which they read Petrarch and Bembo’s Le Prose. He is pleased that they are concerned about speaking well and that they want to listen to the best writers in the vulgar tongue. This will lead to their writing well and so they will enrich this language, which is still poor in good poets and writers of prose (T III, 1122). About ten years later four other admirers, the two Venetians Daniele Barbaro and Sperone Speroni, the Florentine Ugo Martelli, and Leone Orsino, bishop of Fréjus, formed the Accademia degli Infiammati in Padua to foster Italian literature. They lectured on Bembo’s sonnets and venerated him as the man responsible for the rebirth of the Italian language.35 However Bembo had more to do than pontificate to his admirers and bask in general admiration. He had to manage his bag of benefices, his only source of income, in a time of troubles and increasing taxation. And he needed to provide for his children’s future. Arrangements had to be made,

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in the face of a growing reformist drive in the Catholic Church, to pass his benefices on to his two sons. A third child, his daughter Elena, born in 1528, would need a dowry and there were still two nieces, Maria and Giulia, his sister Antonia’s daughters, to marry off. These were hard times, with Imperial and French armies ravaging Lombardy between 1526 and 1529 and the French and the Genoese trying to drive the Spanish out of the Kingdom of Naples in 1528–29. Bembo’s most important source of income was the commenda in Bologna which he administered for the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, now in desperate need of funding after having been driven out of Rhodes by the Turks in 1523. On 2 January 1526 Bembo wrote to a Vatican official begging for some help with taxes. The papal commission which is collecting tithes in Bologna wants a large contribution from him on his Magione, though it is a benefice of the Jerusalem Order which has never been tithed. If he were better off he would pay up quietly, knowing the pope’s present needs. But since he does not have a copper and lives from hand to mouth, and has to make a large contribution to the Order and a 50 per cent supplement because of its great expenses since the fall of Rhodes, he is very badly off. Also he borrowed fifty ducats from Sadoleto when he was last in Rome and has not been able to repay that, and having had to marry another niece this year has stripped him (T II, 631). Bembo’s near despair is revealed in a letter of condolence he wrote on 5 August 1527 on the death of a relative, the head of the Cornaro family: the man’s death is a great loss to the Republic but at least he has been spared life in a time when chance and fortune appear as dissolute rulers of human affairs (T II, 801). The following year, on 3 May 1528, Bembo wrote to the Grand Master, Philippe de Villiers, that he wishes that he could help in this disastrous time for their Order. During the papacy of Leo X he did everything he could to help, although he was not of it then as he is now. He has two benefices from the Order, the commenda of Benevento and Bologna. He has received nothing from Benevento for the past two years because of disturbances in the Kingdom and he has not received anything from Bologna, either, although it is close, “I swear to Your Lordship, by the sacred sign of this holy Order which I bear.” During the occupation of Bolognese territory by the Spanish army and by the lanzinecchi, almost all the houses of the manor and their possessions were burnt and wrecked and ruined by that evil cloud. So that his property could work this year he built more houses for the workers and has bought them cattle and horses to replace those lost ... which cost him more than he cares to say. The invading army cut down the trees and the vines for firewood this past winter and it will take many years before they produce anything. Therefore he has not been able to pay all that is owing to the Order now because he has had to pay from

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his other income, in war taxes, more than his total income from last year and expects the same to happen this year. We now expect, day by day, a new German army to attack this part of the country. However, when these very harsh times pass he will not fail to show that he is both a good and devoted servant of the Order (T II, 875). Somehow or other he had managed to forget Morosina and the Order’s prohibition of concubinage. The damaged property was on the country estate belonging to the commenda. In a later letter Bembo makes it clear that the property in the centre of Bologna was untouched (T III, 1557). In another, undated, letter36 Bembo gave more details to Monsignor Benedetto de’ Martini, an administrator of the Order whom he had seen recently in a meeting of the chapter and who had written asking him to pay a new tax on the commenda: The Spanish and German army which is in Bolognese territory has passed through every part of the manor and has wrecked the property, cut the trees and vines for firewood because it was winter, burnt six houses and large courtyards on the estate which had stalls and barns for grain and equipment, with walls and tiled roofs, as is typical in this part of the country. He could not replace this for 1500 ducats. He has made partial repairs for the workers, so that the property can be ploughed. However, they will not be able to do well this year. Therefore the income from the commenda will be no more than one third its usual this year and next, it will take two or three years to restore the property, and then it will not be what it was (T III, 1038). From 1524 onward Bembo wrote eighty-eight letters about his commenda in Bologna, many of them dealing with financial problems. Bologna was in the papal states and ruled by a papal governor, so there were persistent attempts to force Bembo to pay tithes. Although he had received a brief from Clement VII in 1526 recognizing that property of the Knights of St John was exempt from papal taxation (T III, 1341, 1582), he had to argue his case over and over again with the governors and Church authorities (T II, 631, 890; III, 1120, 1245, 1557, 1582). Bembo’s other concern, after avoiding 150 ducats per annum in tithes (T III, 1582), was seeking to ensure that the valuable commenda remained in the family. He wanted to pass it on to one or other of his sons, despite legislation against the practice which had started even before the Lutheran challenge, in the Lateran Council called by Julius II in 1512 and closed by Leo X in 1517.37 When he left Rome in 1521 Bembo, who had already had an eight year relationship with Morosina and was taking her with him, persuaded Leo X to issue a brief allowing him to bequeath all his possessions, including benefices, to whomever he wished, because of his hard work over many years.38 Now that he had children, Bembo wanted to bequeath his benefices to his sons, though Clement VII was opposed to the practice and

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would soon forbid it.39 The first step involved removing his sons’ stain of illegitimacy. On 1 January 1530, when he was in Bologna to see the pope and the emperor, Bembo succeeded in obtaining a brief from Clement VII legitimizing Lucilio. A pope who was a bastard himself appreciated the problem. He had also been a member of Bembo’s Order of St John of Jerusalem and Bembo may have indicated that he wanted his son to be able to follow in his footsteps. Certainly Bembo later tried to get Torquato associated with the Order as prior of Venice, then of Hungary (T III, 1584, 1732). The pope’s brief is addressed to his beloved son, Lucilio Bembo, Venetian schoolboy. Impressed by his youthful promise and desire to serve the Church the pope has decided to use his apostolic authority to remove the defect of his birth as the son of a single man and a married woman and to declare him legitimate, as though born of legal matrimony. He may therefore attain to all ecclestical offices and inherit paternal and maternal and other family possessions, including ecclesiastical benefices of every sort. The aspiring churchman, Lucilio, was in his seventh year! A ps ordered that the same should be done for Torquato Bembo when he was about seven.40 The seventh year was the earliest age at which the would-be cleric or aspirer to ecclesiastical benefices could receive the first tonsure. Bembo accordingly wrote to the pope two years later, on 19 January 1532, reminding him of his promise and asking him to legitimize Torquato and make him eligible for benefices “because my human condition has made me father of two boys” (T III, 1322). The transfer to Lucilio of Bembo’s most valuable benefice, the commenda of Bologna, involved a lengthy and complicated process. Since ecclesiastical law now forbade a direct transfer from father to son, even via a third person, Bembo had first to find a compliant clergyman sufficiently powerful to be able to be party to a forbidden transaction. Bembo would then resign the benefice to him and he would pass it on to Lucilio, with the proviso that the income would still go to Bembo, who would retain the right to reclaim it himself, if circumstances changed [the right of reversion or regression, as it was called]. In Lucilio’s case, the cooperating churchman was Nicolò Schomberg, archbishop of Capua. Bembo started this process in April 1530, writing to Carlo Gualteruzzi in Rome, the Vatican official who was to become one of his closest friends and his literary executor.41 Gualteruzzi managed the affair successfully and, a year later, about May 1531, Bembo was able to take possession of the commenda in Bologna in Lucilio’s name (T III, 1226, 1246). The following year Bembo began arranging the transfer to his second son, Torquato, of his benefice of Cortarolo in the diocese of Padua which he had acquired on 16 February 1530 through his cultivation of the pope in Bologna in the winter of 1529-30. Negotiations lasted ten years,42

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complicated by the fact that Lucilio died at eight years of age in August 1532 (T III, 1408, 1410). This meant that the Bolognese commenda had returned to Bembo and that he could therefore try to arrange something more prestigious and profitable for Torquato than Cortarolo, though according to Vatican records it was Bembo’s second most valuable benefice, along with the canonry at the cathedral of Padua.43 The original plan was for Bembo’s factotum Cola, who was naturally now in holy orders, to take possession of the benefice of Cortarolo, then resign it to Torquato. But now, with Bologna available again for swops, two young cardinals became involved with it and Bembo’s Abbey of Villanova: Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, Giuliano de’ Medici’s son, with whom Bembo had played in the Vatican of Leo X; and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, Paul III’s fifteen-year-old grandson. Bembo negotiated with Ippolito in 153444 but he fled Rome in 1535 and died the same year, so the resignations of both Villanova and Bologna were made in the name of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, with reservation of the income to Bembo. Bembo also wanted to make sure that if Torquato also died, the benefices would return to him (T III, 1698, 1709, 1712, 1723). Unfortunately, for the first renunciations Bembo had had difficulty finding the money to pay for the papal bulls. On 30 September 1530, in his letter to Gualteruzzi, he lamented that the 500 scudi which he had sent had not been enough to pay for the first bull renouncing the commenda of Bologna (T III, 1155). Five years later, when he had to pay for the bulls for the resignations of Cortarolo, Villanova, and Bologna, he had to borrow money (T III, 1736, 1738). Bembo’s other commenda from the Knights of St John was in the papal enclave of Benevento in the kingdom of Naples. Although theoretically a rich benefice,45 it gave Bembo constant trouble. At one stage he asked the Neapolitan poet Sannazaro to arrange the collection of money owed to him,46 another time he asked another poet, Vittoria Colonna, to help him. She had powerful contacts in the Kingdom and in 1525 was made acting papal governor of the city.47 The commenda was also in debt. The previous incumbent owed money to the Order which Bembo started to pay off, under protestation, because his predecessor had been a rich man and the Order should reclaim from his heirs, not Bembo (T II, 406, III, 1204). The debt was finally forgiven (T III, 1139). Apart from the general difficulty of collecting the income from such a distant benefice, the additional difficulties of plague and war (T II, 843) prevented travel between towns (T II, 906). Padua itself suffered from plague in the summer of 1528 (T II, 892, 900), when Bembo lost three of his servants (T II, 901). In the previously quoted letter of 3 May 1528 to the Grand Master, Philippe de Villiers, in which Bembo described the situation in Lombardy,

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he also wrote about Benevento. In the past two years he had not received any revenue whatsoever from it, not for want of trying, but because of the turbulent conditions in the Kingdom (T II, 875). In a letter of 7 September 1530 to the Receiver of the Order in Naples, Bembo explained that he had received no money from the commenda for four years because of the lamentable state of the Kingdom. Further, the bank in which he had deposited his previously collected contributions to the Order had failed and he had lost everything, and when he had sent his own secretary, Flaminio Tomarozzo, to collect what was due him that spring he was beaten and robbed on the road (T III, 1097, 1,098, 1139, 1142).48 In 1531 Bembo arranged with the Grand Master to pay off his own back dues on Benevento at the rate of twenty-five ducats per annum (T III, 1257). This would be in addition to his annual obligations, called responsions in the Order. From current income there was also an additional charge in 1532 and 1533 equivalent to a half year’s contribution to help the Order re-establish itself in Malta after the loss of Rhodes (T III, 1388, 1473, 1496).49 The Benedictine Abbey of Villanova outside Vicenza had also suffered in the wars. In a letter of 20 May 1530 Bembo described how, with peace restored in Lombardy, he is now trying to rebuild the abbey which was left in ruins by those who had occupied it for many years. He is working with carpenters and masons to rebuild the inn which was burnt. This is costing a lot of money, which he does not have (T III, 1092). He had left Cola in charge (T III, 1097). In short, Bembo faced demands for substantial outlays, including taxes, with little money coming in. Wars had seriously damaged his two large benefices in the north and had made it virtually impossible to receive any income from the south. At the same time, his Order had been hard hit by its expulsion from Rhodes, the Church had suffered the sack of Rome in 1527 and the imprisonment of the pope, who had to be ransomed, while the Republic of Venice had incurred heavy expenditure through its intervention in hostilities. Every authority made increased tax demands. After his Order and the Church came Venice. It tried to tax the pension of 300 ducats per annum which he received from the 1518 agreement between the papacy and the Signoria on his surrender of the Abbey of Arbe to the church of St Mark.50 Bembo instructed his long-suffering nephew, Giovan Matteo Bembo, who had to deal with his affairs in Venice, on tactics for challenging the legality of the tax, depending upon the official reaction to various arguments and proposals (T II, 824, 828, 833, 836, III, 1032, 1116, 1130, 1266). Then, in 1527, there was a hefty Venetian tax assessment on his Abbey of Villanova. Not a property of the Knights but under the jurisdiction of Verona and therefore in the Republic, the abbey was liable for Venetian

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tax. The assessment had been made in Bembo’s absence and without any representation on his behalf. The demand was double what he had previously paid and amounted to more than 50 per cent of his income from the benefice. No one else in the diocese had been so heavily taxed, and he would not put up with it. He instructed his nephew on actions to take to secure justice, adding that if he does not act quickly Bembo will be bankrupt and it will be Giovan Matteo’s fault (T II, 784). In a following letter, of 22 August 1527, Bembo sent Giovan Matteo the receipt for his payment in Padua of the 5 per cent compulsory loan imposed on the income of the clergy and promised to send the receipt for the 328 ducats which he will pay in Vicenza on the Villanova account. This was at the time when Bembo was trying to buy his house in Padua and was being forced to increase his offer (T II, 808). He was hard pressed. However, there was some good news. In November 1527 the doge accepted his argument about the injustice of the Villanova tax (T II, 838). Bembo’s law studies had come in useful. In 1527–28 Bembo sent a number of desperate letters to Giovan Matteo about the state of his finances, taxes to pay, and income owing (T II, 782, 824, 827, 856, 859, 864, 913). Brief respite came in the spring of 1528, when Bembo was able to rejoice that he was up to date on his taxation (T II, 854). Two months later, however, in May, he was in difficulties again over the payment of the compulsory loans both in Padua and in Vicenza. In Padua he had been threatened by the forced sale of his income before it came in if he did not find the money immediately (T II, 882). From this letter we learn that Giovan Matteo was also suffering financially in Venice. He had written to Bembo asking for assistance. Bembo wrote back that he did not have a farthing and described his own difficulties with having to pay 100 ducats on the state loan in Padua and 134 in Vicenza. “If you can get the payment from the Cornari, which is due soon, I will help you with it. If you cannot, let me know and I will see what I can do. Keep well and bear your difficulties, as I see you do everything, i.e., cheerfully, and do not think that I will fail you ever” (T II, 882). On 22 July 1528 Bembo wrote to Giovan Matteo again, asking him to try to postpone a payment until September, when he will have the money. Otherwise, he should pawn a piece of his silver and send him the receipt. His income, which has been sequestrated, is worth only half the money owed (T II, 894). On 31 July 1528 he informed Giovan Matteo that he had received the bills from the debt collection court and had paid the tax collector 5 per cent. “These are most difficult times. I hope God will help us all” (T II, 896). In September 1528 Bembo went to Verona to ask the governor to allow him to live on the income from Villanova. From the grain in his granary he

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has so far paid 400 ducats to the Signoria, 134 on the compulsory loan and 66 for taxes. Now the governor wants him to transport the grain to Verona. This will cost him 50 or 60 ducats and he will not profit from it (T II, 903). Presumably the governor wanted to provision Verona against a possible siege. In fact, German armies occupied much of Lombardy in 1528 and 1529, including Villanova (T III, 1092). There is no indication of what happened to Bembo’s grain. After peace was established in Lombardy, with the coronation of the emperor Charles V in Bologna early in 1530, Bembo began arguing again over the assessment of Villanova for the compulsory loan. Bembo made a case for overpayment which was taking two-thirds of his income from the abbey (T III, 1222, 1347, 1354) and achieved some success with a reduction in the demand (T III, 1358). During these difficult times Bembo also had family troubles. When his half-brother, Bartolomeo, died in 1526 Bembo took his illegitimate son, Carlo, into his household and treated him as his son (T III, 1167). Bembo had already made financial provision for him, for his own serious illness in 1519-20 had made him think about the future needs of Bartolomeo and Carletto. So that they would not starve, he had decided to leave the Abbey of Villanova to the boy (T II, 412). At the time that he renounced Villanova to seven year old Carletto, on 27 August 1520, Bembo had no children of his own. As was usual in all cases of renunciations of benefices, Bembo reserved the income for himself and the right of regression.51 Carlo must have had the first tonsure around 1520 to be able to receive the benefice. When Carlo came to live with Bembo in Padua in 1526 he would, therefore, have been at least thirteen years of age. Nothing further is heard of Carlo until three years later when he was studying in Bologna. On 11 June 1529 Bembo answered his request for Homer and Aristophanes. He sent Homer straightaway and said that Aristophanes would follow shortly. He then proceeded to tell him off. According to reports he had received these past months Carlo was interested in anything but learning. Bembo does not know whether he should wear himself out any more reminding Carlo of his duty to make himself clever, virtuous, and learned. On the one hand Bembo feels as though he is throwing his words to the wind, on the other he loves Carlo and would like him to be successful, since he has brought him up and considers him as a son. The sons of the king of France do not have a better teacher than Carlo has. When he gets older he will regret that he did not use his opportunities. In conclusion, Bembo asks him to greet Messer Romulo and Madonna Violante for him (T III, 892). This is the Romulo Amaseo whom Bembo had tried to lure back to Padua because of his brilliance as a teacher and Violante is his wife, to whom Morosina had written.52 This explains why Carlo was studying in Bologna. Bembo

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wanted him to have the best instruction. Bembo’s words, however, were unlikely to be well received by a teenager away from home, discovering the joys of independence. In November 1529 the pope and his court had moved to Bologna to receive the emperor, Charles V, and negotiate a treaty which would settle all disputes and finally bring peace to Italy. Then the pope would crown the emperor. Bembo had thought of going there straightaway to greet the pope but his housekeeper had informed him that his house in Bologna had been taken over by the legate of the king of Portugal (T III, 1027). Carlo himself, who may well have been living there, should have informed Bembo of the honour bestowed on his mansion. Bembo was angry and hurt because it showed that Carlo cared nothing for him. Nevertheless he sent Carlo a letter to deliver to his old friend, Federigo Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno. Carlo should kiss his hand and identify himself as Bembo’s nephew and tell him that he would come back to pick up a reply if the archbishop wanted him to (T III, 1028). The following August, when Bembo was very seriously ill with a tertian fever which had become continuous and Carlo was back at home, Carlo, perceiving that the fever was not going to carry his uncle off and deliver him his benefice, put poison into Bembo’s three carafes of water Bembo described what happened in a letter of 28 August 1530 to his friend, Vettor Soranzo, in Rome: He had three different carafes of water, one of boiled water, one of barley water, and another of water of borage and other things. These stood by the window just outside his bedroom door. Someone put sublimate in the three carafes. When Bembo asked for a soup to restore his strength, some of the water was put in it and in his wine. He ate a little of the soup and drank a little of the wine and immediately felt his whole throat burn fiercely, as though he had swallowed fire. When he called his steward for a gargle he discovered that Giovanni Antonio, who had taken some of the soup after him, also had a burning throat. Cola, who was there looking after him, saw that the water in the carafes had changed colour and that some of the sublimate remained on the lip of one of them. After much gargling Bembo recovered somewhat. Cola sent for doctors who told them to drink a glass of oil to vomit the poison. Giovanni Antonio drank the oil and vomited but Bembo could not vomit anything. Therefore, the doctors gave him bolo armeno, a medicine against poison. He spent that night and the next day in great suffering: The cup in which I expectorated became completely black where the sputum touched it. If I had drunk the barley water or the others, as I usually did for thirst, the person who wanted to poison me would have had his wish. But the making of the soup in which only a little of the boiled water was used saved me. Now I will

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be more careful than I was in the past because I did not think anyone would want to kill me since I have never done anyone any harm. (T III, 1135)

The governor of Padua, hearing of this and questioning the doctors and servants, asked for instructions from the Signoria as to the action he should take. The Signoria offered a reward for the discovery of the criminal, who should then be banished from the Republic with a price on his head. The criminal investigation pointed to Carlo as the culprit. A summons was issued for him to face charges and make his defence. He was given more than a year to present himself. If he did not appear the sentence of banishment would apply. There was a problem, however. Carlo, as the holder of a benefice, enjoyed the right of clergy and Venice could not prosecute him without the authorization of Rome. Bembo applied to Rome for it, saying that he did not want to take revenge on Carlo, but only to be protected from him through his banishment. Carlo was a wicked and very cruel boy who had tried to poison others before and had threatened Bembo’s family (T II, 1167 of 22 October 1530). Carlo was already out of the Republic. On 29 September 1530, before the governor of Padua had completed his investigation, Bembo had sent Carlo to Rome with a letter to his friend, Carlo Gualteruzzi, telling him that he wanted his nephew to experience the city because he did not want to study. He asked Gualteruzzi to please find temporary accomodation for him until he could make long-term arrangements. This should be paid out of the income from Benevento (T III, 1153). Apparently some money had come in. Then, on 16 October 1530, Bembo wrote to another friend in Rome asking him to look for Carlo and tell him that he is being charged with poisoning his uncle and that a summons was issued that very morning. If he does not obey it he will be banished from the Republic. If he is innocent, Bembo advises him to come and defend himself rather than suffer an undeserved banishment (T III, 1163). Bembo’s letter of 22 October 1530, quoted above, reveals that in the intervening week Bembo had become convinced of Carlo’s guilt and wanted him out of the way. By 12 November 1530 Bembo had heard from Soranzo that he had seen Carlo and heard his complaints against his uncle. Bembo asked Soranzo to remind Carlo of all that Bembo had done for him and tell him that he should be pleading for forgiveness, something to live on, and that he be treated with mercy and kindness (T III, 1173). In his next letter to Gualteruzzi Bembo thanked him for obtaining Carlo’s resignation of Villanova and told him that he would retake possession of it because of the right of regression. Then he instructs Gualteruzzi to provide for Carlo’s living expenses out of the income from Benevento, though he does not deserve it. He could perhaps pay the person

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who provides room and board. He should not give the money directly to Carlo because he is a great spendthrift. Bembo wants to provide for his needs, not for his vanity. Carlo had written that he wanted to come to Venice shortly. He should be reminded of the necessity of facing charges. It would be better to wait until the affair is forgotten. This letter was dated 30 November. In a ps Bembo wrote on 8 December that there had been no courier going to Rome in the interval and that Carlo had turned up yesterday and come to see him. Bembo will keep his promise and will help him (T III, 1178). There is obviously a problem with the dating of the previous letter and the ps because Bembo’s two subsequent letters, written from Venice on 9 December, still assume that Carlo is in Rome and refer to Bembo’s strategy on the renunciation of the abbey which Carlo has, in fact followed, according to the letter dated 30 November. It appears, then, that these two letters dated 9 December (T III, 1179, 1180) must have been written before the letter dated 30 November with the ps of 8 December. The first of the letters dated 9 December 1530 was written to Gualteruzzi for him to show, but not give, to Carlo. In it Bembo thanks Gualteruzzi for the affectionate service to his nephew and for obtaining the procuration from him for the renunciation of the abbey. If Carlo perseveres in this way Bembo will be able to treat him as he always has. Bembo then goes on to advise Gualteruzzi to make the renunciation of the abbey in favour of his secretary, Cola, because of the legal case pending against Carlo. Carlo’s surrendering it to him could imply his acknowledgment of his guilt. When Gualteruzzi writes that Carlo has made the renunciation to Cola, Bembo will think about providing for the boy so that he can have a respectable position if he wants it. Bembo will follow Gualteruzzi’s advice on Carlo’s maintenance. In a ps Bembo says that he will reply to Carlo when he discovers that his nephew’s fair words are followed by good actions (T III, 1179). The second letter to Gualteruzzi dated 9 December is for him privately. He does not want Carlo to have the preceding letter to show it around. He has heard that Carlo has been laughing with friends at his gullibility. Gualteruzzi undoubtedly has realized that the reason Bembo wanted Carlo to renounce the abbey was so that he would no longer be thinking of doing him in when he could not become abbot. He also hoped that Carlo would study now to deserve it. If Carlo does, Bembo will restore the abbey to him. He does not want Carlo to stand trial because the case against him is overwhelming. He may have boasted to Gualteruzzi that he wanted to fight to defend his honour, but he is a big mouth who never speaks the truth. He is an empty shell (T III, 1180). Nevertheless, Bembo was very caring toward the nephew who had tried to poison him. And, always concerned about

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family honour, Bembo must also have been worried that Carlo would drag the family name into disrepute. In a letter of 19 January 1531 to Sadoleto in Carpentras Bembo compares Carlo, who drives him to despair, with Sadoleto’s nephew Paul, who is now in Padua, a golden youth, a keen student with excellent manners (T III, 1186). In a letter of 18 February 1531 to Gualteruzzi in Rome Bembo complains about things that Carlo has written about him, which are completely untrue, then asks Gualteruzzi to give Carlo 120 ducats on the Benevento account (T III, 1200). On 12 April 1531 he writes again to Gualteruzzi about his benefices then adds, in a ps, “If Carlo is causing his friends to bother you and says nasty things about you, he is just acting true to form. Do not be upset about it, make little of it because, in truth, one ought not to pay much attention to such a light and weak and slovenly brain. Now that the affair of the abbey is settled he will shut up” (T III, 1217). Bembo again returns to the subject of an income for Carlo of 120 ducats on Benevento. In a letter of 28 May 1531, he suggests that Gualteruzzi deposit the money and have the bank dole it out to Carlo in monthly instalments. From this letter it appears that Carlo is still with Bembo in Venice but that Bembo will allow him to go to Rome shortly (T III, 1232). Then one of Carlo’s friends wrote Bembo that Carlo intended to start litigation with the aim of getting the abbey back on the grounds that he had been forced to make the renunciation because Bembo had had him detained in Rome (T III, 1246). Nothing appears to have come of this threat. Carlo reappeared in Venice in December 1531 (T III, 1313), then was back in Rome by May 1532 (T III, 1360). Henceforth he received his allowance (T III, 1400, 1443) and appears to have left Bembo alone. Carlo was not Bembo’s only family problem, only the unpleasant one. Bembo also had responsibilities to his two nieces, Maria and Giulia, the remaining unmarried daughters of his late sister, Antonia, and his brotherin-law, Sebastiano Marcello. He had married the oldest, Marcella, to Giovan Matteo Bembo, in 1519. At that time the other two girls were still in the convent of St Catherine in Venice (T II, 394). Later, after Bembo settled in Padua, they went to live with him (T II, 670). By 1526 Maria must have been about 27, since he had referred to Marietta, as though a baby, in a letter of 12 June 1499 (T I, 43). Marriage was long overdue. In the spring of 1526, with the help of Pietro Marcello, presumably her uncle, Bembo arranged Maria’s marriage to a Venetian gentleman, Bernardino Bellegno (T II, 647, 648), a man of excellent character, honoured for his age and well liked in the city (T II, 670). On 1 March 1526 he wrote to Giovan Matteo that he would bring Maria and her sister to Venice by boat the next day. He should ask Marcella to buy her a suitable

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outfit and whatever else is necessary, like a fine string of pearls or whatever is customary. They must act quickly, so things are not delayed beyond Saturday. He wants her to be married Saturday afternoon, after dinner. It must be a quiet wedding, with only a handful of family present (T II, 648). Writing to a friend on 16 March 1526 Bembo heaves a sigh of relief that another of his nieces is off his hands (T II, 652). Three years later Giulia wanted to marry. In his letter to Giovan Matteo of 22 April 1529 Bembo said that times were beastly and dangerous so that he did not want to undertake that expense. However, he asked his nephew to find out about her suitor (T II, 951). On 26 April 1529 Bembo wrote to Giovan Matteo again that he would like to do every good thing for all his family but the world is in such tumult and his revenues are not coming in. There are taxes and the loan to pay and he has not a penny. He cannot give Giulia a money dowry. If the young man would be content with thirty fields worth 600 ducats and take the rest at so much per year, he would be happy to consider it. Then he adds that, if she were his daughter, he would have made her a nun, and as his daughter, she would have had to obey him (T II, 952). Obviously Bembo’s offer was acceptable and Giulia was married to Marc Antonio Longo. Now, his duty done, Bembo was happy, and on 2 March 1530 he wrote to Giulia as his dear daughter, inviting her and her husband to Padua. His aunt, Madonna Cecilia, who is apparently still with him, and Morosina, look forward to seeing her. He urges her to come in this fine weather (T III, 1047). A little later Giulia was making her uncle a cap (T III, 1116). During the difficult period between 1526 and 1530 Bembo wrote many letters to Giovan Matteo about getting in his money and paying his taxes (T II, 694, 696, III, 949, 1040, 1159, 1161), some of which were rather sharp and critical when he felt that Giovan Matteo was not pursuing his interests as energetically as he could (T III, 1008). Bembo also renewed his pursuit of benefices and kept a careful watch on the health of wealthy clerics in the Republic (T II, 656, 667, 653, 654, 893, 923, 955, 968, 1081, 1086). He took over the management of the Bologna commenda himself because the wife of his former steward, whom he had allowed to succeed him since she was left with nothing but her husband’s debts, had become wealthy in the past six years. Bembo had to steal himself to do it, but now he needed the income himself (T III, 1495, 1507, 1565). The most sordid dispute over a benefice puts both Bembo and the datary, Giberti, in a bad light. In a letter of 31 August 1527 Bembo complained to Giberti. In his version of events, Bembo maintained that he had informed the pope that Abbot Grimanno had died and that there was, therefore, a vacancy at the Abbey of Rosaccio in Friuli. An hour after the

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pope had received Bembo’s letter Cardinal Pisano went to the pope to ask for the abbey. Clement VII told him that he had already heard of the vacancy from Bembo and that he wanted to give the abbey to him. The cardinal reported this to Venice, with the result that Bembo received letters of congratulations from friends, while the man who actually rented the abbey came from Udine to greet his new master in Padua. The Venetian ambassador had also written to Bembo from Rome, informing him of the pope’s intentions. However, Giberti had used his powers as datary to frustrate the pope’s wishes and grab the abbey for himself. Moreover, he did not have the courtesy to inform Bembo directly, but had a third party deliver the news. Giberti maintained, through the middleman, that he had wanted to give Bembo a good pension on the abbey, but that the pope had opposed it. Bembo does not believe this. The abbey provides an income of 1200 ducats which he badly needs. With his modest income he has married two of his nieces and wants to marry the third, if he can manage it. Giberti is already a wealthy man, but nothing can change the fact that he is Pietro Bembo (T II, 812 ). Bembo, a Venetian patrician, could not resist taunting Giberti, the illegitimate son of a Genoese trader.53 Bembo had cultivated the powerful datary in vain. When he went to Rome in the autumn of 1524 to present Le Prose to the pope he had given Giberti a Latin poem, Benacus [Lake Garda], because he had been made bishop of nearby Verona. He had also dedicated a sonnet to him, contrasting Giberti’s heavy responsibilities, with war threatening, to his own life of learned leisure in Villa Bozza (Rime CXIII). Bembo had gained nothing from his flattery. When Giberti went to his diocese a little later, he and Bembo met. Bembo had wanted to believe Giberti, because he wanted to maintain their old friendship, but, after Giberti had left, when he reflected on it, he found that all the evidence pointed to Giberti’s deceit, hypocrisy, and greed. Bembo has never wanted to cheat his friends and break faith to become rich and powerful. Posterity will decide which one has spent his life better and achieved more (T II, 845). Giberti was grasping. He has often been praised for his administration of the bishopric of Verona54 on his retirement from the post of datary after the sack of Rome, for which his policy was blamed. However, before he left the Vatican, he obtained a dispensation from Clement VII allowing him to keep all his monasteries, priories, positions of authority, personal dignities, administrations, offices, canonries, prebends, and other eccleciastical benefices, with or without the care of souls, both secular and regular, of whatever orders. He had even tried to get a 2000 ducat pension on the bishopric of Worcester. From his powerful position managing the

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finances of the church, Giberti saw and exploited every possibility to make money.55 Another cleric with whom Bembo quarrelled over a benefice was his old friend, Ridolfo Pio (1500-64), who later became a cardinal. Before their quarrel Bembo had sent him a sonnet (Rime CX). They later made up their differences when Pio supported Bembo’s candidature for the cardinalate.56

10 Man of Letters

In 1525 Bembo had published his lucubrations on a common vernacular language. His most important work, Le Prose, had preoccupied him for a quarter of a century. He now set about preparing his other writings for publication. Venetian editions of Gli Asolani, revised in the light of the linguistic research which had culminated in Le Prose della volgar lingua,1 appeared in 1530. Also published that year were a collection of Italian lyrics called Rime, and four Latin works: the De Aetna of his student days; his early philological study of Vergil’s Gnat and Terence’s plays (De Virgilii Culice et de Terentii fabulis liber); his 1508 dialogue on the death of Guidubaldo, duke of Urbino (De Urbini ducibus); and his essay on stylistic models, De imitatione, which he had sent to Giovan Francesco Pico della Mirandola on 1 January 1513.2 Apart from about fifty of the Rime which were written in Padua in the 1520s 3 this was all old work. At sixty Bembo was publishing his writings in both prose and verse, in both Italian and Latin, to stake his claim to a niche in the literary pantheon. He presented himself in two aspects, as a champion of the language of the people and as a man of humanist learning. This was the bulk of Bembo’s literary production, only a few pieces remained unpublished. Some Latin lyrics he perhaps held back because they would look inconsequential in comparison with Sannazaro’s Latin writings. Sannazaro’s great nativity poem, De partu viginis, his Lamentation on the Death of Christ, and his five piscatory eclogues were all published in 1526. Fracastoro’s Syphilis, which Bembo had read, and which was dedicated to him as the leading light in Venetian literary circles was also due out in 1526.4 These were all important works in elegant Latin. Bembo’s only Latin showpiece, Benacus, Lake Garda, had been published recently, in 1524 and 1527. The rest of his Latin verse, apart from some epitaphs and epigrams, consisted mostly of neo-pagan trivia written in his youth or in Rome in the second decade of the century.

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Bembo’s only other literary works, apart from his lively personal letters, almost 2,600 of which have been preserved and which were to cover half a century, from 1492 to 1546, and to enjoy posthumous publication, were another fifty or so lyrics, written in the 1530s, and his commissioned history of Venice covering the period 1487 to 1513, written both in Latin, for the Signoria, and in Italian for the more general reader. In addition there were the Latin letters which he had written for Leo X, which were regarded as models of style, a selection of which he was to publish in 1535, with a dedication to Paul III to remind him of his valuable service to the papacy, in the hope of a cardinal’s hat. It is convenient to look at all Bembo’s Italian lyrics together. Two-thirds of them were published in the 1530 edition, a few more in the second edition of the Rime in 1535, and the remainder in the posthumous edition of 1548. Lyric poetry, in origin songs to be sung to the lyre, is the poetry of emotion. Since love, or at least physical desire, is the strongest human emotion, lyric poetry of all ages has been above all a cry from the heart, an outpouring of feeling. As we might expect from his biography, this is true of Bembo’s. About 70 per cent of the poems in the 1530 edition, which included 114 of the final 165, were about love, the excitement of falling in love, the intoxicating effect of female beauty, the agonies of uncertainty, the sufferings, the torments, the loss of the beloved, and occasionally, happy fulfilment. They record universal human experience; unfortunately, they do so in a vocabulary and with a turn of phrase that frequently sounds false to the modern reader. Bembo’s early lyrics, written by 1512 when he went to Rome, were heavily indebted to Petrarch. Less so were those of the 1520s and those after 1530, where there were also some echoes of Dante and the classics. It was inevitable that Bembo would use Petrarch as his master and guide in lyric poetry. Petrarch’s pan-Italian popularity had inspired Bembo’s researches into a national language; in 1501 Bembo had edited the autograph manuscript of Petrarch which his father possessed; he had copied out the whole Canzoniere in Strozzi’s villa; and he had worked very carefully over the text, made copious notes on the poetry and analysed the metrical structure.5 It was therefore to be expected that, writing on Petrarch’s main subject, love, Bembo would use not only his language, that version of the vulgar tongue which seemed most elegant, most musical, which was now etched in his memory, and was to be promoted as the language for all Italy but also often his phraseology, implying that he was now looking on things as Petrarch did, experiencing life as Petrarch had experienced it. Nevertheless Dionisotti, in his notes to the Rime, in his edition of Bembo’s Italian works, exaggerates, citing all possible borrowings of Petrarchan expressions and subjects, even going so far as to suggest an

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indebtedness to Petrarch for such trite metaphors as a ship in stormy seas for the lover’s life, or the sun for his mistress’s influence upon him. Many images in poetry and everyday speech are obvious and commonplace. People who have never seen the ocean talk of being “all at sea,” while maritime images are what one would expect from a Venetian. Bembo uses them frequently in his letters. And everyone’s lover is the light of his or her life. Still Bembo was much indebted to Petrarch, consciously or unconsciously. It is not unfair to argue that many of Bembo’s lyrics were “concrete examples of applied Petrarchism”6 and “his series of overt Petrarchan imitations were sometimes inspired, sometimes moribund.”7 Thus his lyrics could be dismissed, as they were in the 19th century, as Petrarch warmed over and Bembo himself could be described as a mere grammarian, a man who was overly preoccupied with words, rather than with real experience, throughout his whole life.8 Petrarch himself is an alien in the modern world. People do not think and react as he did, or in his terms. Nevertheless he is recognized as a great poet whose vast lyric output in melodious language with pretty imagery gave lasting form to the medieval Italian idealization of love. But “Petrarchism ... has proved a tenacious challenge to our powers of historical sympathy.”9 A derivative Petrarch is despised as false. Moreover, the overriding attention to artistic canons in Bembo’s Rime10 suggests a lack of spontaneity while “the massive formal complexity of some of them, greater perhaps than in any other Italian poet, does not make them easy reading.”11 These criticisms notwithstanding, Bembo’s lyrics were hardly mere scholarly exercises. They were expressions of real experience, albeit often in adopted vocabulary and studied form. Many images in the Rime come alive today: Bembo’s surge of excitement at the sight of an unknown girl alone in the street (Rime II), his description of how one is captivated by insincere words, a look, a smile, a joke (Rime LV, lls. 23–4), his bond to Morosina which Fate has made tenacious and firm as she spins their life together (Rime CXII). These responses are universally recognizable. There are also evocative descriptions of nature, Monte Catria which imperiously divides Italy (Rime XXII), seaweed swaying in the waves (Rime CLX), the sun yielding place to the stars which appear in the twilight, one by one, then ten, then one hundred, bright and beautiful (Rime, CLI). Such gems exist amid saccharine tributes to golden locks, white hands, nightingales, and buckets of tears. These poems captivated Maria Savorgnan and Lucrezia Borgia, Camilla Gonzaga, Isabella d’Este, and later Lisabetta Quirini, as well as a large number of sixteenth-century poets, Vittoria Colonna, Veronica Gambara, Tullia d’Aragona, Laura Terracina, Chiara Matraini, Gaspara Stampa, Laura Battiferri, Veronica Franco.12 Today we seem unable to relive their responses, to appreciate this mindset. We may have golden locks, but we do not have white hands.

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Bembo’s lyrics were mostly sonnets, and it has been said that he made the sonnet the dominant European lyric form in the sixteenth-century.13 However, like Petrarch, Bembo also wrote more complex canzoni. A fine one, probably composed about 1507,14 on the death of his brother, Carlo, with the anguished cry, “why him, when I am the older?” (Rime CXLII) contrasts with one full of trite expressions of bereavement on the death of Morosina (Rime, CLXII). That he wrote this one in 1539 at the time he was appointed cardinal may have exerted an inhibitory influence.15 There were a few other canzoni from the days of Maria Savorgnan (Rime XXV, LV, LXXIII) and the first Gli Asolani (Rime LVI, LXXII).16 He also wrote a sestina which forms a pair with one in the first book of Gli Asolani;17 a conventional courtly poem on love’s cruelty in terza rima, perhaps of Urbino days (Rime XXXV);18 and three madrigals. One (Rime XV) of these probably dates to the happy period of his affair with Maria Savorgnan and may be one of the poems he sent her to sing.19 Another appeared in the 1505 edition of Gli Asolani (Rime LVII), and another (Rime LXXVII), may be the “madrigal of Lorenzo,” whoever he was, that Pietro and Maria discuss in their letters of 1500.20 Finally there are five ballate, four written early (Rime XVI, XVIII, XXXVI, CLV), one late. The later ballata (Rime LXXXIII), composed between 1530 and 1535, is related to the preceding sonnet (Rime LXXXII), and celebrates the happiness that his lady, presumably Morosina, brings to his mind wherever he goes, as he remembers her beauty, her goodness, her sweetness.21 Dionisotti believes that two of the early ballate were written about 1510 to frame an early collection of Bembo’s poetry which was never published. Rime XVIII would have been the dedication to Elisabetta Gonzaga, duchess of Urbino, Rime CLXV, the envoi, a prayer to Christ and God for forgiveness.22 The remaining ballate, Rime XVI and XXXVI, have survived from the days of Gli Asolani and Maria. Rime XVI joyously describes Bembo’s little angel sitting in the grass, singing like the sirens of old, while XXXVI accompanies a gift of Petrarch from Bembo, who is as devoted to his lady as Petrarch was to Laura. Both these ballate seem to refer to Maria. Apart from the love lyrics most of Bembo’s remaining sonnets were occasional poems dedicated to friends and fellow poets of both sexes and patrons, real or possible, Ercole d’Este, Cardinal Galeotto della Rovere, the dowager duchess of Urbino, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, Gianmatteo Giberti, Clement VII’s datary, Clement VII himself. With poets there was often an exchange of sonnets with mutual back-scratching.23 The list of friends is long because Bembo had moved in many circles in the course of his long life and many people expected some acknowledgement in verse from the leading poet of the day. The most interesting of these occasional poems is Rime LXI, written sometime before 1510, addressed to a lady who dominates his thoughts,

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his sweet, lovely, angelic Beatrice, who has told him not to imitate Petrarch. It is hard to imagine what lady could have been so bold, apart from Maria. Bembo was not meek in his attitude toward language. Dionisotti24 suggests that it could possibly have been the poet Veronica Gambara (1485–1550), with whom Bembo had been in correspondence from 1504 (T I, 193). But her slavish adoration of him in her admittedly much later, sonnet of 1530 “A lardente desio; ch’ognhor m’accende” (“To the ardent desire which burns in me hourly to follow in the path which leads to heaven only you were missing, my calm light ... But now that your ray shines upon me ... I follow you, my trusted leader, because my wish does not stretch beyond that ... My sweet dear and honoured fire, because eternal fame and true glory are born from your noble heat”25) makes it impossible to conceive of her, even with the brashness of youth, if that ever existed, daring to tell Bembo what to do. Of the women we know only Maria could have been so bold and she did criticize Bembo for imitating Petrarch too closely in a madrigal.26 According to Dionisotti, Veronica Gambara’s sonnet was inspired by the 1530 publication of the Rime. That event also inspired Vittoria Colonna, whose poetry on the death of her husband Bembo had just discovered when he was in Bologna in the winter of 1529–30 for the establishment of peace in Italy and the coronation of the Emperor Charles V. In her sonnet, “Ahi quanto fu al mio sol contrario il fato,”27 Colonna gushed over Bembo’s immortal style which puts the ancients to scorn and arouses envy today. If she could only send into his breast the ardour she feels or he his genius into hers! Bembo replied with a sonnet to Apollo to crown her brow with laurel (Rime CXXV). He did not write to her directly, but sent a message and a small gift, which must have been this sonnet, via Paolo Giovio, whom she had used as intermediary. Bembo told Giovio to tell Colonna that he was eager to meet her, but too old to travel to the Kingdom of Naples (T III, 1094). In response to Bembo’s sonnet Vittoria Colonna wrote to Giovio from Ischia on 24 June 1530 that it seems to her that Bembo: In seeking to imitate in writing the most praised author of our language has surpassed him in style and, excusing myself first of all for my judgment, I say that I do not read anyone else’s sonnet, as much of the present as of past times, which can equal his. I will not speak of the choicest vocabulary, the new and subtle sentiments ... but my amazement consists in seeing that, ever heightening the verse, he goes on to finish the phrase at such a distance, without its being forced. On the contrary, it seems that the endings come so necessarily to his well-organised writing that one feels their beautiful and sweet harmony first in the spirit before the ear and, the more they are reread and the more often they are considered, the greater admiration they elicit, in fact I would say envy, if it were not that my intellect feels so out

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of proportion to that light ... of whose perfection it is incapable, with the result that I am being reduced to being totally enamoured of him ... this love without any sensual desire.28

Giovio passed this letter on to Bembo. Needless to say Bembo was ecstatic. He replied to Giovio on 16 September 1530: He had been in bed with a very bad fever and suffered a great deal. He thought that he was at the end when Giovio’s letter arrived with the letter from Vittoria Colonna criticizing his poetry and uttering many sweet words. This was at the end of July, when he had had to have the letter read to him. However, when it came to the prayer that God give him many more years of life he immediately began to feel better, believing that her words were heaven-sent. After that his recovery started. He asks Giovio to please tell the marchesa this and that, in her detailed discussion of his poetry, she is a better critic than the scholars. “When she says that she is totally enamoured of me I see in this her greatness of spirit mixed with the sweetest nature because it is greatness of spirit to be enamoured of another soul and sweetness to invite the beloved, much beneath her, to love so courteously and in such a saintly way.” He will love her soul ardently, fired by her fervent virtue (T III, 1145). In this letter Bembo maintains family loyalty. He does not mention the complication of his illness, Carlo’s attempt to poison him that summer. On 16 November 1531 Bembo sent to Vittoria Colonna, via Vettor Soranzo (T 1299 and 1301), another two sonnets (Rime CXXVI, CXXVII) on her chaste widowhood, holy thoughts and heaven-inspired poetry on the death of her hero husband. Later still, on 25 July 1532, he wrote to her directly, sending his likeness, which she had requested, in the form of a medal,29 thanking her for the poetry she had sent and requesting her picture (T III, 1399). He received the portrait she sent in response in May 1533 (T III, 1495) and thanked her in a July letter (T III, 1501), apologizing for his delay because of serious domestic problems. In short, the sentiments, the style and the structure of the Rime, which rouse antipathy in modern critics, provoked unstinted admiration among most of Bembo’s contemporaries. His Rime dominated the lyrical output of the sixteenth century and were the subject of lectures in Padua during his lifetime.30 Apart from Petrarch’s canzoniere, Bembo’s Rime was the most frequently published book of verse until early in the next century when a baroque reaction, wrenching language to shock the reader into a new insight, made the smooth, mellifluous verse of the Renaissance, with its cloying prettiness, seem irrelevant to the modern world. This was the age of Marinism, Gongorism, and the metaphysicals in England. Bembo’s only important Latin poem in circulation in the 1530s, though he did not published it,31 was Benacus [Lake Garda], which he had given

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Bembo, Valerio Belli medal, c. 1530.

to Giberti in 1524 and which F. Minutius Calvus had published in Verona, undoubtedly with Giberti’s encouragement. Calvo dedicated Benacus and Verona, a poem by Augustino Beatiano, to Clement VII, praising him for appointing Giberti as bishop. Calvo decided to publish Benacus to honour the pope and Giberti so that this work, which is to be compared to that of the ancients, would not be lost. The slim volume also contained four epigrams by Beatiano, the first one praising Bembo as the glory of the Venetian sea, the other three lauding Giberti. Benacus, a great set piece like a Renaissance painting, opens with an echo of the Aeneid, “Te Giberte cano.” Bembo’s subject is to be compared with the greatest, though his Muse, he fears, is feeble. He then pictures the arrival of the news on Garda that Verona, the loveliest city in Italy, was expecting a famous young bishop [Giberti was then only twenty-nine]. The god of Lake Garda, like the Roman statue of a river god, was leaning on his elbow, pouring water from his urn, in a cool grove, in the green wood, and laying down the laws for his fountains and streams when the messenger arrived with the news. In an idyllic domestic scene his daughters, the rivers of Garda, are pictured with him, dyeing the softest linen and making their father a sky-blue robe. One sings to the lyre. The description of the girls, fashionably coiffed with golden nets on their hair, dressed in flowing robes which moulded the shape of their breasts and thighs while exposing their white arms, recalls numerous Renaissance paintings, as well as Pontano’s Mincio with his dressmaker daughters in his underwater palace (Eridanus I, 36) and Sannazaro’s Jordan (De partu Virginis III), with his greenhaired daughters in white dresses and purple lace-up boots. This was a typical Renaissance tableau. When he had heard the news of the bishop’s appointment the god of Garda summoned all the rivers of Lombardy, each one vividly portrayed with its defining characteristic, again like the rivers in Pontano’s Eridanus. The nymphs laid tables with white cloths in the centre of the cave and loaded them with food, Cretan wine, and flowers. Then after the banquet

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the god spoke. What they had so often prayed for had now, in the fulness of time, come about. The flower of young men had been sent to solve their problems after so many wars. Giberti will restore the wretched cities bereft of their citizens, the fields emptied of their farmers. He is beloved by the pope, who has given him this task. An account of Giberti’s youthful promise and adult achievements in the diplomatic service of the Church follows. Now the wars will be over and the land will be productive again, as it is when the rains come after drought. The god speaks to the rivers in stanzas of varying lengths, each one closing with a refrain bidding them flow more fully. Theocritus, Catullus, and Vergil, as well as Pontano (Lepidina) had used refrains to give a choral quality to the eclogues.32 Benacus is an elegantly written picture poem. It shows that Bembo had lived in the Vatican with Raphael and that he had read Pontano. It was unfortunate, however, in its predictions about Giberti who was, in fact, popularly charged with provoking, with his pro-French policy in the Vatican, the worst war of all in Lombardy and the 1527 German sack of Rome. It is not surprising that Benacus was not published by Bembo in 1530, or indeed during his lifetime. Apart from being mocked by bitter reality its fine words had not brought Bembo preferment, and Giberti had even cheated him of a benefice. In 1529 Bembo was finally offered an appointment by the Republic. Andrea Navagero, who had been commissioned to continue the official history of Venice which Sabellico had completed up to 1487, had died in France on a Venetian diplomatic mission and, it was said had, like Vergil, ordered his servant to destroy his incomplete work because he had not polished it and given it its final form. Vergil’s servant had used his own judgment and the Aeneid survived, Navagero’s obeyed orders and the history was lost. At least that is the story. Venice therefore had to find a new historian with a good Latin style who would bring honour to the Republic. It wanted a prestigious work, a Latin history to reach the world. Although Bembo had never served the Republic, he was a great stylist and had been Latin secretary to Leo X. He seemed the best man available. Therefore the heads of the Council of Ten instructed the secretary of the Senate, Giovan Battista Ramusio, to approach Bembo. Bembo answered on 21 June 1529 that he considered history the most difficult of literary works because of the style, which has to be learned, pure, and rich, and the prudence, which is the basis of good history. He is very much removed from that life of public action, which is a large part of history, because his choice of a life of scholarship and his ecclesiastical position separate him from it. He is also old, and this is a job for someone in the prime of life, not for a man with white hair. It would involve much research, collecting the writings of others. He would like to continue his

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quiet life but if Venice wants him to do this, he cannot deny his country, which he loves as much as those who govern it. He will not accept any money – a very generous statement considering his grave financial difficulties – but he will take the house they offer, because he has no place of his own in Venice (T III, 988). For some reason or other it took the Serenissima more than a year to make the official appointment, which is recorded in Sanuto’s diary on 26 September 153033 when the Senate already knew that Bembo would accept its offer. On 29 September Bembo sent his official letter of acceptance, “despite the fact that my studies are dearer to me and more pleasing than every dignity and grandeur.” He will come to Venice as soon as he has finished the work in hand (T III, 1152) – or recovered from his poisoning, about which the Senate was also informed? Because he did not turn up immediately there was apparently some catty comment that he would not do the work. Therefore, on 19 October 1530, Bembo wrote to Ramusio that he will come to Venice as soon as the duke of Milan leaves and the festivities are over (T III, 1166). He expects to stay there a month or two to collect material for forty-five years of history (T III, 1168). He stayed at first at an inn (T III, 1192 of 3 February 1531) but from April 1531 rented the house of the late Carlo Valier.34 However, he never resettled in Venice, but only went there when his research or other responsibilities required his presence. As soon as Bembo accepted the formal appointment as historian he was also appointed the Republic’s librarian by a decree of the Council of Ten on 30 September 1530. The jobs of historian and librarian went together. His predecessors Marcantonio Sabellico and Andrea Navagero had held both.35 The national collection of the Republic of St Mark was called the Nicene library because its core, which made it the most famous library in Europe, consisted of books bequeathed in 1468 by the Greek Archbishop of Nicaea, who was known as Cardinal Bessarion in the west. There were other important donations, but unfortunately Petrarch’s books, which he had left to Padua and which might therefore have come to Venice when Padua became part of the Republic, were carried off to Pavia when Gian Galeazzo Visconti captured Padua in 1388. Nevertheless the French scholar, Budé, compared the Nicene library with the great library of Alexandria.36 When Bembo took over the Nicene library it was still stored in chests in a room in the doge’s palace. On 5 May 1515 the Senate had decreed that a sumptuous building should be erected for the library across the piazzetta from the palace and in 1520 it had appointed Sansovino as architect.37 However nothing was done about the proposed new building until Bembo made a plea to the doge for a worthy home for the collection. Thus on 22

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May 1532, the Procurators of St Mark’s were summoned to the Serenissima to discuss the project. Bembo was at that meeting where it was decided that they would construct a public library, to be built in Sansovino’s classical style, in harmony with his plans for the Zecca on the sea front and the Loggetta at the base of the Campanile on the piazza San Marco.38 Bembo had already, as a first step, had the books removed from the boxes in the doge’s palace and transferred to three rooms in St Mark’s, above the narthex, behind the bronze horses. On 21 February 1531 Bembo had asked Ramusio to arrange the removal of the books to St Mark’s, then he would come to Venice (T III, 1202, 1203). On the order of the Great Council the Procurators of St Mark’s then had a staircase built, giving private access to the library from the vestibule of the church.39 Now Bembo, as historian and librarian, was treated as a celebrity in Venice. Sanuto records that on 24 December 1530 Bembo was one of the doge’s guests at dinner with the ambassadors of the Empire, France, Milan, and Ferrara, and other important people. After dinner the doge, dressed in crimson velvet and wearing a fur-lined crimson satin cloak, led the procession to St Mark’s where they heard mass. The church was splendidly decorated with great candelabra and fat candles Then, on 26 December the doge, dressed in gold and wearing a crimson satin cloak, and accompanied by the ambassadors and Pietro Bembo, went to mass at San Giorgio Maggiore. After mass they all returned to the palace for lunch. Each was served a pheasant and a partridge and they were at the table until 22 hours. Afterwards there was music and dancing.40 But despite his celebrity status Bembo was poor. A letter he wrote from Padua on 25 February 1531 to his nephew Gian Matteo Bembo in Venice, reveals how financially strapped he was at this time when he had taken on two unpaid jobs in the service of the Republic. His friend, Dr Girolamo of Gubbio, who had lent him 300 scudi, wants his money back because of his daughter’s marriage. Bembo has arranged to borrow that sum from Messer Renier Beltrame against silver of that value. Gian Matteo must not tell Ramusio or anyone else about this. Bembo’s servant Bietto will take the silver and bring back the 300 scudi. In addition he will have some money to pay for a present for the doctor’s daughter. Bembo asks his nephew to buy a small silver chest with a padlock and silver key for six or seven ducats for him to give to her. Bietto will also buy wood and wine. Bembo goes on about other financial problems, then promises that he will come to Venice as soon as all the books have been moved (T III, 1203). Francesco Sansovino, the architect’s publisher son, said that the books were not well looked after in St Mark’s and that some went astray, others were transcribed, and still others stolen.41 The books remained there until the new library was completed in 1558.

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Bembo’s value to the library was as a mover. He left Ramusio, the secretary to the Senate, and a scholar who wrote three great folio volumes on Navigations and Voyages,42 in everyday charge of the library, issuing general instructions from Padua. Borrowers should sign receipts for books and leave a deposit of twice the value of the book, as Cardinal Bessarion had originally stipulated (T III, 1272, 1286, 1311; IV, 2223, 2230). The number of times that Bembo repeated this order reveals Ramusio’s laxity. Books cannot be lent outside the Republic of Venice, but there is a good copying service available at the library (T III, 1283) and all books can be transcribed because Cardinal Bessarion wanted his books to be widely available to scholars. This last aroused a protest from one of the Venetian officials because the existence of copies would reduce the value of the manuscripts.43 Though it is true that books had gone astray and were stolen, Bembo energetically went after them, writing to the highest authorities to compel the culprits to return them. On 2 April 1531 Bembo wrote to the governor of Bologna, Monsignor Bernardino Castellario, asking him to arrange the return of a very ancient and good copy of Euclid which was part of the library of Cardinal Bessarion and given by him to St Mark’s. He writes in the name of the Procurators of St Mark and in his own name, as newly appointed librarian (T III, 1215). When that letter had produced no result after a year, Bembo sent the new governor of Bologna, Francesco Guicciardini, a letter from the doge asking him to order a student in Bologna to return a Greek Euclid and some writings of Ptolemy, which had been borrowed by a friend’s father and passed on. Guicciardini had said that he could not be sure that it was the right book but Bembo assured him that the doge did not write lightly and that the Procurators of St Mark’s had proof (T III, 1338). Bembo noted the return of the Euclid on the guard sheet of the manuscript on 14 October 1532.44 Another book Bembo got back was a commentary on Aristotle’s logic which Nicolò Leonico Tomeo, professor of eloquence at Padua, had had on loan since 1501. Bembo noted on the guard sheet the day it came back into the collection, 5 March 1531.45 Bembo also felt a scholarly concern about the quality of transcriptions of library books. He had lent the general of the Augustinians a Greek Eusebius he had had transcribed. The scribe had found three or four pages in the text which he thought were incorrect or false. Therefore Bembo asked Ramusio to arrange for the scribe to see another version so that he could correct these passages if need be. This could be done in the library itself. He asked Ramusio to arrange this quickly because the general was leaving in a few days (T III, 1273 of 27 August 1531). Bembo also worked on a catalogue of the collection (T III, 1311 of 2 December 1531), which the Procurators eventually bound in crimson satin and kept in the library (T III, of 21 January 1535).

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The Libreria Marciana, built by Jacopo Sansovino under Bembo’s librarianship.

Sansovino did not begin work on the new library until 1537 and it was not completed until after Bembo’s death but Bembo, as one would expect, took a keen interest in it, and when Sansovino asked for alternative ideas for the roof, Bembo sent various sketches from Rome.46 Now Bembo devoted himself wholeheartedly to his history. On 19 January 1531 he wrote to Sadoleto in Carpentras an affectionate, nostalgic letter from one old Latin scholar to another.47 He thanks Sadoleto for his letter and is pleased that he likes Bembo’s writings which he has sent in both Latin and Italian. Bembo is glad that Sadoleto has not forgotten their studies together when, as adolescents fired by a love of literature, there was nothing they did not have a go at. He is glad that Sadoleto is enjoying

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France and is able to write. He eagerly read his theological work on the letters to the Romans but, although Sadoleto is eminent in this discipline, Bembo wishes that he would return to his old field, more robust and lively, in which, with less toil, he will gain greater glory. But what one writes depends more on chance and fortune than anything else. He finds himself writing a history, something he had never thought of doing, but which now occupies his thoughts day and night (T III, 1186). Bembo visited Venice from time to time for his research and at times asked to have books sent to Padua. In one letter to his nephew Gian Matteo, requesting Giustiano’s History and Marcello’s Chronicle, his relative poverty is again apparent. He asks Gian Matteo to send a belt of the kind he wears because the only one he has is torn (T III, 1195 of 4 February 1531). By March 1531 Bembo had already completed his introduction to the history. Since the pope had asked about it, he sent a copy to Vettor Soranzo in Rome to show to the pope, who must return it without making a copy. In an age when the piracy of literary works was rampant Bembo was wary. In this letter, as in so many others, Bembo reports ill health. This time he has a bad chill and some fever, but thinks that it is just a cold (T III, 1214). On 7 August 1531 Bembo wrote to the doge, Andrea Gritti. Last winter he had seen Marino Sanuto’s histories and wanted to borrow them, but Sanuto had refused to surrender his life’s work. Bembo had thought that he could manage without them, but had found that he really needed them for information not contained in the records of the Senate. He therefore asks the doge to use his authority to have Sanuto’s histories turned over to him. He will return them safe and sound (T III, 1267). When he received no reply from the doge, on 2 September Bembo wrote to the Council of Ten which had commissioned him. He was now working most of the time on the history (T III, 1275). This letter produced action. On 23 September 1531 Bembo wrote to Sanuto about the pleasure he felt at the news that the Republic had rewarded him for his long labours. He accepts Sanuto’s offer of his history, but would like to discuss it with him (T III, 1289). At about the same time he went after Sanuto’s diaries Bembo wrote to Ramusio about papers from Andrea Navagero’s research which he had heard had remained with the family (T III, 1291 of 24 September 1531). Andrea’s brother, Bartolommeo, replied a month later, offering the papers (T III, 1296). By 26 December Bembo was able to write to his friend Gabriele Avolta, general of the Augustinians, that he had completed the first book of the history. It had not taken long to write, but the research was time-consuming (T III, 1317). By the following May Bembo had written up the first eight years,48 then he took some time off, “distracted and hindered by other cares.” Judging by the date of this letter to Sadoleto, 9 August 1532, I suspect that Bembo had

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been preoccupied with his long-awaited move into the house he had purchased in Padua. Now he had returned to his history (T III, 1406). In a later letter to Sadoleto of 25 April 1533, Bembo wrote that he had completed three books of the history of Venice. He regretted that the pope did not recall Sadoleto to Rome so that they could enjoy one another’s company sometimes, but the pope does not value outstanding men as he should (T III, 1489). Bembo could no longer write sonnets. He felt far from the vulgar Muse (T III, 1569 of 27 May 1534). By 8 June 1534 Bembo had five books of the history to send to the heads of the Council of Ten. The history covered seventeen quires. He had also eight quires of notes, which he was not sending (T III, 1575). No one should keep the history, just look at it (T III, 1577). Finally Bembo received Sanuto’s books with instructions not to show them to anyone. Sanuto was as eager as Bembo to protect his copyright. Sanuto had also asked Bembo to include him in his history. Bembo said that he would when he could, at least when he came to the time when the Senate discussed Sanuto’s works and rewarded him (T III, 1589 of 11 July 1534). On 15 September 1534 Bembo wrote from his villa to his nephew, Gian Matteo, about the section of the history he was working on. To appreciate Bembo’s scruples as a patriotic Venetian historian one needs to know that since 1526 Bembo had been engaged in litigation with the Loredano family over water for his flour mill at the villa.49 In his letter Bembo told Gian Matteo that he had spent these last days at the villa honouring Loredano, whose dogeship he was describing. He has given him a speech to the Great Council ... the major part of which he had never thought of saying – Bembo seems to have been following Thucydides’s example in writing history. Since he has received injury from that family, he is not embellishing its achievements, which do not amount to anything anyway, but he felt that he had to honour the doge. Then Bembo goes on to complain that people do not appreciate the effort he is making in writing this history for the Republic. All his thoughts, all his hours, night and day are devoted to it (T III, 1611). Bembo continued working on the history year after year, but as he wrote to Sadoleto on 9 January 1535, practical problems ate up a lot of his time. He was only a third of the way through his history (T III, 1655). On 13 June 1535 he wrote to his friend Carlo Gualteruzzi in Rome about various problems with his benefices and Gualteruzzi’s son Goro’s education then added that he needed a secretary. He had fired the one he had because he was morose, and he had taken another one, a nice young man who does not know grammar and makes mistakes in his writing. If there is one with good handwriting and some learning, he asks Gualteruzzi to get him for him. He needs someone to write his letters and his history (T III, 1692).

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The picture which emerges from his letters of Bembo’s life as a country gentleman is timeless. He could be writing about country life in England in any period from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. There is the same proccupation with weather and crops, with horses and dogs, with gifts of seasonal produce, with hospitality, family, and friends. On “what I believe is 16 May 1528,” that is, before he was commissioned to write the history of Venice, Bembo had written to his friend, Vettor Soranzo, in Venice: See how little I have to do when I am writing these lines only so that you can tell Mad. Cecilia, my aunt, that I have had a very good nightingale for the last four days who delights me all day long with his sweetest song and he sings more enthusiastically when I am nearer to him and look at him. I know when she’s here and hears him she will envy me and I guess that she will come more willingly to my house to hear this most affectionate and sweetest little bird ... I hope it won’t be necessary for me to send my little family away ... because these cursed Germans are going away towards Peschiera, from which they are not very far away according to the latest news ... we’ll know exactly tomorrow or the day after. (T II, 881)

In another year, on 26 March 1530, Bembo wrote to Soranzo in Bologna that he had been in the villa for three days with great pleasure, because of the superb weather. No one remembers its having been so beautiful at this time of year. The roads are dry, the sky cloudless, the air warm. Almost all the trees are already in green leaf, giving shade against the sun, which is already hot and not yet in the north. Yesterday, Lady Day, he had some large almonds picked in the garden ... and some strawberries, very ripe and very plump, which, in this plain, is a novelty. He believes that Monte Arquato, which is where the earliest fruit and vegetables come from in this area, has not yet sent any into the city. The vines, which have not yet been pruned, are already in leaf. The swallows have been here for a good number of days and one hears the turtle dove, the nightingale, and the cuckoo. Then he goes on about benefice problems (T III, 1065). Bembo sent a servant to Venice from time to time to do some shopping, sometimes for basics for the villa like barley and wood,50 sometimes for household equipment like torches, candles,51 and table napkins, twentyfour of them, which Gian Matteo was to select, though he had no money to pay for them now, in this difficult year (1531).52 From time to time he made one-off requests for artichoke seeds, onions, those big black mussels which used to be a winter treat, sugared fresh melon seeds.53 On 29 May 1529 he asked Gian Matteo to find him an embroidered white silk fan.54 Later he ordered four medium-sized fans from the Levant and four small ones for ladies, also Levantine.55 He asked Gian Matteo to see if a bookseller in the Merceria still had a damascened astrolabe which he had seen

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in the window. He did, and Bembo eventually bought it.56 Bembo frequently ordered various kinds of cloth, only once specifying its purpose, white silk and a light-weight black cloth for doublet and hose.57 Apart from constantly instructing Gian Matteo on how to act in his financial affairs, he also sent him to chivy the metal worker at the Rialto about the bronze feet for his table.58 Bembo’s shopping lists throw light on his way of life. One gleans even more from the gifts he gave and received. Bembo sent friends casks of wine,59 strawberries and a kid,60 onion vinegar made to his own recipe,61 and various medicines.62 Apart from the previously mentioned silver casket for the doctor’s daughter in Gubbio, he refers to only one other present to be bought in Venice.63 His gifts, apart from his books and the medal he commissioned, were produce from his farm. Most of the presents he received were similar: cheeses, hams, sausages, tongues and quince jam from Count Lando whose son Bembo had been educating in his house64 as well as table cloths from the Countess, Costanza Fregoso, the former girl friend from Urbino days;65 poles for vines and melon seeds;66 citrus trees for his garden and ivies;67 strawberries;68 strawberries and partridges, which he enjoyed for carnival;69 partridges;70 asparagus;71 two kids which he received on Holy Saturday, big and fat like two little calves;72 pomegranates;73 oysters of incomparable flavour, and so many he could invite friends to enjoy the feast – they also cured him of a cold and insomnia;74 health-giving anchovies.75 Only a few things were manufactured. On 20 July 1532 his old friend from Urbino, Federigo Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, sent him some very beautiful silver medals, presumably antique, two beautiful table cloths with a dozen table napkins and some cheeses.76 A couple of years later, on 31 October 1534, Fregoso sent Bembo a most beautiful gift, a chest of little dishes from Urbino, probably maiolica ware, which Bembo would save until Fregoso visited as he has promised.77 The Venetian ambassador to France sent him some cloth78 and a Venetian administrator who had just returned from a magistry sent a very beautiful bird, presumably a falcon or some other bird of prey. Bembo looks forward to his visit in a few days.79 Later a friend in Pesaro, who supplied him with hunting dogs, sent him first a present of nets and a gilded spear, then some beautiful spurs.80 With good horses and fine dogs Bembo was well equipped for the hunt. Finally Ramusio, the secretary of the Senate and administrator of the library, sent Bembo some books, apparently as a New Year’s gift: Cicero’s newly published Orations as well as two books in Italian which were as welcome as a fine horse worth 200 ducats. Bembo believes that Ramusio had had the Italian books translated from Spanish. The translation is good, but there is an error. “They advanced more than 7000 leagues” cannot be right because that is almost the circuit of the earth. It must be 700. Ramusio should have

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the unsold copies corrected (T III, 1658 of 21 January 1535). Bembo took a great interest in Spanish explorations in the New World and wrote about them in his history. The most charming gift was the two jars of delicately flavoured lemon sweets the general of the Augustinians sent Bembo, followed by a jar of the most precious pink sugar. The general obviously had a sweet tooth, the small indulgence of a conscientious priest. Bembo told him that he should not send so much. He still had a good part of the sweets he had sent the previous year, in fact, almost all. Nevertheless, he gives the greatest thanks for such unusual and delicate gifts. He is glad that the rebuilding of the monastery is progressing splendidly. He wishes that he could enjoy his friend’s conversation, which would give him more pleasure than the shade on the banks of his cool little stream in this very great heat (T III, 1113 of 20 June 1530). Unfortunately the shady banks of his cool little stream were infested with mosquitoes. In his next letter to the general, of 8 August 1530, in which he thanks him for his four boxes of confectionery and his little box of manna Calabrese and masticina,81 Bembo tells him that he has had a fierce double tertian fever which lasted twelve days. It is over now. He is up and walking in the house and making an effort to regain strength. He invites the general to visit him in Padua to get away from his building works (T III, 1127). In a letter of 26 August 1530 Bembo tells his old friend, Trifon Gabriele, who is suffering from a quartan fever, that he has recovered now and hopes to be able to ride to see him in ten to fifteen days’ time (T III, 1133). Bembo was very hospitable and was constantly inviting people to stay with him in Padua or at the villa.82 Some people brought their own mattresses, as he had taken his bed to Rome in 1524,83 and even left them behind. On 17 September 1531 Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo about the Mocenigo mattress which had been left at his house. He had sent Madonna Isabetta Mocenigo her mattress cover along with two measures of beans from Villanova. She had returned it to him along with a sweet millet cake she had baked herself. Messer Antonio Mocenigo had also been very good to him. Bembo had had their mattress weighed. It weighs 200 pounds. He asks Gian Matteo to pay Messer Antonio for it as soon as some money comes in (T III, 1285). Part of Bembo’s hospitality involved the provision of horses. Most Venetians, in their aquatic city, did not own horses, although horses could be ridden in Venice – the Rialto bridge was stepped for that purpose. Bembo always kept a few in Padua, however, which he lent to Venetians going to other cities in the Terrafirma and which he sent to pick up friends.84 Padua itself was accessible from Venice by water. On 22 March 1527 Bembo wrote to Nicolò Tiepolo about Gasparo Contarini’s request for two mounts to go to Verona. Bembo will be glad to lend the horses. He may have the

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The Porta Portella in Padua, the river gate for Venice.

Turchetto, which is a nice horse and respectable in every situation. The other will be a hackney or the dappled grey which Bembo usually rides himself and which Tiepolo had ridden, whichever Contarini prefers. All that he possesses is at his friend’s disposition. He just needs a day’s notice because he might be in the villa and he would have to send the horses to Padua (T II, 754). The following year his nephew’s brother-in-law, Bernardino Belegno, whose marriage he had arranged, sent Bembo a couple of Turkish horses (T II, 907) and a couple of years later he was given a horse by his sometime boarder, Count Agostino Lando (T III,1364). Bembo particularly valued Turkish horses. When Gian Matteo was made Count of Zara and governor of the colony in Dalmatia, Bembo asked him to look for a good and fine-looking Turkish horse for him, not an old one, and let him know what it would cost (T III, 1679). In a letter of a couple of months later, sending

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condolences on the death of one of Gian Matteo’s little boys – it was God’s will and, anyway, God has given him so many others (not the way Bembo reacted to his own bereavement) Bembo, ever absorbed by his own concerns, reminded him of the horse (T III, 1694). Bembo also looked after horses for friends. On 12 May 1529 he wrote to Vettor Soranzo that his dappled horse would recover but would not be what it was. Therefore, since the horse is now in good health and has put on weight, he will arrange its sale, because the cost of the maintenance of a horse is not insignificant (T III, 967). On 26 February 1530 Bembo wrote to his nephew to tell his brother-in-law, Bernardino, that he has not been able to sell his horse, though he has shown it to many gentlemen. Frankly, it is a big nag. All the same, it looks better than ever (T III, 1046). Then, on 18 June, Bembo wrote that he had sold the horse at a good price, more than it was worth (T III, 1112). Bembo was also concerned about the condition of the horses on the properties he administered. On 21 July 1535 he wrote to Cola, who was looking after Villanova for him, to have the horses seen to. The grey has been so badly looked after that it will require an effort to restore him. His feet are almost ruined, and he has lost all his fine bearing (T III, 1703). Dogs were an even greater concern to Bembo. He always had one as a pet and, egoist that he was, he called as many as three of these Bembino: the one he gave to Maria, the one he left behind in Venice when he returned to Rome in 1520 after his illness in the north, and what was possibly a third, a puppy whose epitaph he wrote: Your master did give you something, Bembino, my puppy, Whose name you bear: a tomb and tears. Carmina XXXVIII

Dogs in Bembo’s letters are almost always hunting dogs, usually for use with nets, but sometimes bird dogs. Occasionally there is a bitch for breeding.85 As with horses, Bembo first sought hunting dogs from across the Adriatic,86 but later he turned to the duchy of Urbino,87 an easier source. Bembo, usually so hard up, was willing to pay any price for a dog he really wanted,88 but he was also willing to use bargaining tactics to get one cheaper.89 There could be mishaps in the delivery of dogs. In his letter about the dog at any price from Pesaro, Bembo urges his friend to be sure to send it with somebody who is completely reliable. A dog he had ordered from another part of the country had been replaced with a substitute. Dognapping is not new in Italy. At the same time Bembo had ordered twelve fine greyhound leashes made of deer hide from Urbino.90 There is an interesting correspondence about dogs between Bembo and the engraver Valerio Belli, who made Bembo’s first medal. Apparently Belli,

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who lived in Vicenza, relied on Bembo to supply him with dogs. On 6 February 1530 Bembo wrote that he was upset that the dog had not turned out to be what Belli wanted. About the red bitch, it is not his, but belongs to a lady who has raised it since it was weaned and Belli would not believe how attached to it she is. Once he had wanted to take it to give it to Agostino Angiolello but he could not do it because she was so unhappy and gave the bitch to him so tearfully. But, if Bembo should breed her, he would give Belli a puppy, and it would be a good one, because he would not leave a stone unturned to please his friend.91 Two years later Bembo was able to keep his word. On 12 March 1532 he wrote that he now had a male puppy from that bitch. His tail is not docked yet. If Belli wants him, he will send him.92 In the meantime Bembo had sent him an ugly, but good greyhound, if those from whom he got him were telling the truth. He told Belli to try the dog out. If he liked him he should keep him, otherwise return him. His name was Turco.93 Bembo gave dogs as presents, but he also received them quite rapturously.94 And, never shy about asking for something he wanted, Bembo also solicited the gift of a dog he liked. On 13 September 1529, after Navagero’s death, Bembo wrote to Ramusio asking him if he thought that Navagero’s brothers would be upset if he asked for Andrea’s little white dog. If Ramusio thinks that they would not be bothered by the request, would he please ask for it for him.95 One could imagine that Bembo made this request to have a memento of his old friend, and that he was really attached to the dog. But Bembo was always so acquisitive that one can suspect that he had just spotted the opportunity to get an attractive dog free. Apart from breeding dogs and boarding horses, Bembo also made wine at his villa and tried to mill flour. In a letter of 25 November 1531 to a friend in Pesaro, who supplied him with dogs and had sent a handsome pair of spurs, Bembo wrote that he was sending him a cask of wine. Unfortunately, this is not a good year, and he is afraid that the sea voyage may damage it, because weak wines do not travel so well as stronger ones.96 His mill problem, however, lack of sufficient water, was not just the function of one bad year. It was to go on for fifteen. The Loredani had mills up river from Bembo and took what he felt was more than their fair share of water, so that he did not get enough to turn his water wheels. He lodged a complaint, and constantly pressed for a judgment, with the much put-upon Gian Matteo regularly dispatched to some official or other. After twentyfour letters over fifteen years 97 the case finally went against him. By that time Bembo was a cardinal and resigned to accepting the will of God, though he was convinced that the Forty had done him an injustice (T IV, 2238). Most of the letters about the villa describe it idyllically, the perfumes of spring and summer, the song of the nightingales, the welcome shade, the

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purling stream, and the freedom that it gives him to do what he wants, to read, write or fish. Then there was a village fête. In a letter of 27 June 1530 Bembo asked his nephew to buy a mirror and two combs for two to twoand-a-half lire as prizes for the dancing, and something else for a lady of the same price, perhaps a coloured belt. He also wants six lire of anis sweets or some other nice flavour, all to be sent immediately (T III, 1118). Despite his generosity to the villagers, some that autumn want him to pay the communal wagon tax on a courtyard and peasant’s house which belong to him in the village. Such a demand has never been made in fifty years. On 9 October he wrote in protest to the governor of the local district [Citadella] complaining about the malice of country folk. Perhaps if this continual rain ever stops he will come to visit the governor and tell him about it (T III, 1159). Bembo had been complaining about the rain from the sixth of October, when the roads were already flooded and he had had to send a trap for Cola at Villanova with two horses instead of one because of the heavy going (T III, 1157). There were also damaging droughts. On 18 October 1528 Bembo wrote to a friend in Ancona, for whom he had got a benefice from Cardinal Egidio, telling him of the deaths of three of his servants in these sinister times, when it is a marvel if anyone survives. Now that the season of fevers is passing, as well as the plague, which has terrified rather than harmed Padua, he is going to the villa tomorrow to restore his wood, which has suffered from the endless heat of the summer. He has lost some chestnuts and little oaks. The ivies Crispolino sent have covered a fine big pavilion. He has also put the little pergola to ivy, the one at the end of the garden, made of larch well planted and chambered. He thinks that it will be very beautiful in two or three years (T II, 914). There were also the more serious troubles everyone faces. Morosina and the children got measles (T III, 1133). He and Morosina took turns at being ill. Lucilio was seriously ill one August and recovered (T III, 1266). The following August he died, eight years of age, in a single night, and left his parents devastated (T III, 1408 of 23 August 1532). His mother, already ill when he died (T III, 1410), did not recover for months (T III, 1419). August, with its fevers, tended to be a fatal month throughout Italy. Life went on as usual, with negotiations over benefices carried on by Gualteruzzi in Rome and over Venetian taxes by Gian Matteo in Venice. Gian Matteo was forced to act as a general dogsbody, even being sent, as his proxy, to a meeting of the provincial chapter of Bembo’s Order, called by the prior of Venice, for 8 September 1530. Bembo’s excuse was that he had not yet recovered sufficiently from his illness to travel – that was the summer he was poisoned. Gian Matteo should hear mass and what the prior says, and promise that Bembo will not fail in his duty. He is sure they only want money (T III, 1136). In the same letter Gian Matteo was

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Gian Matteo Bembo’s house, Campiello di Santa Maria Nova 5999, Venice.

instructed to send a bundle of writings to Gualteruzzi in Rome with the enclosed covering letter. The papers should be heat-sealed in a waxed cloth to protect them against rain. Gian Matteo should make a deal with the courier about costs and put the money in the letter for Gualteruzzi (T III, 1137). Gian Matteo had, in addition, to oversee the publication and distribution of the second edition of Bembo’s Rime, which appeared in 1535. He had to send samples of possible print faces (T III, 1458, 1459, 1480), each day’s printed pages for proof-reading (T III, 1638), then send off copies as instructed (T III, 1638). And Gian Matteo was by no means a simple clerk in the Venetian civil service. He was following the cursus honorum in the Venetian administration and rising steadily. He was sent to Dalmatia in 1532 (T III, 1346) and, by 1534, he was a colonial governor and Count of

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Zara (T III, 1616). Still, when he was in Venice, he often received peremptory commands to act in Bembo’s interests and was even, at times, accused of being dilatory, as though he had nothing else in the world to do. Then, when he was in Dalmatia, he was expected to look out for Turkish horses for his uncle (T III, 1679). Bembo spent some time in Venice off and on even before he became official historian and was given a house. He was there for business for two months in early 1529 before his appointment (T III, 931). He also seems to have had free run of Andrea Navagero’s villa on Murano, with its famous garden, while Navagero was on a diplomatic mission in Spain. He wrote Navagero on 7 April 1526 that he had spent fifteen days at his villa and enjoyed it so much that he regretted leaving. He was glad to hear that Navagero was so well spoken of on his first mission and sends his greetings to Castiglione who was with him in Spain (T II, 668). Two years later Bembo wrote to Ramusio, asking him to buy him a Greek dictionary and send it by the courier tomorrow. He was thinking of going to Murano for eight days (T II, 872). In Le piacevoli notti, a collection of stories on the Decameron model set in Murano, probably in the 1530s, Straparola has Bembo tell one of the stories. He is described as a member of the court of a lady called Lucrezia whose father, a Milanese bishop, had fled to Venice from political enemies and occupied a beautiful palace on Murano. The court consisted of ten lovely damsels, two matrons as chaperones, and many noble and learned men, including Pietro Bembo, Knight of the Grand Master of Rhodes. On the last days of carnival Lucrezia proposed a form of entertainment. Every evening there would be a dance, then five damsels would sing, then courtiers would be chosen by lot to tell stories. There were twelve nights with five stories each. On the thirteenth night there were thirteen stories. Mostly romantic, with fantastic adventures in exotic settings, the stories usually ended in a wedding. On the third night Lady Lucrezia ordered Trivigiano to take up the lute, Molina the viola and that all should take part in a round dance, with Bembo leading the carol. Then the damsels sang a canzone before the storytelling began. On the tenth night, after the dance, Lady Lucrezia asked Bembo to sing a song. He sang “Mancato è quell’umor e quell’ardore,” a lyric about failing powers, which is not one of those included in his Rime and may not be one of his. Bembo’s singing pleased everyone marvellously. On the eleventh night the first story was the first known version of Puss in Boots. Then, on the thirteenth night, it was Bembo’s lot to tell the third story. It was an illustration of a moral point, like some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, appropriate to a man of the cloth and an aspirant cardinal: A Spaniard and a German were eating in an osteria. The Spaniard, as he ate, gave his servant a piece of the chicken. The German ate silently. Both

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The Arsenal, Venice.

servants said that the Spaniard was more generous than the German but, when the German had finished, he gave the rest of the platter, with all kinds of food in it, to his servant. Then the servants said that the German was more generous. No one is content with his lot. The Piacevole notti were published in installments in Venice in 1550 and 1553 and were very popular. A number of these tales were translated into English in Painter’s Palace of Pleasure of 1566.98 Bembo was devoted to Venice once he had received his freedom from the onerous responsibilities of his social class. In 1529 he was very excited at the news that a young Greek scholar, Victor Fausto, had designed a fast ship with five banks of oars like the Romans had (T III, 972), and he was thrilled by the account of the race with the triremes in front of the doge and Senate, when even the doge shed tears of joy. Fausto, a man of letters who teaches Greek in Venice on a public salary and had never built a ship before this, should be made master of the Arsenal, despite his youth (T III, 975).

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In 1532 Bembo was worried about the Turkish advances in the Balkans. Now Venice has imposed new taxes and loans which will cost him 500 florins. For once he was not complaining. He wonders if they are worrying in Rome (T III, 1332). Bembo had already, after the Turkish victory at Mohacz in 1526, urged the pope, in a sonnet, to take up the sword against the Turks who had crossed the Danube and whose bows had destroyed Rhodes and Hungary (Rime CIX). Bembo took a general interest in Venetian publishing. With Ramusio he discussed Giunta’s plan to republish the Decameron (without a good manuscript source), Giunta’s great project of a complete Livy, the old Tuscan poets, and Cicero’s Orations. Giunta should worry about accuracy and beauty without worrying about expense and consider the proportions of the margins to the pages. Then he will be able to sell for sixty ducats what he could not sell for six (T III, 1474; see also 1475). Bembo was consulted on the request of a Venetian who had applied for a licence to set up a printing press in Rome. He could only provide support if he would promise to publish nothing against the pope, the Apostolic See, the faith or the Republic of Venice. In the same letter Bembo discusses a pirated edition of Le prose on sale in Rome. It contains many errors and it is important that the text should be accurate. He asks Gualteruzzi to complain to the authority which can order its confiscation because of breach of the copyright granted by the pope (T III, 1503). But Bembo is now no longer so insecure about his reputation and in a subsequent letter to Soranzo in Rome, he asks him to tell Gualteruzzi not to bother if it is a lot of trouble (T III, 1509). In Venice Bembo also looked into Vittoria Colonna’s investments. She had put about 20,000 ducats into the Zecca at 8 per cent and wanted to know how the money had been invested, how her investments were doing, and their current value. Inquiries should be discrete (T III, 1499). Then Pietro Raguseo attempted to recruit Bembo into alchemy. On 8 May 1533 he answered that he was content to live on what God had given him, without looking for more. He does not want to become rich. Moreover, he thinks that alchemists are wasting their time (T III, 1492). Churches throughout Italy incorporated pieces of Roman sculpture and Roman stones. Even in Venice, which had never been a Roman city, Bembo’s friend, Luigi Priuli, had spotted an ancient vase being used as a support for a basin of holy water. He spoke to the priest, and was told that he could have it if he provided a stone column in its place. Priuli turned to Bembo and Bembo to Gian Matteo, who was instructed to find a stone mason and have the job done. In the same letter he also told Gian Matteo to find a new printer for the second edition of Rime if the current one cannot produce a better type face than the one he has sent. Bembo would like to see more samples (T III, 1458).

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Many people turned to Bembo for help. In 1533 the nuns of St Mark’s monastery in Padua wanted to elect a much-honoured and elderly nun, the illegitimate daughter of a Venetian nobleman, to be their abbess. Bembo wrote to Gualteruzzi in Rome to get the necessary dispensation (T III, 1467) and Gualteruzzi solved the problem for them (T III, 1471). The duke of Urbino wanted Latin inscriptions for his palazzo being rebuilt by Girolamo Genga, the Villa Imperiale near Pesaro. On 28 July 1533 Bembo sent texts for the frieze at the top of the house on the garden side, for the arch connecting the old house to the new one, for the ancient bronze Bacchus found on site, as well as a distych for the statue of the duke. Bembo explained the thinking behind each inscription (T III, 1506). Bembo always retained close connections with the duchy of Urbino. He not only turned there for dogs, but also for personnel. On 17 October 1534 he wrote to a friend in the duchy, Pietro Pamphilio, asking him to find him a seneschal or master of the house. He likes people from there, their courteous speech and quick-wittedness. He leaves the salary up to Pamphilio. He will pay the going rate (T III, 1620). Pamphilio did not find anyone quickly. Bembo wrote him again, on 29 March 1535, that he had found someone himself (T III, 1673). Back at the villa Bembo continued making improvements. On 8 September 1534 he wrote to Cola at Villanova that he was building a stable for the millers and collaborating with neighbours to make two or three wicker reinforcements to the banks of the Brenta, an expensive job (T III, 1608). He sent other news. Barbarossa’s armada of twenty-two sail was returning to Barbary, pursued by Andrea Doria with twenty-five galleys from Genoa. His next letter to Cola spoke of the continuous rain that had kept him from roofing the stable at the mill and also the mill itself, which needs a complete new cover (T III, 1613 of 16 September 1534). In the summer of 1534 both the pope and Morosina were seriously ill in “the almost intolerable heat.” On 16 August Bembo wrote to Federigo Fregoso archbishop of Salerno, at Santa Agata in Vado near Castel Durante in the duchy of Urbino that the latest news from Rome suggests that the pope is going to die. If this happens, Fregoso would not be able to come to visit him. The roads would not be safe. Bembo would so like to see Fregoso, almost his only surviving old friend, certainly the surest and dearest (T III, 1601). In July the pope had been so ill that he had despaired of his life, taken communion, made his will, and given his precious possessions to Cardinal de’ Medici who had sent them to his room, which he had fortified. The cardinal had hired infantry and taken the keys to the pope’s rooms from his servants so that he himself could control who went in (T III, 1593). Such was the expected disorder on the death of a pope. Then Clement VII had made a sudden improvement (T III, 1597), then worsened again.

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A doctor’s visit, Libro d’oro Borromeo.

By 16 September 1534 Bembo could write that Morosina was much better, exceeding every hope, so that he will not have to send her to Padua. In this same letter he talks of the continuous rains, which presumably brought cooler weather, which may be helping her to recover. Bembo also tells Cola that the pope thinks that he is cured, but that the doctors do not dare affirm it because he has surprised them so many times (T III, 1613). On 29 September Bembo wrote to his nephew in Venice that they have heard that the pope has died. Morosina is with him in Padua and has a bestial and dangerous fever. “God will that she comes through” (T III, 1615). On 19 October 1534 Bembo wrote to the new pope, Alessandro Farnese, Paul III, on his joy at the news of his election. For twenty years he has admired the pope’s learning and his very great and innumerable gifts. All scholars are delighted. He is confident that the pope will steer the Church safely through turbulent times. And he is happy for Rome, which after more than one hundred years now has a Roman pope. He is sure that Paul will repair the damage done in the sack of the city, end internal wars in Christianity, and support classical studies (T III, 1621). This is presumably the revised version of the letter Bembo sent and which he asked the new chancellor, Bernardino Mafeo, to swop with the first one, returning the first to him (T III, 1622). Morosina remained seriously ill all autumn; many times Bembo thought that she would surely die. At the beginning she had a very high tempera-

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ture, then a very acute fever, with many kinds of pains and the loss of use of her hands and arms. This resisted treatment and lasted four months. Fortunately Bembo himself was well during this period, had got over all his old indispositions and felt very clearheaded and strong, though he wrote to Sadoleto that he cannot walk more than a mile now because he cannot trust his feet. He envies Sadoleto’s four miles, but then he is seven years younger (T III, 1661). Bembo was now almost sixty-five. In midwinter Morosina recovered, and by 29 January 1535 Bembo could say that she was not only alive, but almost completely well (T III, 1661). On 16 February Bembo wrote to Brother Antonio de Melano, the servant of Gabriele Avolta, the general of the Augustinians, thanking him for the excellent anchovies which he had taken away from the general because they were bad for him, since he had burning urine. He thanks him for the advice on how to season them and has enjoyed eating them. He gave one this morning to someone who is ill in his house – obviously Morosina – who ate it with relish, thinks it is beneficial, and will have two tomorrow. He asks Brother Antonio to think of him again if the general has any other things which are in danger of going off. Giving away the general’s foods which are forbidden by his doctors is not only a venial sin, but the flower of courtesy. Please do not let the general know that he has written (T III, 1663). In his letter of 24 April 1535 to Count Gian Matteo in Zara, Bembo tells his nephew that Morosina is getting well (T III, 1679), and in his letter to Cosmo Gheri of 4 May that she has clearly recovered (T III, 1681). On 6 August 1535 Morosina died.99 On 11 August 1535 Bembo responded to the letter of condolence from his friend, Trifon Gabriele. He had tried, as Gabriele had advised, to find consolation reading the ancient writers, but the memory flooded in of his loss of the sweetest soul, who had held his life much dearer than her own. She was so modest, so scornful of excessive embellishments and adornments, silks, gold, gems, and similar riches, being content and completely happy with only the love he bore her. That soul was clothed with the most beautiful, graceful, and delicate form, illuminated by the sweetest face and expression, full of all the graces that perhaps have been seen in this country in this age. He could not keep from grieving and railing against the stars which have deprived him of her and deprived her of enjoying such an innocent life, so deserving of lasting for ever, at least to honour with her goodness and her beauty all the other women who will have lived. Gabriele has told him that he should thank heaven that he was given such a beautiful and rare creature for so many years. He knows that Gabriele loved that beautiful and courageous lady, and how much he was loved and honoured by her. He understands Gabriele’s sorrow and at the same time accepts his advice to try to control his grief. Torquato and little Elena, the one a little boy, the other a little girl, have grieved more over the

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loss of their mother than he would have believed, and this has increased his grief. He will look after them. Morosina, dying, after her confession, with her failing voice, had said, “I entrust our children to you and I beg you to take care of them, both for you and for me. And be sure that they are yours, because I have never done anything wrong. So may our Lord God now receive my soul in peace,” and a little later she said, “Abide with God,” and shortly thereafter she closed those eyes which were two bright and faithful stars in the troubled course of his life (T III, 1708).

11 In a Changing World

As letters of condolence arrived for his loss of “a sweet and faithful companion ... a very tearful and bitter thing” (T III, 1753), Bembo faced the problem of single parenthood. The children grieved more intensely over the loss of their mother than he would have expected (T III, 1708). Elena was only seven, Torquato ten. Bembo himself was feeling weak and wearied (T III, 1712), but even in this crisis he struggled to provide for Torquato in the benefice lottery, while he sought a woman to look after Elena. He wrote to Gualteruzzi, asking him if he could find someone from Fano or Urbino, because of their speech (T III, 1723). Somewhere Bembo found a young woman called Lucia, for whom Elena developed a deep affection. Three years later, on 11 October 1538, Elena, now ten, wrote in Latin to her father in Venice that she was very well, but that Lucia “had much fever last night … I will not fail her with that loving and diligent care which I owe and which she has always used with me.”1 Three days later she wrote to her father again “yesterday morning Lucia took a medicine which had a very good effect and she is now wholly recovered from her malady, no more fever.” She added, “I, and the rest of the household, am well. M. Cola rode to Bologna this morning. M. Flaminio has remained to guard the house.”2 In Padua and at the villa Bembo had looked after his two children himself with the help of Cola, his old friend, retainer, and general factotum; Flaminio Tomarozzo, his secretary; various servants; and a tutor3 until Torquato was twelve. Twelve was the age when boys were usually sent away to school. In a letter of 5 February 1537, to his own former pupil and ex-boarder, Cosimo Gheri, bishop of Fano, Bembo wrote that “I’ve wanted to keep little Torquato still with me, rather than sending him away for his studies on wintry roads, but I will send him soon when the roads begin to be less muddy, for they are no longer frozen. His sister Helena whom you asked about is making wonderful progress in the rudiments of literature so

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that she is equal to her brother who is almost three years older than she is. She gets more beautiful day by day, a sweet little, lovely little girl, so that it seems that she will be in many ways exceptionally beautiful when she matures. Indeed her mother, Morosina, at Helena’s age showed much less promise, but how she developed I think you have not forgotten, although you saw her many times when her beauty was fading a little before she died at thirty-eight (T IV, 1826). In later letter Bembo told Cosimo that Torquato “is very cold about learning” (T IV, 1839, lls. 16–17). Three months later, on 15 May 1537, Bembo wrote to Gheri again from Padua: I thought of taking him to Mantua myself but, as I was starting out, I injured a foot, which held me up for twenty days and still causes me to limp and during this period Torquato fell ill with a fever. Now he’s better, so I am thinking of leaving in about a week when he can ride. You think that I am suffering from gout, as does everyone who knows about it and laughs as one always does, but it’s not gout, unless I’m mistaken. (T IV, 1839)

Finally, on 6 July 1537, Bembo wrote that he had taken Torquato to Mantua, to Benedetto Lampridio,4 who was taking him in as a son (T IV, 1858). With Torquato away at school, and Elena doing well at home with her tutor,5 Bembo now appears to have moved to Venice where he worked on his history, supervized the Marcian Library, and enjoyed the friendship of a new lady, Lisabetta Quirina Massola, the married cousin of his old friend, Girolamo Quirino. Elena had sent greetings to her in the two aforementioned letters of 1538. Bembo obviously took his small daughter with him to Venice from time to time and presented her to his friends who fussed over the little girl, pretty and precocious. Now Cola was back looking after the abbey at Villanova. Bembo asked him to check on Elena’s progress in Padua from time to time (T IV, 1969 of 12 November 1538). Elena continued to write her father reassuring letters from Padua: Father Luca is completely recovered and is still with us, along with Madonna Camilla, which gives us sweet and happy company ... I certainly, Monsignore, spend the greater part of my time either in reading, or in writing, or in sewing and I obey my governess and I never disobey her. You can hear the truth of this from Father Luca who sees all and does not know how to tell fibs.

This letter was written on 2 February 1539. Elena then went on to talk happily of carnival.6 This letter pleased her father. He replied from Venice on 6 February 1539 that her teacher had told him that she had written independently. If this is the case he would be happy if she would write him a letter every week.

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Then he criticized her for not greeting Madonna Maria Massola in her letter. She has always made such a fuss over her and given her so many gifts. He told Elena to write her a letter modelled on the example he was enclosing so that she would not appear ungrateful and unworthy of her affection (T IV, 2012). Elena wrote to her father again on 28 February 1539: Sending him a few lines to visit him and do him reverence and let him know that we are all well thanks to our Lord God whom I pray with all my heart that so it may be with you and all yours. About how much I am learning I do not want to tell you lies; I will wait for you to see it. How I am obedient to those who govern me I will leave Lucia to tell it. To me it appears that I am doing well and am good, but I do not know what it seems to the others. I strive above all not to displease Your Lordship. The master of the house has written that he expects Your Lordship to give him instructions to buy those materials to make me two collars, as I wrote the other day. I am reminding you of it if it is convenient for you, and if it pleases you, if not, I will do without at the present.

She kisses his hand and asks to be remembered to her almost father, dearest Messer Cola, as does Lucia. She is well.7 Elena was still only eleven. Things were to change as she grew up. Meantime Torquato was not doing well. On 10 November 1538 Bembo wrote to him in Mantua: Torquato, I would like to hear that you paid attention to learning more willingly than you do and that you were taking advantage of having M. Lampridio as master, which you must, because you are luckier than all the other boys in Italy, even in the whole of Europe, who do not have so excellent and exceptional a teacher as you, and so likeable, even if they are sons of great princes and great kings. Do not waste time and be sure that no one ever becomes either learned or worthy or prized who has not made a great deal of effort with much assiduity and constancy. Now you are growing up and you must make progress both in learning and in good habits and alertness ... And from these efforts the usefulness and the gain will be yours alone. Because no one will be able to take them away from you as they will be able to take away from you all the other things which I have left or could leave you. (T IV, 1968)

Bembo had been in contact with Benvenuto Cellini about making a medal in the summer of 1535, just before Morosina died. On 15 July 1535 Bembo wrote to Benedetto Varchi in Florence that he was grateful for Cellini’s willingness to make a medal for him quickly, but he did not want to take him away from his beautiful works in Rome. He was not that important. Perhaps he could go to Florence himself. He told Varchi that he

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had received the leads of Cellini’s seven coins and that they are beautiful, like all his work (T III, 1701). Two days later, on 17 July 1535, Bembo wrote to Cellini himself, having received a letter from him saying that he would come to make his medal. Bembo repeated that he was not that important and that he was as grateful for Cellini’s offer as he would be if he came and did the work. He did not want him to undertake such a long and fatiguing journey. Perhaps he could go to Florence himself and not take him away so long from his other work (T III, 1702). Then Cellini fell ill. On 5 January 1536, in another letter to Varchi, Bembo wrote that he was glad to hear that Cellini had recovered and looked forward to their plans to visit him together (T III, 1740). In April 15368 Cellini arrived alone, en route to the court of Francis I where he was to make his famous salt cellar. Cellini describes his visit: From home I travelled to Florence, from Florence to Bologna, from Bologna to Venice, and from Venice to Padua. There my dear friend Albertaccio del Bene made me leave the inn for his house; and the next day I went to kiss the hand of Messer Pietro Bembo, who was not yet a cardinal. He received me with marks of the warmest affection which could be bestowed on any man; then turning to Albertaccio, he said: ‘I want Benvenuto to stay here, with all his followers, even though they be a hundred men; make then your mind up, if you want Benvenuto also, to stay here with me, for I do not mean to let you have him in any other way.’ Accordingly I spent a very pleasant visit at the palazzo of that most accomplished gentleman. He had a room prepared for me which would have been too grand for a cardinal, and always insisted on my taking my meals beside him. Later on, he began to hint in very modest terms that he should greatly like me to take his portrait. I, who desired nothing in the world more, prepared some snow-white plaster in a little box, and set to work at once. The first day I spent two hours on end at my modelling, and blocked out the fine head of that eminent man with so much grace of manner that his lordship was fairly astounded ... But since he wore his beard short after the Venetian fashion, I had great trouble in modelling a head to my own satisfaction. However, I finished it, and judged it about the finest specimen I had produced in all the points pertaining to my art. Great was the astonishment of Messer Pietro ... when he found that I had employed two hundred hours on the wax, and then was begging for leave to pursue my journey toward France. This threw him into much concern, and he implored me at least to design the reverse for his medal, which was to be a Pegasus encircled with a wreath of myrtle. I performed my task in the space of some three hours and gave it an air of fine elegance. He was exceedingly delighted, and said: ‘This horse seems to me ten times more difficult to do than the little portrait on which you have bestowed so much pains’ ... He kept entreating me to execute the piece in steel ... I told him that I was not willing to make it there, but promised without fail to take it in hand wherever I might stop to work.

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Cardinal Bembo, Cellini. On the rovescio Pegasus, poetic inspiration, creates the fountain Hippocrene, on Helicon, the mountain of the Muses. While this debate was being carried on I went to bargain for three horses which I wanted on my travels; and he took care that a secret watch should be kept over my proceedings, for he had vast authority in Padua; wherefore, when I proposed to pay for the horses, which were to cost five hundred ducats, their owner answered: ‘Illustrious artist, I make you a present of the three horses.’ I replied: ‘It is not you who give them me; and from the generous donor I cannot accept them, seeing that I have been unable to present him with any specimen of my craft.’ The good fellow said that, if I did not take them, I should get no other horses in Padua and should have to make my journey on foot ... therefore I had to accept the three horses.9

Cellini eventually completed the medal, giving Bembo the long beard which he grew in the 1540s.10 Clement VII had died in the autumn of 1534 and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, “the petticoat cardinal,” since he owed his rise to his sister Giulia’s liaison with Alexander VI, was enthroned as Paul III. He was to become a great pope. Bembo immediately set about trying to win his favour. He had given Clement VII Le Prose della volgar lingua on his accession and little good it had done him. What could he offer Paul III? His only fine writing still unpublished was the collection of letters which he had written to the rulers of Europe on behalf of Leo X. These elegant letters written in Latin, an archive of recent history, could be an appropriate gift to a learned pope whose “outstanding and excellent erudition in Latin and Greek literature is recognised by all” (T III, 1621, lls. 43–4). So, on 25 January 1535, Bembo wrote, in what became his dedicatory letter, why he had decided to publish the Brievi of Leo X:

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When Latino Giovenale, your nuncio to the Republic, had come here to Padua in these winter days and had to come to stay with me because of our old friendship, after we had joked and questioned one another and he had had a bath, he went into my library, because it was next door to his bedroom, and began looking through the books. He found a volume of letters written for Leo ... which I had thrown into a little chest when I left Rome. He enjoyed reading them, since he had been close to Leo at the time, and he said to me, “Bembo, why do not you publish them ... because they are an historical record ... This is a fit thing for you to do since you are writing the history of Venice.” (T III, 1657)

A couple of days later, on 27 January 1535, Bembo wrote to his friend, Gabriele Avolta, general of the Augustinians in Venice, about the idea of publishing Leo’s letters and giving them to Paul (T III, 1660). He has written a letter, the previously quoted one, which he proposes to include in the volume and asks Gabriele for his comments. He obviously circulated this letter. At the end of the year, with the Brievi still unpublished, Bembo wrote to his friend, Molza, now in Rome, about the Roman reaction to the letter (T III, 1733 of 24 December 1535). Molza had warned him that many in Rome thought that Bembo went too far in his praises of Paul III when he called him much more learned than Leo X (T III, 1657, lls. 30–1). Bembo explained himself. It was not Leo’s fault or his lack of ability but the blows of fortune, exile and want, that prevented him from being better educated. Bembo had not compared him unfavourably in the true and solid virtues which all men attribute to Paul, prudence, wisdom, ruling his state, constancy, temperance, probity, and liberality. And Bembo had not shown ingratitude, though he felt that he had to point out that he had received more than one half of his benefices from Julius II whom he had never served. The other half, which he received from Leo, was in recompense for nine years of constant work, day and night, and boundless fidelity to the pope. He concludes by saying that he has always honoured Leo’s memory. And, in fact, Paul III seems to have accepted that since he had Bembo buried at Leo’s feet in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Although Bembo’s intended dedication of Leo’s Brievi was causing a stir in Rome the letters themselves were not published for almost another year “because of unreliable workers” (T III, 1782 of 12 September 1536). Finally, on 17 October 1536, Bembo wrote to Gualteruzzi that he was sending a case of his Brievi to Rome for distribution, the red bound copy to the pope, the blue to the cardinal [Alessandro Farnese, Paul III’s grandson and Bembo’s patron], eleven others to named people, including Gualteruzzi, and one hundred for sale (T III, 1792, 1794). The dedication, now officially published, distressed some clerics (T IV, 1816, 1803) and provoked criticism (T IV, 1831), but Paul was pope now and Bembo was

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clearly making a final bid for a cardinal’s hat. Bembo’s letters for Leo X, written in limpid Latin, are a pleasure to read even today. They are short, clear and to the point, not cluttered with bureaucratic or ecclesiastical jargon and open an interesting window onto the history of early sixteenthcentury Europe. They must have been enjoyed by men of learning. Morosina’s death had not only left Bembo with child care problems and a small estate to deal with in Rome11 it had also improved his chances of becoming a prince of the church. Bembo was the most famous man of letters in Italy, he was a knight of the aristocratic order of St John of Jerusalem and called himself prior of Hungary, he was a leading figure in the great Republic, its official historian and the librarian of St Mark’s. Lesser men had been made cardinals who had neither theological training nor religious vocation, only influential family connections, and were even children. Cardinals did not have to be priests, they were rather directors of a large international conglomerate theoretically devoted to the salvation of souls, in practice concerned mainly with the administration of property and the maintenance of power. Many of the men who were made cardinals were the sort who might have been elevated to the British House of Lords in the last century for services to the state, business, industry, learning or the arts. Others, like members of the great Italian families, had virtually a hereditary claim. From 1535 onwards promotions to the cardinalate were taking place and Bembo’s friends were going up. He was an outstanding example of a man whose recognition was overdue. He would add lustre to the college of cardinals. Bembo had backers in Rome, ecclesiastics, and eminent lay people like Vittoria Colonna. Meantime, during the tantalizing wait for the call, Bembo continued his struggle to provide for Torquato’s future, to reward various dependents and to assure himself an adequate income from the Church. The priory of Hungary, which he had been granted in 151712 but whose income he had never enjoyed because of the Turkish invasion and the constant wars in the country, began to appear accessible in 1533 when the country was temporarily at peace. In that year Bembo had begun interminable, and at times discreditable, manoeuvres with papal nuncios, officials of the Holy Roman Empire, the Vatican, and finally the Emperor Charles V to try to get posssession. On 1 September 1533 he had written to Pier Paolo Vergerio, nuncio to the king of Hungary, asking for his help and offering to share the income of the priory if Vergerio could get it for him (T III, 1513). Bembo continued the following year with the cardinal of Trent, first secretary to the king of the Romans who was the overlord of Hungary (T III, 1559 of 7 April 1534). With the death of Clement VII and the accession of Paul III, Bembo’s campaign for the priory on behalf of Torquato involved plans for benefice

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swops with the pope’s grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and his little brother, Ranuccio, then only seven.13 As Bembo admitted in a letter of 1 January 1536, in which he asked that the possession of the priory be included by the papal mediator in the peace talks between the king of the Romans [the brother of Charles V] and King John of Hungary, “the possession of that blessed priory has been gnawing at my mind for so many years” (T III, 1802). It was an obsession. Bembo eventually had the case raised with the Emperor in Spain (T IV, 1927 of 24 September 1538), showered his courtiers with pleas for justice14 and finally addressed the emperor himself (T IV, 1984), who had reportedly promised his support (T IV, 1927). Even after he became cardinal Bembo still badgered officials in Hungary (T IV, 2080 of May 1539, 2089 of June 1539). A cardinal’s life was an expensive one and he had never been so strapped for funds. He will have to borrow money to go to Rome (T IV, 2088) but, if he gets possession of the priory, he will let the pope dispose of it to his family as he wishes (T IV, 2089 of 6 June 1539), obviously compensating Bembo appropriately [Bembo was always a tough negotiator]. Bembo made a final effort in 1540 to get possession of the priory of Hungary, but he never succeeded, though he never dropped the title. Interrelated with the campaign for the priory of Hungary and the negotiations for benefice swops with Cardinal Farnese was the question of the possession of the priory of Venice on which Bembo felt that he had some claim because he had a letter from Leo X reserving it to him. Bembo had shown Leo’s letter to Clement VII when he was in Bologna in 1530 and the pope had promised to speak to the Grand Master. Since he had heard nothing since Bembo had written to Clement VII on 23 September 1532 reminding him of his promise and suggesting that he should, on the quiet, now reserve the priory for Torquato. As soon as that was done Bembo would resign the abbey of Villanova intended for Torquato15 in favour of Clement’s chamberlain, Vettor Soranzo. This deal would make two of the pope’s faithful servants happy (T III, 1415). Nothing came of this scheme under Clement VII16 but eventually Paul III, who wanted the priory of Venice for his grandson, Ranuccio Farnese, (T IV, 2005) as part of a consolidated package of benefices for him in the north, arranged for Torquato to have a pension of 300 ducats on the priory of Venice (T IV, 1862). Negotiations with the Farnese over the priories of Hungary and Venice17 also involved one in Brescia18 and Bembo’s valuable commenda in Bologna19 which is the only one he actually enjoyed. Bologna eventually went to Ranuccio Farnese (T IV, 2005) and Torquato was compensated with the priory of Brescia and the pension on Venice (T IV, 1893 of 13 October 1537). Bembo’s other trust for the knights of St John, the nugatory commenda of Benevento,

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was passed on to his old pupil, his friend Carlo Gualteruzzi’s son, Goro (T III, 1803). Having made arrangements for the benefices he possessed or could claim Bembo pressed on in the pursuit of others. On 27 May 1538 he wrote to Gualteruzzi, en route with the papal court to a meeting with Charles V in Nice, that the abbey of Vangadizza on the confines of the territories of Ferrara and Padua, had just reverted to the elderly uncle of the previous incumbent who has had a stroke and cannot live long. Since the abbey is worth 2500 florins many people will be after it. He asks Gualteruzzi to inform Cardinal Farnese. If he could persuade the pope to give it to him he would renounce it to Farnese who would then be able to renounce it to Torquato with whatever pension he wanted (T IV, 1933). Such was the scramble for the wealth of the Church even when the movement toward Catholic reform was already under way. Attempts at reforming generally recognized abuses of the Church had started with Julius II’s fifth Lateran Council in 1512 where the pope had proclaimed that he wanted the church to be reformed from the top down, an idea not particularly popular with the top people who attended the Council.20 Nothing came of this and Julius died the following year. The Council continued until 1517 under Leo X but accomplished nothing. After Julius’s death Bembo’s Venetian friends, Tommaso Giustiniani and Vincenzo Quirino, who had become Camaldolese monks under the names of brothers Paolo and Pietro respectively, had presented the new pope, Leo X, with a proposal for the reform of the Church. Their Libellus ad Leonem X of 1513 was the most important document for Catholic reform before the religious schism.21 Giustiniani and Quirino turned to biblical sources, away from canon law and scholastic theology. They pressed for a vernacular bible and liturgy, advocated ecumenism with the Christian churches of Asia and Africa, reminded the pope of his duties towards the Indians of the New World, outlined modern, liberal missionary methods, advocated the reform of civil and canon law, systematised medieval mystic belief in the discovery of God through love, made a plan for the publication of religious works and praised medieval Latin literature, though they did apply humanist critical methods to their edition of the works of St Pier Damiani, a disciple of St Romualdo, the founder of the Camaldolese order, who had lived at the hermitage of Fonte Avellana to which they had retired and where Bembo had wanted to go on scholarly retreat.22 This pamphlet provoked no reaction, but Quirino, fra Pietro, went to Rome, stayed with Bembo in the Vatican palace, managed to see the pope daily, bringing him the morning news, and was regarded by Bembo as pushy and ambitious for a cardinal’s hat. If he had become cardinal, would he have pressed for reform? In a letter of 13 June 1514 his fellow Venetian, Gasparo Contarini, who was destined to play an important part

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in the later efforts to arrive at an accomodation with the Protestants, had written him that the life of a hermit was selfish and that he should aim for the cardinalate to serve all Christianity.23 Unfortunately Quirino died two months after he had received this letter when, as mentioned above, it was whispered that Bembo had poisoned him as a rival.24 Leo did not make any effort to reform the Church, rather the contrary, with his traffic in indulgences, but he did approve the statutes of the Roman revivalist Oratory of Divine Love,25 which was dedicated to austerity, prayer, acts of charity, meditation and a desire to renovate the Church and Catholic Christianity.26 Two or three years later Gasparo Contarini, another of Bembo’s Venetian friends who was concerned with the path to God in the secular life, which was his patrician responsibility, wrote a book on the duties of a bishop for a young Venetian patrician, Pietro Lippomano, who was nominated to the see of Bergamo in the summer of 1516.27 This book immediately preceded Luther’s call for reform. In it Contarini argued that a bishop must bear Christ within, that he must reside in his diocese, celebrate the liturgy, preach and be a shepherd to his flock.28 Contarini’s instructions were later followed by Giberti in Verona in the 1530s and even by Bembo in Gubbio in 1543–44.29 Contarini, like all educated Venetians a graduate of Padua, with its bias towards Aristotle and science, also wrote a book trying to prove the immortality of the soul on rational grounds30 after his professor Pomponazzi’s sceptical De immortalitate animae of 1516 which was denounced as heretical and burnt in Venice in 1517.31 Contarini then served as Venetian ambassador to Charles V in Germany, where he attended the Diet of Worms in 1521 and came into contact with the burgeoning German reform movement. Then he went as ambassador to the emperor again, in Spain, in 1522–2532 so that he had a background understanding of the situation in the empire when he was later called upon to negotiate with the Lutherans in the Catholic cause. There was no reform of the Church during the pontificate of Clement VII, though he made edicts against the inheritance of benefices which, as we have seen from the Bembo examples, were not enforced. The following pope, Paul III, himself organized a traffic in benefices to enrich his grandsons through trade-offs with the Bembo family. He did, however, make Contarini a cardinal in 1535 and put him in charge of a commission to make recommendations on the reform of the Church.33 The Consilium de emendenda ecclesia was read to the pope by Contarini and explained to the Consistory on 9 March 1537.34 The commission attacked the reservation of benefices, the reservation of income from benefices, the inheritance of benefices, pluralism, non-resident clergy with the renting out of benefices, simony, nepotism, all the dodges that Bembo

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was still so tirelessly exploiting to tap the wealth of the Church.35 But not only Bembo. The pope’s grandson, Alessandro Farnese, had sixty-four benefices at this time, compared with Bembo’s twenty-eight, and Bembo’s were of comparatively small value; he was a relatively poor man and hence could feel entitled to look out for more.36 Even the saintly Cardinal Egidio of Viterbo, who could uplift the worldly Pontano, held three bishoprics and was also titular archbishop of Constantinople, for which he received 800 ducats a year, which he kept when he traded Constantinople for the archbishopric of Zara in 1530.37 Bembo’s offer of advice on how he could make more money out of Crete was not so out of place after all (T II, 577). The wealth of the Church was what they all pursued. Giberti, one of the signatories of the report, who became the model bishop for the Council of Trent, still clutched a very large bag of benefices. The Reform Commission, which concerned itself only with ecclesiastical administration [doctrinal issues were left for a general council] had produced a shocking indictment of conditions in the Church: The whole structure had to be overhauled, beginning with the ordination of priests who were like the arteries of the Church bringing the life-blood of religion to the people. At the present time ordination was a scandal. Men without experience, of the lowest classes, and with bad moral character were ordained. Hence had arisen a contempt for the priesthood, with the result that veneration for the cult was virtually extinct ... The pope should appoint two or three prelates in Rome, men who were above all learned and pure, to supervise ordination ... bishops should carry out their instructions in their dioceses ... no one should be ordained except by his bishop. Bishops should be good and learned men who would reside in their dioceses ... Now most dioceses were run by mercenaries ... Plurality ... was an abuse. Benefices, too, should be conferred only upon men of good character and education who would reside in their benefices ... Benefices should not be charged with pensions, except for charitable purposes. The revenue from a benefice was for the maintenance of the incumbent, for the expenses of the cult and the church, for the repair of religious buildings, and for charity. The exchange of benefices was an abuse, as was their bequest. Priests’ children should not have their father’s benefices. Cardinals should not be bishops. Some cardinals should reside in their provinces, but at the present time too many cardinals were absent from the curia without performing any duties anywhere else. All conventual orders should be abolished by curtailing the admission of novices and by expelling those who had not yet taken vows. The care of nuns by monks was a great scandal and should be ended.

These were just some of the details of the report. The commission then went on to attack the immorality of Rome itself, which should be the model for the Christian world.38

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But apart from these official proposals for reform a current of spiritual awakening was spreading through the Church in Italy, both in the north, in the Veneto, and in the south, in the kingdom of Naples. This movement was independent of Savonarola’s demogoguery in Florence. Rather, the humanist élite, both men and women, began to hunger for personal satisfaction, an assurance that their lives were worthwhile and meaningful, that they were headed for salvation. They yearned for God, and felt that they could find him in the love of Jesus Christ, his love for them and their love for him. They studied the gospels and epistles, dowsing for the water of life. They looked for a renewal of Christianity within the Church. They were not concerned with its ramshackle structure, either shoring it up or pulling it down, like old St Peter’s. They were not Protestants, they did not protest. They did not seek to reform the Church by force, but the individual by faith.39 Their concern lay with personal justification. People stirred to such a spiritual awakening, like Bembo’s friends, Giustiniani, Quirino and Contarini, existed in the Veneto well before Luther’s sensational challenge to the Church in 1517. During his Paduan decades, in the 1520s and 30s, Bembo was in close contact with many of the people who became active in the Italian evangelical movement, with some who were later investigated by the newly established Inquisition and condemned, and with others who fled the country in terror. His associations with these people could have got him into trouble, if he had lived into the 1550s when persecutions began. But his actual involvement with Lutheran ideas was small. Of course he knew about Luther from the very beginning. It was he, as Leo X’s secretary, who wrote the letter on 3 February 1518, to Luther’s superior, Gabriele Avolta, general of the Augustinians, informing him that Luther was starting a revolution in Germany, preaching new dogmas. He must nip this in the bud, writing to him and sending learned and upright messengers to try to placate him. With swift action it will not be difficult to extinguish the flame before it has taken hold. Otherwise it can grow out of control.40 Luther and Melanchthon were certainly read and discussed in Venice from 1518. When, on 15 June 1520, Leo X published a bull condemning Luther and prohibiting the printing, possession and reading of his writings, the Council of Ten at first refused its promulgation, then agreed to allow it to be read in churches after the congregation had departed.41 When Bembo returned to the Veneto in 1521 he apparently supported the free discussion of Lutheran ideas. His protégé Longolio wrote to his fellow student in Padua, Marcantonio Flaminio, that Bembo and Andrea Navagero had congratulated him on bringing the discussion of Luther’s theses into the open.42 Italians were anti-clerical and therefore felt a sympathy for Luther. They were not at that time interested in theological questions.43 And Bembo’s personal lack of interest in theology is illustrated by the fact that

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it is mentioned in only one of his 2600 letters, although in that letter it is a subject for serious debate. On 21 June 1531 he wrote to his old friend, Federigo Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno: I received your letter in the villa and, when I saw how learnedly you write to me, I returned here [to Padua] and invited M. Girolamo from Gubbio44 and M. Lazzaro Buonamico45 to dinner yesterday and gave them your letter to read. They took a great deal of pleasure and delight in it, and argued over it a good length of time, not contentiously, but rather in a friendly way, and desirous to find the truth in it, to my great pleasure. And from that argument they fell to discussing God’s providence and predestination, about which I reasoned as much as I wanted to because I promoted it. They decided that, as far as theology is concerned, they submitted to your judgment, if that opinion can be sustained, because they doubted it. As for philosophy, they believe that there is much space for argument to sustain it. And with these words they left ... praising your learning and your capacious and fertile mind. I have obeyed you in that I have not shown your letter to anyone else; I have not obeyed you in tearing it up. Therefore I pray that you be content that I hold it and keep it by me. (T III, 1243)

Bembo was happy to take part in a University of Padua kind of academic discussion, the distinction between theological and philosophical truth being classic, but there is no hint here of any passionate involvement on anyone’s part. The three of them chewed the fat after dinner, discussing a colleague’s learned paper, whose subject is not disclosed, then went their own ways, unmoved. Bembo again shows his attitude toward theology in his correspondence with Sadoleto. When his old friend from Roman days went to his diocese in Carpentras, then began sending his writings to Bembo for comment, Bembo dutifully read his exegesis of the Epistle to the Romans, whose learning he praised,46 then advised him to return to his previous field where, with less work, he could gain more glory (T III, 1186). Bembo was later lavish in his praise of Sadoleto’s humanist treatise on the education of children (T III, 1521). But theology left him cold. A younger friend, the elegant neolatin poet, Marcantonio Flaminio, who had been traumatized by the sack of Rome, had turned to religion and joined Giberti’s strict community in Verona, wrote a paraphrase of thirty-two Psalms, exploiting his knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. When Bembo heard of it he asked to see it (T III, 1533). After protestations of the inadequacy of his Latin prose style 47 Flaminio sent it. The paraphrase demonstrated the Christian meanings of the Psalms of David.48 Bembo made no comment. Flaminio was later co-author and publisher of the greatest evangelical work of sixteenth-century Italy, Il Beneficio di Gesù Cristo crocifisso, which was published in Venice in

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1543 and later condemned by the Inquisition and burnt in huge fires in Rome.49 Flaminio survived, his authorship yet unknown, to become first secretary of the Council of Trent, then to die with Cardinal Caraffa, founder of the Inquisition, at his bedside.50 Flaminio was staying with Bembo in Padua as late as the winter of 1537–18,51 but there is no suggestion that Bembo ever knew anything about the Beneficio di Cristo or that he discussed religion with Flaminio. Bembo’s letters of that period show no interest in spiritual matters. A close friend of Bembo’s from 1521 (T II, 419) until his death in 1547 was Reginald Pole. Pole had taken the Belgian, Cristoforo Longolio, who was interested in Lutheran ideas, into his house in Padua when he was a refugee from Roman chauvinism and later wrote his biography.52 Marcantonio Flaminio was a common friend of those Paduan days.53 In 1536 Pole was made cardinal (T III, 1737). In 1541, when he was appointed Governor of the Patrimony of Peter, with his seat in the old papal palace in Viterbo, Pole surrounded himself with a coterie of spirituali, including Flaminio.54 Vittoria Colonna moved from Rome to the convent of St Catherine in Viterbo to be near him.55 She wrote to Marguerite d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre and Francis I’s sister, that she discusses spiritual matters with Cardinal Pole, whose conversation is always in heaven and it is only to help others that he looks at and cares for the earth.56 Pole’s circle discussed the new ideas of Calvin and Luther.57 In 1542 Pole was sent as legate to the Council of Trent (T IV, 2354), the same year that the Inquisition was established in Rome.58 Pole eventually became cardinal legate to England then, although archbishop of Canterbury under Mary, he was recalled to Rome, imprisoned in Castel St Angelo, and interrogated by the Inquisition. Religious enthusiasm and a willingness to consider other points of view was suspect to orthodoxy. Cardinal Giovanni Morone, Pole’s fellow legate to Trent, then cardinal legate to Bologna, was also imprisoned and interrogated with him.59 Bembo had been on friendly terms with Morone too, as a fellow cardinal.60 A focus of the Italian evangelical movement was Bembo’s old admirer, Vittoria Colonna, who had proclaimed that she loved him spiritually, for his poetic style.61 She was a follower of the Spanish evangelist in Naples, Juan de Valdès.62 Later she moved to Rome, where she discussed art and religion with Michelangelo in the garden of the church of San Silvestro on the Quirinale.63 Then she moved to Viterbo for spiritual refreshment with Pole. When she and Bembo, by then a cardinal, coincided in Rome they shared “beautiful thoughts.”64 One of Vittoria Colonna’s circle was the Capuchin friar, Bernardino Ochino. Bembo never attended Lenten sermons: All one ever heard was what the Subtle Doctor argued to the Angelic Doctor, followed by a conclusion derived from Aristotle.65 However, Venetians persuaded him to ask

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his friend, Vittoria Colonna, to persuade Bro. Bernardino, whose fame was growing as an inspiring evangelist, to preach the Lenten sermons at Santi Apostoli in Venice in 1539 (T IV, 1925 of April 6.1538). As he wrote to Colonna, this would give him an opportunity to hear him, too. Ochino came in 1539 and Bembo went to hear him daily. He had never heard anyone preach more helpfully, or in a more saintly manner than him. He is not surprised that Colonna loves him so much. “He speaks very differently from all the others who have climbed up to the pulpit in my days, and in a more Christian way, both with a more lively charity and love and with better and more helpful illustrations. Everybody is mad about him. And I believe that when he leaves he will take away the heart of the whole city with him. For all of this everyone gives you endless thanks for having lent him. And I, more than the others, will feel eternal gratitude. I could not restrain myself from saying these few words to you” (T IV, 2015 of 23 February 1539). Now Bembo began worrying about Ochino’s health. On 12 March 1539 he wrote to the rector of Santi Apostoli to “force Fra Bernardino to eat meat, not for the sake of his body, for which I know he cares nothing, but for the benefit of the souls of us who listen to him, so that he can preach the gospel in praise of Christ the blessed. He will not survive to do this, nor last through this Lent if he does not abandon the Lenten fast, which gives him a cold, as one can see. Therefore, for the love of Christ ... oppose his will so that he can survive and sustain so many others” (T IV, 2020). In a letter to Vittoria Colonna a couple of days later Bembo wrote that he had finished his business in Venice but that he was staying on to hear Fra Bernardino (T IV, 2024). He had spoken to him that morning about his suitability for the cardinalate, opening his heart to him as he would have done before Jesus Christ. He thinks that he has never spoken to a more saintly man. And so it was that Bembo heard of his elevation to the cardinalate in Venice. In his letter to Vittoria Colonna of 4 April 1539, thanking her for her support in Rome, he wrote that Fra Bernardino is henceforth adored in this city. There is no man or woman who does not praise him to the skies. He will speak to her about him soon, when he sees her in Rome (T IV, 2039). In 1542 Fra Ochino was preaching the Lenten sermons in St Mark’s in Venice when he was summoned to Rome by the newly established Inquisition. He started for Rome, but, after conversations with the dying Contarini in Bologna and with Peter Martyr Vermigli in Florence, he decided to flee. On 22 August 1542 Ochino wrote to Vittoria Colonna to tell her of his decision and that his doctrine remained what she had approved so many times. He went to Geneva, decided to marry and break definitely with Rome. In 1547 he was invited to England by Cranmer and made

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canon of Canterbury. On Mary’s accession he returned to Switzerland, but was banished for his views, which were becoming more and more extreme. He went to Poland, where he preached polygamy, was expelled, and died in Moravia.66 Vermigli, another member of Pole’s circle from Paduan days67 and presumably, therefore, an acquaintance of Bembo’s, followed Ochino into exile in 1542. He fled to Switzerland, married, was invited to England by Cranmer and made professor of theology at Oxford. He helped Cranmer draw up the second English prayer book. On the accession of Mary he returned to Switzerland where he died.68 Another friend of Bembo and Vittoria Colonna was Pietro Paolo Vergerio the younger, bishop of Capodistria, who was, after Bembo’s death, stripped of his honours, excommunicated and banished.69 Bembo’s correspondence with him was mainly concerned with his unflagging efforts to get possession of the priory of Hungary, though it also included fulsome praise of Vergerio’s book on the education of children which the two Hapsburg rulers, the emperor Charles V and his brother, Stephen, king of the Romans, would find most valuable for their children (T III, 1628). Bembo had already written to Sadoleto that this book was worthless compared with Sadoleto’s (T III, 1421), but Bembo had few scruples in trying to push his own interests. A different side to Vergerio, which shows his dangerous slide into evangelism, is revealed in a letter he wrote to Vittoria Colonna when he was nuncio in France in 1540. He begins, “Let the peace of God which surpasses every other sweetness of this world be with you and guard you and fill your heart and your mind.” Then he describes the Queen of Navarre, the sister of Francis I, at court in Fontainebleau. “I will use all diligence to be able to taste soon from nearer at hand the food of those sweetest virtues: and if she will deign to allow me to listen sometimes it will bother me less to have left the school of Your Excellency and of my most reverend Cardinals Contareno, Polo, Bembo, Fregoso who were all one.” Then he discusses his studies, his reading of devotional literature and asks her to pray for him.70 Two other members of the Pole-Vittoria Colonna circle with whom Bembo was in contact were later executed by the Inquisition, Pietro Carnesecchi and Aonio Paleario.71 Bembo’s relations with Carnesecchi, who was papal protonotary, mainly concerned benefices (T III, 1504, 1590, 1597, 1599, 1618). But Bembo also comments on him as a man, his goodness, sweetness, culture and courtesy, his gentle nature, and his desire for retirement from the ambitions of courts (T III, 1584), the typical psychological profile of the spirituali. Paleario, on the other hand, was a former student at the University of Padua who taught rhetoric at Siena, then at Lucca, on the recommendations of Sadoleto and Bembo.

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Bembo wrote to him as a scholar who was engaged in the composition of a Lucretian poem On the Immortality of Souls (III, 2131). Later Paleario was accused of circulating manuscripts in defence of Lutheran ideas at the Council of Trent, summoned to Rome, interrogated and executed.72 Bembo was already twenty years dead when Carnesecchi and Paleario fell foul of the Inquisition. A former member of Bembo’s own household also got into trouble with the Inquisition later, one of his secretaries of the 1520s, Apollonio Merenda, who later became chaplain to Cardinal Pole. Merenda fled to Geneva.73 Most surprisingly of all, Carlo Gualteruzzi, the Vatican official with whom Bembo corresponded endlessly over his benefices, whose son, Goro, he educated and fostered in his career, and to whose other son, Orazio, Bembo was godfather, was actively involved with the spirituali in Rome, Viterbo and France.74 He was close to Vittoria Colonna. He was the man deputed by Giberti in 1537 to persuade her to send Ochino to preach in his church in Verona.75 In 1540 he sent Colonna’s devotional sonnets to the Queen of Navarre. Bembo had encouraged her to publish them “in these times so contrary and difficult for true religion” and he had had this copy made for the queen.76 Gualteruzzi was also in contact with Marcantonio Flaminio and Pietro Carnesecchi. In 1541 he dined with Flaminio and Carnesecchi in Florence and asked Flaminio what he should read. Flaminio recommended the Beneficio di Cristo.77 Gualteruzzi wrote to Bembo from Carnesecchi’s house in Florence on 22 September 1541 that Carnesecchi and Flaminio recommended themselves to him.78 Despite his contacts with the spirituali Gualteruzzi escaped the Inquisition and acted as Bembo’s literary executor. Bembo, in short, had great many contacts with participants in the spiritual revival in Italy in the first half of the sixteenth century. But his involvement with them was as individuals and largely the result of a similar background, similar education, similar literary and material interests, not religious fervour. While members of his milieu had spiritual concerns they did not dominate their lives, at least in Bembo’s lifetime, and Bembo’s contacts with them were for practical reasons. Even Bembo’s relations with Vittoria Colonna started with the difficulty of collecting his income from the commenda of Benevento. It was only after he discovered her poetry at the Congress of Bologna in 1530 that a personal correspondence started up, centring on their shared commitment to poetry, and resulting in the exchange of a medal (T III, 1400) and a portrait (T III, 1495) and later sonnets, not prayers. Bembo praised her spirituality (T III, 1782), but deplored her mortification of the flesh (T IV, 2384), and only expressed a shared religious enthusiasm in his letters about Bernardino Ochino, though Colonna herself told the Queen of Navarre of uplifting conversations with Bembo in

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Rome in 1540 after he had become cardinal.79 Although he could be moved by a vision of a greater love, Bembo was never impelled to renounce his comforts or worldly things. And the inspiration of Bernardino Ochino did not temper his later outrage towards his rebellious teenaged children. That Bembo had a variety of contacts with the spirituali merely reveals the extent of a craving for spiritual renewal which was stirring spontaneously throughout Italy, without any defined leader like a Luther or a Calvin. Bembo himself did not recognize the dawn of a new age. He had lived through enough turbulent times that had ended in a return to the status quo when life had gone on as before. He was a humanist anachronism, a literary and scholarly man, conventionally exploiting the Church for patronage, trying to make the best of his lot on earth and to achieve financial security for himself and his children while the old order was perishing. The events which he writes about in the 1530s, outside his own personal concerns, are political, not religious, the policies of Charles V and Francis I, wars and threats of wars, piracy (T III, 1760, 1764, 1779, 1818, 1847, 1883, 1934, 1941, 1949, 1950, 1984). The niceties of theology, how one gained salvation, did not concern him.80 Bembo seems to have had a simple, unsophisticated, unquestioning Catholic faith. He believed that both Carlo and Morosina went straight to heaven because they were good people and he seems to have expected to do the same himself, after confession. The lurid paintings of the Last Judgment on the west walls of churches, including Michelangelo’s in the Sistine chapel, and the Divine Comedy, which he had edited himself, seemed to have had no impact on his imagination. These apocalyptic visions of human life were not relevant to him. This was art and poetry, not real life, which was much more pleasant and comfortable. In matters of faith Bembo had a sunny disposition. Nevertheless, Bembo’s friendships with so many compromised people would certainly have led to his examination by the Inquisition if he had lived into the 1550s. As it was, his Stanze were put on the Index in the later sixteenth century, but for immorality, not heresy, and his Rime, for the same reason, were denied an imprimatur after 1569.81 Bembo found the spirituali congenial because they were people like himself, and they were not engaged in destructive behaviour, but he was intolerant of those who attacked the established order, the papacy or the Church as institutions. When Leo X heard that an Augustinian monk from Ferrara, Savonarola’s old city, Maestro Andrea Baura, had preached from the balcony of the palazzo Loredan in Venice, attacking the papacy and the curia, he summoned the Venetian ambassador and asked him to see to it that Baura’s writings were not published. Bembo, who was present, suggested to Gradenigo, privately, that he have Baura imprisoned.82 Again, when he was asked about the licensing of a Venetian printer in Rome Bembo required that he give an undertaking that he would not publish

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anything against the papacy, the Apostolic See, the faith or the Republic of Venice (T III, 1503). Bembo could protect Pomponazzi from persecution for philosophical argument but he reacted oppressively towards those who threatened the traditional institutions. Bembo did not support a thought police, as the Inquisition was to become, but he was deeply conservative and intent on preserving the status quo. His philosophy was, allow men of good will to have slightly different convictions, according to their consciences and understanding, but do not destroy the Church. Paul III, on his accession in 1534, had turned his thoughts towards strengthening the College of Cardinals to give it sinew to attack reform. He needed learned men of good moral character. In 1535–36 he appointed Contarini, Pole, Caraffa, the Neapolitan aristocrat who had founded the strict Theatine order and had already presented Clement VII with a paper on reform, and Sadoleto.83 In his first year he had also apparently considered Bembo. Gualteruzzi had tipped Bembo off as early as August 1535, but warned him that two cardinals had attacked his candidature and that Cardinal Alessandro Farnese had defended him (T III, 1712). Bembo immediately wrote to Farnese, who was involved in the benefice swops at that time, thanking him for putting down those great men who had attacked him (T III, 1713). He praised the cardinal for his dedication to the discipline of letters and the arts. He urged him not to allow himself to be seduced by the enticements of fortune to abandon his literary studies, from which he will receive huge advantages and the best fruits throughout his whole life. Farnese does not have to look far for a model. He has one at home in his grandfather, who is an example of all virtues. He should form himself on his learning and morals (T III, 1710). The patronage system in the Church could lead an elderly scholar, of high renown, to flatter a teenager with allpowerful connections. Bembo apparently felt no humiliation. Though Morosina had died in August 1535, when Bembo’s cardinalate was first mooted, his candidacy remained dormant. On 25 December 1535 he congratulated Sadoleto (T III, 1735), on 30 December 1535, Pole (T III, 1737). He had already congratulated his friend of thirty years, Nicolò Schomberg, archbishop of Capua, another go-between in the traffic of benefices, on his elevation on 14 May 1535 (T III, 1686). Vittoria Colonna, who had moved to Rome on the accession of Paul III, now pressed Bembo’s candidature, in 1536, while continuing to help him with the commenda of Benevento.84 Gualteruzzi reported her activities to Bembo who was pleased with the backing “of this saintly and divine lady” (T III, 1782 of 12 September 1536). The curialist, Paolo Giovio, also supported him.85 In October 1536 Bembo sent the pope his Brievi for Leo X. In December 1536 the pope named another nine cardinals (T IV, 1814). Bembo was not one of them. He wrote to Molza in Rome that it is said in Venice that

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the pope is having difficulty persuading people to accept the cardinal’s hat (T IV, 1814). Was he preparing a stance of not wanting it anyway? However mixed his own feelings might be through being passed over, Bembo encouraged Sadoleto when he wrote him about his doubts of his own worthiness.86 Bembo’s pep talk to Sadoleto reveals his own valuation of the cardinalate as the crown to a life’s achievement: I do not approve of this new contraction and weakness of your spirit. You never before refused any job in which you could help people, both by your example and by your instruction to those whom you had to look after, and by your studies and your writings at night. Why are you in doubt now about what to do when you are called to God’s work? Why will you not undertake this burden for the common good, joyfully and swiftly? ... As an adolescent, as a man, you always conducted yourself in a praiseworthy way. Now, in your old age, you should live up to our expectations of you. You would lose my good opinion if you rejected this dignity ... Your previous life, morals, probity, learning and the very episcopal responsibility which you have fulfilled for so many years demand consistency now. I could even think, at my age, of going to Rome to embrace you. (T IV, 1815)

In the summer of 1537 Bembo learned, through Gualteruzzi, of hostility toward him in Rome and of efforts being made by Contarini and Sadoleto to stem the tide which was moving impetuously to his harm. He was writing to Cardinal Farnese about the wrongs done to him by the pope’s ministers, and was working on his History, which was going well (T IV, 1874). Finally, on Paul III’s fifth promotion, on 20 December 1538, Bembo was created cardinal, but the appointment was not immediately promulgated.87 As usual, there were leaks from Gualteruzzi. Bembo wrote to Cola from Venice on 25 December 1538 that he was expecting Gualteruzzi any time and that “this place is already full that I shall be Cardinal” (T IV, 1998). Three days later, on 28 December 1538, he wrote to the pope: Most Holy Father. I have heard that Your Holiness has had it in mind these days to make me cardinal since you have thought of creating a Venetian ... I confess that I have never heard more precious news than this. Therefore I render Your Holiness the greatest and longest-lasting thanks possible ... I will always make every diligent effort to be worthy of your grace ... However, whether you want to declare me Cardinal or not ... I will accept your decision, considering it to be the inspiration of the Lord whose vicar you are. (T IV, 2001)

He enclosed this letter in one of the same day to Cardinal Farnese, who he felt was responsible for his elevation. In this letter he defended himself against those who had slandered him:

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I, God’s goodness be praised, live in that way that one should live who, through many year’s experience, knows that those errors and transgressions that are conceded to youth are not pardoned in old age and who also, more than sated with things of the world, studies and tries to profit from what is honoured to end the comedy of life with the act that wins most praise. For this performance I have this great and populous city as theatre, which can give an ample and authoritative testimony ... I am enclosing a thank-you note for the pope. (T IV, 2002)

Bembo later sent a second, improved draft of his letter to Paul III (T IV, 2003). Then he heard nothing. On 5 January 1539 Sadoleto wrote to the pope from Carpentras reminding him that a place is reserved in the College of Cardinals for a Venetian and that this is his opportunity to honour a most brilliant man, most distinguished in every virtue, learning and eloquence, whose selection will bring him praise throughout the world ... Such a man is Pietro Bembo who for many years diligently and honourably served the Roman curia.88 On 8 January 1539 Bembo wrote to his dear friend, Lisabetta Massola, that he has some free time, which is rare these days, so he has decided to discuss his situation with her. Since there has been no news from Rome he thinks that the pope is changing his mind and he will remain what he is, which he desires more every day. If the pope changes his mind, she must not be upset. What is fairer and dearer to a noble mind than liberty? And one would lose that in that rank and way of life ... and, changing place, he would have to leave the dearest things he has in the world. “Think about what I have said and tell me your thoughts when I see you again. And please do not make me wait so long to see you as I have this time. Gasparro has told me that he was here on Epiphany to invite me to visit you and did not find me at home. I could easily have come back, and I would have loved to have come” (T IV, 2010). A fortnight later, on 24 January 1539, Bembo wrote to his old friend, Rodolfo Pio, now cardinal, that he does not know whether he will be cardinal or not. “When our ambassador wrote that the pope had decided to elevate me a large part of the citizenry came to my house to congratulate me, including Piero Lando who has just been elected doge on Gritti’s death. I know that a number of highly placed people are trying to change the pope’s mind.” If he does not become a cardinal he will carry on with his studies and writing his History. He will be tranquil and comfortable in his skin. He goes on to praise the pope’s policies, “unlike those of previous popes in living memory who have exhausted and disrupted the world and themselves with little to show for it.” He prays that he will live long to cure the ancient wounds in Christianity which already have become putrid (T IV, 2010). A fortnight later, on 5 February 1539, Bembo wrote to Cardinal Farnese:

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I would not have believed that those who try to eliminate me as an obstacle to their desires regarding the cardinalate for this Republic would have had to compromise my innocence as I understand they have done with ... Our Lord with most unjust and most false objections to my person. However, since even the son of God had his share of calumniators I will endure this injury as patiently as I can ... But believe the bearer of this letter ... And do not permit that that good name, which I have endeavoured to merit from people by burning the midnight oil for more than fifty years of my life, be now overturned in an instant, with so much malignity, and transformed into vituperation and shame by cruel and ambitious spirits. (T IV, 2011)

A month later, on 15 March 1539, Bembo wrote again to Rodolfo Pio about his humiliation: I am almost seventy and frail and have long led an innocent life, as has been seen and known by the whole city of Venice ... If you could restore my character with His Beatitude I will be extremely grateful ... Good opinion and esteem is worth more than any gifts of fortune ... Nor can I believe that the ardent desire which Our Lord God put into my heart these days, when I thought I was Cardinal, and the whole city believed it with me, and celebrated with me, to serve His Majesty and the Vicar on earth of his heavenly son, he had placed and imprinted in vain. (T IV, 2021)

On the same day he wrote to Vittoria Colonna in Rome, thanking her for her support and defence in high places, but let God decide. “I will accept whatever he decides. I never tried to be cardinal and in truth do not desire it now. I do not deny that the pope’s good opinion of me was not most pleasing, all the more so because I never begged for it nor sought it. My only regret about my modest position is that I cannot serve God as I should.” It is in this letter that he goes on to say that he has discussed his situation with Fra Bernardino and that he is staying on in Venice only to hear him, having finished the business which has kept him there for a year. Otherwise, he would rather be in Padua to escape the questions and discussions “about this blessed Cardinalate” (T IV, 2024). Paul III had hesitated for more than three years about appointing Bembo. The arguments against him were his unchaste life and unchaste poetry. It was also said “that he was so proud that he despised the honours of the church.”89 On the other hand, having appointed Italian, Spanish, French, German, Scots and English cardinals a Venetian appointment was mandatory to maintain the political balance. The pope consulted Cardinal Contarini, who advocated Bembo.90 But there were other Venetian candidates. One promised to arm and maintain ten light galleys for five months at his own expense if the Senate would back him. The pope rejected him;

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Cardinal Bembo, Titian, c. 1539.

he had already tried to buy the cardinalate once before.91 Verallo, the nuncio in Venice, now sounded out all prelates on the possible candidates. There was something against all of them but the opposition to Bembo was not as serious as that to the others. His lack of chastity should no longer be a problem at seventy years. He was a fine man of letters, experienced in the papal court and in the affairs of the world. He was wise and prudent.92 Bembo was finally appointed, on 19 March 1539, on the grounds that he was “easily the first man of our age in learning and eloquence.”93 In a letter written when he was bishop of Gubbio four years later Bembo described what he had felt was a divine call to serve Christ. During the mass, when he accepted the cardinal’s hat, the gospel for the day included the words “Peter, follow me.” When the priest uttered them, the congregation drew in their breaths, recognizing the sign (T IV, 2406). The pope had sent a gentleman of his bedchamber, Ottavio Zeno, with a letter and the red hat (T IV, 2029). Before Zeno reached Bembo the news

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had spread throughout the city and gentlemen crowded Bembo’s house, offering their congratulations (T IV, 2037). Bembo was ecstatic. He gave the pope immortal thanks for elevating him and, above all, for his trust in him “in this very difficult and troublesome time for Christianity when the world is aflame with the seditions of our men and the wars of foreign nations” (T IV, 2029).94 Letters of congratulation poured in95 and Bembo wrote thankyou notes, each one individualised.96 But it was still the old Bembo. When congratulations came from Charles V’s chancellor Bembo, in his reply, thanked him for thinking about the priory of Hungary (T IV, 2068). When the emperor himself congratulated him, Bembo thanked him for his intervention with his brother over the Hungarian priory (T IV, 2093). Other people congratulated the pope or Cardinal Farnese on the belated recognition of Bembo, not just Bembo’s old friends like Sadoleto97 or Pietro Aretino,98 but Francis I of France (T IV, 2102) and Cardinal Geronimo Aleandro, legate in Austria. Aleandro wrote from Vienna, on April 22 1539, that the promotion of Bembo will be very well received in all the nations across the mountains and especially in Germany, where Bembo has a great name and everyone shows great satisfaction, both heretics and catholics, and especially in these times and in these places, where they so reverence polite letters, while they spend every effort and ingenuity in overthrowing scholastic doctrine. Thus Bembo’s promotion has pleased all these countries, both on account of his learning, and because he has always treated, with the utmost courtesy, in accordance with his gentle nature, all the learned men from over the mountains. His promotion is most highly praised, even by heretics.99 But there was one letter to remind us that Bembo was not just a celebrity, a famous scholar, and man of letters. This was the letter, sent from Padua on 30 March 1539, by his eleven-year-old daughter, Elena. She congratulated him on becoming cardinal. It was the greatest joy of her life. She only regrets that she will now have to spend some time in these parts without him. This seems strange to her, and upsetting, but she is absolutely certain that, near or far, he will never forget her and that she will enjoy that most loving care which she has had in the past. She reverently kisses his most worthy hand and recommends herself to his good graces. She prays God that he lives and prospers for a long time. Lucia and the master of the house rejoice with all their hearts.100 Elena’s life was indeed to change. When her father went to Rome she would be sent to a convent and she would not see him again for four years, when he would return to the Veneto to arrange her marriage.

12 Cardinal Bembo

While he was waiting for the red hat Bembo’s life had followed its usual pattern. Problems about debts and their repayment continued (T IV, 1953, 1966). Struggles to pay taxes in one case required the melting down of some silver Bembo had had made in Rome in the time of Leo X and had always used (T IV, 1965). Then there was the long-lasting litigation over the water for his flour mills which required his presence in Venice (T IV, 1817, 1935, 2006) since his nephew Gian Matteo, who had looked after his interests in the past, was now a governor of Venetian colonies in Dalmatia.1 Bembo also maintained his interest in the University of Padua (T IV, 1975), in mathematics, physics, and astronomy (T IV, 1759, 1766), and in literary problems (T IV, 1840). He found a tutor for Guidubaldo della Rovere, the heir to the duchy of Urbino (T IV, 1970). He composed a Latin inscription for the walls of Genoa (T IV, 1948). He sent gifts of produce from Villanova (T IV, 1922, 1952) and Villa Bozza (T IV, 1952, 1954) and received gifts himself (T IV, 1939, 2013). In October 1536 his old friend from Urbino days, Costanza Fregoso visited him in Padua (T III, 1790). After the visit Bembo tried to cadge a good horse from Costanza’s son, his former pupil, Count Agostino Lando (T III, 1796). Presumably his mother had told Bembo that he had a good horse which he hardly ever rode. In June 1538 Cola organized an exhibition of Bembo’s antiquities in the house in Padua, unwittingly providing material for Pasquino’s attack on Bembo in Rome. Cola had asked Bembo to send some things he had with him in Venice, including gifts from Lisabetta Quirina (T IV, 1837, 1846, 1930), because Cola thought that many gentlemen would come to visit the studio when they were in Padua for the feast of St Anthony on 13 June (T IV, 1935). More surprising still, considering his acquisitiveness, were Bembo’s instructions to Antonio Anselmi, his amanuensis (T IV, 1876), who was looking after his house in Venice while he was on holiday with his daughter at the villa. On 29 July 1538 he wrote to Anselmi that he was

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happy to let Beazzano have Raphael’s double portrait [of Beazzano and Navagero, now in the Doria-Pamphili Gallery in Rome]. Anselmi should have it brought to him, and should beg him to take care that it is not damaged (T IV, 1945). Another letter to Anselmi casts an unusual light on Renaissance hospitality. On 15 July Bembo wrote from Padua that Ludovico Beccadelli and his old mate, Carlo Gualteruzzi, who were with him last night and this morning, were going on to Venice with Cardinal Contarini. “I have told them to lodge with you. If they come, treat them affectionately and give them my bed and use that Malmsey, which must be there, and make a fuss over them and treat them well” (T IV, 1493). Apparently beds were scarce and bed-sharing normal. Bembo mentions sharing a bed (T II, 294) and he had to take his own bed to Rome when he went there in 1524 (T II, 498). Bembo frequently wrote about the political situation: threats of war between the Empire and France in which Venice would be involved (T III, 1760, 1764); attacks on the Italian coast by the Algerian pirate, Barbarossa (T III, 1799); the Turkish threat, which has never been more frightening, both on land and at sea (T IV, 1847); French threats and consequent Venetian shipbuilding (T IV, 1850); the ten-year truce between the emperor and the king of France mediated by the pope (T IV, 1940); the new Turkish war (T IV, 1883); the Turkish preparations against Hungary (T IV, 1949). With his own family braced for war (T IV, 1883), Bembo had a good laugh at the pusilanimous clergy with the pope at Nice who were panic stricken at what they took to be the approach of Barbarossa’s fleet, which was in fact the dust raised by peasants winnowing beans. At the same time Bembo admitted that he did not laugh yesterday, 4 June 1538, when news reached Venice that Barbarossa had sailed from Constantinople with 150 galleys to give us a hiding (T IV, 1934). As governor of Venetian colonies in the Adriatic, Gian Matteo Bembo was in the front line from 1536 onward. In September 1537 he sent his wife Marcella and the younger children home to Venice, while an older son, Lorenzo, served in a galleon (T IV, 1883) and Gian Matteo himself took charge of the defence of Cataro [Kotor, in modern Montenegro] (T IV, 1936). Bembo tells of his subsequent exploits: Gian Matteo’s early defeat of a pro-Turkish force of 2000 men without a single Venetian loss; his payment for the severed heads which were taken into Cataro, thus discouraging a further Turkish attack;2 his provisioning of outposts with victuals and munitions; his capture of artillery from an enemy fortress; his much-needed assistance to the Captain of the Gulf, which saved him from defeat; his capture of ten brigantines on a plundering raid, using his own light galley and some armed ships; his success in engineering the decapitation of a local Turkish governor by his own subjects; his own bravery when, wounded in the head and covered in blood at the San Francisco gate, he had had himself treated on the spot and dressed in fresh clothes, so as not to frighten

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the people (T IV, 2149). Bembo also congratulates Gian Matteo on his magnanimous and shrewd conduct in the face of Barbarossa’s demands and attack. This has won him universal praise in Venice (T IV, 2116). Venice expected and received much from her civil servants and Bembo’s dogsbody was a versatile and very brave man. In the late 1530s Bembo returned to lyric poetry, writing sonnets, sonnets of penitence, since he was being criticized in the College of Cardinals, to which he now aspired, for his past life, but, at the same time sonnets in praise of his last love, Lisabetta Quirina Massola, which he should not have been writing if he wanted to become a cardinal, and which were probably to be passed off as works of his younger days.3 The two sonnets of penitence were written about November 1538.4 In Rime CLIV Bembo admits that he sinned in his “greener and warmer age, a good many thousand times” but “now that winter has enveloped my chin and these locks in a cold white drift, grant me, Father, that I may honour you with full faith and sound, and listen to your words. Do not remember my faults, because one cannot reverse time, but govern the road which lies before me.” Bembo had also written to the Virgin to help him save his soul from the sirens in 1523, when he was taking his vows in the Order of St John of Jerusalem (Rime, XCVII). Later, probably in September 1528 after the birth of Elena,5 he had written five sonnets praying God to help him to avoid Cupid’s snares (Rime, CXVICXX). These prayers were never answered! About 1537 Bembo had fallen in love with his best friend’s cousin, Lisabetta Quirina, who was married to a shadowy figure, Lorenzo Massolo. Perhaps she comforted him on the loss of Morosina. He was soon to help her in her own tragedy, when her only son Piero murdered his wife, a member of the Gritti family, on their wedding night, then fled to a monastery near Mantua.6 Bembo intervened with the abbot to ask that Brother Lorenzo, as he was now called, be allowed to continue his classical studies as far as his monastic duties permitted (T IV, 1937), and he later corresponded with Lorenzo, treating him as a son, praising his progress (T IV, 2374) and his writings and rejoicing in the joy his achievements had brought to his mother (T IV, 2434, 2478, 2509). Lisabetta Quirina was an outstanding woman, much praised by poets, painted by Titian. She was highly cultured, well read in Latin and Italian literature, and beautiful.7 On 6 June 1537, while he was still living in Padua, Bembo received a letter from her which accompanied a medal for which he feared that she had paid too much.8 But what particularly pleased him was her epistolary style “which shows that your mind is no less lovely than the body which heaven gave you, so graceful and pleasing and marvellously sweet. I knew you had a most charming mind, but I would not have guessed that you had such a pure, beautiful and noble literary style which delights me and gives me a good, sweet reason to love and honour you” (T IV, 1846).

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In a posthumous sonnet Bembo wrote, as he had in his younger days (Rime II, IX), how the smallest thing, a blond lock under a beautiful veil, can in an instant stir the heart, like a light breeze lifting foliage or bending green grain, dispersing the mist on a hillside, moving a drifting cloud or a wave on the sea. Then hopes and suspicions abound in the heart. It freezes, sweats, begs for peace, makes war under Love’s harsh yoke. But if one endures, and bars the door against pain, somehow one lives, and another experience is not enough (Rime, CVII). Bembo always had a weakness for blond locks (Rime, V, IX, XIII). Lisabetta was blond, like most of the women whom Titian painted, and this sonnet is probably a description of how he was initially captivated each time. Bembo addressed six sonnets to Lisabetta Quirina (Rime, CXXXIIVII). The first one praises her unsurpassed beauty and wisdom, her soft eyes and holy words, a miracle whose like the sun does not see or hear in his full circuit. Fortunate is the man who sighs for her (CXXXII). In the next one he recalls the judgment of Paris. If Paris had had her as his choice, Venus would have been scorned.9 If she had lived in Petrarch’s day, he would not have bothered with Laura. “Now she has come late into my verse, a poor vein and a humble sound, beside a beauty so rich and a mind so sublime. I should be silent but ... a hand so soft imprints itself in my heart so that, through remembering you, I forget my state” (CXXXIII).10 The following sonnet tells of the delight he feels only in thinking of his lady (CXXXIV). In the next one he prays Apollo to inspire his tired mind to speak of “the dear, gracious sustainer of my frail life” whose true praise he feels could have exceeded Vergil’s capacities. Her beauty and wisdom are unequalled. He hopes that he may at least live in the sun of her eyes (CXXXV). Again, if his mind and art were equal to his desire to praise her, he would surpass Homer, Pindar, Vergil, Horace, and Petrarch, and her true and sweet image would go bright into the dark future (CXXXVI). The final sonnet talks of a spiritual love to which she guides him with her sweet, loved eyes and her voice like celestial harmony (CXXXVII). A few years later, when Titian painted Lisabetta Quirina, Pietro Aretino wrote to the artist, praising his portrait of a miraculous creature and sending him a sonnet on “The golden, the beautiful, the sacred countenance of la Massola.” The angels took her grace from heaven. The painting revealed her illustrious mind, her regal quality, her noble thoughts, her sincere heart, and her divine and irresistible spirit. Titian’s portrait was no less true than truth itself.11 Giovanni della Casa, papal nuncio to Venice, also praised the painting in a series of sonnets about Lisabetta with whom he, like Bembo, was besotted, but della Casa’s only sonnets which come to life are those about Lisabetta’s green parrot, which she was teaching to talk.12 In that sonnet Lisabetta suddenly becomes a real human being, not just a paragon.

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Having taken Torquato to Benedetto Lampridio in Mantua in June 1537 (T IV, 1858) and seen that Elena was doing well in Padua with her beloved Lucia and her tutor, in January 1538 Bembo moved to Venice (T IV, 1912) and began sending Lisabetta poetry. In a letter of 10 May 1538 Bembo wrote to her about sending her his verses over and over again, trying to get them right, to show how much respect and affection he feels for her, illuminated and set afire by the hot rays of her supreme beauty and supreme merit. Every day her most noble manners, which show clearly that she deserved to be born queen of Europe and of Asia, rather than a citizen of Venice, increase his affection. Her constant courtesies are great and rare. He thanks her for the latest one, a most beautiful antique marble head, complete with bust and pedestal, like a Roman portrait of an ancestor. Nothing could have pleased him more, given him more delight. He will cherish it as the most precious of his antiques. Every time he looks at it he will remember who gave it to him. No domestic joy and sweetness will ever be able to equal that memory (T IV, 1930). Unfortunately this statue was taken from him a year later and he was unable to get it back (T IV, 2094). There is no indication of the circumstances in which this happened. It was with Lisabetta that Bembo naturally shared his thoughts on 8 January 1539, when he had heard nothing further about his reported elevation to the cardinalate (T IV, 2007). After he was appointed cardinal and had gone to Padua to put his affairs in order and spend his last summer with his daughter, Bembo wrote to Lisabettta on 10 July that he had suddenly felt inspired to finish the canzone which he had begun on the death of his good and beautiful Morosina. He sent her the first stanza (T IV, 2100). Then, in his letter of 31 July 1539, he sent her the entire canzone (Rime, CLXII) but begged her not to show it to anyone in the world nor tell anyone that he has written any poetry at this time (T IV, 2104). After a couple of letters about her summer illness and his relief at her recovery (T IV, 2105, 2110) Bembo sent Lisabetta a farewell letter accompanying his likeness.13 He is visiting her as he can, because he cannot any other way. He will come to her often, both from Rome and wherever fortune takes him, but she will not see him perhaps as often as he will see her. And that is the way it should be, because she deserves to be seen by everyone because she is beautiful and delicate, while he is decrepit and withered [another version of the letter, in Travi’s notes, reads “bearded and old”]. But he grieves greatly that he cannot see her, even when he is there, and that she did not allow herself to be seen when she could have. “Be well and give caresses to my likeness, since you have not wanted to give them to me. May God forgive you for it” (T IV, 2125). Apparently Bembo had gone back to Venice before he left for Rome but did not succeed in seeing Lisabetta. Paul III, who was a couple of years older than Bembo and had made the long journey from Rome to Nice in 1538, when he was seventy, granted

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sixty-nine-year-old Bembo’s request to be allowed to stay in the north during the summer months of 1539 (T IV, 2076), again through the intercession of Cardinal Farnese (T IV, 2077). From Padua Bembo started to prepare for his move. His first practical step was to order seventy measures of wheat and fifty of oats to be held on credit for his arrival in Rome (T IV, 2098). Then he tried to arrange accomodation. He thanked Cardinal Farnese, just returned from a legation to Spain, for promising to persuade his grandfather to allow him to occupy Cardinal Campeggio’s house in the Vatican palace, where he had lived for several years at the time of Leo X, and which he had made much more comfortable at his own expense (T IV, 2103).14 Then Bembo learnt that the pope was leaving Rome and going to Loreto, Ancona, then Bologna. Perhaps he could go and kiss his foot in one of those places, then return to Padua for another year of leisure. Bologna would be the best solution, it is so much closer (T IV, 2111). Bembo does not want to appear to be lacking in devotion to His Holiness, but he does not seem to have thought of duties to the Church. In his defense it can be said that he was encouraged in this plan by his old friends: Cardinal Rodolfo Pio, who was legate to the Marches (T IV, 2111) and did not live in Rome, and Cardinal Sadoleto, who was staying in his diocese of Carpentras. He was not coming to Italy this year. He could not afford it. Cardinal Pole had also been away in France with him for some months.15 After importuning for the cardinalate for so long Bembo wanted only to enjoy the title not to give up his preferred way of life. However another letter came from Rome informing him that the pope was not leaving the city after all because Barbarossa was in these waters (T IV, 2114). On 2 September 1539 Bembo wrote to Cardinal Farnese for confirmation of the pope’s plans. He is worried about travel, with the harsh famine and exorbitant prices, since he is not well-off (T IV, 2115). Finally, toward the end of September (T IV, 2126), Bembo accepted the inevitable and set out for Rome, via Bologna and Florence (T IV, 2130), with a small entourage and borrowed mules, receiving gifts of produce along the way (T IV, 2129). He reached Rome before the end of the month (T IV, 2133), was warmly received by the pope (T IV, 2132, 2133), and given his skull cap on 24 October 1539.16 On 10 November 1539 he was given his ring and the title S. Cyriaco in Thermis.17 S. Cyriaco in Thermis was an old title. Fra Mariano, in his early sixteenth-century guidebook to Rome, tells us that the baths of Diocletian and Maximian were built by 140,000 Christian prisoners, among whom was Cyriacus, who later cured the emperor’s daughter Artemisia of demonic possession. The emperor therefore built a church and house for Cyriacus, who was later martyred. This church was in ruins in Fra Mariano’s day. Its ruins remained visible until the beginning of the seventeenth century.18

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Therefore, in 1475, Sixtus IV transferred the body of S. Cyriaco from the old church in the baths of Diocletian to the church dedicated to his mother, St Giulita, in the via Tor dei Conti opposite the Forum of Peace. This was close to Goritz’s gardens in Trajan’s Forum which Bembo had frequented when he was secretary to Leo X. The church was now called Sts Quirico and Giulita and, in 1477, the cardinal’s title of S. Cyriaco in Thermis was transferred there.19 A new large altar was built to S. Cyriaco and a large number of relics were transferred to the church.20 Although he had reached Rome and been installed in rooms which had belonged to Jacopo Simonetta, “where I am very comfortable” (T IV, 2139), Bembo’s financial worries had not gone away. An annual income of 6000 ducats was deemed the minimum to maintain the style of a cardinal. Bembo’s income from his various benefices, when he could collect it, totalled little more than a quarter of that. In 1458 and again in 1503 the cardinals had voted for subsidies from general papal revenues for their poorer brethren, on the second occasion for 200 ducats per month for those with less than 6000 a year.21 Though there is no firm evidence that this ever happened,22 Bembo’s letter to Sadoleto of 4 January 1538, praising him for refusing money from the pope and Cardinal Farnese, suggests that gestures were made from time to time. Bembo was happy that there exists today a man of such a noble spirit in that dignity and rank (T IV, 1909). It therefore seems unlikely that Bembo would have accepted income support, if it were offered, in the run up to the Council of Trent. He had refused payment from the Signoria for his History of Venice (T III, 988), something which Sanuto considered worthy of comment.23 Patrician pride demanded that he serve his country freely. I suspect that he felt the same way toward the Church. He had been happy to accumulate benefices, but when he was offered recognition in Rome and appointed cardinal, it would have been humiliating to reveal that he was too poor to maintain the state of the office he had solicited and that he had to go on the dole. His acceptance of assistance from Cardinal Farnese in the benefice swops was a different matter. Anyone would be glad for someone else to pay administrative charges, and Bembo thanked Farnese in letter after letter for the bulls,24 but as a cardinal it would be better to be independent and poor. Certainly the standard of living expected of a cardinal in Rome was costly. Cardinals should live like princes, to emphasize the power and uphold the authority of the Church. Many cardinals lived on loans which banks and merchants were happy to offer, then, dying, left such huge debts that they could hardly afford a funeral. Bembo’s friend Bibbiena was 7000 ducats in debt on his death; Galeotto della Rovere, Julius II’s nephew whom Bembo had courted so assiduously and who had procured him his first and greatest benefice, the commenda of Bologna, died owing 90,000 ducats so that his collection of antiques had to be sold; and Giulio de’

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Medici, later Clement VII, was forced to pawn silver and jewels to maintain his status as cardinal as well as his interests in Florence. Cardinals were therefore anxious to get retainers from foreign powers or monastic orders to represent their interests.25 But although they were cultivated by ambassadors, who could offer them something, they were also pestered by relatives, job seekers, litigants, artists, and writers, who wanted something from them.26 And cardinals, like princes, were expected to patronize the arts and letters, keep impecunious clerks, and offer hospitality to the genteel poor.27 They were the mainstay of a specifically Roman culture in the Renaissance.28 Many cardinals built huge palaces in Rome. The palace of Rodrigo Borgia, later Alexander VI, became the old chancellery, now the SforzaCesarini palace on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele.29 Down the road was the current chancellery, still part of the Vatican state, built by Sixtus IV’s nephew, Cardinal Raffaele Riario, then confiscated by Leo X.30 Giulio de’ Medici commissioned Raphael to build him a villa on Monte Mario to compete with that of the banker, Agostino Chigi, now the Farnesina. Giulio’s villa, called Villa Madama after Margaret of Austria who lived there in the later sixteenth century, is now used by the Italian government for official receptions.31 Another great cardinal’s palace was the Palazzo Farnese, built for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, later Paul III, by Antonio di San Gallo the younger and completed by Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta.32 It is now the French embassy. Cardinals needed large residences. Paolo Cortese in De Cardinalatu of 1510 said that a cardinal needed sixty servants and eighty lesser attendants, but the average may have been higher.33 Leo X’s household consisted of 700 members and Cardinal Farnese’s numbered 306 in 1526–27.34 A cardinal needed squires, chamberlains, stewards, chaplains, notaries, secretaries, a physician, grooms, tailors, butchers, cooks. The palace also had to have reception rooms, a library, chapel, and servants’ quarters, in addition to the cardinal’s suite, as well as storage space, stables, and a garden.35 Forty horses were a minimum for a cardinal’s stable.36 Cardinals and their attendants rode everywhere because the streets were in poor condition and distances between shrines and basilicas were great. They were often far from inhabited areas, in the midst of vineyards and vegetable gardens.37 The cardinal’s house, too, had to be luxuriously furnished, he needed magnificent silver, and at his table he should offer elaborate, rare, and expensive dishes. Then the cardinal needed ceremonial robes for many occasions, in brocade or velvet, lined with ermine or sable. He also needed jewellery.38 It is clear from Bembo’s letters that he never enjoyed such luxuries. He lived in borrowed accomodation or in Church facilities, and at the beginning he was not able to keep all the staff from Padua. In letters to Cola of 23 November 1539 and 17 January 1540, he wrote that he was sending

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Antonio Ramberti back to him in Padua on the pretext that he was to accompany the astrologer, Federico Badoer, to Rome, but actually because Bembo can no longer afford to keep him in his service. He has devised this for Ramberti’s honour, so no one will know that he has fired him. He owes him six months salary and a few extra days from 9 to 23 November. He has paid him up to 9 June 1539. He has lent him a very fine and good back protector of mail which he would like returned (T IV, 2137, 2156). Bembo also had to put off old friends like Veronica Gambara (T IV, 2063) and Valerio Superchio (T IV, 2092)39 when they pressed him to take some young man into his service. He cannot do it with his income, which is not adequate to maintain his new position. To someone with another young man to recommend, Bembo wrote that he would be glad to take a person with such unusual qualities into his service but he has three old servants which is all he needs (T IV, 2064). Bembo’s household had expanded by the time he became bishop of Gubbio, as had his debts. Cortese’s De cardinalatu, apart from the second book about the economics of being a cardinal which has been referred to above, is a general work a little like The Courtier. The first book treats of the necessary attributes of the cardinal, not just moral virtue, but also memory, for example, which is discussed with sophistication and advice on the association of ideas illustrated with a great range of examples. Cortese also stresses the expected breadth of knowledge, of natural phenomena, philosophy, and canon law. He concludes with an explanation of the mass. In the second book, when Cortese treats victuals, he also deals with poisons derived from stones, trees, and animals and describes the various sorts of death which result. He advises that the best way to avoid poisoning is to be liked. One should be especially careful with servants. Later he treats the cardinal’s speech, which should be characterized by “mediocritas,” a kind of golden mean in which nothing is lacking, nothing is redundant. He discusses vocabulary, innovation, various rhetorical devices and figures of speech, then delivery, voice, gesture. Finally, he treats the cardinal’s appearance, his clothing for various seasons, his gait, exercise, bathing indoors and in spas, the kind of doctor he should choose, emotions, music, and morals. Next he moves on to law; the election of a pope; consistories; the Vatican staff, including librarians, printers, painters and teachers; ecclesiastical ranks; the making of the sacraments; vestments and their significance; the creation of cardinals; the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience; ordination, councils, schism, and heresy. In short, De cardinalatu was much more than a prescription for high living, it was a comprehensive handbook for the cardinal at every stage in his career.40 A companion piece to Cortese’s De cardinalatu was Paris de Grassis’s De ceremoniis cardinalium. De Grassis was Master of Apostolic Ceremonies from 1504–28.41 His book explained the origin of the various ceremonies

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of the Church, the number, normally fifteen, and the ranks of the ministers assisting the cardinal and their responsibilities, their dress and actions, bowing and genuflecting, sitting down and getting up, kissing the cardinal’s hand, the use of the precious or simple mitre, the number of candles on the altar and in the tribune, the placing of the various items on the altar, seating, reading the epistle and gospel, the sermon, confession, benediction, the gestures of the celebrant, the use of incense, all this in book I. Book II discusses what could be called the opera of the mass: costume, movements, positions, song. It gives the music for feast days and ordinary days.42 This book gives an impression of the ceremonial grandeur in which Bembo starred when he decided to become a priest and had learnt to celebrate the mass. Bembo’s letter of 25 November 1539 written from Rome to his old friend Rodolfo Pio, cardinal and legate to the Marches, has the charm of a schoolboy’s first letter home after he has been sent away to boarding school. He sends the latest news from Rome, interlarding his text with scraps of Latin. He tells Rodolfo where he sits in consistory and chapel, next to Pietro Sarmiento, Cardinal of San Jacopo, who appears to be the most amiable man in the world, and near Gian Pietro Caraffa, the Neapolitan cardinal who was to found the Roman Inquisition in 1542 and later became Pope Paul IV. In a ps Bembo tells Rodolfo of his rooms in the Vatican Palace and invites him to stay there with him when he comes to Rome (T IV, 2139). The consistory was the main papal council attended by cardinals, the vice-chancellor, the apostolic chamberlain, the apostolic protonotaries, the treasurer, chamber clerks, rota judges, and others. It held both public and private sessions.43 Consistories were held every week or ten days and all the pope’s decrees were issued on the advice and with the consent of the cardinals.44 The seating plan for the consistory and for the papal chapel was quadrangular. The pope sat on a throne on a dais on one side, while the cardinals and others occupied the three remaining sides.45 Although Bembo had been warmly received by the pope, was comfortably installed in the Vatican, had taken his place in the consistory, and was making friends with his colleagues, the old hostility to him lived on in comments pinned to the statue of Pasquino near Piazza Navona. One of them, addressed to Cardinal Pietro Bembo, the best of grandfathers, by weeping hypocrisy and folly, mocked his inspiration by the Holy Spirit when he decided to yield to his ambition to become cardinal while he was still, even as an old man, singing laments for his wife Morosina. This squib was dedicated to Tartarus. Another pasquinade, after an obscene opening about Bembo’s sexuality, went on to say that if Bembo were made legate of Rome in the pope’s absence, “he would steal all the medals there were in Rome to furnish his studio in Padua, and other things besides medals, to enrich

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his putative bastard, the son of his beloved, whom he loves so much, but I believe that he is rather the son of some gondolier, he is so ugly.”46 Bembo must have been aware of these attacks, but does not mention them in his letters. There would be no point in giving them additional publicity. On Christmas Eve 1539 Bembo wrote three letters, one to his daughter Elena in Padua, one to his nephew Gian Matteo in Kotor, and one to Lisabetta Quirina in Venice. Elena was now in a convent in Padua and no longer the model schoolgirl she had been at home. Her father wrote to her rather severely: I was glad to see your last letter in which you write me that you are diligently attending to the study of your letters, but if I want to know how much you are profiting I would find out from your teacher. He writes me that you are not learning anything. See now how you stand. Learn better, therefore, and become as erudite as possible, because this will be your most beautiful attribute. I am pleased about the sewing and I believe it; however you are in the care of Madonna Laura who is the best mistress in that art in that city and in any other. Above all it pleases me that you have learnt to say the office and that you have become a good nun, because this will help you when the time comes for you to be an abbess ... And be well and greet your Lucia for me and tell her that I will be pleased to hear anything about those things which she knows I want to hear. (T IV, 2143)

Bembo obviously hoped that Elena would discover a religious vocation and that he would not have to find the money to marry her, as he had had to for his niece Giulia, who had also had a convent education (T II, 952). This letter, with its attempt to turn Lucia into a spy, could only have made Elena rebellious. Bembo then replied to Gian Matteo’s request to do something for his sons. Bembo will be very glad to do so when he is able to, but at the present he is poorer than he has ever been. He has had to borrow 3000 ducats from friends, and because of the famine his expenses have been sky high. He is a poor cardinal, who has to live by other people’s bread. Gian Matteo has said that he would like to come to see him in April when he is returning from Kotor, but Bembo tells him to go straight home and come another time, when he can look after him better. Then he springs his surprise. “I am going to be ordained priest at this festival and will learn to say the mass and will say it. See how God has changed me” (T IV, 2148).47 Bembo obviously wanted to be at the centre of the grand ceremonial he saw in Rome. His mastering the mass took some time, as he would indicate in his letter to Rodolfo Pio of 7 March 1540 (T IV, 2165). The letter to Lisabetta reveals another side of Bembo’s life in Rome. He is lonely. He thanks her for her two sweetest and dearest letters, “from which I see what I have desired and hoped, that you are not forgetting the

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love and affection which I bear you ... If it were God’s will that I could see and enjoy my dear friends here as I could there I would be more content and happier than I am ... We are busy with Christmas celebrations” (T IV, 2147). No mention here that he is about to be ordained. Bembo’s loneliness in Rome had already appeared in his letter of 11 December 1539 to Rodolfo Pio. He begs him to come to Rome. He longs for his company to discuss things. Rodolfo should hand over his court cases to his vicar. He can do justice through ministers, when they are good (T IV, 2141). Then, on 20 December, Bembo wrote joyfully to his old friend from Urbino days, Federico Fregoso, bishop of Gubbio. Yesterday the pope created eleven cardinals. Fregoso was number one, with the enthusiastic support of the whole college, where he was much praised. “I am happier about this for Christianity and the Holy See and for myself than I am for you, because you enjoyed your quiet life in your diocese.” Bembo begs him not to turn down the appointment. Gualteruzzi is taking him the papal brief and the hat (T IV, 2142).48 In fact, Fregoso begged the pope to allow him to stay in Gubbio until the harvest, because he needed the income from the sale of the grain, but the pope did not want to wait so long to have a chance to discuss the situation in the Church with him and asked Bembo to write to him suggesting a compromise. Since Gubbio is not far away, he should come quickly and stay until a few days after Easter, then he could go back for the harvest. Bembo tells him that he would not have to worry about housing. He could have the room in Sant’ Apostoli, presumably the one where Bembo frequently stayed. Vittoria Colonna is in Rome, and he is perhaps going to see her today. Her presence was possibly bait for Fregoso (T IV, 2150 of 2 January 1540). The next day Bembo wrote to Fregoso again, thanking him for sending a mule (T IV, 2151). Bembo wrote again to Lisabetta Quirina on 10 January 1540, apologizing for not writing sooner, because he has been very busy and because of his reluctance to take up a pen when he cannot write what he would like to. He was happier in his previous state, not because he has many troubles now, but because he does not have those things which used to give him pleasure and much comfort. He is in good health and well regarded. He will have Federico Fregoso with him, which is a source of much satisfaction. Vittoria Colonna is in Rome, a saintly and most worthy and most courteous lady who has a lofty and brilliant mind (T IV, 2152). Bembo had not forgotten his obligations in the north. On 29 January 1540 he wrote to Cola, prematurely as it turned out, that he was very satisfied with the arbiter’s judgment in the litigation with the Loredani family over water for his mills. He asked Cola to spend Lent in Bologna to supervise the factor’s administration and if he judges that it is the best solution, rent the commenda to someone who will be able to provide him with money in the summer so that he can buy wheat, oats, and hay and other

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necessary provisions. Finally he asks Cola to have Fra Simone sow acorns in those fields from Santa Juliana so that the whole area will become a wood joined to the other one. He suggests various people from whom Cola may have the use of horses and urges him to take care of his health (T IV, 2157). Bembo was very worried about Cola’s frequent illnesses (T IV, 2163). In a letter of 7 March 1540, addressed to him in Bologna, Bembo told Cola that he knows of an excellent recipe for kidney trouble and difficulty in urination. It is an electuary, very delicate to take. He has had a marvellous experience of it and a mutual friend, M Vincenzo, has used it for three years and now has no problems at all. He advises Cola to start it immediately and never stop. Obviously all these ageing men were suffering from prostate problems and/or kidney stones. Then Bembo turned to the commenda in Bologna, where he feels he has been systematically cheated by the factor over many years. Finally he asks Cola, when he goes to Padua, to give Elena’s tutor some money to buy some clothes because the poor wretch has had his clothing stolen (T IV, 2164). In a letter written a week later to Cola in Padua, Bembo reminds him of the tutor’s clothes, then expresses dismay at thefts from his house and tells Cola to take great care to protect his treasures (T IV, 2166). In his next letter he asks Cola about the garden. Has he planted arbutus in the spalier of roses? He is glad that riding to Bologna did not do him any harm. Soon he will have to go to Villanova (T IV, 2185). In the following letter to Cola Bembo complains about a portrait of Elena which must have been sent to him. It does not look like her, it makes her appear sixteen or eighteen when she is only twelve, and it has not captured any of her grace. Then he reports the important news from Rome, that Contarini has been made legate to Germany and will leave in a few days and go through Venice (T IV, 2189 of 28 May 1540). This was to be the last attempt to bring the Lutherans back into the fold before the two churches went their separate ways. In a letter of 30 May 1540, to Girolamo Quirino in Venice, Bembo mentions Contarini’s legation and asks Girolamo to arrange to have the Signoria meet him in the Bucintoro. But the main subject of Bembo’s letter was Lisabetta’s grave illness. He has been fearing the worst, what he might hear, “with the greatest and inexpressible grief.” It is many years since he has been so upset. Since she is still very seriously ill he hopes “that the giver of all grace will give her this one for her goodness, that that outstanding and saintly lady will live many more years to the satisfaction and contentment of her good and true friends and relatives.” He will have the monasteries pray for her and will pray for her himself, as he has these days. Greet her and comfort her a thousand times in my name, thanking her for the greetings which she has sent through you. He also asks Girolamo to thank Titian for the gift of his second portrait49 (T IV, 2191).

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Many of the letters Bembo wrote from Rome are dull and uninteresting, full of petty gossip of what was, in effect, a gentlemen’s club: the seating plan in the consistory and the adjustments due to new arrivals; quarrels; gout; fevers; urinary problems; medicaments; deaths; letters of condolence. Despite the universality of the Church, Bembo’s horizons are now limited. He discusses the issues of the Reformation only in one letter to his fellow Venetian, Contarini, legate to the Diet of Ratisbon (T IV, 2249), and in one to a German humanist, Melanchthon’s son-in-law Giorgio Sabino (T IV, 2085). Otherwise his letters to Contarini concern his travel allowances. Bembo also never refers to his own duties, other than to say that he is very busy, although we know that he had some responsibility in the handling of the situation in Germany50 and that he was also working on his History of Venice. One could imagine that his reticence was due to discretion. It could also have been due to a lack of intellectual or emotional involvement. He was no theologian and obviously could not comprehend the hair-splitting over the relative importance of faith and good works in gaining salvation. Certainly one had to have faith in the redemption to be saved and a true believer would naturally engage in good works. However, even a letter about the consistory could come to life when there was a good scandal, which Bembo obviously enjoyed. Writing on 7 April 1540 to Rodolfo Pio, a fellow cardinal and therefore an insider, Bembo savoured some salacious gossip: I have to mention a fine occurrence in our order because one of us, who has been regarded and wants to be regarded as the most sober and saintly, fell, poor wretch, into incontinence with a rather common woman, on Holy Monday, running the dispatch rider vigorously, and Holy Wednesday and Easter Monday, and he brought signs of that on his face and bites on his lips, into chapel, which made those who knew nothing suspect it. And he wants, this gentleman, to make her the first lady of Rome. And we soon expect a rare and fine comedy. But keep this to yourself and, if you want to laugh, laugh privately. Since I do not hope to be able to write any more interesting news I will conclude with this. (T IV, 2180)

The first part of the letter had given news about various cardinals, referred to by the names of their titular churches [like British mps by their constituencies] and an account of the pope’s fever and sore throat. Through his friendship with Gasparo Contarini, Bembo was involved with efforts to reform and maintain the unity of the Church. Contarini, a former Venetian diplomat, was made cardinal by Paul III and then on 21 May 1535 appointed to head a commission on reform. He received the first tonsure, took minor orders, then was ordained priest. Contarini was a poor cardinal, like Bembo, because he had had to draw deeply on family resources to fund his ambassadorial responsibilities in Germany and Spain

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and had not had time to build up a portfolio of benefices in the Church. He was therefore given rooms in the Vatican palace, while his household of forty men and twenty horses lived in rented accomodation nearby.51 His commission published its report, outlined above,52 in 1537. The pope responded to this report, though slowly. In one of his early letters from Rome Bembo wrote to Rodolfo Pio that they had had two assemblies on reform of the papal court. The pope’s statements were very serious, spirited, and honoured, and gave great satisfaction to those who heard him (T IV, 2167 of 20 March 1540). Unfortunately Bembo said nothing about the actual content of the pope’s proposals, but immediately reverted to his gossipy style. He alludes to a member of the consistory who is going to be disgraced for his dissolute management, tells of a new arrival, of an accident in the Farnese family, gives an update on the cardinals’ health, and on Fregoso’s gout. On 28 May 1540 (T IV, 2189) Contarini had been appointed legate to the assembly of the German states called by the emperor Charles V to try to sort out the religious controversy which was dividing the empire in order to create a united front against the advancing Turks, now at the gates of Budapest. What was called the Diet of Ratisbon [modern Regensburg] was summoned for 1541. Humanists, ecclesiastics and politicians both south and north of the Alps hailed Contarini’s appointment. He had an established reputation as a reformer with an exalted view of public duty and an upright and blameless life.53 He also had diplomatic experience of Germany. While waiting to be dispatched to Germany, Contarini went on a brief holiday with Bembo in the environs of Rome, in August 1540 (T IV, 2205). He was finally sent to Germany the following January. He reached Regensburg towards the end of March.54 Bembo wrote to him from Rome on 19 March 1541 that they expect much from his abilities and learning and prays that he may be successful, to the benefit of the Christian religion and the Holy See (T IV, 2234). The Diet of Ratisbon opened on 5 April 1541 with a solemn Mass of the Holy Spirit in St Peter’s cathedral, since the emperor was a Catholic. Contarini participated in the consecration of the bread and wine and gave the benediction. Then the Catholic contingent, without Contarini, adjourned to the Imperial Chamber in the town hall to take part in a civil ceremony with the Protestants.55 When the actual discussions started, with the emperor pressing for moderation on both sides, Contarini addressed the Lutherans with words of love, convinced that a compromise was possible. His discussion of justification by faith pleased Melanchthon, the main spokesman for the Lutherans.56 Contarini and Pole had studied the Augsburg Confession and believed that it did not need to be interpreted as contrary to Catholic

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doctrine.57 Melanchthon had made the same point at Augsburg.58 Contarini wrote to Bembo on 26 April, that he was optimistic.59 Melanchthon’s son-in-law, Georg Schüler, a Latin poet and university professor who had adopted the humanist name of Georgius Sabinus [Giorgio Sabino], also wrote optimistically to Bembo about the discussions at Regensburg (T IV, 2085 of 27 May 1541).60 Eventually Catholics, Protestants, and the Imperial party at Regensburg accepted Contarini’s draft on justification, amended in the sense of the Augsburg Confession so that faith, love, and good works were brought together, good works being the result of faith and love through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But neither Luther nor the Roman curia liked it and Catholic and Protestant theologians at home rejected it.61 Bembo reported the reactions of the cardinals in a letter to Contarini dated 27 May 1541: This morning your letters of 8, 10, 12 and 15 May were read in Consistory and your prudence and the constancy which you have shown in the articles discussed were praised by all, always cautiously, that by some indirect way those Protestants may never be able to say that anything has been conceded to them which might be to the detriment of our religion ... giving at some time a loophole to those who will want to malign, interpreting it sinisterly. But about all this you will receive a letter from the pope. Certainly your procedure has been much commended and it is the unanimous opinion of the College that if those people cannot be led back onto the right track with the truth it is better to let them err, until it pleases Our Lord God to give them a better understanding, than to concede them something that is not worthy of this holy religion, established and approved for many centuries with the testimony and with the blood of so many most saintly men who have had the governance of the Apostolic See ... Your judgment on the dissertation about justification through faith and works caused some argument among the cardinals, although Fregoso made a spirited and learned defence of it. However I beg you not to get upset about it. For you know both the custom of this assembly and the nature of men: so many heads, so many opinions ... On the other hand they all praise your efforts wholeheartedly, and your excellent learning and constancy and individual actions. (T IV, 2249)

Bembo’s letter also discusses Contarini’s surprising request for a benefice for his nephew. The promised letter from the pope, presumably that written by Cardinal Farnese on 29 May 1541, rejected Contarini’s draft on justification by faith.62 But even if both sides had accepted the compromise on justification fundamental conflicts remained over the sacraments and the doctrine of transubstantiation, the adoration of saints and papal supremacy.63 Contarini now despaired in Regensburg (T IV, 2250) and was left with Bembo as his only loyal supporter in Rome.64 Fregoso had left for his

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The residential quarters, Sant’ Apostoli, Rome. Bembo stayed there in the summers of 1518 (T II, 388), 1540 (T IV, 2190, 2199), and 1542 (T IV, 2337) to escape the humidity of the Vatican. Julius II lived there before he became pope and had the Apollo Belvedere there with him. The rooms on the first floor were reserved for cardinals. The church is not shown because it was reconstructed in the eighteenth century.

diocese of Gubbio, where he died on 22 July 1541.65 Pole, who could have defended him, had left Rome in early May to spend the summer at Capranica (T IV, 2243). In early June Bembo sent Pole a copy of Contarini’s defence of the Regensburg agreement. He also sent one to Vittoria Colonna “who lives happily in prayer and contemplation” (T IV, 2250).66 Toward

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The courtyard, Sant’ Apostoli.

the end of June Bembo sent copies of Contarini’s explanation to other cardinals (T IV, 2253) but this did not earn him any support. Bembo’s remaining letters to Contarini in Germany deal with the benefice for Contarini’s nephew (T IV, 2251) and the dispatch of funds to meet his expenses (T IV, 2253, 2256, 2264). Contarini was back in Italy by mid-August 1541. Bembo wrote to him in Verona to tell him that the pope was going to Lucca to speak to the emperor and that he had been made bishop of Gubbio on Fregoso’s death, while Pole had been made legate to the Patrimony of Peter (T IV, 2264). Bembo, who was suffering from gout (T IV, 2250, 2253) and was not well enough to ride north with the pope, probably spent that summer, as he had the previous one (T IV, 2190) and would spend the following one, in rooms in SS. Apostoli (T IV, 2337) where he had also taken refuge in 1518 (T II, 388) and 1520 (T II, 403).

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Fregoso had apparently made Bembo heir to his personal possessions, with the right to dispose of them as he saw fit. Many things were sent to Fregoso’s sister Costanza, to the duke and duchess of Urbino (T IV, 2263), and later to Fregoso’s nephew, who was to receive his knife and fork, along with his chests and some books (T IV, 2531). Bembo kept Fregoso’s sheets, among other things (T IV, 2282). The pope, however, had divided Fregoso’s ecclesiastical holdings between Bembo and his legate to the Marches, Rodolfo Pio. Bembo had received the diocese of Gubbio, Pio the abbey of Fonte Avellana. This led to an unseemly quarrel between Bembo and his old friend. Bembo claimed the income from the sale of the grain stored at the abbey which had been harvested while Fregoso was still alive. This was obviously part of his personal estate. Rodolfo claimed it for himself, since it was stored at the abbey he had been given. There was also a problem of money owed to Fregoso by his tenants which had not been collected in his lifetime and which Bembo had looked forward to receiving to pay off various debts, including his cardinal’s ring (T IV, 2291).67 In addition to squabbling over Fregoso’s inheritance Bembo continued to deal in benefices, now mostly on behalf of Gian Matteo’s sons.68 Although Contarini’s commission had condemned traffic in benefices, even Contarini had asked for something for his nephew. No new structure for filling benefices had been established, and expressions of good intentions were not enough to change the world overnight.69 Bembo himself got involved in a quarrel over the transfer of a benefice to him. The Venetian aristocrat, Ottaviano Zeno, who as a member of Paul III’s household had been commissioned to bring Bembo his red hat, died in Bembo’s house in Rome in October 1542, leaving him the benefice of the parish church of Sta Maria de’ Casali in the diocese of Treviso. Bembo immediately sent Gian Matteo, who was in Venice at the time, the papal brief he had obtained and the procuration and asked him to get permission from the Senate to take possession in his name and send an emissary. The benefice was well run, so he should retain the chaplain and the lessees of the property and have an inventory made of the contents of the sacristy to give to the chaplain. He should also establish the possessions and goods of the church and have any field sown which was not rented out (T IV, 2355). Then a conflict arose. The vicar of Treviso had given the benefice to someone else, and Bembo’s rival was apparently defending himself by alleging that Bembo had applied improper pressure on the dying Zeno. Bembo naturally denied this. He explained that when he heard that Zeno had fallen ill he had sent his servants, mules, and litter to pick him up where he was, had brought him to his house, affectionately maintained him for several months, looked after him like a son, and helped him collect a legacy of 300 ducats left by his uncle. Bembo therefore had no feeling of guilt over accepting Zeno’s benefice (T IV, 2356). Moreover Cardinal Pisani had sent

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a letter explaining that it was illegal for the vicar of Treviso to attribute a benefice when the benefice had been vacated in Rome by one of His Holiness’s chamberlains (T IV, 2358). Apart from the conditioned reflex of more than thirty years’ standing that impelled him to act as soon as he heard that a benefice was up for grabs, Bembo was under constant pressure as a poor man in a wealthy society. In letter after letter he writes to his nephew and Cola about his poverty. He cannot afford to entertain Gian Matteo in Rome (T IV, 2148); he has never been so poor (T IV, 2215); he cannot afford to accompany the pope to Bologna, though he would like to be able to see his family (T IV, 2220); he would like to be able to take a fine young man into his service, but has difficulty maintaining and feeding the household he has (T IV, 2329). In addition to financing his position in Rome Bembo had children to think about. Elena was clearly restless in the convent and bored with a steady diet of Latin and Greek. She asked her father if she could study the clavichord. In a letter to Cola of 7 October 1540, Bembo told him to tell Elena that he thinks that it does not become an honourable lady of elevated mind and that he absolutely disapproves of her taking time for that. He did not approve of his sister Antonia’s playing ... she never learnt to play well and made a fool of herself ... Truly a lady cannot learn to play well unless she devotes herself wholly to practising, and not playing well gives no pleasure and earns no praise. Knowing how to play well, and abandoning every other praiseworthy activity, is even more blameworthy. If she spends that time on literature she will be much more praised and her learning will give much more pleasure than her playing. Then he adds, “Please find a good tutor for Torquato and Elena. The better he is, the more he will cost, but this is the best use of money” (T IV, 2212). When it comes to education and, as we will see later, to music, Bembo was even-handed. Elena and Torquato were to get equal education and equal restrictions. Torquato’s master, Lampridio, had died in June 1540 and Torquato had returned to Padua in Cola’s charge, studying Greek with Antonio Fiordebello, one of Bembo’s household (T IV, 2195). Fiordebello later began teaching him Latin as well and was perhaps better for him than Lampridio (T IV, 2199). Now Torquato wanted a velvet habit. He could have one if he worked hard, “but the best habit is a mantle of letters and virtue” (T IV, 2205). Later Bembo wrote that he is glad to hear that Torquato is growing tall. He asked Cola to show him his medals sometime, so that he will begin to know them, take a delight in them, and get an understanding. He would also like Torquato to know his antiques. Cola should teach him about them, day by day (T IV, 2210). In a later letter Bembo wrote to Cola that he was pleased with the tutor he had found for Elena and satisfied at the present with Fiordebello for Torquato. He asked Cola to see to it that Lucia had everything that she needed. He owes her a great deal for her devotion.

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He concludes with the amazing information that the last courier arrived from Venice in thirty hours (T IV, 2222). Cola found Torquato a good teacher, Jacopo Bonfadio, but still his reports were not good. On 26 December 1540 Bembo wrote him a harsh letter, complaining of his indolence and his pursuit of pleasure, riding, playing games, seeking amusements which give transitory enjoyment but nothing of lasting value. “But letters, once learnt, accompany you all your life and make their possessor dear to every king and every lord, whence the wealth and lofty positions of many learned men ... If I had not put all my care and effort and thought into this, I would not be able to leave you in that fortune in which I will leave you, if I see that you deserve it. Do not let me hear, any more, that you are lazy and slow in doing this, because I will be slow and lazy also ... in loving you.” Bembo then reminded Torquato that he had greater incentive to improve himself than his father had had because he had less honour in his birth – an unpardonably snide remark from the father who was responsible for his son’s illegitimacy (T IV, 2226). The contrast between Bembo’s two children remained marked. When she was thirteen Elena understood grammar and wrote fine Latin, while Torquato, three years older, was incompetent and idle. He should be ashamed. Now Bembo urges Cola again to show Torquato his medals for an hour after dinner, when nothing else is going on. He wants Torquato to gain an appreciation of the antiques he will inherit (T IV, 2240). In a following letter Bembo rejoiced that Torquato had begun to apply himself more to his studies. This was the dearest news he could receive. He was also glad that he was learning something about antiques, the care and study of gentlemen. Torquato was sixteen on 10 May 1541 and is no longer a boy but a man. Elena will be thirteen on 30 June 1541 and she will begin to be a woman. Bembo asks Cola to write him if she has grown, if she is as beautiful as she promised to be, and if she is making progress in her studies. “Greet Lucia and tell her that I have nothing dearer in the world than that girl, and that I love so tenderly, as I love her. Therefore, she should look after her above all else. If Our Lord God gives me some more years of life I hope to reward her for her present diligence and hard work” (T IV, 2246). Bembo was pleased that Cola had spent August and September of 1541 in the villa with Torquato and Elena (T IV, 2261 and 2277). He asked Elena and Lucia to make him two pillows or cushions, somewhat bigger than his old ones, and to have them sent to the factor at Villanova, who should take them to Mantua to be filled with swansdown of the best quality. Then they should he returned to Padua to be covered in crimson taffeta. There should be two covers each (T IV, 2261). At the same time Bembo asked Cola to take Carlo Gualteruzzi’s son Ugolino in at no charge to his

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father, if he went to Padua to study. He is about the same age as Torquato, “a very nice boy, both modest and wise and religious, and very quiet and anxious to become learned.” Bembo thinks that he might have a good influence on Torquato, lead him away from his vanities, inspire him to study, and draw him toward religion, because Ugolino says the office nonstop (T IV, 2277). Back at the convent Elena was now becoming difficult. Bembo wrote to her on 19 November 1541: I had heard these past months that you had become proud and pig-headed and that Lucia could not manage you and that you no longer listened to her and wanted to do everything your own way and that you did not obey her in most things. I was very displeased at hearing this because girls of this sort grow ... in such arrogance and obstinacy of will that neither husbands nor relatives nor friends can tolerate them and they are hated by everyone. In addition, I grieved that Lucia, who for love of you shut herself up in that convent to bring you up, and endured that life for you – whom, if it were not for you, I would have married and she would live free in her own house – should now receive that reward for her efforts and the unlimited love she bore you ... I asked Gualteruzzi, who had to go to Padua, to find out from Lucia herself. She told him that I had been misinformed and that you are obedient, humble and good, all that you should be. This pleased me greatly, even more than the four beautiful cushion covers which you sent me. (T IV, 2299)

Now Elena wrote to her father, asking for permission to study another musical instrument, the monochord. Again he refused: I am glad that you are well ... and that Torquato is diligent in his studies ... As for permission ... to learn to play the monochord, I have to tell you what perhaps you cannot know since you are so young, that playing a musical instrument is characteristic of a light and frivolous woman. And I would like you to be the most serious and the chastest and most modest woman alive. Also, if you did not play well, it would give you little pleasure, and no little humiliation. You cannot learn to play well unless you spend ten or twelve years without ever thinking about anything else ... Therefore stop thinking about this frivolity and concentrate on being humble and good and wise and obedient ... and resist such desires with a strong mind. And if your companions urge you to learn to play to give them pleasure tell them that you do not want to give them a laugh at your shame. And content yourself with your studies and sewing. If you are good at both those things you will have accomplished a lot. (T IV, 2303)

Bembo began to think of finding her a husband (T IV, 2304). Next year she would be fourteen, a usual age for marriage, and she obviously had no vocation to become a nun.

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Just before Christmas 1541 Bembo received the welcome news that Torquato was studying diligently. He has decided to send him a horse (T IV, 2305), and has had a new saddle made for it, but asks Cola to have stirrups and straps made in Padua at a third the Roman price, and handsomer as well (T IV, 2307). Since the horse was to be called “Fregoso” it was probably one Bembo had inherited from his friend who had died that summer (T IV, 2308). He told Torquato that he was also sending him a French clock so that even at night, and without light, he could tell the time by touching it with the tip of his finger. But he should not start using it until he has been taught the art, for a little mistake upsets the balance of those motions and wheels. Bembo will give him just one instruction, that he should tighten that cord which causes everything to revolve twice a day, once at lunchtime and once before he goes to bed (T IV, 2309). Elena, too, was sent a present, carving knives, probably also from Fregoso’s estate, as well as her father’s small gilt cup, and both children were given instructions on tipping the delivery man (T IV, 2308, 2311). They should show him courtesy and “no courtesy is better than money” (2311, line 7). Bembo was a man of the world. Cola had been suffering from kidney trouble since the middle of 1540. (T IV, 2321). Bembo had been very concerned about his frequent illnesses and had sent a good bit of advice about treatment. Bembo had suffered from kidney trouble himself, and been near death one hundred times, but had been cured by ewe’s milk. He told Cola to buy two ewes and drink their milk in the morning, warm from their udders, then try to sleep. He believed that the sleep had done him the most good, but this was not a cure that worked in a few days. Cola should not worry about the cost (T IV, 2199). Cola died in May 1542. The loss of Cola changed the lives of Torquato and Elena. Bembo had to refuse Elena’s request to be allowed to go to the villa that summer. She was now fourteen, and although she would undoubtedly be secure and well guarded by Lucia, people would gossip, and once one acquires a bad name it is difficult to live it down. She must stay in the convent until Bembo is able to take her away with her honour intact (T IV, 2327). The same day he wrote to Elena, he sent a second letter to Girolamo Quirino, discussing the problem of finding a suitable husband for Elena. She is the dearest thing he has in the world. Torquato has often upset him but from Elena he has had nothing but satisfaction and contentment. Girolamo and Lisabetta had put several names forward and both had praised Lisabetta’s nephew Francesco Quirino. Bembo feels that he has to admit that he has often thought that Francesco is less sensible and clever than he would like, but perhaps he has changed since he last saw him (T IV, 2328). Bembo apparently offered Francesco’s father a dowry of possessions worth 10,000 ducats, which was considered inadequate. Bembo wrote to

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his secretary Flaminio Tomarozzo in Venice. If he were in a better financial state he would agree to Girolamo’s demands, because he loves his daughter so much and would give 2000 or 3000 ducats in cash in addition to the 10,000 in possessions. If Torquato were to die, which God forbid, she would also inherit the house in Padua and his studio and its contents and what he has in Rome, which would constitute a large and fine dowry. Also he has considered leaving nothing to Torquato beyond the benefices he has already received, and leaving everything to her because Torquato shows very little inclination to please him ... while Elena pleases him as much as she can ... But Elena is young and can afford to wait (T IV, 2334). While Elena waited in her convent, something had to be done about Torquato. Since Cola’s death Bembo had no one to run his house in Padua, so he had to send Torquato away to board with a master. This would also get the boy away from some bad habits he had picked up in Padua and save Bembo the expense of maintaining a household there as well as one in Rome (T IV, 2336). Now Bembo decided to come down hard on Torquato. He would give him two years to reform or cut him off. From his tender years he had given him the best teachers. Now, 13 July 1542, he was entering his eighteenth year and still could not write a single letter in Latin and hardly a letter in Italian that was well composed. Bembo has heard that Torquato is giving himself to vices. Travi notes that in another version of this letter “vices” is explained: “I remind you again that you should resist going to mix with women who easily give themselves for money, which I hear that you have begun to do, because you can very quickly catch the French disease, which will either shorten your life or keep you in perpetual torment .”70 Bembo says that he is tired of continually badgering Torquato by letter and by word of mouth. Let this be sufficient, and may Our Lord God govern you with his piety and goodness (T IV, 2339). Bembo returned to the problem of finding a husband for Elena. Mario Savorgnan had been proposed. Bembo praised him in a letter to Girolamo Quirino. He could not think of anyone better for Elena, although he is perhaps a little older than Bembo would have wished. He has known Mario since he was a baby, but how old is he? He asks Girolamo and Lisabetta to get a frank appraisal of him and find out his age (T IV, 2357). This letter, of 6 November 1542, seems to have influenced the Quirino attitude towards Elena’s dowry. That was perhaps its purpose. On 2 December 1542 Bembo wrote to Elena, thanking her for the shirts she had sent and telling her that he expects that she will soon be able to leave the convent (T IV, 2359). On 23 December Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo Bembo sending him a procuration for him to promise, in his name, a specified dowry to Francesco Quirino. On acceptance, he should go to Padua with Francesco and their friend, Girolamo Quirino, who had negotiated the dowry. There the young people should pledge their troth in St Peter’s

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church, but he does not want Elena to leave the convent until the actual marriage. They should not buy her a special dress, but she should go to take Francesco’s hand in her convent garb, dressed only in her natural beauty of body and mind (T IV, 2363, 2367). Something happened to the betrothal. Francesco fell ill and later both he and Elena married someone else (T IV, 2383 of 14 November 1543), all within a year (T IV, 2380). Bembo’s letters give no clue as to what happened, but obviously Elena was disturbed for a while and became impossible to manage in the convent. Bembo wrote her a severe letter from Rome on 1 May 1543 (T IV, 2372), then married her to Pietro Gradenigo at the end of October. What took Bembo back to the north, despite financial hardship, was the summoning of the Council of Trent.71 Bembo first mentioned it in a letter of 24 September 1542, in which he told his nephew, Gian Matteo, not to come to Rome because we are going to the Council (T IV, 2350). A month later, on 21 October, he told Girolamo Quirino that the pope had appointed three legates to open the Council, Parisio, Morone, and Pole, who are leaving in a few days (T IV, 2354). Contarini had died in August (T IV, 2347). The pope had planned to leave for Trent on 1 November 1542 (T IV, 2324), but in the face of the hostility of Francis I and Charles V, few bishops were able to attend the Council, which therefore had to be postponed. The pope then decided to go north in 1543 for a conference with the emperor in Parma. Bembo accompanied him, but fell ill in Bologna (T IV, 2373) and remained there until the pope’s return.72 Then in August Bembo went to Venice for the last time, to put his affairs in order, hand over the library, and arrange Elena’s marriage. It was in the ca’ Marcello on the Giudecca, where his family had stayed in 1500 in the days of Maria Savorgnan, that Bembo gave the inventory and keys to the Biblioteca Marciana to Benedetto Ramberti, secretary of the Senate, on 21 August 1543.73 Presumably he was now, as cardinal, guest of the Republic. By 24 October 1543 Bembo could write to Gualteruzzi in Rome that a great weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Much to her joy, he has given Elena in marriage to Pietro Gradenigo, a fine young man, and they will consumate the marriage on Monday night. Bembo has also married the faithful Lucia to his factor at Villanova as a reward for her many years of loving and diligent service. These two marriages have cost a lot, in addition to the dress and ornaments and the down payments on the dowries. He has managed this with the help of friends, which was especially necessary because of the expense of the trip to Bologna. Half of his income has been mortgaged (T IV, 2380). Bembo had already decided that the only way he could survive financially was by residing in his bishopric of Gubbio, as Fregoso had done, and

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as Sadoleto did in Carpentras (T IV, 2398 of 17 October 1543). Bembo told Gualteruzzi in his letter about Elena’s wedding, I found in the last four years that even with all my income I had great difficulty living in Rome and was always in debt, as you know, although my expenditure was modest ... Because of this I have decided to go to Gubbio and spend some months there and fulfill in part the office of pastor, which is my duty, and avoid the expense of Rome until I clear my debts ... Please excuse me to the cardinals ... I am even afraid that I may not be able to afford Gubbio, let alone Rome ... At present things in the house are being boxed to be sent to Pesaro and I am thinking of leaving on Saturday, God willing. If the weather is bad I will travel by boat, that is from Careggiola to Chioggia and from there by the Po as far as Ravenna to avoid the mud and the carriages. If it is fine I will go from Chioggia by land to Pesaro and Gubbio. (T IV, 2380)

As soon as he had been appointed bishop of Gubbio, Bembo had sent his secretary Flaminio Tomarozzo to take possession in his name (T IV, 2264) and had written to the canons and dean of the chapter reappointing Fregoso’s vicar, Simone Marcuccio (T IV, 2269). On the way to Gubbio Bembo stopped in Pesaro to look at Genga’s extension of Villa Imperiale for which he had provided Latin inscriptions. He told Eleonora, Duchess of Urbino, of his great pleasure “because it is a villa better conceived and realised with true knowledge of the art and with more antique idiom, and beautiful and charming inventions, than any other modern building I believe I have seen. Certainly my friend, Genga, is a great and true architect and has far exceeded all my expectation” (T IV, 2400). Bembo described his arrival in Gubbio in a letter to Lisabetta Quirina of 14 November 1543. He arrived on 2 November and was met by the duke, who was in residence. He lodged that first evening in the monastery of the brothers of San Salvatore outside the city. The next day, after dinner, he entered his bishopric very happily. The duke visited him again that day, as did the duchess who is still there, a very nice, wise, and gracious lady. This city suits him more than he had expected, as do the bishop’s lodgings. He has asked the pope’s permission to winter there. The air is fairly cold, but nevertheless good (T IV, 2383). Two days later he wrote to Gualteruzzi in Rome that he liked Gubbio and wanted to stay there as long as the pope permitted. He cannot afford Rome. Even in Gubbio he will have to cut back. If permission is granted for him to stay in Gubbio, from which he can reach Rome quickly if he is needed, he asks Gualteruzzi to rent his rooms in Rome to someone of standing who can defend them against some important personage and who would return them when he needed them, and would buy the provisions which are there. As to the

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Villa Imperiale, Genga’s new courtyard. Bembo stayed in the Villa Imperiale from time to time. When he was given a commission to restore the villa, Genga, the architect, asked Bembo to compose inscriptions for the new structures (T III, 1506). Bembo’s inscription around this courtyard, below the cornice, reads, “For the sun, for the dust, for the watches of the night, for the hardships.”

tapestries and other materials which could easily be moth-eaten, Bembo suggests that Gualteruzzi divide them up between two friends who have space to look after them. His staff in Rome should come to Gubbio immediately. “They should not be afraid that they will suffer what has happened to most of those who are here who, because of the discomfort of the rooms, and going about in the cold air at night, fell ill, but not seriously.” He goes on to say that although he has a good house, he will be happy to move to the ducal palace of Gubbio where his whole household will fit in (T IV, 2384). In his next letter to Gualteruzzi, of 22 November 1543, Bembo is more specific about the miseries of his household. Fifteen were laid up at one time with fever. It was due to the change of air. It is really cold and damp, but they will get used to it, like the people who live here. He remains well, and the sick are now recovering, although two more have fallen ill today (T IV, 2386). On the same day Bembo wrote to Cardinal Guido Ascanio Sforza who had sent him the pope’s command that he should return to Rome at the beginning of Advent to assist him in his labours: The pope had given him permission to go to Padua and Venice in the summer, where he

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had arranged the marriage of the daughter which his human frailty had given him. He has always had to borrow money to live in Rome, but this year he has only half his income. Therefore he begs the pope to allow him to winter in Gubbio. Also nineteen of his staff are now ill (T IV, 2387). In what was perhaps the intervening letter of that day Bembo had told his daughter Elena that now eighteen of his staff were ill (T IV, 2388). Bembo’s reports on the illness in his household alarmed his friends in Rome who wanted him to return. Bembo gave Gualteruzzi a list of reasons why he did not want to: 1 his rooms in the palace are uninhabitable because of the building going on – yet he had just tried to rent them!; 2 he cannot go to Sant’ Apostoli because that would involve a great expense; 3 if he did go there, he would have to go to the palace from time to time, and that would involve much discomfort and danger to his life since that road, in winter, is much more perilous than the climate of Gubbio; 4 he does not have enough retainers, so that he would appear to be that cardinal born in the circus; 5 also travelling to Rome at that time of year would be a threat to his health; 6 Gubbio’s climate is not the worst in the world; 7 most important of all, he can live there on one half what Rome costs and so start paying off the debts incurred for Elena’s marriage rather than running up new ones; 8 but, apart from the advantages of staying there, he gets satisfaction from fulfilling his debt to God and the Church. Gualteruzzi cannot imagine how much he enjoys doing it. Moreover, he has ordered a general confirmation on this Saturday and Sunday, because one has not been held for thirteen years. However, if the pope cannot be persuaded to let him stay, he will come and move into his rooms in the palace as soon as he can. Various members of his staff are leaving for the winter, so he will be very alone (T IV, 2396). The end of the year was approaching and Bembo was not forgotten. He was sent gifts of olives and salami,74 wines, apparently delayed by bad weather (T IV, 2403), thrushes, bottles of the best wine, and delicate marzipans (T IV, 2408). What he appreciated most was the news that Titian had finished Lisabetta’s portrait,75 about which della Casa had sent him a charming sonnet. He was pleased that her name was celebrated by such a great poet (T IV, 2405). On Christmas day he even had three beautiful red roses, with a very strong perfume – “and then one says that it is so cold here. Up to the present I am very content with the

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Stoney Gubbio, the road leading up to the cathedral and the ducal palace where Bembo lived in the winter of 1543–44.

climate ... I held confirmation not one day ... but four, one after the other, and I will not complain about fatigue, knowing that I have done my duty” (T IV, 2403). In Gubbio Bembo received a letter from Lisabetta urging him to produce an Italian version of his History of Venice. “You tell me that since the vulgar tongue is now much esteemed and valued, and is more in use and demand than Latin, it happens every day that Latin works, as soon as the printers get their hands on them, are immediately translated into Italian, because they can sell many times the number in Italian that they can in Latin.” She is sure that this will happen to his history, and the

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translations which the printers produce are disgraceful, and very inaccurate. Therefore, he should make an Italian version. He does not have the time, but he will ask a friend (T IV, 2413). In the end Bembo made the translation himself.76 In a letter to Gian Matteo, dated only 1544, Bembo refers to gossip that was going around Venice that he was destined to be the next pope: first, at his birth and again when the cardinal’s hat was sent to him, Bembo had Jupiter in the middle of the heavens and Federico [Badoer], an excellent astrologer, has said that this almost always occurs three times, and that the third time would be the papacy; then, in the mass, when he accepted the hat, he was called in the Epistle and in the Gospel as Our Lord called Peter: “Peter, follow me”; then, there was the hermit who said that a bishop of Gubbio would become pope; also it was remarkable what the pope said when he entered Rome, “Now enters my successor.” Bembo pretends not to believe in any of this (T IV, 2406) – astrology was condemned by the Church – but he had stressed the importance of profiting from “the sweet influence of his Jove” in the early days of his affair with Maria. Now Bembo was recalled to Rome, having been transferred to the diocese of Bergamo. With regret he turned down an invitation from the duke to go to Urbino for carnival to see some fine comedies and enjoy the festivities (T IV, 2419). At the same time, he wrote Gualteruzzi on 22 February 1544 that he cannot leave Gubbio yet because there is snow everywhere and it is continuing to snow heavily. He is not robust enough to ride in these conditions, but will come to Rome as soon as he can. Meantime he asks Gualteruzzi to send the papal brief to Quirino for the Signoria, since Bergamo is in Venetian territory. There will no difficulty getting possession (T IV, 2422). In his next letter Bembo wrote to Gualteruzzi that now there had been three or four days of heavy rain, so that every ditch was a river. He may not be able to leave on Monday as planned (T IV, 2424 of 1 March 1544). Bembo was back in Rome by 15 March, when he wrote to Girolamo Quirino telling him that he is pleased with being given Bergamo. He likes that church better than the cathedral at Verona. He is going to have Vettor Soranzo take possession for him (T IV, 2425). On 5 May 1544 Bembo wrote to the canons and clergy of the church of Bergamo, thanking them for their letters of congratulation. He lived in Bergamo for two years in his adolescence, when his father was governor, and has always retained a pleasant and happy memory of it. He cannot make definite plans to go there because he is not independent and is not very strong because of his age but he will do his duty toward them no less diligently and lovingly than if he were there (T IV, 2431). On the same day he wrote to the elders of Bergamo. Their letters to him show extraordinary

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goodwill toward him and reveal their very happy memory of his father. Nothing could please him more. He will try to come to see them and their splendid city. Unfortunately, in current circumstances, this cannot be soon (T IV, 2432). Although his ecclesiastical career was progressing, Bembo now had problems with both his children. A month after Elena’s marriage Bembo had received a letter from the factor at the villa which upset him. He wrote to his daughter: Mons. Boldù writes me that your husband wants all the income from Villa Bozza for this year. I would like to know on what grounds, because one cannot believe that gentlemen speak without reason. If I gave him those possessions when he gave you his hand, as we agreed, is it not enough that he should have all the income from those possessions from that day forward? Does he also want the past income ... And you, too, tell me, I do not know what, about the factor, wanting to show me that he behaved badly toward you and your husband and did not cover all your living expenses in Padua. If he has done what I instructed him to do, how can you complain about him? Being my factor, he has to obey me, and not you. I am the one you should complain about, not him. But if I instruct the factor to give you as much bread and wine and wood at my expense as you need for the time you stay in Padua, in my house, how can you complain about me, who have impoverished myself to make you and him rich ... if you spend a lot in addition, each day, to live sumptuously ... And when I heard that you said that your husband and his family would complain about you I remember that I said to you: “And of what will they complain, because I promised to give them 500 ducats of clothing and equipment for you and gave them 900?” ... But leaving all these upsetting things aside, and coming to the delightful, I am pleased that you thank me in your letter for the sweet company that I have given you ... I am pleased, because I see that you are very happy. I could not hear anything dearer to me than this. Concentrate on loving him chastely, and conduct yourself well and modestly with everyone, and begin to adopt the thoughts that befit young married ladies who have the management of their houses. As for the four measures of grain and the three barrels of wine and some cartloads of wood which your husband has asked for and has had, I am glad that he has been provided with them. I do not want anything for them, but give them to him. But you see to it that he is satisfied with this much, and that he does not put a greater charge on me while I have no more means than I have now. (T IV, 2389)

Another letter caused him to banish her from his house in Padua. It would appear that she had been associating with people he disapproved of. As he had written in his letter to Torquato of 13 July 1542 (T IV, 2339),

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Bembo told Elena not to expect any further letters or embassies from him unless he changes his mind. He signed himself “Your father, disappointed in you” (T IV, 2395 of 5 December 1543). Bembo did, however, write to Elena’s father-in-law, Domenico Gradenigo, telling him that he was pleased that Elena and Pietro were preparing to move into their own house and that Elena would have his guidance as a loving father (T IV, 2398). A week later he wrote to her husband as his dearest son, saying that he is glad that he gave him the opportunity to write such a polite and courteous letter ... showing that he has been trained in a fine and fitting Italian style. He therefore accepts all the more willingly his excuses and his gratitude for the expenditure he has made on his account. He explains that, when someone one has loved disappoints one’s hopes, it is not surprising that one shows a sign of it. He is glad that he is not yet moving to his own house but planning to stay with his parents for a while longer, and sends them his greetings, but does not mention Elena (T IV, 2402). As Easter approached Elena begged forgiveness. Bembo wrote her a brief letter on 11 April 1544, Good Friday: “Since you have asked me to forgive you I am happy to do so today, on the day of pardons and remission of injuries. I have also been moved by the prayers of Girolamo Quirino, Bernardin Belegno, and Madonna Lisabetta. Your father” (T IV, 2429). Certainly a cool letter. Relations with Elena and her husband remained strained for some time. On 5 July 1544 Bembo wrote to his son in law, Pietro Gradenigo: To your recent long letter I reply briefly. If you keep the promises which you made to me ... you will be doing your duty and what is honourable and advantageous for you and I will be fully what I ought to be toward you. If you do not, I will endeavour to put it out of my mind. And if you think that you will be able to deceive me in the future as you have done in the past ... you will not deceive me, but you yourself and those who belong to you and are closest to you who can, no less than I, complain about you with reason. Because, if you had been an affectionate sonin-law to me, as you should have been, what I have given to others not related to me I would more gladly have given to your brother. Be well and greet Elena for me. (T IV, 2437)

Then he heard that Elena was pregnant. He wrote proudly to Veronica Gambara on 14 October 1544 that a year ago he had married his daughter to a young nobleman who is very nice and very handsome and she will soon make him a grandfather (T IV, 2454). On 20 December he wrote to Pietro as his dearest son, complimenting him for his work on the flour mills at the villa, thanking him for information about the unauthorized

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publication of his Rime, full of errors, about which he can do nothing, rejoicing that he has recovered from his illness and that Elena has got over smallpox (T IV, 2463). He wrote to Pietro again on 14 February 1545 that he was glad that Elena was having a good and easy pregnancy. He advises Pietro to find a lady companion for her and not leave her only in the care of servant girls who for the most part do not know if they are alive ... Do not fail to show her the love of a good husband in this time of her necessity. Greet her and kiss her for me and greet your family (T IV, 2467). Two months later Bembo had a grandson (T IV, 2475 of 28 April 1545). Bembo wrote to Elena that he was glad that Paulino was well and that he had a good nurse (T IV, 2479), then sent another letter about child care. That day he had seen a good-looking youth with deformed legs. From Bembo’s description we would call him knock-kneed. Bembo believes that this was the result of a method some nurses use in wrapping up a baby. They tie their knees together with nothing in between. If she wants her son to grow up with straight legs, she must tell the nurse, when she is wrapping him up, to put a little cushion between his knees. He concludes by saying that he has heard that she is pregnant again. Tell him about it (T IV, 2482 of 6 June 1545). Elena’s marriage was to have its ups and downs. The next series of letters about Elena, mostly addressed to Gian Matteo, reveals that her husband, like Bembo’s sister’s husband, Sebastiano Marcello, has been unfaithful. His first reaction is to advise Elena not to worry and endure her fortune as best she can (T IV, 2483 of 20 June 1545). In his next letter he tells Gian Matteo that “if Elena believes that Pietro no longer visits that one so dear to him, it is good that she believes this, even if it is not true. Tell her, from me, that she can do no better than not to distress herself about it, and not to speak of it ever, and to be quiet and modest about it with him, and not proud and hostile” (T IV, 2491). The following letter was equally optimistic. Elena must be coping, because she even makes him laugh with her jokes (T IV, 2492). A month later, on 17 September, he wrote a friendly letter to her husband, complimenting him on the repairs he had made to the mills and telling him that he was glad that he was in the villa with Elena, enjoying that sweet and pleasant season of the year. He is very envious. Then he adds, “If you are now out of your first troubles, unworthy of a noble soul ... as you write to me that you are, I am glad, more for you, and much more for you than for my Elena, because much more was lost in that on your side than on hers. Therefore, it will be good for you to attend to the honours of our country, which should not be scorned, when you return to the city ... And, in truth, whoever in that good and beautiful Republic does not aspire to them ... is not worthy to be a member of it” (T IV, 2495). Bembo has forgotten his own

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younger days. Then, on 3 October, he wrote to Elena telling her how glad he was that she was at the villa with her husband and that she had left the baby in Venice in good care. He added that he expected to be in Venice soon and would bring Pietro back with him to show him the Roman court. She can spare him for two or three months if he is with her father (T IV, 2498). Bembo wrote later to Gian Matteo that it is time that Pietro thought of deserving some honour and position in the Republic. “But I know that he is very headstrong and obstinate in his wishes and that he thinks he is wiser than he is. May it be God’s will that I am wrong” (T IV, 2511). Unfortunately, from the next letter, of 29 May 1546, it would appear that Pietro had settled down not with his wife but with his mistress, and that Gian Matteo was taking legal action to try to get him back to Elena. Bembo was not going to write to Pietro “because he says that he shits on all the cardinals, beginning with Bembo ... He is so insulting and ungrateful for the love I bore him ... not to say anything about my daughter, who did not deserve such treatment. He should have considered his honour, which every decent man should value more than his life ... I, in the end, will resign myself to it and so, I believe, will poor Elena”(T IV, 2542). Poor Elena, indeed. With all this to cope with she had one baby, was expecting another, and was still only seventeen. On 31 July 1546 Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo thanking him for his good offices with Pietro. This was appropriate, since it was on Gian Matteo’s recommendation that he had married Elena to him (T IV, 2546). At the end of August or the beginning of September, Elena gave birth to another son, Alvisetto. Bembo and Pietro repaired their rift and Bembo wrote to him calling him “dearest son” and accepting his excuse for not yet going for honours. He can be like travellers who have slept late but make up lost time when they set out (T IV, 2554 of 11 September 1546). A month later Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo saying how glad he was that Pietro and Elena were at the villa for the grape harvest (T IV, 2564). Meantime, Torquato continued to be a problem. After thanking Girolamo Quirino, in a letter that must have been written in March 1544,77 for the letters about the Spanish voyages in the new world and for the small salted fish from Egyptian waters and other good things he had sent, Bembo asked Girolamo’s help with Torquato. He is in danger, because he has hired that wretched thief, Germano. Bembo thinks that writing to him will do no good, therefore he is sending Onorato, a good, affectionate, and prudent servant, with the Venetian courier. He asks Girolamo to arrange to have Gabriele back to serve Torquato and to go with him to Ceneda [now part of Vittorio Veneto] and have Germano sent away immediately. The violins and fifes Torquato had Germano buy for him in Venice should be taken away from him and broken and burnt, if there is no other way. He wants

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Onorato to stay with Torquato and get him back on the right track and away from that infatuation, which is dangerous. He thanks Girolamo for other news that he sent him about Torquato, who is a fine fool (T IV, 2426). One might think that Bembo did not like music from his letters about his children’s musical inclinations, but that would be far from the truth. Maria Savorgnan quarreled with him because he invited a lute player up to his room (T I, 90); in Le piacevoli notti Bembo is pictured as leading the carol;78 when he became cardinal he tried to poach a French boy musician, who would give him a great deal of pleasure, from his friend, Giovanni della Casa (T IV, 2060); and he had an organist, Cavazzoni, in his service.79 He criticized neither Lucrezia Borgia for playing the lute nor the high-born young ladies at the court of Asolo, who were represented in Gli Asolani. But he seems to have regarded the clavichord as something which required professional competence, and I imagine that he suspected that Torquato wanted music for debauched parties. In his reply to another letter in which Girolamo said that there was no hope that Torquato would become learned, Bembo wrote that, in that case, he would leave everything to Elena (T IV, 2438 of 15 July 1544). However a teacher, the Reverend Pierio, had finally been found who inspired Torquato to make an effort (T IV, 2440). Then Elena had Torquato with her for a while and wrote to her father that he was very well behaved (T IV, 2479). Later, on 10 October 1545, Bembo wrote to Torquato as his dearest son. Torquato had asked his father to give a benefice at Cividale to his other teacher of some years, Giovanni Antonio. Torquato would then go there to continue his studies with him and with Pierio. Bembo replied that unfortunately, the benefice has already been swopped between Gian Matteo’s sons and the transfer fees had been paid, but he will see what he can do. Meantime, Torquato and Giovanni Antonio should go to Cividale for the winter and Torquato should pursue his studies (T IV, 2499). They had not left by 30 January 1546 (T IV, 2511) but were in Cividale by May when Bembo wrote ordering Torquato (8 May 1546), as soon as he received the letter, to take all his belongings and go with Onorato and his servant to Venice, to Girolamo Quirino’s house, where he will receive instructions as to what he should do. Bembo tells him to reassure the Reverend Giovanni Antonio that he will never forget him, nor what he has promised him (T IV, 2534). Cividale was close to the eastern frontier of Friuli. Did Bembo fear another Turkish attack through Hungary? In a letter of 24 July 1546 Bembo is pleased that Gian Matteo’s son Lorenzo, who is a sea captain, is postponing his wedding because of the dangerous times (T IV, 2545).

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The instructions which Torquato received when he reached Venice are not given in any of the published letters, but it appears from a letter of 25 September 1546, that he was sent to study at Bergamo, of which Bembo was bishop and which was apparently regarded as a safe place at that time. One version of this letter was addressed to Torquato in Bergamo (T IV, 2558, note). In the letter Bembo asks Torquato to greet Cavalier Albano and thank him for his kindness. In an earlier letter (T IV, 2518 of 13 March 1546) Bembo had told Gualteruzzi that he wanted Albano for Bergamo. It would appear that he got him and that Bergamo is where Torquato was sent. Whoever Torquato’s teacher now was, Bembo had his usual worries about his son’s idleness. In what was to be his last letter to Torquato Bembo expressed his doubts that Torquato was studying as he said he was. If he is studying, Bembo would praise him, but after all the years when he showed no enthusiasm for work Bembo finds it hard to believe. He knows that Torquato seizes every little occasion to leave his books, whereas his master should be begging him to take a rest. Torquato is cheating himself. “If I had wanted to sleep all the time when I was your age you could justly criticize me now, as I do you, and you can’t me” (T IV, 2558). In Torquato’s defence it can be noted that he once asked his father if he could use his alarm clock, which was in the library, and his father agreed but wrote “provided that it does not wake you up too early. I want you to look after your health above all” (T IV, 2409). Bembo was not, in his heart, so hostile towards Torquato as it appears from his letters Bembo’s problems with Torquato contrasted with the solid conventional careers of Gian Matteo’s sons, but then Gian Matteo was a model Venetian aristocrat with a wife and a stable family life, though the family did move a lot on his postings abroad to Zadar (T III, 1346 etc), Kotor (T IV, 1936 etc), Capodistria (T IV, 2252 etc) and Famagosta (T IV, 2567). Lorenzo became a sea captain,80 made a lot of money,81 and married well;82 Luigi, after a job in the doge’s palace,83 also went to sea,84 became a captain,85 then administrator of Customs;86 Marc Antonio and Perino were headed for the Church,87 while Sebastiano was still a bright schoolboy with an undetermined future.88 There were naturally some problems. Lorenzo once did something at sea which resulted in his recall, but he was subsequently cleared of any misdemeanour89 and Luigi was once lectured to about gambling.90 The only serious trouble in the family was Marc Antonio’s long-lasting, life-threatening fever.91 Gian Matteo’s was a normal upper-class Venetian family. Although it was not unusual for clergymen to have children – all the Renaissance popes except Leo X had them – Bembo’s children were subject to uncommon strains, and after their mother’s death had no normal home

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life. They were looked after by various men in holy orders, though Elena also had a maid, Lucia, to whom she became very much attached. Then, after Cola’s death, she was handed over to nuns, while Torquato was put in the charge of various tutors, all clergy. It is not surprising, therefore, that both children became difficult at times and that Torquato was, for the most part, disinclined to do anything but enjoy himself.

13 Last Things

Before he died in 1547 Bembo had completed twelve books of the History of Venice covering the period from 1486 to 1513, when he was appointed apostolic secretary to Leo X. Between 1544 and 1546 he had also, at the instance of his beloved Lisabetta Quirina, translated the history into Italian for popular access. Bembo had accepted the appointment as official historian to the Republic of Venice in 1530 with some hesitation: History is the most difficult of literary works and is something for a young man, because of all the research involved, and should really be written by someone who has been involved in public affairs, not by a member of a religious order. Accepting the appointment would also mean an end to his quiet life of scholarship. However, he cannot deny his country, because he loves it as much as those who govern it.1 He therefore accepted the appointment, but refused all payment, except for the offer of housing, since he had no home in Venice (T III, 988, 1152). It was a patrician tradition to serve the Republic without payment and Bembo, though poor, had his pride, even though his father had had to ask for financial help on some of his ambassadorial appointments.2 Whether Bembo lost or gained by accepting the history assignment is debatable. He certainly had to sacrifice some of his private life. But did he sacrifice anything as a man of letters? He wrote no more Latin poetry after 1530, except for the odd epitaph, and little Italian verse. But poetic inspiration often fails in old age, and he might not have written anything more anyway. He left some research unfinished, the lives of the Provençal poets, but that seems to have been a youthful enthusiasm, abandoned long since. Bembo’s intellectual interests remained lively. He was absorbed by works on mathematics and astrology/astronomy,3 he was excited by the discoveries of the Portuguese and Spanish navigators,4 and he sought information about new publications of classical texts.5 These interests might have led

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him to write something. His friend, Ramusio, the secretary of the Senate, whom he entrusted with the day to day running of the library in Venice, wrote three very successful books, with maps, on The Navigations.6 Bembo might have preferred the continued enjoyment of his freedom – as he said he would have after he became cardinal – the continued stimulation of the university city of Padua and the gentlemanly life at his villa with his growing family. At this time he still had three children, and Morosina. On the other hand, Venice’s turning to him, its belated recognition, must have been a balm to an ego bruised by the regular rejection of his candidacy for conventional civil service posts in his youth. He had many times complained in his letters that he was better treated everywhere else than in Venice (T II, 637 for example). Now, finally, Venice was offering him a job which guaranteed glory. Furthermore, if he had run out of ideas for literary works while still eager to bolster his fame as the grand old man of Italian letters, the history offer may have been a godsend, and the personal sacrifices worth it. This is not to deny that Bembo had in his old age become a patriotic Venetian who, with a wider experience than that of his self-absorbed youth, realized his country’s greatness and wanted to proclaim it. Venice had early recognized the value of historiography to reinforce the ideals and support the interests of the Republic.7 It first appointed Flavio Biondo, “the first medieval historian,”8 to describe the origins of Venice.9 He was followed by Lorenzo de’ Monaci, who wrote Chronicles on Venetian Affairs, then by Bernardo Giustiniani, who wrote an influential history of early Venice from the fifth to the ninth centuries. But the first salaried historian of Venice was Marc Antonio Sabellico, a Roman who had long been professor of rhetoric at Udine and had an appealing, monumental Latin style. He covered 1000 years of Venetian history from its fifth century foundation on mud flats in the northern Adriatic until 1486.10 In 1498 Bembo had complimented him on his history, saying that it will bring him praise and eternal glory (T I, 25), what Bembo probably now hoped for himself. Sabellico had been succeeded by Andrea Navagero, again for his Latin style. Navagero, a hard-up patrician, also received a salary, but pursued his own career, including ambassadorial appointments to Spain and France, as well as his private literary enthusiasms, to the apparent neglect of the history. When he died on mission in France he left nothing to the Republic. As he lay dying he supposedly told his servant to burn his history, because he had not had time to polish it, but there are those who doubt this story.11 Navagero had died in 1529. Now Bembo was appointed official historian, again for his style, in 1530. Bembo took his duty as Venice’s official historian seriously and devoted much of the rest of his literary life to it although in his last years he also prepared his letters for publication and edited Giulietta e Romeo, by his

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friend Luigi da Porto, for publication in 1539. Even before Ramusio’s first feeler letter, written on the instructions of the Council of Ten (T III, 988 of 21 June 1529), Bembo had tried to get back a history of Venice which he had lent to a Florentine student at Padua. Undoubtedly there had been leaks, as there usually were in both Venice and Rome, of the discussions about an appointment as official historian and Bembo was preparing himself (T III, 947 of 15 April 1529). When people complained, three weeks after his official appointment in September 1530 that he had not yet turned up to work in Venice, he wrote that they were in for a surprise, he had already started (T III, 1166). Bembo’s first intention had been to write forty-five years of history, from 1486 to 1530 (T III, 1168), the year of his appointment, and he spent December 1530 and January 1531 gathering materials in Venice for that purpose.12 On 19 January 1531 he wrote to Sadoleto in Carpentras, telling him that he was busy writing a history which occupied all his thoughts, day and night (T III, 1186). He went after Marcello’s Chronicle, Giustiniani’s History (T III, 1195), any papers that Andrea Navagero may have left (T III, 1291, 1296), the documents of the Senate, and Sanuto’s Diaries, a kind of Venetian Hansard (T III, 1267, 1275, 1289, 1589). By 28 March 1531 he could send the pope the proemium and tell him that he was now writing the first book (T III, 1214).13 On 2 September Bembo informed the Council of Ten that he was working most of the time now on the history (T III, 1275), though he still had not found a house in Venice (T III, 1287). When he had been in Venice earlier in the year he had stayed in an inn (T III, 1192). At the end of 1531 Bembo told his friend Gabriele Avolta, general of the Augustinians in Venice, that he had completed the first book of the history. It had not taken long to write, but the research had been time consuming (T III, 1317). By May 1532 Bembo had written eight years of his history.14 Then came the long-awaited move into his house in Padua and the sudden and unexpected death of Lucilio, which caused a break in his writing for several months (T III, 1406 of 9 August 1532). Bembo resumed work and could write to Sadoleto, on 25 April 1533, that three books were now complete (T III, 1489). A year later he sent Molza a sonnet (Rime, CXXX) saying that he could not comply with his request for a sonnet on Molza’s new love because he has given up poetry and is devoting himself completely to his history. Bembo explained to Gualteruzzi that, though he had enjoyed Molza’s sonnet, he now felt far from the vulgar Muse (T III, 1569 of 27 May 1534). Writing Latin history had suppressed his feeling for Italian verse. By June 1534 Bembo could write to his nephew, Gian Matteo, in Venice, that he was sending five books of his history, which cover seventeen quires, for him to show to a couple of friends for comment (T III, 1575).

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Since he was not receiving any money for writing the history or supervizing the library, Bembo requested the Council of Ten to take this into consideration when a forced loan was imposed on all Venetian citizens in 1534 (T III, 1580, 1582, 1583, 1611). If they will not give him relief, Bembo will find the money somehow, but will no longer weary himself over the history. He will give his time instead to other studies, less tiring and more pleasing, and will leave them the five books to show his good will toward the Republic and what the whole history might have been (T III, 1583). Despite this threat and the lack of any recorded response from the authorities, Bembo continued writing. On 15 September he wrote to Gian Matteo from the villa that he had spent the last days honouring Loredano, whose dogeship he was describing. He gave him a speech in the Great Council, the major part of which he had never thought of saying. Since he had received injury from that family over the water for his mills, he was not embellishing their achievements, but he felt that he should honour the doge. People do not appreciate the effort that he is making in writing this history to honour the Republic. All his thoughts, all his good hours, night and day, are devoted to it (T III, 1611). Two years later Bembo was writing the eighth book and wanted to go to Venice to discuss the Venetian defeat at Agnadello with the doge (T III, 1788 of 30 September 1536). After another six weeks, on 16 November 1536, Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo that he had described the defeat and that he had received a good bit of help from Sanuto’s books for the facts (T III, 1805). The following year, on 24 August 1537, Bembo wrote to Gualteruzzi in Rome that the history was going well (T IV, 1874). On 3 August 1541 Bembo, now a cardinal in Rome, wrote to Girolamo Quirino in Venice that he has much more free time than usual at the present because the pope and the court have left Rome, so he is working on his history (T IV, 2262). A month later, on 1 September, Bembo wrote from Rome to Ramusio in Venice that he will have finished the eleventh book of the history in a few days (T IV, 2271). Some two years later, on 27 December 1543, Bembo wrote again to Ramusio in Venice, telling him that he had got as far as the capture of Prato after the battle of Ravenna, but needed more information about the actions of the Republic in the following six months leading up to the creation of Leo X. Would he and Ramberti, now secretary to the Senate, please look at the Senate’s books for the period and extract what they think is necessary for him to complete his chapter and submit his history so he will not have to worry about it any more (T IV, 2402). Bembo had obviously discovered the impossibility of writing a forty-five year history. He will have covered twenty-seven years in thirteen years’ application. His appointment as apostolic secretary by Leo X in 1513 presented him with a convincing way out. The history had taken a long time to write, he was now seventythree, and had responsibilities in Rome.

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Bembo’s history covered years of invasions, battles, both on the Italian mainland and against the Turks in Greece and in the Balkans, the Venetian defeat by the League of Cambrai, and her subsequent recovery. Like Sabellico’s, it was more than a history of Venice, because Venice did not exist in isolation. Venice was an international power, affected by what happened elsewhere. Thus in his sixth book Bembo recounts the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries, describing them with an enthusiasm and generous appreciation which makes this one of the most attractive parts of the work. The Venetians early realized the importance of the Portuguese voyages around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean and to the land of spices. Bembo could not fail to note this for its impact on the Venetian economy, but what really fascinated him was Magellan’s later circumnavigation of the globe, sailing westward with the sun and gaining a day. He wrote about this in his history as well as in his letters (T IV, 2187, 2189). One can feel Bembo’s geniune excitement at the opening up of the world. In this sixth book, after his account of the Portuguese voyages to the east, Bembo describes the Spanish exploits in the west. Since it was known from ancient times that the world was round, Columbus’s idea of challenging the Portuguese by looking for a route to the spice islands by sailing west was a reasonable one, though it took considerable courage to attempt it, sailing into the unknown. Bembo added that, since the Greeks had calculated the circumference of the earth and the extent of Asia was unknown, it was also possible that undiscovered lands lay in the west, separating Europe from Asia, though Columbus did not realize at first that that was what he had discovered. Columbus sailed from Spain to the Fortunate Isles, the Canaries, then westward for thirty-three days until he reached land and discovered six islands where nightingales sang in November and birds nested in December because the weather was so mild. Naked men in boats of hollowed logs came out to the ships. They ate a grain called maize which has leaves like sugar cane and large round grains. There were only a few kinds of four-footed animals on these islands, including small dogs which did not bark, but there were a lot more birds than in Italy, a lot of parrots of various shapes and colours. The trees were evergreen, but the only familiar ones were the palm and the pine. The people picked wool in the woods and mountains and even planted wool-bearing shrubs near their round wooden houses thatched with palm, straw, and sugar cane leaves. They collected gold from the sands of the rivers to make jewellery. They had no iron, but shaped very hard stones for tools. They had no money, either, but lived in a golden age without measured fields, courts, laws, letters, and trade.15 Such were Hispaniola [now Haiti and the Dominican Republic] and Cuba, but other islands, discovered later, were inhabited by cannibals

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who made war and ate those captured in battle, men and boys but not women. Columbus left thirty-eight men on one of the islands to learn the language and customs and took ten islanders back to Spain. The following year he sailed with seventeen ships and supplies and started to build a city on Hispaniola. A generation later, in 1538, Bembo wrote to the castellan of the fortress in the city of San Domenico on Hispaniola, the Spanish historian Consalvo Fernando di Oviedo e di Valdes, telling him that he had read his Istoria sopra le Indie which tells of the marvels of those regions. He appreciates Oviedo’s learning in the measurements of the heavens, the lands, and the sites which make his history perhaps the most pleasing one ever to come into the hands of man. Oviedo brings glory to his emperor. Without his history one would not know of the greatness and utility of such a new and brave enterprise and of the harsh and difficult circumstances and the almost impossible undertakings and acts of courage of his ministers. Bembo has used Oviedo’s history in his own History of the Venetian Republic, summarizing discoveries in the New World because it is necessary that this should be known to all (T IV, 1928). Bembo wrote ten pages on the New World, including the construction of the later settlements at Panama and Mexico City. He concluded, “No effort of the ancients will ever be able to equal ... that of the Spaniards.”16 Bembo’s friend, Ramusio, also praised the superiority of modern discoverers over the ancients.17 The Venetians could be fair and generous. In the same book, 6, in which he celebrated the achievements of the Portuguese and Spanish, Bembo, writing chronologically, told how Pope Alexander VI had divided the world between Portugal and Spain. He also wrote about the Borgia family, Lucrezia’s marriage to Alfonso D’Este, Cesare’s “perfidy and cruelty,” and finally, Alexander’s death. Bembo believed, as did Guicciardini, coincidentally in his sixth book, that Alexander had been poisoned through a servant’s mistake. The servant had given the pope wine intended for his guest. Books 8 and 9 form another lively section on the defence of Padua after the Venetian defeat at Agnadello in 1509. Padua was Bembo’s city and he was emotionally involved in its fate. His attachment is apparent throughout his letters. In book 8, Bembo reported the discussions in the Senate about the dangers of attempting to recapture Padua after it had been taken by imperial troops following Agnadello. He gave the doge Loredano a speech emphasizing the risk, that Venice could lose all by reviving the war. Nevertheless, the Senate sent Gritti to retake the city. There is real excitement in Bembo’s account of how the Venetians succeeded, gaining admission to Padua with wagons of grain. The gate was opened, the drawbridge lowered, and the city was taken in a day, after forty-two days’ occupation. Then ships bringing reinforcements came up the Brenta from Torcello,

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Manorbio, Burano, and Murano. The imperial army returned, supported by Louis XII, Julius II, and Alfonso d’Este. Even Emperor Maximilian appeared and tried to capture the city by diverting a branch of the Brenta and cutting off the water supply. Bembo reported the cavalry skirmishes outside the city, the fall of a fortress, the capture of the impregnable castle of Monselice by intrepid Spanish soldiers, and a Venetian trap at Montagnana which resulted in the death or capture of the attacking Germans. Venice put 14,000 soldiers into the defence of Padua, 600 heavy-armed cavalry, 700 stratioti, 500 mounted crossbowmen. In addition to their mercenaries the Venetian nobility themselves took part in the action. The doge Loredano sent his two sons and his personal treasure.18 The Senate built mills in every part of the city to be turned by horses since the water had been cut off. Venice sheltered peasants in the city whom the enemy had abused in the countryside and provided ships to rescue people threatened in the Chioggia area and take them to refuge in Padua. Maximilian abandoned his first strategy of attacking in several places in order to force the Venetians to spread their men thinly and turned to artillery bombardment of the north wall of the city. He sent letters tied to crossbow bolts into the city urging surrender, making lavish offers, to no result. To pay their soldiers, to maintain morale, Venice invented a clever ploy to get money into the city. Gold was shipped to Chioggia, then 300 swift stratioti were sent there to parcel it out. They were followed by heavy cavalry with pack animals. The cavalry rode back to Padua guarding the mules carrying bags of sand, and warding off enemy attacks, while the scattered stratioti rode swiftly to the city with their caches of gold. Venice was holding out and things were not going well for the Germans. Maximilian suffered losses, and began fearing a change of weather. He did not want to be forced to abandon his artillery in rain and mud. On 18 October 1509 he raised the siege of Padua and retired to Vicenza, then Trent. The defence of Padua marked the turning point for Venice in the War of the League of Cambrai. Bembo took much of his description of the defence of Padua from Luigi da Porto’s Lettere storiche which Bembo had borrowed from Luigi’s brother Bernardino after Luigi’s death (T III, 1198). Parallel passages reveal both Bembo’s debt to da Porto and the contrast between the two men. Da Porto was a soldier, and the immediacy in his reporting is inevitably lacking in the scholarly Bembo’s elegant Ciceronian prose. On the other hand Bembo filled out the story from other sources, adding further excitement to a great historical adventure.19 Bembo’s eighth book makes a good read. Bembo maintained his favourite Ciceronian style in the Italian translation, while writing in his illustrious Tuscan vocabulary, so that the translation was criticized, even by his friends, as sounding somewhat affected, though they would not want to change a word that the master had writ-

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ten.20 It is interesting to note that the Tuscan, Guicciardini, in his contemporary History of Italy, which was written in Italian, boasted that he had used the idealized Tuscan advocated by Bembo in Le Prose and the Ciceronian style which Bembo held up as a model for Latin prose.21 Thus Guicciardini’s Italian prose is characterized by long complex sentences with many subordinate clauses and the main verb at the end.22 Bembo began writing his history about six years before Guicciardini and had written his sixth book (T III, 1788), in which he describes the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries as well as the reign of the Borgias, when Guicciardini took up his pen.23 There is no indication that Guicciardini ever saw Bembo’s drafts, which had very restricted circulation, but that both writers treat the same subjects in their sixth books provides easy occasion to compare the different purposes of the two histories and the different personalities of the two historians. The Venetian Senate commissioned Bembo to write his history and he accepted that it was his duty to honour the Republic (T III, 1611) and to reinforce Venetian values by praising noble exploits.24 At the same time it was his duty to point out errors of policy from which future generations could learn. Hence his desire to discuss with the doge the greatest defeat Venice had ever suffered at Agnadello in 1509 (T III, 1788). Writing honest history involved antagonizing some people whose forebears were involved (T III, 1583), but this was all to the benefit of the Republic, of which Bembo was a patriotic citizen. Guicciardini, on the other hand, as a man with much experience of Italian politics and power as papal governor of both the Romagna and Bologna and as a Florentine who had lost out in the political upheavals in his native state, wrote his commentary on Italian and European affairs in disgruntled retirement. His subject and his treatment of it were his own choice. Bembo had written in his 1529 letter to Ramusio that ideally a historian should be a man who had been involved in public affairs, not an elderly churchman living in quiet retirement (T III, 988), and herein lies the contrast with Guicciardini. Though he was technically an ecclesiastic, Bembo was fundamentally a literary man, not a public servant, politician or exgovernor like Guicciardini. He wrote his history as an often gripping story of wars and battles between the Venetians and the Turks, the papacy, and other European powers. He did not analyze deeper motivation, only recounted facts, decisions, actions. There was no reflection, but events which captured his imagination make lively reading. Guicciardini, on the other hand, demands thought about the implications of events. In his account of the Spanish in America he does not revel in the vision of a golden age among primitive peoples uncorrupted by civilization, as Bembo does in his sixth book and as Thomas More does in Utopia, but he regrets

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the Spanish preoccupation with gold and silver rather than with the salvation of souls. Bembo, the churchman, apparently takes evangelism for granted when he reports a native prophecy that people who wore clothes would come to their country and take away their gods, but he is more interested in kings going into battle with cotton images of their gods on their heads than in Spanish priests. Nor does Bembo worry, as Guicciardini does, about the economic consequences of the influx of so much gold into Europe. Bembo’s contemporaries believed that he had taken Caesar as his model for writing history,25 limiting himself to events, avoiding commentary. Guicciardini, on the other hand, like his fellow Florentine, Machiavelli, was concerned with understanding events and why they took place, from which he constructed a not very edifying theory of human behaviour. He wrote about Italy as a pessimist. Bembo wrote about Venice optimistically. Guicciardini requires thinking, Bembo only reading ability. The main criticisms of Bembo’s history, apart from the lack of analysis and the consequential chronicle character,26 is the absence of dates and the geographical vagueness.27 As we know from his personal letters, Bembo had a very cavalier attitude toward dates, as had his father. He was, however, interested in maps, at least of foreign parts (T IV 2472) but did not bother too much about Italy. He was also criticized for an almost childish interest in weapons of war28 rather than in causes of war, and in prophecies and signs rather than in the moral character and motivation of the protagonists.29 In short, he wrote as a storyteller. This makes his history of limited value to modern historians, while Sanuto’s fifty-eight volumes of Diaries, listing every report received by the Venetian Senate from a great variety of sources both at home and abroad, and giving every decision, is a gold mine, but like a real gold mine it has to be worked. Although Sanuto felt hard done by (T III, 1267, 1275, 1289, 1589), the Venetian Senate would never have published this mountain of unsifted detail, written in dialect. Bembo’s elegant and lucid Latin, the medium for communication with the world, is what they wanted and needed, and his history was purchased by those to whom it was aimed. The British Library has copies that belonged to Edward VI of England and Henry II of France. It even has a copy bearing the coat of arms of Madame de Pompadour. Though Bembo was a cardinal, he was still the leading humanist of the first half of the sixteenth century, and people kept writing to him as a scholar for help with the education of some young person at the University of Padua or for his judgment on their literary works. He thanked Duke Ercole II of Ferrara for the two-year scholarship for study at the university given to students whom he had recommended (T IV, 2181). He wrote a letter of recommendation to the Prince of Salerno for another student who had studied philosophy at the university (T IV, 2375). He sent a letter to

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Paolo Manuzio, the publisher in Venice, telling him how he missed the Academy and their old friends. The bearer of the letter, Bembo noted, was one of Paolo’s relatives, a young man possessed of every good quality, and much culture, who was going to the University of Padua. Since he has little money and is too modest to ask for help, Bembo asks Manuzio to introduce him to Venice and help him with clothes and books from time to time. Anything he does for this young man he will be doing for Bembo (T IV, 2203). Bembo’s old pupil, Goro Gualteruzzi, son of his great friend, Carlo, had completed his studies at the University of Padua and had given a public lecture, the final examination for the doctorate. Opinion was divided about it. Bembo wrote to Nicolò Tiepolo, the governor of the university, arguing that the criticism of Goro’s address was so trivial that it should be ignored. In the light of their long-lasting friendship, as dearest brothers, he urges him to grant Goro what he deserves, which Bembo will regard as the greatest gift to him. “If you ever considered that you owed me anything, repay me this way” (T IV, 2447). Goro got his degree and Bembo sent Tiepolo his thanks via Quirino (T IV, 2448). Later Bembo got a house in Rome for Goro because his father had found him a job in the Vatican administration and Bembo, as a cardinal, had the necessary pull to get it (T IV, 2517). The old boy network worked then as now. Bembo was instrumental in securing a first-rate Venetian education for another of Gualteruzzi’s sons, Orazio, to whom he had been attached since his childhood. On 1 October 1541 Bembo had written to Carlo Gualteruzzi, who was with the pope in Bologna, telling him that he had received a gift of fish from Nettuno, from Signora Gualteruzzi, and that he often had Orazio to dine with him in the Vatican. “He is a sweet boy and gives me a lot of pleasure” (T IV, 2289). Orazio was then seven years old, Bembo, seventy-one. Five years later, Orazio was ready for secondary education. On 13 March 1546 Bembo wrote to Ramusio in Venice that he had heard with great pleasure of the fine education he had arranged for his son, Paolo, giving him such an excellent teacher as Messer Iovitta and such good and well-bred company as the sons of Signor Cavaliere Albano. He asks him to admit Orazio Gualteruzzi to the group. He is the same age as Paolo, and much inclined toward letters, in which he has made notable progress for his age. He is as modest and quiet as any boy Bembo has ever known. He will not be a financial burden. He asks Ramusio to do this for him, and to regard Orazio as Bembo’s son. He adds that the boy has such a beautiful and refined pronunciation that he will be a great addition to the group (T IV, 2518). Ramusio had refused other requests, but he accepted Orazio into the school in his house and informed Bembo that he has two other learned men, as well as Iovitta, to teach the children and that Ramusio himself will

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teach them ancient and modern cosmography. A postscript gives an insight into the relative status of teachers. Bembo asks Ramusio to thank Iovitta for being willing to share his room with another teacher so that Orazio could have a room to himself (T IV, 2523). Now Bembo wrote Iovitta Rapicio an elegant Latin letter praising him and telling him about Orazio, who is now twelve years old (T IV, 2533). Then on 7 May 1546 Bembo wrote to Ramusio that Orazio had mounted his horse that very morning to ride to Venice30 (T IV, 2533). Some weeks later Bembo wrote to Carlo Gualteruzzi in Viterbo, reporting what Girolamo Quirino had written to him about Orazio’s first day in Venice: Orazio arrived Thursday evening. Early yesterday morning I walked to San Giovanni dei Forlani to find M. Giovanni Agostino, who was getting up then, and I stayed until he got dressed. And together we went with Orazio to Ramusio, where the boy made a very good impression and was made a fuss over, and his lesson was read to him, along with the others, and he was given his room. He stayed there until fourteen hours, when we sent the boat for him, and he came to dine with me. Then I had him rowed to his house so that he could go to study his lesson. You can be absolutely certain that he will not lack anything that may be done for him. The sons of Cavalier Albano have a good man and his wife as their servants. I have spoken to them and promised to look after them well for looking after Orazio also. (T IV, 2441)

Bembo also concerned himself with education at the highest level, that of the pope’s grandson, Ranuccio Farnese, prior of Venice, cardinal archbishop of Naples. On 20 September 1546 he wrote Ranuccio a three-page letter in Latin, telling him that he has heard that his grandfather wants him to abandon liberal arts and study civil law. If this is true and he has decided to do so, fine, but Bembo believes that the pope is only saying this to test his inclinations. Therefore he feels that it is his duty to tell Ranuccio what he thinks. If he were a poor boy wanting to get on, civil law would be the best choice. It could lead to the greatest honours and wealth. That is why people study it. But Ranuccio, who has every advantage, would gain nothing from it. It is better to study philosophy, from which he will learn temperance and justice and how to rule others with wisdom and prudence. It is said that men become like what they study. Civil law deals with trifling and petty detail, and the mind occupied with this is itself also crushed and diminished, so that it can hardly conceive anything grand and noble. Civil law is mainly concerned with controversy over money. Those who spend their time in this, as either judges or advocates, since they profit so much from the cupidity of men for gaining or retaining money, are affected by it again and again, which is very destructive and adverse to a man’s acquisition of a virtuous mind. However, there are among lawyers some famous

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and outstanding men, of whom we see no small number in our Senate, who are fit for ruling peoples and states. But they have become such through their good characters and outstanding natural endowments, not through the study of civil law, especially if, to the science of law, they have added a knowledge of the liberal arts, as very many of them have done ... The function of upright lawyers is very useful to the human race, because society is preserved through the rule and foresight of law restraining violence and fraud, but, nevertheless, the whole force of law is used up in preserving each man’s private property, not in embellishing the man and making him praiseworthy. But philosophy ... looks to the formation of man himself, and his refinement, to make him as much like God as possible, not eagerly seeking anything for itself which is external and frail, willingly thinking of others, considering that all its good rests in virtue, which is free and seeks nothing from outside ... Philosophy is the best for ruling and managing others. Bembo concludes by urging Ranuccio to study philosophy because by no other way can he earn true praise and acquire true dignity (T IV, 2557).31 Bembo had one surprising request about providing for a young man. In 1542 Cardinal Trivulzio, of the famous Milanese military family, asked Bembo to arrange for his eighteen-year-old nephew to be trained in Venice for military service. He will pay his own expenses, which will come to 3000 scudi per annum to maintain him suitably with horses, arms, and servants. He just wants to be placed with one of the Venetian condottieri and would like to dedicate his life to the service of Venice (T IV, 2312). Bembo arranged the placement through Quirino and Cardinal Trivulzio thanked him effusively in chapel at vespers (T IV, 2320). Bembo was interested in a work on astronomy sent to him by Francesco Maurolico of Messina. He commented on it in Latin, suggesting ways for Maurolico to strengthen his argument, and encouraged him to publish it (T IV, 2184). The following year, when it was sent to Venice for publication, Bembo wrote to Ramusio to see to it that it was not printed by that new German printer, and that the publishers get good paper if they want people to be willing to buy their books. He has heard that their new book is printed on poor paper (T IV, 2295). Bembo received another work on the heavens, two volumes on astrology by his old friend Trifon Gabriele’s nephew, Iacopo Gabriele which were dedicated to him. He was very pleased that this book revealed not only a mastery of the science, but also of the Tuscan tongue, which is not very easy for Venetians (T IV, 2496). He was also very pleased with a Latin poem, De principiis rerum, On the origins of things, which he compared with Lucretiuis’s great poem for its style and eloquence. He is grateful to Bernardo Tasso,32 who is in Rome with him, for having urged Scipione Capiccio to send it to him (T IV, 2487).

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Another young writer, the secretary to the viceroy of Naples, sent him an Italian poem called Polifemo for his criticism. Bembo criticized the vocabulary with careful explanations and told the author that at times he did not understand what he was trying to say. He thanked him for two boxes of sweets (T IV, 2514). (Boxes of sweets seem to have been acceptable gifts for a cardinal. A young Neapolitan, whom Bembo had met a couple of times, perhaps because his brother was an archbishop, wrote him a letter in Latin and accompanied it by confectionery in a variety of shapes made from the finest pink sugar, as a remedy for the oppressive Roman heat in the dog days [T IV, 2340].) Bembo also appreciated the learned works the Veronese doctor Fracastoro, now physician to the Council of Trent, sent him in 1546 (T IV, 2538). To the end of his life Bembo was concerned with books, finding the best manuscripts of ancient texts, seeking information about any new discoveries, and seeing to it that editions were as accurate as possible and handsomely published.33 When his old friend Federico Badoer, an astronomer/ astrologer and a long time member of his household in Padua, died in the spring of 1546, Bembo wrote to Gabriel Boldù, who looked after his interests in Padua, to keep all Badoer’s writings until he can look them over to see what should be published (T IV, 2520). He should hand over Badoer’s effects to his nephew, except his writings and any rare books (T IV, 2531). Bembo also remained interested in the building of the new library in Venice. In a letter of 23 October 1546 he thanked the architect, Jacopo Sansovino, for keeping him informed. It appeared that the library would soon be habitable (T IV, 2566), but unfortunately it was not before Bembo’s death three months later. In a Rome of classical culture Bembo could not live long without his medals and some pieces of sculpture. After two years there he wrote to his secretary, Flaminio Tomarozzo, in Padua, asking him to bring to Rome: All the gold medals; all the silver, including those outside, in the last larger bowl of Indian cane, which are more numerous than the others; the bronze ones from the first four bowls of that sort, and more, if you think you ought to bring them; the bronze Jupiter, Mercury and Diana, and whatever in addition to this you choose to bring me. You will find in the Spanish medal room four or five mats of crimson silk which separate the shelves of the little chest where the gold medals are. These are put across the said shelves so that, when you carry the case, they do not escape from their slots. And the little velvet box goes into another box, covered in leather, which I keep on the floor under the wooden cupboards on the side of the said Spanish study. And so both the medals and the velvet box can be carried safe and sound. Put the other seventy-two gold medals in a little bag. And similarly you will be able to put the silver ones and the bronze in little bags, those of each separate bowl in separate bags. And bring me also their little bowls ... and that damascene pot where

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the seventy-two gold medals are. Bring me also that bowl with the rings and the cornelians and the other little things ... And of the other things of little weight all that you think that you can bring me. And ... do not tell anyone about this, because I do not want this to be known. (T IV, 2347)

Bembo goes on to say that he has told a prudent and discrete young man, who knows a lot about such things, about this sensuality of his. He will enjoy himself with him, which he can do with few others. He then adds that news has just arrived that Cardinal Contarini is dying, “the first column and sustainer of the church.” His heart is full of tears. Titian finally went to Rome in the autumn of 1545. Bembo reported to Girolamo Quirino Titian’s gratitude to him for inspiring him to visit Rome.34 He has never seen so many beautiful antiquities, which absolutely astound and overjoy him. On the way the duke of Urbino showed him great affection and took him to Pesaro, obviously to see Genga’s Villa Imperiale,35 then sent him, accompanied, to Rome with his best mounts (T IV, 2500). Bembo, now seventy-five, was too old to take Titian sight-seeing, as he had Raphael, but many people would have been happy to show the great painter around. Pietro Aretino wrote to Titian in October that he was touched by Titian’s letter telling him that tears came into Bembo’s eyes when Titian transmitted his greetings. Aretino is eager to hear what Titian thinks of the marbles of Rome, whether Michelangelo is better than Raphael, what he thinks about Bramante’s St Peter’s and of other architects and sculptors. What does he think of the Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel?36 Unfortunately we do not have Titian’s reply to this letter. In the Church Bembo had been promoted from cardinal of S. Cyriaco in Thermis, to S. Chrysogono (1542), then to S. Clemente (1544).37 He had also been asked to sing, not say, mass on New Year’s day in the presence of the pope and the college of cardinals, something of which he was clearly very proud (T IV, 2407). The letter in which he tells Trifon Gabriele this is dated 3 January 1544, but he was in Gubbio on that date. I suggest 3 January 1545, after he had been promoted to S. Clemente.38 Later in the year Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo that he was busy reading St Gregory (T IV, 2486). St Gregory had preached in old St Clement’s;39 was Bembo’s interest in St Gregory stimulated by his appointment to St Clement’s? This is the only possible connection I have noticed between Bembo and his titular churches. He never writes about them, but he surely must have visited them. In the spring of 1544, when he was rescued from chilly Gubbio by being transferred to the see of Bergamo,40 Bembo had arranged for his secretary, Flaminio Tomarozzo, to take possession of Bergamo in his name, then had appointed Vettor Soranzo as his vicar. It was an ill-fated choice. Bembo’s fostering of Soranzo remains a mystery. They were both from the Venetian

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patriciate. Soranzo was the age of a possible son and was trying, as Bembo had, to make his way in the Church without much family support. He seems to have been a wimp who wrote Bembo whingeing letters, to which Bembo replied, trying to stiffen his resolve by telling him how he had made out on little and begging him to try to understand his father’s situation at a time when money was very scarce. He must not give way to unmanly melancholy. Bembo also tried to help him get employment and benefices, and sent him money from time to time.41 When Bembo became cardinal in 1539 Soranzo joined his household (T IV, 2109),42 then moved on to the evangelical circles in the kingdom of Naples, to the Valdès group in Naples itself, then to Fondi with Giulia Gonzaga.43 In 1541 Soranzo joined Pole in Viterbo along with Marcantonio Flaminio and Bernardino Occhino.44 From 1531 he had been close to Vittoria Colonna (T IV, 1299, 1301) who soon joined the group at Viterbo. There they discussed the works of Calvin and Luther.45 Bembo must have been aware of this, but it does not seem to have worried him about the suitability of Soranzo’s promotion to the see of Bergamo. These people were his friends, he trusted them, admired their spirituality, and seems to have regarded interest in Lutheran ideas as a normal intellectual concern. What he condemned was action leading to the destruction of institutions. On 17 June 1544 Bembo wrote to his nephew Gian Matteo that he was appointing Vettor Soranzo as his coadjutor in the diocese of Bergamo because he wanted to govern that church well and religiously and could not do it himself, since he was needed in Rome. “Soranzo has turned into such a good and true and sure Christian, and has become so learned in sacred literature that there is perhaps no equal between here and Verona who is more devout and more humble and reverent to Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Soranzo did not request this appointment. It is Bembo’s independent decision. He has proposed it to the pope, who is pleased. This will be dealt with in the first consistory, and he is sure that this church entrusted to Soranzo will have good and saintly government (T IV, 2435). Paul III made the appointment on 12 May 1544.46 As soon as he arrived in Bergamo in 1544 Soranzo started imposing discipline. He issued an edict about concubines (against), dress and tonsure of clergy (for), on clergy bearing arms or engaging in commerce, on books suspected of heresy (against), on residence of parish priests, on preaching, confession, and communion (for), against visits to monasteries, against alienation of ecclesiastical property, and so on. The following year he issued edicts requiring holders of benefices to serve in their churches, and doctors and surgeons to summon priests as spiritual doctors, even if an illness is not serious.47 On 12 February 1546 Soranzo was sent to the first session of the Council of Trent, where he joined Pole. He left at Easter, but Bembo ordered him back on 21 August for the discussion of justification.

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All bishops in the Venetian Republic were ordered to go to Trent, without exception. Bembo realized that Soranzo did not want to go, but insisted, and sent him twenty-five ducats for his expenses (T IV, 2549).48 Bembo died five months later, having arranged with the pope, on 16 January 1547, for Soranzo to succeed him as bishop of Bergamo.49 Flaminio Tomarozzo, who “knew everything about the diocese,” had already died in June 1546 (T IV, 2543). Now Soranzo was on his own. He soon got into trouble. As early as April 1548 he was accused before the Inquisition in Rome of holding Lutheran opinions. In 1551 he was imprisoned in Castel Sant’ Angelo. After confessing that he possessed and read Lutheran books Soranzo was released and allowed to return to Venice. Eventually he returned to his diocese with a coadjutor, who was basically his superior. Then the new vicar was excommunicated for heresy. Finally the Roman Inquisition charged Soranzo himself with heresy and summoned him to Rome. He did not go, but died in Venice shortly afterwards and was buried in the family vault.50 On 3 August 1544 Bembo had written a happy letter to Quirino. Giovanni della Casa, his best friend in Rome after Carlo Gualteruzzi, is being sent as nuncio to Venice. He has a very beautiful house, which he rents at around 300 scudi per annum. He is offering it to Bembo free until his return. It is well furnished, and della Casa is giving him a very beautiful little room, adorned with very rich and beautiful hangings, and with a velvet bed and some antique statues and other beautiful pictures, including the portrait of Madonna Lisabetta which della Casa took from Gualteruzzi.51 This will be a very comfortable place for him ... and any number of people would have been happy to have it, paying the full rent, but della Casa decided to offer it to Bembo of his own accord. He is also giving him a very beautiful vineyard outside the most beautiful gate of Rome, the Porta del Popolo, without his having any charges to bear (T IV, 2444). In return for his generosity toward Bembo in Rome Quirino provided della Casa with accomodation in Venice.52 Della Casa’s house was the Palazzo Baldassini, at 35 via delle Coppelle, which now houses a branch of the University of Rome. Baldassini had been a lawyer, professor of law, and member of the Vatican legal corps. He had commissioned Antonio da Sangallo, the younger, to build him a small palazzo near St Augustine’s church. Vasari ranked it as the best lodging in Rome. It was built in 1514–15 and frescoed by Perin del Vaga. The palazzo had an elevated ground floor with a courtyard in the centre. At the ground floor level the façade of the house had six windows with architraves and a Doric doorway. On the two upper storeys there were seven windows with architraves and projecting cornices. In the courtyard a loggia with round arches and Doric pilasters supported the first floor. The second floor was supported by Ionic pilasters. A graceful, curving staircase led

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from the front right corner of the courtyard to the upper floors, while a small, corkscrew stairway on the same side led down to the garden. There was also an entrance to the garden from the loggia at the back of the courtyard. There were fine doors and fireplaces in all the rooms.53 On 27 September 1544 Gualteruzzi wrote to della Casa in Venice that Bembo would move into his house at the end of the month.54 He had stayed on at Sant’ Apostoli, enjoying its beautiful garden, because September had remained as hot as July and August. When he moved in Bembo fell in love with della Casa’s house and preferred to go back and forth to the Vatican, even in winter weather, rather than stay overnight in the Vatican palace.55 Bembo also entertained in his new home. On 12 January 1545 Gualteruzzi wrote to della Casa that “there were so many cardinals in Your Lordship’s house today that the street was all full of horses ... right up to Santo Agostino.”56 However despite the free housing, Bembo remained hard up. In 1543, when he had been in Venice to marry his daughter, Donato Rullo had lent him 300 ducats. Since then Rullo had refused to allow Bembo’s friends, Quirino and others, to repay his debt. Because of this generosity Bembo wrote to Rullo on 31 October 1545 that he would continue to take advantage of his courteous affection and would regard this as a second loan (T IV, 2504). In the summer of 154657 della Casa sent Bembo a sonnet in which he predicted that Bembo’s works would be immortal while his own were destined to oblivion.58 Bembo replied in what was to be his last sonnet, Rime CXLI, still written in a firm hand.59 He praised della Casa for his pure faith, true courtesy, and Ciceronian style. Perhaps someone reading this will say, “Happier souls than theirs, certainly their age never had. Two cities without equal, both beautiful and gracious, gave them to the world, and Rome held them and reared them. What couple can hope for a more honourable destiny?” That autumn Cardinal Pole, returning from Trent, spent two months in Bembo’s house in Padua.60 Bembo and his people in Padua made great efforts to see to it that Pole was comfortable and well looked after (T IV, 2550, 2553). Pole described his stay there in a happy letter to Vittoria Colonna.61 Bembo suffered many illnesses throughout his life. In his younger days he had frequent attacks of malaria, tertian fever, which sometimes developed into a continuous fever lasting for months. He also seems to have been susceptible to heavy colds. Nevertheless, all in all, he enjoyed robust health until his seventieth year, when like many of his contemporaries he began to suffer from kidney and urinary problems and eventually gout. He passed on some interesting remedies to his friends. Cola, with kidney problems, was told that Bembo had found ewe’s milk, warm from the udder,

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first thing in the morning, followed by a nap, as an effective cure for thick, black urine (T IV, 2220). Girolamo Quirino, recovering from a fever, was advised that Bembo had not had a fever for years since he started following Galen, giving up most fruits, grapes, figs, cherries, and melons. The only fruits which he eats now are chestnuts, pears, and cooked apples after dinner (T IV, 2284). Bembo first suffered from gout in the summer of 1541 (T IV, 2250). This first attack lasted about four months (T IV, 2285) and prevented him from riding with the pope to Lucca for his meeting with the emperor (T IV, 2264). He had attacks again in 1544, a brief episode in February, which forced him to stay off his feet for a couple of weeks (T IV, 2415, 2416, 2420), and another in the autumn which kept him housebound for three weeks (T IV, 2461). In 1546 he suffered for four months (T IV, 2552), though he was able to go out on a litter during that period (T IV, 2548). He accepted this with equanimity as the fruit of old age (T IV, 2415), but wrote more sympathetically to Quirino about della Casa’s gout: This disease usually brings men much melancholy because most times they think not only of the present trouble, but also of the future, because they believe that every day they will be worse. However in many cases this does not happen, as it did not happen with my curate, who had it in my house in Padua, very troublesome and long-lasting, and got over it, so that he never again spent an hour in bed for that reason. Therefore, cheer him up ... and take him in the little boats to visit ... Madonna Lisabetta at times, which I am certain will cheer him up. (T IV, 2469)

Bembo goes on to praise a canzone della Casa has sent him, then adds a bit of gossip: Giovan Agostino visited him yesterday evening, a few hours after he reached Rome, with a fat red face, which appears to come from the festive company in Bologna. He wishes he had stayed to keep della Casa company instead. In 1545 Bembo had the curious idea that his gout, causing inflammation of the legs, had helped to restore his eyesight, since he no longer needed spectacles. He had concluded, from the synchronicity of the two conditions, that the inflammation in his legs drew fluid from his upper parts, which evaporated from his legs at night, because there was no inflammation in the mornings. This drawing off of fluid from the upper parts had improved his senses, so that he now saw more clearly (T IV, 2477). From his Etna days Bembo had been interested in scientific explanations. In the summer of 1546 Bembo wrote to Gian Matteo, then in Venice, about the delight he took in the news about his nephew’s sons Luigi and Lorenzo, then added his own news. He is suffering from gout, but only in his feet, is watching his diet, following Galen, and is not taking much heavy food though he has a good stomach (T IV, 2545). He seemed to be feeling

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very well. In a letter to Quirino of 20 August Bembo said that he is going out again in his litter and on his little mule. Tomorrow he will probably go to dinner at Gualteruzzi’s vineyard (T IV, 2548). For the rest of the summer and during the early autumn Bembo remained well, but sometime between 30 October 1546 and 4 November he had an accident. In his letter of the latter date he wrote to his nephew that he was much recovered from the blow he had received and was beginning to get up in his room. He hoped to make daily improvement and to be able to go out for a walk in good weather. He was sorry that Lorenzo’s ship had burnt and for the loss he had suffered (T IV, 2568). A couple of days later he wrote to Gabriel Boldù, who had been looking after his house in Padua and who had arranged for Pole’s visit, thanking him for all that he had done and giving him instructions on how to leave the house, telling him to send the keys to the studio to Girolamo Quirino and to ask the gardener to look after the spalier of citrus trees so that they would not suffer in the winter. He is still not as strong as usual (T IV, 2569). A week later Bembo wrote to Boldù again, sorry to hear that his son-in-law Pietro Gradenigo, was ill with a double tertian fever in the house in Padua and glad to hear that his mother was coming to look after him. Boldù should see to it that Pietro lacked nothing (T IV, 2572). This letter contains no reference to Bembo’s own health. Bembo had just written a letter to the king of France, pledging his support in the Consistory and with the pope. (T IV, 2570) Was he perhaps trying to assure the French vote if there were to be a papal election? He had obviously not forgotten the prophecies. Is this perhaps what he meant in his letter of 13 November 1546 to Gian Matteo, when he said that he was pleased that he was not leaving for Famagusta for five months? During that time things might happen which could cause him to change his mind (T IV, 2571). Paul III was two years older than Bembo. These two letters suggest that Bembo did not feel moribund and that the blow he received at the beginning of November was not the fatal one. Bembo wrote a few more letters dealing with run-of-the-mill affairs: a nobleman’s request for assistance to a priest, which Bembo turned down because the man was a malcontent and never satisfied with anything (T IV, 2573); the request from the ambassador of the duke of Urbino for a concession to another priest, which Bembo granted (T IV, 2574); advice to Boldù on how to defend the rights of his workers at Villanova against the Commune of S. Bonifacio (T IV, 2575); a request to Gian Matteo to use his influence with the doge to expedite a legal case involving Domenico Gradenigo, his son-inlaw’s father (T IV, 2576); and finally a request to the archbishop of Cyprus to allow the Indian fathers now in Rome to have the version of the Epistles of St Paul, written in their own language and now in the monastery of the Holy Saviour in Nicosia, so that it can be printed to the benefit of their people (T IV, 2577). This last letter was written on the fourth of December 1546.

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The Palazzo Baldassini, via delle Coppelle, Rome, the house Giovanni della Casa lent to Bembo in 1544 and where he died in 1547. It is now part of the University of Rome.

There are two versions of what happened next written by Bembo’s two contemporary biographers, Giovanni della Casa and Ludovico Beccadelli.62 Since Bembo was living in della Casa’s house and della Casa was in regular correspondence with Bembo’s best friend in Rome, Carlo Gualteruzzi, I believe that della Casa is the more reliable. After describing Bembo’s high standing in the curia and that he was held in such regard that he was talked of as the next pope, della Casa described his accident. Entering his house on horseback63 Bembo struck his side on the wall in the door-

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The entrance to Palazzo Baldassini where Bembo’s horse smashed him against the wall.

way. Since he was old and frail, this injury led to a little fever. He faced death over many days, courageously and calmly, even joking with his friends about his “migration.” He put his affairs in order, as far as possible, getting papal permission for Soranzo to succeed him as bishop of Bergamo. He died in piety and sanctity.64 Cardinal Pole was with him shortly before his death and they talked of the future life. Bembo was confident of his place in heaven, because of Christ’s mercy.65 On 22 January 1547 Gualteruzzi wrote to della Casa to inform him of the death of that most extraordinary gentleman ... who passed from the present life last Tuesday (18 January 1547) at two hours of the night, to the grief of all members of the court, and especially of Our Lord [the pope], who showed it in word and deed, being unwilling to admit anyone for these two days ... Gualteruzzi was touched in the raw. But when he thought of the quiet and tranquillity, or rather of the festiveness and joy, with which

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Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome. Bembo is buried in the chancel to the left of the high altar beneath a statue of Leo X. St Catherine of Siena, the patron saint of Italy, is buried under the altar. Fra Angelico is buried in a dark corner. The church has a very virile Christ by Michelangelo leaning nonchalantly against his cross by the steps to the chancel.

this good gentleman passed to the other life, he could not grieve, weighing his own loss against Bembo’s good.66 On 19 January 1547, on the order of Paul III,67 Bembo was buried in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in the chancel, to the left of the main altar, at the foot of the statue of Leo X, which Paul III had had moved there

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from St Peter’s to face the statue of the other Medici pope, Clement VII.68 Thus the two Medici popes and the secretary of the first one, who dedicated to the second one his study of language, establishing an illustrious Tuscan as the national language of Italy, were permanently reunited in death. Santa Maria sopra Minerva is one of the great churches of Rome. Three popes are buried there, Leo X, Clement VII, and Paul IV. Founded in the eighth century on the ruins of the ancient temple of Minerva, it was rebuilt in the thirteenth century in the gothic style, then given a Renaissance façade in the fifteenth century. Like most gothic churches it is spacious and gloomy, but very august. St Catherine of Siena, the patron saint of Italy, is buried under the high altar, and a Michelangelo statue of a handsome and virile Christ, carrying the cross, stands to the left of the steps leading to the chancel. Torquato Bembo composed a brief inscription for Bembo’s tombstone: “To Pietro Bembo, Venetian patrician, buried here on the orders of Paul III because of his singular virtues. He died on the eighteenth of January 1547, having lived seventy-six years, seven months, and eighteen days.” There were also two epitaphs. One still visible in the late nineteenth century, in typical Renaissance fashion emphasized his poetic fame, “the glory of the Muses of mightiest Apollo,” before his virtuous life.69 The other, of more substance was visible above his tomb until the eighteenth century. In this epitaph Sadoleto gave Bembo his title of cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. Again his literary achievements were celebrated first, true to the chronology of Bembo’s life: “The glory of his genius made him first in his century with his writings and his eloquence. His praise equalled that of the ancients. His courtesy was of the highest order, and the probity, humanity and liberality of his life were always considered exceptional. His blessed death, which he met in the most holy and peaceful way, confirmed, with divine testimony, man’s judgment of his life.”70 Bembo’s will71 left everything to Torquato except a marriage endowment for five poor girls and his horses and clothes, which should go to any of his servants not otherwise provided for. The will caused problems to his chief executors, Carlo Gualteruzzi and Girolamo Quirino, both because of Torquato’s ill nature72 and because of Gualteruzzi and Quirino’s falling out over their roles as literary executors. As soon as Quirino had heard of Bembo’s critical illness through Gualteruzzi’s letter to della Casa on 15 January 1547,73 he left for Rome in great haste, hoping to see Bembo before he died.74 In della Casa’s letter reporting this to Gualteruzzi he added, “If that blessed spirit has gone on his happy journey it will be your duty to look after his writings.” When Quirino reached Rome a tug of war started among Gualteruzzi, Quirino, and the Venetian ambassador over the possession and publication

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The basilica of Sant’ Antonio of Padua.

of Bembo’s literary works. The Venetian ambassador wanted Gualteruzzi to hand over the History of Venice. Gualteruzzi wanted to give him a copy only, so as not to break faith with Bembo who had feared that someone stylistically incompetent would tamper with his work. Gualteruzzzi wrote to della Casa that he thought della Casa should carry out any revisions the Venetian authorities demanded because of his command of Bembo’s style and because of the love and respect he would have for the author’s work.75 Bembo’s Latin history was inevitably handed over to the Venetian government, which submitted it for criticism to a commission of the University of Padua. They advocated twenty revisions, which were voted on by the Council of Ten, and mostly accepted. The expurgated history was then published in Venice in 1551. The changes were made for political reasons, particularly because of Bembo’s attacks on the Grimani family.76 Meantime Quirino was struggling to get possession of the Italian version, and when Gualterruzzi did not want to hand it over, went around Rome making nasty charges against him. This broke Gualteruzzi’s heart because Bembo had been so fond of Quirino and because he was indebted to Quirino for his help with his son Orazio’s education in Venice. Gualteruzzi promised Quirino that the Italian history would be dedicated to Lisabetta, if that is what Quirino wanted. Gualteruzzi believed that Quirino had lost his mind.77 Sadoleto and Pole tried to pacify him78 and della Casa offered

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to mediate between the emotional Quirino and the rational Gualteruzzi. He asked Gualteruzzi to send the history to him. He would have it copied, return the original to him and see to it that a correct edition was printed. Gualteruzzi must forgive Quirino, who is normally so good and courteous.79 The dispute settled, the Italian history was published in Venice in 1552, dedicated to Lisabetta Quirina.80 Now Gualteruzzi started to fulfil his obligations to Bembo. In 1548 he published three volumes of Bembo’s works in Rome, On the Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Rime,81 and a first volume of letters in Italian written to ecclesiastics. The following year he saw to the publication in both Rome and Florence of an edition of Le Prose della volgar lingua. Then Venice undertook the publication of another three volumes of letters, the History, in both Latin and Italian, Gli Asolani, the Latin letters and the Latin poetry, all between 1550 and 1553. Ten years later Francesco Sansovino published two little volumes of letters to Bembo and Bembo’s own letters to his nephew Gian Matteo.82 Meantime the litterati of Italy poured out their hearts on Bembo’s death. Della Casa led the way, calling on bereaved Venice to weep at the loss of its treasure, as the new-made angel flies to heaven, its inn.83 Sperone Speroni pronounced a funeral oration in Padua, and Benedetto Varchi in Florence.84 Venice set up a bust in the Palazzo Ducale “To Pietro Bembo, an ornament of all literature. He first established the rules of the Tuscan language, he wrote an elegant History, a collection of letters and a most tender book of lyric poetry. He was held an oracle by his own century, for every century. Born in 1470, Died in 1547.”85 The Venetian tribute does not mention Bembo’s position in the Roman church. Venice was always jealous of its own preeminence. Although Venetians were devout Catholics they regularly rebelled against the assertion of papal authority. Bembo was honoured for what he had achieved as a Venetian, not for the recognition of his worth by a foreign power. This was not the only monument to Bembo in the Venetian republic. Bembo had spent most of his life in Padua. It was therefore for Padua that Quirino commissioned the sculptor Danese Cattaneo to make a bust of Bembo and the architect Michele Sammichele to build a splendid marble memorial to be placed against the second pier on the south side of the nave of St Anthony’s Basilica, where it would be seen by all the pilgrims who flocked to the church.86 The inscription immortalized not just Bembo, but also Quirino, whose name appears in the second line. It was he who saw to it that Bembo’s image was placed in public view as an everlasting monument to his genius and so that posterity should not lack a memory of his physical appearance. There follows the usual list of the number of years, months, days that he lived, and the date of his death. With this monument Quirino proudly proclaimed his devotion to his old friend and

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Pietro Bembo

Bembo’s tomb in the basilica of San Antonio by the architect Michele Sammichele with the bust by Danese Cattaneo.

left posterity with an impression of the luminosity of the humanist’s personality,87 gleaming in white marble, in contrast to Titian’s portraits stressing the authority of the red-robed cardinal. Quirino, in contrast to the ducal authorities, had given Bembo his title as cardinal, though, again, it was his genius which was honoured, not any service to the Church, but then the basilica of the saint was already becoming a Venetian pantheon.

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There were monuments to the famous condottiere, Gattamelata, whose equestrian statue stands outside the basilica, and to his son, and Bembo was soon to be faced by a Venetian admiral whose memorial the Sammichele-Cattaneo team also built. Bembo would probably have been pleased by this association with a hero of the Republic. He was, in the end, a great Venetian.

14 Conclusion

Pietro Bembo is a biographer’s delight. One does not have to speculate what he was like from his writings, his portraits, the comments of contemporaries, his obituaries. Bembo left almost 2,600 personal letters. In addition, letters written by three of the women he loved have survived and other letters written to him, including some by his young daughter, Elena, were published in Venice shortly after his death, creating an unrivalled biographical resource from the first half of the sixteenth century. There is almost an embarras de richesses. Admittedly Bembo’s letters were revised for publication, but the revisions were mainly stylistic or clarifications of a reference, as one can see from Travi’s alternative manuscript readings at the end of each letter. They do not change the nature of the letter or put the sender in a better light. Bembo was concerned with his image as a stylist, not with the portrayal of a paragon of virtue. Therefore the letters reveal a man in full, his strengths and weaknesses. Indeed it is necessary to stand back from the multitudinous detail of the letters and read the comments of those who knew him to find an objective balance to his necessarily egoistic self-portrayal. In his letters Bembo is frequently a worried man trying desperately to succeed doing things his way, breaking all the rules. As the scion of a great Venetian family he wanted an honourable position in the world, but at the same time he refused to serve the Republic and tie himself down to a woman of his own class in a marriage of convenience. He felt that, in Venice, “getting and spending we lay waste our powers.” When he was free to do so, he chose to live in the university city of Padua. The life he wanted would be devoted to scholarship, writing – and women. The one institution which guaranteed an independent income with a great deal of freedom was the Church, so Bembo solicited benefices, toadying to teenaged cardinals, writing letters whose sycophancy seems humiliating today and makes Bembo appear less than admirable. But we must consider these letters in

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their historical perspective. In Bembo’s day such behaviour was not only acceptable, it was the only way to get on in Church or court. We have only to think of Elizabethan England, Gloriana, and the Virgin Queen. Bembo’s persistent soliciting got him a living in the Church, but year after year he postponed taking vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity. When he finally did, through fear of Adrian VI and being stripped of his benefices, he was living in concubinage and soon had three children. He succeeded in having his cake and eating it too. Later, after Morosina’s death, when his elevation to the cardinalate was mooted, he proclaimed his virtuous life, visible to all in Venice, while still writing love letters and poetry to a married woman. He wanted to be cardinal, even pope, but was still reluctant to sacrifice his freedom to conventional constraints. In the modern world such behaviour would be universally condemned, but it was not so in Bembo’s day. Only a few voices were raised against him in the College of Cardinals. People in glass houses did not throw stones, and this included the pope, who would soon be trading benefices with Bembo to enrich his own grandchildren. Bembo had solicited benefices to be able to live the life he wanted but still needed to get the money in. In decades of war this was not easy. Consequently, a great many of Bembo’s letters were aimed at collecting enough to live on, to fulfil his obligations to his Order, pay Venetian and Church levies when he could not get out of them, and take care of familial obligations to his three nieces and his own two surviving children. There were endless worries. Bembo’s letters about his income and taxation therefore form a large portion of his correspondence. But he wrote most of these letters to his nephew Gian Matteo Bembo or to his Roman friend Carlo Gualteruzzi, so that the letters were at the same time family letters, friendly letters, newsy letters which embrace a large range of interests in people and events. Bembo also wrote a great number of letters to friends and literary colleagues offering hospitality, horses, and dogs. These letters reveal a genial personality, kindly and helpful, warm, lively, devoted to family, fond of children and animals, a lover of nature and of women, a serious and dedicated linguistic scholar, and a sincere Catholic, who defended the free discussion of ideas but believed in the preservation of the institutions of the Church. But Bembo was not all sweetness and light. He had a temper. He could lash out at those he felt had cheated, frustrated or betrayed him, like Alciato or Giberti. His worst outbursts were directed at his two grown-up children, whom he cut off in turn. He was also harsh toward his son-in-law Pietro Gradenigo and his old friend Rodolfo Pio, in both cases over the proceeds from the sale of grain which he felt were his due. Money was always a pressing preoccupation. But Bembo was also capable of forgiving

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Pietro Bembo

and forgetting when the storm had blown over. Elena was the one he was slowest to forgive because she had been his dearest treasure. Bembo’s worst fault was his acquisitiveness, and this was recognized by Pasquino, who said that if the pope made Bembo legate of Rome he would strip the city of all its medals to furnish his museum in Padua. Bembo tried to persuade people to let him have things he fancied: the house in Padua, for the price the speculator had paid for it, instead of 50 per cent more; Bibbiena’s antique Venus, for which he had already made a place between his Jupiter and Mercury (!); the dead Navagero’s little white dog; Count Agostino Lando’s little-ridden horse. When Trissino refused to give up a medal he coveted, which he said made him think of the Beatrice he had created in Gli Asolani, Bembo wrote him a disgracefully abusive letter. Bembo loved antiques, he called them his sensuality, and his relative poverty was galling to him when so much which was covetable was being found in the ruins of Rome. But in a collection of letters covering fifty-four years, only a few show Bembo in a bad light. I suspect that the same could not be said of many of us, if we left a written record of our immediate responses to all kinds of situations and frustrations over a troubled half century. The amazing thing is that Bembo did not suppress the unpleasant letters to create a better image. Thus the letters open windows onto the stuff of everyday life in a past world and into the passions of a complex individual. Bembo’s contemporaries praised him for his most innocent life, his probity, humanity, liberality, wisdom.1 He had a sweet and loving nature and a pure mind desirous of the universal good.2 He won people over with his charm and openness. He had no prejudices. That he accepted people for what they were made him particularly popular with those from northern Europe who did not enjoy being looked down upon in Italy as barbarians. For this reason his elevation to the cardinalate was enthusiastically received in the German Empire. If he had been younger in the 1540s and his support of Contarini had swayed the College of Cardinals, some compromise with the Protestants on justification by faith might have been worked out, though Bembo would never have yielded on papal authority. A document found in the Secret Archives of the Vatican, in Bembo’s own handwriting, “Preface to a sermon by the bishop to his people,” probably dating from his stay in Gubbio in 1543–44, discusses justification by faith and apparently accepts it while still stressing the necessity for good works.3 His position is much like the Anglican stance in the Thirty-nine Articles. And Luther himself had wanted a compromise and did not want to separate from the Church.4 Men loved Bembo and were willing to do anything for him, his nephew Gian Matteo, his Roman friend Carlo Gualteruzzi, and Girolamo Quirino and Giovanni della Casa in Venice. On his death the pope shut himself up

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in grief for two days.5 And it was not the architect of a language for all Italy, the man of letters, and the scholar whose loss they all grieved, it was the man. However, Bembo was an important literary figure and a dedicated scholar. His establishment, with Le Prose, of a standard Italian language was his supreme achievement. He saw his prescriptions followed in his own lifetime by such diverse authors as Ariosto and Guicciardini. He also saved much of medieval Provençal literature and proclaimed its importance. Although as a humanist he wrote elegant Latin of exceptional clarity, his promotion of the vulgar tongue gave Italian equal status. After Bembo no one in Italy wrote a major work in Latin,6 though Latin remained the language for international communication, both diplomatic and intellectual, throughout Europe. Newton wrote in Latin, not English. Bembo’s first important work, Gli Asolani, while a relic of a bygone culture, like Spenser’s Faerie Queene, was extremely important from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as an example of the newly created national language treating a theme of perennial interest in a format approved by the post-Tridentine Church censors. His Rime and his sponsorship of Petrarch, made the sonnet the most important lyric form in sixteenth century Europe. Bembo’s literary works may not speak directly to us today, as do many of Shakespeare’s, which belong to the end of the same century. However with Le Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, Carmina, and his Italian translation of the History of Venice constantly reprinted over the centuries and still in print some 450 years after his death, and with the publication of four volumes of his personal letters between 1987 and 1993, Bembo is more than a figure of historical interest. With the letters he comes to life as a man who through his linguistic gifts, insight, inspiration, courageous independence, determination, and persistent efforts succeeded in becoming the leading literary figure of his age, then rose to the height of the cardinalate in the brilliant, turbulent sixteenth century, at the beginning of the modern world. Finally, as cardinal, after a colourful, worldly life, Bembo was able to die in Rome in exemplary Christian piety, a wonderful example of self-confidence and faith in God’s mercy.

2 Appendix

b emb o i c o no gr a p h y The earliest portraits of Bembo are by the Bellini. Bembo appears in Gentile Bellini’s Miracle of the Cross at Ponte San Lorenzo, 1500. He is identified by his sharp-nosed profile, a bald young man third to the right behind his relative, Queen Caterina Cornaro, whose court was the setting for Gli Asolani.1 Bembo was thirty at the time, writing Gli Asolani, his analysis of love, and involved in a fraught love affair with Maria Savorgnan, soon to be followed by a happier but more dangerous one with Lucrezia Borgia to whom the book was finally dedicated. More importantly Bembo has been identified as Giovanni Bellini’s Young Man in the 1505–6 portrait in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court.2 That portrait is reproduced here on p. 30. The next surviving representation of Bembo, known paintings having been lost,3 is the Valerio Belli medal of 1532.4 On the obverse a strong-featured profile with Bembo’s name. On the reverse a semi-nude figure lounging by a stream under a tree and tapping a branch with a stick evokes classical sculpture and the proper setting for a humanist and poet (on p. 275). Later still Benvenuto Cellini 5 made a handsome medal of Bembo as an elderly cardinal with a long beard, Pegasus, Bembo’s impresa,6 on the reverse proclaiming his dedication to literature (on p. 302). Between the two medals, judging by the length of the beard, comes Titian’s portrait of the newly appointed cardinal now in the National Gallery in Washington and reproduced here on p. 320. There is a later Titian of Cardinal Bembo with a longer beard in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples unfortunately now in a ruinous state.7 This painting was copied for the Giovio collection in Como8 and from there for the collection of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, now in the Uffizi in Florence; for the palace at Ambras of Archduke Ferdinand of the Tirol; for the collection of Cardinal

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Federico Borromeo now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan; and to accompany the Swiss publication of Giovio’s Elogia,9 although Bembo was one of a few distinguished men for whom Giovio did not write a eulogy.10 A copy of this painting was also given to Bergamo of which Bembo was bishop. It was deposited in the Accademia Carrara.11 In Bembo’s last year Titian painted a third portrait of him as cardinal, in profile, bare-headed and long-bearded, holding a book in his right hand..12 Though this painting which had belonged to Bembo’s daughter13 has been lost14 it has survived in engravings by Bonasone and Enea Vico among others15 as well as in numerous copies in oil. The painting in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, of which Bembo was founding librarian, is a copy of Elena’s painting and has on the back the name of Paolo Ramusio, son of Bembo’s great friend and his deputy at the library, Giambattista Ramusio, the secretary to the Senate.16 Another portrait of Bembo made during his lifetime, almost full-face, bare-headed, looking to the right as in the Washington and Capodimonte paintings, with an open book in his left hand, is based on a design or cartoon by Titian. It was made in mosaic by Titian’s godson and sometime pupil, Francesco Zuccati, and his brother Valerio, mosaicists at St Mark’s.17 It is now in the Bargello in Florence. The Titianesque portrait of Bembo in the sacristy of Padua cathedral, of which Bembo was canon, appears to have been based on this representation. Finally, in the last year of his life, Bembo appears in Vasari’s fresco of Paul III rewarding merit in the Sala dei cento giorni in the palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome.18 The fact that Giovio, who appears in the painting staring at Bembo, was not rewarded with a cardinal’s hat may explain why there was no eulogy of Bembo in Giovio’s museum in Como. Bembo also appears in Vasari’s fresco for the Medici apartments in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence painted in the mid-1550’s. Although he is present as the pope’s secretary in Leo X’s Entry into Florence he is painted as the old man Vasari knew, though he was clean-shaven and only in his forties at the time he served Leo X.19 Vasari also painted an individual portrait of Bembo which has been lost,20 as has the fresco of Parnassus in which Bembo figured in Giovio’s villa in Como.21 Danese Cattaneo’s idealized bust on Bembo’s tomb in St Anthony’s basilica in Padua is undoubtedly a likeness. Bembo was too well known for it to be otherwise and his friends regularly inspected the work in progress at Cattaneo’s studio.22 However it was “the immortal Bembo” as the Venetians wanted to remember him with his greatness now a part of history. Already his curly beard has a baroque look. Pietro Aretino compared it to a work by Phidias.23 Of other possible identifications of Bembo in paintings the most convincing I believe is Girolamo Romanino’s painting of A Bishop Celebrating

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Mass, with a cardinal’s hat on the table, in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo of which Bembo was cardinal bishop in the last years of his life. An identification of Bembo in the group of bystanders in Titian’s Presentation of Maria in the Temple has been proposed.24 Bembo could only be the man with the beard at the extreme left. While Bembo had a beard by the time Titian finished the painting in 1538 this man does not look to me like Titian’s portrait of Bembo as cardinal two years later. Another proposal, that Bembo is Titian’s Gentleman in a Black Beret, number 24 in the Statens Museum fur Kunst in Copenhagen,25 though most appealing, is unconvincing. The subject must be a Venetian gentleman but he lacks Bembo’s distinctive long thin nose and long slender hands. A proposed identification of Bembo as the bearded Zoraster holding the globe in Raphael’s School of Athens26 in the Vatican Stanze appears to have convinced Carlo Dionisotti, who used it on the cover of his 1989 paperback edition of Le Prose della volgar lingua Gli Asolani Rime. It is known that Raphael used faces of contemporaries in his paintings. Leonardo, Michel-angelo, Bramante, Sodoma, and Raphael himself appear in the School of Athens. However the School of Athens was painted between 1509 and 11.27 Bembo arrived in Rome only in September 1511,28 and received his Vatican appointment as secretary to Leo X in March 1513.29 Although Raphael may have met Bembo in Urbino and Bembo may have started growing a beard in Urbino when he had set his sights on Rome where Julius II had made beards fashionable, it seems unlikely that Raphael would have immediately added the new arrival to his great fresco in Julius’s study. Bembo’s statement in a letter of 19 April 1516 (T II, 371) that he thinks he will ask Raphael to paint him one day because he has done such a good job on Tebaldeo30 certainly suggests that Raphael had not painted him already. Edgar Wind’s argument that Bembo is a thin Silenus in Bellini’s painting of The Feast of the Gods has found no favour with anyone.31 The nose eliminates the Raphael painting called Portrait of the Young Pietro Bembo in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. The sitter has a fleshier nose, a cleft chin and a soft smiling expression. He lacks Bembo’s intense look. He appears a happy courtier, not a man set on making his mark in the world, and he wears a red beret while Venetian noblemen wore black. It has been said that he looks like Agnolo Doni.32 Raphael did, however, paint Bembo.33 This painting is lost. Another painting in the Budapest Museum entitled, in the 1985 catalogue, Portrait of an Old Man (Pietro Cardinal Bembo) and ascribed to Titian has been dropped from the 1995 catalogue. Again the nose is wrong and the expression. The old man looks glum and depressed, not Bembo. An engraved head of Cardinal Bembo sculpted from life by Enea Vico for a medal34 has been lost as have two other medals of Bembo listed in the eighteenth century.35

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2 Notes

chapter one 1 Bertinelli, Famiglie patrizie venete under “Bembo.” The old nobility was made up of twenty-four families who had settled in Venice before 800, Chojnacki, “In Search of the Venetian Patriciate,” 78. The list is given in his note 19. See also Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice, 84. 2 Lane, Venice A Maritime Republic, 3. 3 For the history of Venice see Lane, A Maritime Republic and Zorzi, Una città una repubblica un impero; Braudel and Quilici, Venise. A few comments on Venice by visitors over the centuries: Albertus Magnus (c. 1190–1280) praised Venice for its power, circumspection, foresight, the unity and concord of its citizens, its love of justice coupled with clemency, Chojnacki, 77n12. An anonymous document of 1275 describes the wealth and beauty of Venice: merchants pour through the streets like the waters of a fountain, buying, selling, changing money; there are all kinds of craftsmen and sailors, ships to transport merchandise, and galleys to damage enemies; and a large population with ladies, damsels, and girls dressed very richly, Lombardo, “Storia e ordinamenti delle magistrature veneziane,” 619. Petrarch in one of his letters called Venice “the unique temple and refuge of liberty and justice,” Cian, La cultura e italianità di Venezia, 37. Botero in the sixteenth century wrote that of all the cities of Europe, “Rome and Venice give the beholders the most pleasure, Rome for ancient relics, Venice for its incomparable situation, the Arsenal, the multitude of ships for war and trade, the height of the towers, the riches of the churches, the magnificence of the palaces, the beauty of the streets, the variety of the arts, the order of government, the beauty of the population – all dazzles and amazes the eyes of the beholders,” The Magnificency and Greatness of Cities, tr. Peterson, 232–3.

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Notes to page 3

In a subsequent work Botero continued the comparison of Rome and Venice, the two greatest republics the world has ever known, Relatione della republica venetiana, 1r–3v: Rome was outstanding for military discipline, Venice for civil; Rome for the extent of its authority, Venice for its stability. They reached the heights by contrasting paths, Rome by destroying its neighbouring cities, Venice by accepting refugees from the desolation of the north of Italy by the Huns and the Lombards. Rome caused its neighbours suffering, Venice received those who suffered. Rome went from land to sea to build its empire, Venice from sea to land; Rome with anticipation and assault, Venice with temporizing and awaiting occasions. Rome killed its kings, Venice elected its doges and submitted them to laws. Rome transformed itself from an aristocracy to a popular republic, worsening itself. Venice transformed itself from a popular republic to a most noble aristocracy, bettering itself ... The stability of Venice over centuries, with its balanced government, prudence in making war, excellent justice, and the sanctity of its religion makes it Rome’s equal. He then goes on to describe the economy and wealth of Venice and its system of government. The comparison of Venice with Rome was not new. About 1460 Benedetto Accolti, chancellor of Florence, wrote that Venice had lived under just laws for 1000 years and that their council was an image of the Roman senate, Garin, “Cultura filosofica toscana e veneta,” 11. Pontieri, Le lotte per il predominio in europa, 81, lists Venetian domains about 1500, Bembo’s time, when she had already lost some possessions to the Turks: the Veneto, a large part of Istria, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, Ravenna, Cervia, Cesena, part of Trentino, Dalmatia, part of Albania, the Ionian islands, Cyprus. Its sphere of influence included Mantua, Ferrara, Urbino. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia vol. 4, part 4, chapter 6, gives a complete survey of fifteenth-century Venice: population, government, sanitary provisions, provinces, trade, finance, public and private magnificence, arts, charities, printing, etc. For a detailed description of the extraordinarily effective system of government evolved in Venice, with all its checks and balances, see Lane, Venice, 95–116; Bouwsma, Venice and Republican Liberty, 52–62; Finlay, Politics, xv–xvii, which is a dictionary of administrative terms, and 1–125; Alazard, La Venise de la Renaissance, 55–63; Cozzi, “Authority and the Law in Renaissance Venice,” 293–330. The famous Florentine historian Guicciardini (1483–1540), an exile from Florence like many of its most famous sons, has this to say about Venice in a discussion of various forms of government: “For although the Venetian government is strictly that of an aristocracy, these aristocrats are none other than private citizens and are in such numbers and of such diverse conditions and qualities, that it cannot be denied that they constitute, to a considerable degree, a popular government, which might be imitated by us in many ways

Notes to pages 3–5

4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11

12

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... That Republic has maintained its liberty, its unity, and its civil harmony for so many centuries and thus risen to such glory and grandeur ... Nor is the unity of the Venetians a result of their geographical situation, as many believe ... Rather, the form of government is so well-ordered and proportioned in itself that it must, of necessity, produce such admirable and precious results, The History of Italy, tr. Grayson, 79. Finally Giovanni della Casa, for many years papal emissary to Venice, wrote in his biography of Bembo that Venetians were the exception to the general depraved condition of mankind, that Venice was a Christian state governed by the mind of God. From time immemorial it had been most prudent and most fortunate. It was the citadel of liberty, the playing field of prudence, the dwelling place of justice, Petri Bembi vita, 17. Since Venetians worked together for the preservation and prosperity of the Republic attention was paid to the needs of those who were unfortunate. Lay foundations called scuole were established committed to helping one another. They were governed by elected lay officials, their work dedicated to Christ, the Madonna or saints through whom they hoped to gain salvation by their meritorious acts, Pignatti and Pullan, Le scuole di Venezia, 9. In his introduction Pignatti wrote that these charitable organizations concerned themselves with ethnic minorities, and the interests of craftsmen. They gave social protection and political stability. Commynes, Mémoires vol. 2, 206–12. Tucci, Mercanti, navi, monete, 33 says that Venetian nobles spent a lot of money on religious buildings and the embellishment of the city as a felt obligation. Finlay, Politics, 33. Pepper, “Fortress and Fleet,” 36, describes the Pietro Bembo ravelin at Modon in 1494. Thiriet, “Les lettres commerciales des Bembo,” 911–33. Jacoviello, “Sui traffici veneziani nel mezzogiorno d’Italia,” 166; Carabellese, La Puglia nel secolo XV, 37–8. See also Carabellese and Zambler, Le relazioni commerciali fra la Puglia e la republica di Venezia. Arslan, Gothic Architecture in Venice, illustration facing p. 81. For his biography see Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo. There is a profile of Bernardo Bembo in King, Venetian Humanism, 283. Nardi, “Letteratura e cultura veneta del Quattrocento,” 123. For the Rialto school see J.B. Ross, “Venetian Schools and Teachers Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries,” 522, 557. Averroes (1126–98) was an Arab philosopher living in southern Spain whose commentaries on Aristotle were very influential in establishing scholastic philosophy. Venice and its university in Padua were strongly Aristotelian in outlook, in contrast to Florence’s new enthusiasm for Platonism. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 24. The manuscripts which he bought included Seneca’s tragedies and Vitruvius’s De architectura.

398

Notes to pages 5–6

13 Giannetto, Ibid., 25. In Padua he bought an extremely important fourth century manuscript of Terence’s plays as well as Caesar’s Commentaries. 14 Giannetto, Ibid., 103, 118–19; Jennifer Fletcher, “Bernardo Bembo and Leonardo’s portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci,” 812, 812n10. 15 Giannetto, Ibid., 25, 104. 16 There has been much confusion over Bembo’s mother’s name. Venturi, in his biography of Bernardo Bembo in the Dizionario Biografico Italiano says that Bernardo married a Morosini first, then a Marcello girl, and that Elena Marcello was the mother of his children. Dionisotti follows Venturi in his biography of Pietro Bembo in the Dizionario Biografico Italiano of 1968. He had earlier listed Elena Morosini as Pietro Bembo’s mother in the preface to his edition of Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime of 1960. In Gli umanisti ed il volgare of 1968 Dionisotti gives no reason for the change of mother. The gap between Bernardo Bembo’s marriage to Elena Morosini in 1462 (Giannetto Ibid. has found the marriage document, see 21, 110–12) and the birth of Pietro, Bernardo’s first, or first surviving, child in 1470, makes it possible to imagine that Bernardo had lost a first wife and married again and that therefore Elena Morosini was not the mother of his children. However, Pietro himself, writing to his father on 22 November 1509 after his mother’s death (Lettere, ed. Travi, vol. 2, 293) clarifies the matter. He says that his parents were happily married for forty-eight years. Could the persistence of the Marcello name be explained by an earlier, brief marriage to a Marcello girl who died young? Finlay, Politics, 88–9, states that the Bembo family frequently married into the Marcello. The Marcello family were of the new nobility while the Bembo and Morosini were of the old, Chojnacki, “Venetian Patriciate,” 78n19. It is notable that Cicogna in Della Famiglia Marcello, does not cite a Marcello mother for Cardinal Bembo though he mentions other Marcello mothers of distinguished men. 17 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 25, 28. Della Torre, “La prima ambasceria di Bernardo Bembo a Firenze,” 262. 18 Giannetto, Ibid. 29, 126–7. 19 King, Venetian Humanism, 283. 20 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 29. 21 Della Torre, “Prima ambasceria,” 262–9. See Augurelli, Iamblicus liber, book II, carm. XVI, for example. For poems by Braccesi see Della Torre, Ibid., 320–2. 22 Pavanello, Un maestro del quattrocento, 10. Augurelli urged humanists to study Petrarch, Richardson, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy, 48. 23 Cian, “Per Bernardo Bembo, Le sue relazioni coi Medici,” 350; Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 79, 143. 24 Della Torre, “Prima ambasceria,” 269ff. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 77, quotes Ficino’s immediate high appreciation of Bernardo at their first meeting.

Notes to pages 6–8

25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37

38 39

399

Beccadelli, “Vita di Pietro Bembo, Cardinale,” xxxiii, quotes Ficino as saying in one of his letters that he gloried in having come into the world in the same year and on the same day as Bernardo Bembo. Some thirty letters Ficino wrote to Bembo survive. Della Torre, Ibid., 283. For Bernardo in Landino’s poetry see Landino, Carmina omnia, 158–60; 160–2, an elegy in which there is a very human, though conventional, portrayal of Bernardo, pale, blushing, nervous, with a trembling voice when Ginevra, all modesty and grace, sits beside him and jokes with him, then gives him a smile which is like the sun after a storm and sends him on a winged chariot to the realms of light; 162–6; 166–7; 168–9 in which Ginevra weeps over his departure, when he leaves to rejoin his wife and family. J. Fletcher, “Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci,” 811, argues that Bembo must have commissioned Leonardo’s portrait of Ginevra, which is in the National Gallery in Washington, because his device appears on the back of the painting. But might this not merely indicate that it once belonged to him? She suggests, 813, that it was painted during Bembo’s second mission to Florence in 1478–80. When the attachment developed in 1475 Ginevra was sixteen, Bernardo forty-two. Landino, Carmina 164, 168–9. Ibid., 190–1. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 31. Ibid., 33. Ibid., 34. Danzi, “Novità sul Marullo e Pietro Bembo,” 225, cites a sonnet in a fifteenth century miscellany dedicated to nine year old Pietro Bembo, of whom great things are expected. Beccadelli, “Vita di Bembo,” xxxiii. Ibid., xxxiv. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 147, 149–51. Ibid., 38–9. See Pietro Bembo, Lettere, ed. Travi, IV, 2517, 2518, 2523, 2524, 2533, 2441, on the education of boys placed in his charge or whose education he arranged, as well as his letters on the education of his own son and daughter in chapter 11. Henceforth references to the letters will appear in the text as T with a roman volume number followed by an Arabic number which will refer to the number of the letter, not the page, for example, T IV, 2517 for the first reference above. For private tutors in Venice see J.B. Ross, “Venetian Schools,” 522 and Nardi, “Letturatura e cultura veneziana del Quattrocento,” 121. Branca, “Ermolao Barbaro and the late quattrocento Venetian humanism,” 218–19. The Rialto School was founded in 1408, the school at San Marco in 1446. It

400

Notes to page 8

was expanded in 1460. For descriptions of the two schools see: Nardi, “La scuola di Rialto e l’umanesimo veneziano,” 45–98; Nardi, “Letteratura e cultura veneta del Quattrocento,”Saggi, 5–43; Nardi, “Letteratura e cultura,” La civiltà veneziana, 99–145; J.B. Ross, “Venetian Schools,” 522, 557. Both schools attracted outstanding lecturers. Ross, 557, lists some, as does Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 220. See also Ricci, “Umanesimo filologico in Toscana e nel Veneto,” 171, about the Rialto school. Nardi, “La scuola di Rialto,” 72, lists those who attended a lecture on Euclid at the Rialto in 1508. His list includes Bernardo Bembo and Aldus Manutius. 40 Ermolao Barbaro (1455–93) was universally regarded as the greatest of the Venetian humanists and was portrayed as such in Venetian painting. In the painting of St Ursula meeting Pope Ciriaco in Carpaccio’s Legend of St Ursula, now in the Accademia in Venice, Ermolao Barbaro is the central figure, dressed in senatorial purple, Branca, “Ermolao Barbaro e l’umanesimo veneziano,” 210. Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 236, wrote that Carpaccio “chose for the central figure of the most solemn and spectacular scene [the meeting with the pope] the very figure ... the pivot about which the cultural life of Venice turned in that period.” Branca, “Ermolao Barbaro e l’umanesimo,” 211, also believes that Barbaro was the youthful philosopher in Giorgione’s painting of the three philosophers. Sansovino described a painting of Barbaro in the doge’s palace which was destroyed in the fire of 1577, Branca, and Weiss, “Carpaccio e l’iconografia del più grande umanista veneziano,” 38. Tucci, Mercanti, navi, monete, 25 says that there are currently paintings in the chamber of the Great Council in the doge’s palace depicting famous scholars, including Ermolao Barbaro, dressed in gold to signify their importance to Venetian life. A brief summary of Ermolao Barbaro’s life seems appropriate here: A member of a Venetian noble family Barbaro was educated at the University of Padua, where he received doctorates in arts in 1474 and in canon and civil law in 1477, Nardi, “Letteratura e cultura,” 126–7. Between 1474 and 1479 he lectured on Aristotle at Padua. In 1483 he taught Greek poets in Padua and lectured on Aristotle in his own house in Venice and founded there the Accademia Filologica, mainly devoted to Latin studies. From 1485 to 1491 he held major diplomatic posts, including Milan and Rome. When he was in Rome in 1491 Pope Innocent VIII appointed him Patriarch of Aquilea, effectively archbishop of Venice, to the fury of the Venetian Senate which regarded such an appointment as its own prerogative – the pope seems to have forgotten the medieval investiture dispute. The Senate always elected Venetian bishops, as they did everyone else who held a position of authority in the Republic, Malipiero, Annali, 30. As a consequence Barbaro was exiled in Rome, where he worked on the textual correction of Pliny’s Natural History. He died in 1493, Logan, Culture and Society in Venice, 50. Logan summarizes him thus in Hale, Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance: “He was a man of

Notes to pages 8–10

41

42 43

44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56

401

encyclopaedic interests, scientifically erudite, a practising botanist and aesthetically sensitive. As an Aristotelian scholar he sought to explain the philosopher’s meaning in terms of the vocabulary available to him, and emphasized the need to study the Aristotelian corpus as a whole, not merely the portions taught in the university faculties.” Branca in Hale, Renaissance Venice, 220–1, says that Barbaro translated and commented on Aristotle, wrote treatises on moral philosophy and civic values, philological studies, orations, and letters. His De officio legati, on the duties of the ambassador, probably written in 1489–90 between his embassies to Milan and Rome, is enlivened by personal anecdotes. See also Branca, “Ermolao Barbaro,” 218–43. Barbaro’s Florentine contemporary, Cristoforo Landino, in De vera nobilitate, 40, praised Barbaro for his great learning in Greek and Latin literature and for his expertise in every branch of philosophy. For a brief profile see King, Venetian Humanism, 322–3 and 238n6, 239. Battagia, L’isola della Giudecca, 28, 31; Bonfanti, La Giudecca, 12, 25. The school is at what is now Fondamenta di San Giovanni, 10. There is a commemorative plaque on the wall. It functioned in 1484–85, J.B. Ross, “Venetian Schools,” 535. The dialogue is De Virgilii Culice et Terentii fabulis liber. For comment see Grafton, “Pietro Bembo and the ‘Scholia Bembina’,” 405. Floriani, “La giovanezza umanistica di Pietro Bembo fine al periodo ferrarese,” 38. Both Floriani and Grafton agree that De Culice was written about 1503 though it was not published until 1530. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, 34–5, 114–15. This was practical training which would at least prepare boys for jobs in the various secretariats. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 38, 152. This was a very responsible post since Ravenna was on the confines of the duchy of Ferrara which, with its ally Naples, was at war with Venice and the papacy between 1482 and 1484. Bembo had to liaise with the Venetian commander in the field. For the war see Mallett, “Venice and the War of Ferrara,” 57–72. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 156–7. Landino, Carmina Omnia, xliii and 191–2 for the text of the letter. Ibid., 175–6. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 43. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 44 and 182–3. Ibid., 166. Ibid., 170–1. Had this love of Petrarch been imparted by his teacher Augurelli? Augurelli had published a collection of Petrarchan lyrics around this time, Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione, 67. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 45. Ibid., 178–80. Ibid., 47–8.

402

Notes to pages 10–13

57 Ibid., 192. 58 Ibid., 48. 59 Ibid., 198–200. See T IV, 2432 of 7 May 1544 in which Bembo, on becoming bishop of Bergamo, recalls with affection the two years he spent there in his adolescence. 60 That he had been studying in Padua seems to be indicated by the three letters which he wrote to Alessandro Urticio in Padua whom he calls his teacher, T I, 1 of 29 March 1492; T I, 6 of 16 August 1494; T I, 14 of 26 August 1495. 61 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 49 and 201. 62 Bembo, Istoria viniziana, 75–6. For the stratioti see Kidwell, Marullus, 42, 43 (engraving), 46. 63 Ricci, “Umanesimo filologico,” 170–1. 64 Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 218, 220. Cian, La coltura e l’italianità di Venezia, 19 says that from the time of Petrarch Venice was the leading centre for the diffusion of the Greek language and culture. See also Bouwsma, Venice, 88. 65 In his letter to his Latin teacher, Alessandro Urticio, T I, 1 Bembo refers to Lascaris’s Greek grammar for schoolboys with which he is familiar and, in De Aetna, 1 he refers to his schoolboy absorption in Greek lessons. 66 Bembo, De Aetna, 17. 67 Bembo compares Corfù unfavourably to Sicily. Homer had flattered it! 68 Cian, “Bernardo Bembo,” 358. Dionisotti, in his 1989 edition of Le Prose etc, 85n2, refers to an unpublished address by Bembo to the students of the University of Padua in praise of Greek studies as well as to Greek verse Bembo wrote. There is one Greek letter published, T I, 3. 69 Bembo, De Aetna, 18. For the war see Mallett, “Venice and the War of Ferrara”; Kidwell, Marullus, 201–31. In T I, 7 Bembo says that on his return from Sicily he spent three marvellous days at the villa, so the setting of the dialogue appears factual. There is an English translation of De Aetna by Ross Kilpatrick and parallel Latin and English texts in the edition by Betty Radice. 70 Bembo, Ibid., 137; Monotype Corporation Ltd., Le Bembo d’Alde Manuce, 6–7, 9; Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius, 112, 130, 135. 71 Santoro, Pietro Bembo,13. 72 Lazzarini, “Francesco Petrarca e umanesimo a Venezia,” 64–71. Petrarch was thrilled by Venice, “the most marvellous of all the cities I have seen”, Lazzarini, 65. He called it absolutely miraculous, a prodigy of grandeur and beauty and praised its political stability and military security. It was free and liberal, cosmopolitan, generously hospitable, with a just administration. He called it “another world,” Lazzarini, 71. However, Bouwsma, Venice, 93, quotes Petrarch, in De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia, as saying that he was shocked by the degree of freedom in Venice, “the only evil prevailing – but also the worst – far too much freedom of speech.” Otherwise he found a cultured people receptive to Provençal, French and Tuscan literature, with an

Notes to pages 13–15

73 74

75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86

87

403

already awakened interest in classical Latin which he further stimulated with his own Latin writings and his discovery of Cicero’s letters, Lazzarini, 75. See also Pertusi, La storiografia veneziana, 270. Petrarch’s family, political refugees of Tuscan origin, settled in Provence, Petrarch’s home until he was fifty. He studied in France and Italy, then joined the humanist circle in the papal curia in Avignon, where he gained fame as a classical scholar. Bouwsma, Venice, 88. Ibid., 86. Braudel, The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II, 307 states that in the sixteenth century Venice produced a large proportion of Europe’s printed books. Venice had, however, been an important centre for the book trade well before the arrival of printers. In 1453 Alfonso I of Naples, a king with intellectual interests who fostered humanism, had instructed his ambassador in the Republic to buy him twenty-five books, the works of Ovid, Horace, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, Claudian, Lucretius, Silvius Italicus, Propertius, Tibullus, Catullus, Persius, Martial, Servius and Donatus, as well as a tartar slave to lend an exotic touch to his library, Ryder, Alfonso the Magnanimous, 320. Venice had also been a centre for the search for manuscripts, Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, vol. 4, 501–2. Ricci, “Umanesimo filologico,” 171. Elwert, “Pietro Bembo e la vita letteraria,” 130, says that nobles furnished capital for the book trade, the state encouraged the industry and scholars flocked there. Two noblemen even invested in printing themselves, in the Venetian tradition of patrician involvement in trade, Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 9. Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 220. Romanin, Storia di Venezia, vol. 4, 502. Elwert, “Pietro Bembo,” 131. Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 8; Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 220. Branca, Ibid., 233–4. Santoro, Bembo, 97. Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio e il dialogo veneto di Erasmo, 40. Dazzi lists the membership of the New Academy in 1502: Pietro Bembo and ten other Venetians, the friar architect. from Verona, Fra Giocondo, and eight other Italians, Marco Musuro, Giovanni Lascaris and five other Greeks, Erasmus and the English humanist Thomas Linacre. From the regulations of the New Academy displayed at the British Library’s Aldus exhibition of the summer of 1995. Santoro, Bembo, 14. Lascaris, Erotemata, aiv–aiir. The modern address is 2311 S. Polo, Rio Terrà Secondo di S. Agostino. Aldus rented that property, called Thermae, between February 1496 and December 1505 for two five-year Venetian leases, H.G. Fletcher, New Aldine Studies, 4, 7. That was also the meeting place of the New Academy, Ibid., 4. Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 92.

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Notes to pages 15–16

88 Ibid., 94, 99. 89 Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 235. Linacre worked on Aldus’ great fivevolume edition of Aristotle of 1495–8, Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 111, 114. 90 Lowry, Ibid., 92. The bookshop at the sign of the tower often served as Aldus’ postal address, see Nolhac, “Correspondants d’Alde,” 245. 91 Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio, 42. Aldus’ principal partner was the doge’s nephew, Pierfrancesco Barbarigo, Lowry, Ibid., 96. 92 Lowry, Ibid., 158. Aldus, in dedicating his edition of Poliziano’s works (1498) to his patron, the outstanding Venetian diarist, Marino Sanuto, gave the highest praise to his account of the French invasion, written in both Latin and Italian so that the learned and unlearned could read it, but did not publish it because it was too costly and Sanuto, who was always hard up, could not have afforded to subsidise it, Priuli, I Diarii, xi; Cozzi, “Marin Sanudo il giovane,” 349. It was not until the nineteenth century that this invaluable work was published. 93 Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 230. The quotation is my translation of Aldus’ Latin. 94 Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio, 43; Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 109–10. 95 Lowry, Ibid., 94. 96 Ibid., 95, 99, 100. 97 Ibid., 97ff. 98 Ibid., 153; Erasmus, Colloquies, tr. Thompson, 489. 99 Erasmus, Colloquies, 489–90. The attack on Erasmus appeared in Scaliger’s Oratio pro Cicerone contra Erasmum. An argument on style, in typical humanist fashion, degenerated into personal abuse. 100 There is support for Erasmus’s attack on Venetian food. Pietro Casola, on pilgrimage from Milan to Jerusalem in 1494, after describing the marvels of Venice, wonders if the Venetians are so occupied with trade that they do not care what they eat. The meat is wretched, the fish abundant, but not good; however, there are lots of fowl and cheese and butter, fruits and vegetables are in impressive supply. There are wines from everywhere, but the duties are heavy. There is a scarcity of good water for drinking and cooking, Casola, Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 129–32. 101 Erasmus, Colloquies, 574–85. Erasmus, in fact, soon asked for his meals to be prepared for him privately and served in his room at his own expense. He ordered a quarter boiled chicken for every meal, Nolhace, Erasme en Italie, 36. Moreover, despite these later complaints, Erasmus stayed with Aldus after the publication of his Adages to help on editions of Plautus, Terence and Seneca, Ibid., 42. He was paid 20 ducats for his work on Plautus, Ibid., 43. He also probably collaborated in the edition of Plutarch’s Moralia, Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 235. 102 Branca, Ibid., 233–4. 103 Lowry, 109, 142. In an address to Bembo in his 1514 Vergil Aldus says that

Notes to pages 16–17

104

105

106 107 108 109

110

111 112

405

the idea of using octavo format, previously restricted to prayer books, came from the luxurious small format manuscripts of classical texts in Bernardo Bembo’s library. Monotype, Le Bembo, 6–7; Floriani, “La giovanezza umanistica di Pietro Bembo,” 46. This was first used in Bembo’s De Aetna, the first book entirely in Latin which Aldus published. The type face has therefore been called “Bembo.” Monotype, Ibid., 8–9. The Venetian Senate granted Aldus a ten year copyright on the script, De Aetna (1969), 142 note by Giovanni Mandersteig. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 4, 369 reports on a meeting of the Senate on 17 October 1502 in which he made a motion, unanimously carried, that Aldus should have a ten year copyright on new works which he published and on new scripts. The protection of the new type faces was confirmed by papal bulls of Alexander VI, Julius II, Leo X, Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 154. Clough, “Bembo’s Edition of Petrarch And His Association With The Aldine Press,” 69–70 suggests that italic script may be based on the handwriting of the copyist, Bartolommeo di San Vito, in an elegant manuscript owned by Bernardo Bembo. Aldus used italic script in 1501 for his editions of Vergil and Horace. Its use was not restricted to works in Italian. Lowry, Ibid., 130. Ibid., 131. Floriani, “Giovanezza umanistica,” 61. Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 60. Erasmus commented on the proverb in his Adages, 1001, then added that “although Aldus’s library is within the walls of a small house he is constructing a library which will have no other boundary but the world itself,” quoted by Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio, 102. Author’s translation. Aldus often describes the circumstances in which works were produced in introductory letters. In his introduction to Lascaris, De octo partibus orationis he tells how Gabriele never stopped begging him to publish the works of Lascaris who had made Messina a second Athens and whom Gabriele loved as a father. He regrets that wars delayed the publication so that this is a posthumous work. Aldus has provided the Greek text with a Latin translation. The work is undated. The wars are most probably those between 1509–12 in which Venice was involved, when Aldus moved with his family to Ferrara. Since the work is 500 pages long and must have been very expensive to produce presumably Gabriele paid for it. Lowry, Aldus Manutius, 148. Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio, 30. Aldus was the first man to publish Petrarch and Dante in their original versions rather than in an updated fifteenth century form and he applied the methods evolved for critical editions of classical texts to the great medieval writers, Perocco, “Rassegna di studi bembiani (1964–1985),” 517.

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Notes to pages 17–18

113 Quoted by Branca, “Barbaro,” in Hale, 226. See Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” 114 Petrarca, Le cose italiane, Br–Biiiv; Dazzi, Aldo Manuzio, 30, 52, 52n78. 115 Dazzi, Ibid., 30. 116 See Dante, Lo’nferno e ‘l Purgatorio e ‘l Paradiso (Venice, 1515). For Bembo’s contribution to this edition of Dante see Perocco, “Studi bembiani,” 519–20. 117 For the date of the composition of De Virgilii Culice see Floriani, “La giovanezza di Bembo,” 61 and Grafton, “Pietro Bembo,” 405n1. 118 Morsolin, “Pietro Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia,” 392. 119 Jacoviello, Venezia e Napoli, 67. 120 For the war see Mallet, “Venice and the War of Ferrara,” 57–72; Dean, “After the War of Ferrara,” 73–98. 121 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 213–14. Bembo celebrated Leonicino in a sonnet on his death in 1531, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, ed. Dionisotti (1989), 631. 122 For descriptions of the court at Ferrara see Gundersheimer, Art and Life at the Court of Ercole I d’Este; Bertoni, L’“Orlando furioso” e la rinascenza a Ferrara; Bertoni, La biblioteca estense e la coltura ferrarese; Diario ferrarese, 174–408. 123 For example, Tito and Ercole Strozzi who were, both, elegant Latin poets, and Boiardo and Ariosto who in succession wrote the romantic Orlando epics. 124 Ercole d’Este, on his accession, set about establishing one of the greatest chapel choirs in Europe. His agents enticed the best singers in France and Flanders to his court. Duke Ercole patronised both instrumental and vocal music, Gundersheimer, Ferrara, 192–5; Bertoni, “Orlando,” 172; Catalano, Vita di Ludovico Ariosto, 105, 109. Ercole also encouraged dancing and drama at his court, Cole, Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts, 132. The heir to the duchy, Alfonso d’Este, was an accomplished violinist, Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 167. 125 Ercole d’Este worked on the Cupid and Psyche cycle at Belriguardo with the painter, Ercole di Roberti, Shepherd, “Giovanni Sabadini degli Arienti, Ercole I d’Este,” 31, and planned a huge new extension of his city, still called the Herculean Addition, with the architect, Biagio Rossetti. See Tuohy, Herculanean Ferrara. In less than ten years streets were laid out and twenty palaces and twelve churches were built. 126 Anon., Diario ferrarese, 278, 279, 282, 283, 393; Gibbons, Dosso Dossi and Battista Dossi, 20–1; Bertoni, “Orlando,” 10, 183, 209–12 and Biblioteca estense, 12–13; Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 304; Catalano, Ariosto, 122 states that Ariosto was one of the group which organised theatrical productions. He himself acted in a modern comedy by Ercole Strozzi which

Notes to pages 18–20

127

128 129

130

131 132 133 134 135 136 137

138

407

was presented both in the Strozzi palace and in the castle garden in May 1493. Catalano notes that times for performances were determined by astrology. The university of Ferrara specialized in astronomy, mathematics, natural sciences, medicine, and philosophy, Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 177. The professor with whom Bembo studied, Nicolà Leonicino, was a doctor, mathematician, philosopher and philologian, Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 391. Legislation forbade citizens of Ferrara studying at other universities, Caroti, L’ astrologia in Italia, 234. Sabadino degli Arienti, writing about Ferrara in 1497, cites the outstanding university with its first rate minds, theologians, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers and classicists, as one of its blessings, Gundersheimer, Art and Life, 85. Santoro, Bembo, 17 lists the famous professors and their famous students. Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 393 also lists distinguished lecturers and students. Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 177; Bertoni, Biblioteca estense, 31. Bertoni, Biblioteca estense, 1, 3, 6, 31, states that the Este welcomed Provençal troubadours to their court and collected Provençal manuscripts. They also loved French chivalric literature and, from the beginning of the fourteenth century, built up a splendid collection of books. The princely library was open to courtiers, Bertoni, Ibid., 30. The French romances were an inspiration to Boiardo and Ariosto, Bertoni, Ibid., 54, 69–93. The Provençal manuscripts may well have stimulated Bembo’s interest in the language, Bertoni, Ibid., 90; Gundersheimer, Ferrara, 277. Bertoni, Biblioteca estense, 95–6. The Este princes were educated in Latin and the ducal library contained a good collection of classical authors, Bertoni, Ibid., 106ff. Bertoni, “Orlando,” 10 and Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 303–4 list the Latin scholars at Ercole’s court. Bertoni, Biblioteca estense, 86. Bertoni, “Orlando,” 33–4. As well as writing Orlando inamorato Boiardo wrote a collection of Petrarchan songs and sonnets. Pesenti, “Poesie latine di Pietro Bembo,” 347n1, “Me tacitum perferre meae peccata puellae?’, Ariosto’s good-humoured elegy scolding Bembo. Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 392; Santoro, Bembo, 17. Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Italian Renaissance Courts, 207. Ibid., 208. Gundersheimer, Art and Ercole I, 22, 56, 57, 57n38. For the fish summoned by a bell see 59, 60–6. Tasso immortalised the Psyche frescoes, Gundersheimer, Ibid., 21. They antedate those of the Palazzo del Tè in Mantua, of the Villa Farnesina and of Paul III’s apartments in the Castel Sant’ Angelo in Rome. For a discussion of Sabadino’s descriptions of Ferrara see Shepherd, 18–57. Pius II had preceded Ercole in town planning with his development in his

408

139 140 141 142

143 144 145 146 147

148 149 150 151 152

153 154

Notes to pages 20–5 native village, Pienza, but the remodeling of the centre of Pienza was a modest achievement compared with Ercole’s almost doubling the size of Ferrara, for which see Tuohy, Herculanean Ferrara. Gundersheimer, Art and Ercole I, 22–4, 67–72 and Shepherd, “Sabadino degli Arienti,” 23, 25–6, 29, 30, 47n9. Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Italian Renaissance Courts, 207. Chiappini, An Illustrated Guide to Ferrara, 80. Anon., Diario ferrarese, 276 states that the ten year old Giangaleazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan, was lodged in the Palazzo Schifanoia on 26 January 1485. Gundersheimer, Art and Ercole I, 54. Anon., Diario ferrarese, 282. Ibid., 282, 393. Ibid., 278. See also 279. Ibid., 299–300, 394; Catalano, “Ercole Strozzi,” 104. Today the palio is still celebrated in Ferrara in honour of St George, but it takes place on the last Sunday in May to commemorate the establishment of the duchy of Ferrara by Paul II in 1471. Anon., ibid., 384. Bertoni, “Orlando,” 215. Catalano, Ariosto, 105; Gundersheimer, “Orlando,” 202; Anon., Diario ferrarese, 284. Bertoni, Biblioteca estense, 87. Bembo to Trifone Gabriele in Venice, 11 December 1497: “This morning when I was writing my Asolani, on which I spend much of my morning work and almost all hours before daybreak,” T I, 22. Gottfried, introduction to his translation of Bembo’s Gli Asolani, viii. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 217, states that this is the only Italian sonnet by Pietro which Bernardo copied into his miscellany, now in the British Library. It represented Bernardo’s opinion of della Rovere.

chapter two 1 Sanuto, vol. 3, 634, 706, entries for August-September 1500. 2 Dionisotti, Savorgnan-Bembo-Carteggio, vii–ix. References to Maria’s letters will appear in the text as D #. The numbers of Bembo’s letters will continue to be those in Travi’s edition, indicated by T+vol. no. +letter no. For someone who has access to Dionisotti’s Carteggio, but not to Travi’s edition, the following is the correspondence: Dionisotti 1–18 Travi I, 47–64 ” 19–25 ” I, 66–72 ” 26–34 ” I, 74–82 ” 35–51 ” I, 84–100

Notes to pages 25–6

3

4

5 6

7 8 9

10

409

” 51–7 ” I, 104–9 ” 58–60 ” I, 111–13 ” 61 ” I, 115 ” 62 ” I, 101 ” 63 ” I, 103 ” 64 ” I, 102 ” 65 ” I, 114 ” 66–9 ” I, 118–21 ” 70–1 ” I, 123–4 ” 72 ” I, 126 ” 73–7 ” I, 128–32 Morsolin, “Pietro Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia,” 388–9 quotes Gualtiere Scotto (Walter Scott!), the Venetian publisher, as saying that he was printing these letters because rough copies were in circulation. Travi I, xv–xvi cites two Ambrosiana Library manuscripts of Bembo’s letters which had been prepared for the press with revisions in his own hand and, xix and xxii, describes two Vatican manuscripts with Bembo’s corrections for publication. There exist 157 manuscripts of Bembo’s letters, some containing only one letter, T I, xi. When the original was sent Bembo would ask for it to be returned and complain if he did not receive it. See, for example, T II, 588 to Reginald Pole. Rather surprisingly the reforming Camaldolese monk, Paolo Giustiniani, also asked for his letters to be returned to him, Massa, L’eremo, 26, but they were only published by Massa in this century. Massa called Giustiniani his own archivist, 27. Clough, “The Cult of Antiquity,” 34–5. Petrarch’s discovery of Cicero’s letters to his friend, Atticus, led to his writing letters for publication, though his letters were not printed until 1492, Clough, “Cult of Antiquity,” 36, 38; Butler, The Gentlest Art, 11. Schmitt and Skinner, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, 126, 129. Ibid., 124. One of the first books published in Italy was Cicero’s letters to his friends, Ad Familiares, Rome, 1467 and 1469 and Venice 1469, two printings. By the end of the century there had been at least fifty-two printings, Clough, “Cult of Antiquity,” 43. Ad Familiares was used as a text book from 1419, Clough, Ibid., 36. Seneca’s letters were printed in 1470 or 1471 and Pliny’s in 1471 and there were ten reprints of each before 1501, Clough, Ibid., 43–4. Letters of the Florentine chancellors Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini and of the humanists Francesco Filelfo, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini [Pius II], Giovanni Antonio Campano, Ficino, Pico, Poliziano were published before 1500, Clough, “Cult of Antiquity,” 39–42. These were all Latin letters and were reprinted many times. The first Italian letters published

410

11 12 13 14 15

16

17 18

19

Notes to pages 26–8

by a living author were those of Pietro Aretino, published in Venice in 1538, Moro, “Antologie epistolari cinquecentesche,” 103. Schmitt and Skinner, Renaissance Philosophy, 128; Clough, “Cult of Antiquity,” 35, 47. Sansovino, Del Secretario, 66r–7v. Ibid., 63r–v. Ibid., 63v–64v. “Letter books satisfied an unsettled culture’s longing for formal models for its ideas, manners, style,” Starn in his edition of Giannotti, Epistolae, 7. Most popular letter collections were reprinted ten to twenty times and few failed to run to third or fourth editions, Butler, Gentlest Art, 1. The most comprehensive and conventional collection was that published in two volumes by Bartolommeo Zucchi, L’Idea del segretario, Venice, 1606. Here letters by outstanding stylists of the sixteenth century were marshalled under topics such as News, Business, Compliments, Congratulations, Thanks, Condolences, Requests, Recommendations. Many of Bembo’s letters were included. Bembo started preparing his letters for publication in 1532, T I, xli. Bembo was not the only one in his culture not to date his letters. His friend, Giustiniani, also forgot dates, Massa, L’eremo, 25. Gallo, Le venti giornate dell’agricoltura, 141. White roses appear at the end of April, but the main season starts in May. Information provided by the English astronomer Patrick Moore. The eclipse had to be lunar. A solar eclipse in 1500, a jubilee year of the Church with the scandalous Alexander VI on the papal throne, would have been regarded as God’s judgment on his vicar on earth and would have been widely reported and commented on in every document of the period. I could find no reference to this eclipse beyond Maria’s letter, so concluded that it must have been a lunar eclipse. Patrick Moore confirmed this and gave me the exact date and details by telephone. Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Italian Renaissance Courts, 67 state that in the middle of the fifteenth century Leonello d’Este’s courtiers were provided with clocks in their bedrooms. When Bembo became a cardinal in 1539 he was given a beautiful watch, “rather for a pope than a cardinal,” by the abbot of St George in Venice (T IV, 2119). See also T IV, 2193. See Landes, Revolution in Time, 87, 95 and UTET, Grande Dizionario Enciclopedia, orologia. Basserman-Jordan, Uhren has a picture of an Italian watch of 1500 which was worn around the neck. There are also Italian Renaissance watches in the British Museum. The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in the City of London maintains an exhibition of its collection of clocks and watches, perhaps the oldest in the world, in London’s Guildhall. It also exhibits a copy of Bembo’s letters which contain the first reference to an alarm clock (T IV, 2409). As for public clocks, Bembo reports in his Historiae venetae (1718), 85 that the Sen-

Notes to pages 28–9

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29

30

31

411

ate voted in 1495 that a clock worthy of the Republic should be set up in the piazza S. Marco. It is still there in the Torre del Orologio. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 3, 858, 28 October 1500. See Anon., Diario ferrarese, 378, “when it was evening, the twenty-four hours having been rung.” Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 2, 245. Clough, “Love and War in the Veneto,” 119n90. Bertinelli, Famiglie patrizie venete, entry under “Savorgnan.” See also TempleLeader, Libro dei nobili veneti, 93 and Fontana, Cento palazzi, 31–6. Bembo, Historiae venetae, 122. For an account of the activities of Giacomo Savorgnan see Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 1, entries for August 1496 to September 1498: 194, 264, 553, 577, 698, 785, 853, 956, 966, 974, 977, 991, 1051, 1061, 1084, 1110 and vol. 2, entries for October and November 1498: 83, 145, 146, 148, 149, 160. For the background to Venice’s involvement in the Pisan struggle for independence see Sanuto, vol. 1, 7, 8. Clough, “Love and War,” 119n91. Clough, “Federico de Montefeltro,” 136n94. Clough, “Love and War,” 119n90. Maria lodged with Bernardino in Venice for about a year. Campiello del Magazen 1372, at the intersection of rio San Trovaso and rio Ognisanti, opposite the church of San Trovaso and the still functioning squero or boat yard, answers best to the details in Maria’s letters. Fontana, Cento Palazzi, 357–8; Lorenzetti, Venezia, 514–15. Fontana says that the architect of the new house was Scamozzi. If he is right it must have been the elder Scamozzi, Gian Domenico (c. 1526–82). See also D’Amerini, Giardini, 73. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 4, 9 reported that Sebastiano Marcello died in Corfù in April 1501. Dionisotti, Carteggio, 166n58, accepts this date. However Sanuto, vol. 8, 361 states that Sier Sebastiano Marcello quondam sier Antonio, the patronymic of Bembo’s brother-in-law, was appointed to carry out the census of the population of his sestiere [district], Santa Sophia, for March 1509. Then in vol. 9, 61 Sanuto states that Sebastiano Marcello was in Padua on 15 August 1509 but was one of the Venetian gentlemen who decided to leave before the siege. Sanuto lists himself as having done the same. Later on 7 July 1510, Bembo wrote to the Patriarch of Venice complaining of the behaviour of his brother-in-law, Marcello, and begging for his intervention to save his sister’s marriage (T II, 299). A subsequent letter (T II, 345), which Travi dates 4 December 1514, is addressed to his dearest brother-in-law, whom Travi takes to be Sebastiano Marcello, who must have been persuaded to give up his whore and return to his wife. Finally, there is a letter to Cola of 29 September 1525 (T II, 604) in which Bembo refers to Marcello, whom Travi again takes to be Sebastiano. That seems highly unlikely since by that date Bembo was looking after his daughters. However Giannetto, Bernardo

412

32 33 34

35 36

37

38

Notes to pages 29–48

Bembo, 205n296, believes that Antonia married twice into the Marcello family and that the bad husband was a second one, Giacomo Marcello. Ridolfi, Delle meraviglie dell’arte, 42; Fontana, Cento palazzi, 359. Fontana, Ibid., 358, 361. Letters T I, 89, 54, 60, 61 refer to “the sweet influence of my Jove” and are all, therefore, likely to have been written under the same sign of the zodiac, that is, in the period of one month, since Jove does not appear in any other letters in the sequence. Bembo was born on 20 May and had Jupiter in the middle of the heavens (TIV, 2406). The sun is in Taurus from 21 April to 20 May and Jupiter is associated with Taurus because he assumed the shape of a bull to carry off Europa, although Taurus is not one of his houses. In the hall of the zodiac in the palazzo d’Arco in Mantua (c. 1520), in the fresco representing Taurus, Toro, Jove appears three times: in the foreground, as a baby receiving milk from the she-goat, Amalthea: in the background, as a bull, carrying off Europa: and seen through an arch in the distance, as the king of heaven, holding his thunderbolt. It would appear, then, from Bembo’s statement in T IV, 2406, that when the sun is in Taurus Jupiter is present to those born under that sign. Bembo had some belief in astrology (see, e.g.,T I, 221), despite his pretension to the contrary in T IV, 2406 written when he was already cardinal and astrology was condemned by the Church. I therefore suspect that these letters were written in late April or the first half of May 1500. The letters were, in fact, dated as follows: T I, 89, 22 July 1500; I, 54, 20 March 1500, though it was a continuation of I, 89 with its July date; I, 60, 12 April 1500; I, 61, 15 April 1500; I, 69, 11 May 1500. Dionisotti, Carteggio, xxxv. Misér here is Tristano Savorgnan, the head of Maria’s branch of the family and a formidable man, a Venetian condottiere on the northeastern frontier. He once suggested to Bernardo Bembo, then a member of the Council of Ten, that Venice should poison Charles VIII. Bernardo rejected the suggestion, Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 210. Dionisotti, Carteggio, 140 explains that this is a reference to an Italian proverb that nail drives out nail (chiodo scaccia chiodo) and that Maria was quoting Petrarch, “come d’asse si trae chiodo con chiodo,” “as a nail drives out a nail from a plank.” Her word is cariolo which is defined in the Enciclopedia Italiana, vol. 20, 998 as a kind of divan on wheels, kept under the marriage bed, which can be pulled out for day time rest. Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Renaissance Courts, 67–8 define cariolo as a pallet shoved under a bed during the day on which a servant slept at night. Compare the English truckle or trundle bed which was pulled out for a servant to sleep on at night. Venetian women, confined against their wills, were adept at finding means to enjoy their lovers. There is an amusing account of nuns making a hole in

Notes to pages 51–5

39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46

47

48

49

413

the wall of a convent storeroom by a canal so that their lovers, approaching by boat, could put a plank across and enter, Leven, Virgins of Venice, 179–82. Bembo’s father, as a legal official, had to deal with another convent escapade when several young noblemen were charged with being in the convent of Santa Maria Celestia and dancing all night with the nuns to the sound of trumpets and fifes. The nuns were wearing white dresses and had their hair in ringlets, Cartwright, Italian Gardens, 106 and Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 8, 307. Dionisotti, Carteggio, 147n43. See Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 1, 383–4. Sansovino, Venetia, 137v and 146r. Bonfanti, La Giudecca, 31–2, 40, 43, 44, 47. Ibid., 12. Ibid., 47. Ibid., 98. See the maps of de’ Barbari of 1500; Vavassore of about 1525; Forlani of 1556; Pagan of 1559, etc., in Cassini, Piante e vedute, 30–1, 36–7, 44, 47 up to 152 with its map of 1837–40. For gardens behind the wall and two towers of the Dandolo house see the de’ Barbari map, p. 54, the Venice fresco by Egnazio Dante in the Vatican, Galleria delle carte geografiche, Brown, Renaissance in Venice, vol. 8, and the detail of the Giudecca in the painting by G.B. Arzanti in the Correr Museum in Venice. It appears that both the Dandolo and Marcello houses had disappeared by 1832. See Battagia, Cenni storici, 28, where he lists the palaces still standing at that date. Bonfanti, La Giudecca, 32. A Turkish ambassador was lodged in Cà Marcello on the Giudecca in June 1530, Bonfanti, Ibid., 40. Forastiero illuminato, 258; Molmenti, Venezia nella vita privata, vol. 2, La splendore, 380; Bonfanti, Ibid., 9. When Michelangelo visited Venice he took a fortnight’s holiday on the Giudecca in the palazzo Vendramin alla Rotonda, Bonfanti, Ibid., 136–7, quoting Varchi, La storia florentina, vol. 10. Bonfanti, La Giudecca, 155–6. The Emo family had no less than twenty-eight, the Lombardo, twenty-four. The richest families, with grand establishments, had only one or two. In 1514, when Pietro Bembo was sent to Venice on a diplomatic mission by Leo X he stayed with his father at the Corner house [now called Corner-Contarini dei Cavalli] on the Grand Canal, Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 19, 306. Visitors like Casola and Commynes commented in amazement on the gardens of Venice, a city in the sea. Those on the Giudecca were particularly impressive because there was more space there. Especially noteworthy were those of the Cà Dandolo at the eastern end of the Giudecca, of the Vendramin house at the western end, near the former church of San Biagio, of Queen Caterina Cornaro’s palace, of the Cattaneo house with its grottoes and fountains, of the Gritti and Mocenigo houses, Bonfanti, La Giudecca, 91, 117–18, 126; Molmenti Venezia, vol. 2, 380. Alazard, La Venise de la Renaissance, 117n1, describes the gardens on the Giudecca in the fifteenth century as being full of roses, lilies and Damascus

414

50 51 52

53

54

55

56

57 58

Notes to pages 55–63

carnations. Even in the nineteenth century the gardens on the south side of the Giudecca could still be seen by boat, “truly a feast for the eyes, especially in the season when the pomegranate flowers, which in many places forms a hedge,” Battagia, Giudecca, 17. See also Cartwright, Italian Gardens, 102–24, especially 108, and D’Amerini, Giardini di Venezia. Sansovino, Venetia, 146r; Bonfanti, La Giudecca, 23–4. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 3, 769 describes Sebastiano Marcello’s departure. A twenty-five year period in the Catholic Church, the end of which was marked by pilgrimages to special ceremonies in Rome and the lavish granting of indulgences; 1500 was a jubilee year. Dionisotti reads the word as chaverna, although he says that he is not sure if that is what she wrote and admits, Carteggio, 147n41, that he does not understand it. I believe that the reading must be chavana, cavana, in her spelling, with its Venetian use of “ch” rather than “c.” A cavana is a shelter for gondolas, sometimes built into old houses, see McAndrew, Venetian Architecture, 212. Bembo wrote a sonnet on Bellini’s portrait of Maria, Rime XIX in Dionisotti’s edition of Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime (1989). Bellini’s portraits of women have been lost but, in 1923, Arthur H. Smith of the British School of Rome published, in London, a reprint of Tancred Borenius’s 1627 catalogue, called The Picture Gallery of Andrea Vendramin, which contained drawings of Bellini’s portraits of women in the Vendramin collection. From this one can form an impression of what Maria probably looked like since she was very concerned with fashion. There are also many portraits of women in sixteenth-century Venetian paintings from which we can imagine what she looked like. He never did finish the canzone, Occhi miei lassi [My weary eyes],which he had been writing on her departure. See the poem as it stands in Dionisotti’s edition of the Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 683–4. The story of Romeo and Juliet was first written by Luigi da Porto (1485–1529) and dedicated to “the most beautiful and charming lady, Lucina Savorgnana,” Maria’s daughter; see Torri’s edition of da Porto, Giulietta e Romeo. Since da Porto was only fifteen in 1500, Bembo is unlikely to have heard the story from him. However, Verona was a Venetian possession and Bembo may well have heard of the tragedy before da Porto recorded it. On the other hand, this could be an interpellation when Bembo was revising his letters. The collected edition of da Porto’s works, including the novella, his letters and lyrics, was dedicated to Bembo, da Porto, Ibid., 53. There was a lunar eclipse in Venice on 5 November 1500. See note 18 above. Moise, as becomes apparent from subsequent letters, was a Jewish goldsmith who was summoned to Ferrara to make a medal of the duke, Ercole d’Este. As a result he received other commissions in Ferrara. He was also doing some work for Bembo, Maria’s medal, perhaps, and was, therefore, emboldened to ask for Bembo’s help in a dispute involving his wife and their Venetian neighbours.

Notes to pages 65–72

415

59 St George was the patron saint of Ferrara and there were great festivities on his day, celebrated in Ferrara on 24 April. 60 This may be the unidentified medal of Ercole d’Este as an old man. It is dated 1501. See Hill, Italian Medals before Cellini, no. 1330. 61 It is not clear whether this refers to a medal of Bembo or a medal of Maria which he was having made from her picture. See T I, 112. No medal of Bembo from this period of his life has survived and no medal of Maria has been identified. 62 The word is sparviere, “sparrow hawk,” which was the name for a canopy with side hangings to be used above a bed. See Bembo’s description, T II, 332 and Bembo’s drawing in T IV, p.672. Presumably the ladies would go to Maria’s bedroom and she wanted it to look elegant. Bembo had apparently lent her the canopy. 63 Casola, a Milanese, had remarked on Venetian ladies’ predilection for makeup when he visited the city in 1494. He said that they painted every exposed part, Pilgrimage, 145. 64 Leonardo and Gregorio Amaseo, Diarii udinesi, 505–6. See also Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, 158–9. There is a photograph of the medallion of Lucina Savorgnan by Fra Antonio da Brescia in the Museo Civico, Trento in Chambers, Clough, Mallet, War, Culture and Society, facing p. 25. 65 Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 423. 66 Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 2, 985 for 30 July 1499 lists the result of an election in the College, for a paymaster in the field, where Bembo got two votes out of twenty-two [his father’s and his brother’s?]. Sanuto, vol. 3, 1206 reports that Bembo failed to be elected ambassador to Hungary on 16 December 1500. On 30 March 1501 he failed to be elected ambassador to the king of Portugal, Sanuto vol. 3, 1630. 67 Horace, Epistolarum, I: 11, 10. 68 Cian, “Bembo e Isabella d’Este,” 86–7. 69 Trissino, I Ritratti. 70 Nolhac, La Bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, 307–8 cites a copy of the Divine Comedy handwritten by Bembo which bears an annotation in Latin in his own hand, “Finished in Recano, my friend Ercole Strozzi’s country place, 26 July 1502.”

chapter three 1 Shankland, The Prettiest Love Letters, 22–3. 2 Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 120, 139, 143–6, 149. For the Ferrarese escort see Anon., Diario ferrarese, 397. 3 Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 327–32; Anon., Diario ferrarese, 402–3. 4 Morsolin, “Pietro Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia,” 397; Anon., Diario ferrarese, 404.

416

Notes to pages 72–3

5 Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 167. The Ferrarese court was a musical one and Alfonso a talented amateur. See also Gundersheimer, Art and Life, 192–5. 6 Ariosto, Carmina, CXLII. See also CXIII. Ariosto also praised Lucrezia later in Orlando, canto 13, stanzas 69, 70, 71, and canto 42, stanza 83 which must have been written before 1508 when Strozzi was murdered: A first inscription meets Rinaldo’s eyes: Lucrezia Borgia with all honour named, Whose loveliness and virtue Rome should prize Above her ancient namesake’s, likewise famed. The two who raise her statue to the skies, Strozzi and Tebaldeo, gladly claimed The glorious burden and will serve her long, A Linus and an Orpheus in song. The translation is by Reynolds, Ariosto, Orlando furioso II, 522. 7 Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 397. It seems appropriate here to summarize Lucrezia’s early life: Lucrezia Borgia was born, in April 1480, at Subiaco, the first monastery founded by St Benedict, in the mountains southeast of Rome. Her father, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, was chancellor of the Church and abbot of Subiaco. Her mother, Vanessa dei Catanei, was a Roman lady and mother of four of Cardinal Borgia’s ten children (Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 31). As a child Lucrezia lived in her mother’s house on piazza di Merlo in the Ponte quarter of Rome (Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 9). Her education was entrusted to Adriana Mila, the daughter of Cardinal Borgia’s first cousin, Don Pedro, and widow of Ludovico Orsini, a member of the great Roman family (Gregorovius, 14–15; Bellonci, 34). Lucrezia received instruction in languages, music, drawing, embroidery and dancing and spoke Spanish, Italian, French, some Greek, and a little Latin (Gregorovius, 18–19). At the age of eleven she was first betrothed to a Spanish nobleman, two months later to an Italian (Bellonci, 33). In February 1493, when she was not quite thirteen, she was betrothed to Giovanni Sforza, Count of Cotignola and Vicar of Pesaro, and was given a house of her own at Santa Maria in Porticu, near the Portico of Octavia in an area of Rome controlled by the Orsini. She lived there with her governess, Adriana Mila (Gregorovius, 32–3). When she was fourteen, the usual age for marriage in the Italian Renaissance – note Juliet – she was taken to her husband’s house in Pesaro (46ff). In 1498 Lucrezia’s father, now Pope Alexander VI, had this marriage dissolved (Gregorovius, 69) and remarried her more advantageously to Alfonso of Aragon, Duke of Biseglie, a bastard of the Neapolitan royal house. They had a son, Rodrigo, born in 1499 (70, 76). In the summer of 1500 Alfonso was murdered in the Vatican, in Lucrezia’s presence, by cut-throats believed to have been hired by her brother, Cesare Borgia. She retired in grief, with her

Notes to page 73

417

baby, to the fortress of Nepi, of which she was mistress, but was back in Rome by Christmas, living in the Vatican (941ff). According to many at the time, including the morally upright poet, Sannazaro (Epigrammata II, 4), Alexander’s attachment to Lucrezia was unnatural. There were rumours, too, about Lucrezia’s relations with her two brothers, Giovanni, whom Cesare is accused of murdering, and Cesare himself (Gregorovius, 68n2, 69). However Bembo, who became her lover, wrote about incest with horror in Gli Asolani I, 21. Since he dedicated Gli Asolani to Lucrezia it is hard to imagine that he suspected that there could be any truth to this gossip. But certainly life at the Vatican was depraved by any standards. Burchard, master of ceremonies to Alexander VI, and by no means a sensational reporter, describes in his diary a party which took place in the Vatican on 31 October 1501: On the evening of the last day of October, Cesare Borgia gave a party in his room in the Vatican with fifty decent harlots, called courtesans, who danced with the servants and the others present after supper, first in their clothes and later on naked. After the meal, the lampstands with the burning candles were put on the floor and chestnuts were strewn about, which the naked harlots had to pick up, crawling around on their hands and knees, with the Pope, Cesare and his sister Lucrezia looking on. Afterwards prizes were offered, silken dresses, shoes, berets and so on, to those who “got on” best with the harlots. This spectacle took place publicly here in the hall. (Gregorovius, 115n50) Events in the Vatican were assiduously reported by the ambassadors of the various states. Venice and Ferrara were very well-informed, with the result that Alexander VI had difficulty in his negotiations to marry Lucrezia for a third time, to Alfonso d’Este, heir to the duchy of Ferrara, a convenient state to bring into the family orbit since it bordered on the papal states and on Romagna, which his son, Cesare, was currently conquering (Gregorovius, 112). To try to win over the Ferrarese ambassador Alexander offered continuous entertainment, which, the ambassador wrote, wore everyone out, including Lucrezia and Cesare, but never the pope. At the pleasure-loving Vatican court they sang, played, and danced every evening because the pope loved to see beautiful women dancing (122). Perhaps to show his confidence in her, in furtherance of the proposed marriage, since consorts often had to rule Italian states in the absence of their rulers in the endemic wars, Alexander VI appointed his twenty-one year old daughter regent in the Vatican when he left Rome in July 1501(Gregorovius, 111). 8 Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 397, 399–400; Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 19, 20, 36, 59; Santoro, Bembo, 20; Bertoni, L’“Orlando furioso,” 184. 9 Gregorovius, Ibid., 159.

418

Notes to pages 73–5

10 Catalano, Lucrezia Borgia, 35–6; Bellonci, Lucrezia, 395. Lucrezia had brought with her from Rome a Petrarch “in small form,” Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 409n2. This undoubtedly made her more susceptible to Bembo’s Petrarchan courtship. 11 T I, 139; Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 392. 12 T I, 46. See also above, chapter 2, n70. 13 Shankland, The Prettiest Love Letters, 20; Bellonci, Lucrezia, 391; Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 391. For Tito Strozzi see Anon., Diario ferrarese, 381 and Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Italian Renaissance Courts, 66. 14 Bellonci, Lucrezia, 391 says that there was a simple village there with a few houses, a church and a bell tower. There must also have been a good market. 15 In a letter to Ercole Strozzi of 20 October 1502, T I, 140, Bembo talks of dining with Ercole’s brother. It would appear that there were other guests at the villa. 16 Mrs Dorothea Brocksom, a breeder of Egyptian cats (Mau) in the state of Washington, describes them in CatFancy 39 (April 1996), 32–3, as being naturally spotted cats with gooseberry green eyes. They “seem to be especially sensitive to the needs and feelings of their families, human and feline ... With its great beauty of body and spirit, it is not surprising that the Egyptian Mau was worshipped in ancient Egypt ... and has endeared itself to cat fanciers today.” I could add, “as well as to Venetian ladies of the Italian Renaissance.” The forebears of the Egyptian cats being bred in the United States today were imported from Italy. 17 Catalano, Vita di Ludovico Ariosto, 91. 18 Anon., Diario ferrarese, 397. 19 Bellonci, Lucrezia, 367. 20 Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 15–17; Bellonci, Ibid., 368–9, see also 398; Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 397. 21 In this letter of 16 November 1502, T I, 142, Bembo reveals that he had discussed her plans with her: she would not be at the dinner because she is in mourning. See other letters containing invitations from Strozzi, e.g., T I, 140, and references to an easy informal relationship between Strozzi, Lucrezia, and Bembo, T I, 143. Previously, before the bait of Lucrezia was offered him, Bembo had written to Strozzi that he was happy to stay at Ostellato because of the muddy roads (T I, 139). Maria was no longer in Ferrara (T I, 145). 22 Santoro, Bembo, 21; Bellonci, Lucrezia, 391–2. 23 Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 83–5 lists those at the Roman court when Lucrezia lived there. 24 Bembo, T I, 142, 7, describes her as pullatta, the Latin word for dressed in mourning clothes, presumably because, after a summer of malaria, she had given birth to a still-born baby girl in September. She convalesced in the Convent of Corpus Domini until 22 October 1502. Then she returned to the ducal residence in Ferrara. Thus her visit to Bembo followed closely on her recovery, Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 181; Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 14.

Notes to pages 75–7

419

25 I have no idea what this means, nor do any of the commentators. However Cecil Clough told me that he believes it to mean that she was free of conventional restrictions on conduct. 26 Carmina, XXI. Morsolin, “Pietro e Lucrezia,” 399, thinks that these were the verses which Lucrezia snatched from Bembo’s hand. Santoro, Bembo, 21, dates them to December 1502. 27 Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 21; Bellonci, Lucrezia, 394. 28 This is what Bembo’s letters indicate. See, for example, T I, 203. Trissino’s Ritratti, set in 1502 and obviously written to flatter Isabella d’Este as the most beautiful woman in Italy, pretend that Bembo had seen her many times and immediately recognised the description of the combination of all possible beautiful features. However there is no reason to believe that Trissino’s date was historically accurate. 29 Luzio, Isabella d’Este, 113–14; Bellonci, Lucrezia, 401. 30 Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 21–2. In his letter to Jacopo Sadoleto of 27 March 1503 Bembo said that he had decided to spend the whole summer in Ostellato to enjoy the solitude and tranquillity for his studies (T I, 149), a good excuse to remain near Lucrezia. 31 Luzio, Isabella, 113–14; Bellonci, Lucrezia, 394. 32 Bellonci, Ibid., 398, says that this refers to a letter which Strozzi had written to Bembo telling him of a discussion which he and Lucrezia had had about him, and which he had shown her. She had obviously wanted it sent, had sealed it and addressed it herself. 33 This letter to Carlo, T I, 145, is dated 24 December 1502. However, it clearly forms part of a sequence of three letters referring to the Gli Asolani manuscript, strings for the viola and the ruling family of Urbino. The other two letters in this sequence to Carlo are dated 3 June 1503 (T I, 152), in which Bembo says that he received the strings the day before yesterday, and two parts of Gli Asolani yesterday, and 15 June 1503 (T I, 154), in which he says that he heard the strings being tried in the presence of the duchess by the famous viola player, Jacopo da San Secondo. These three letters all follow one another in the three sources which Travi was using: I, 145, dated 24 December 1502 (RVbo 12r–13r; RVSb1 5v–6r; S2 7v–8r) I, 152, dated 3 June 1503 (RVbo 13r–v; RVSb1 6r–v; S2 8r) I, 154, dated 15 June 1503 (RVbo 13v–15r; RVSb1 6r–7v; S2 8v–9r) In his note on line 20 of I, 145 Travi indicates that in one ms, RVbo, this letter is undated. With enough work on his hands trying to find and publish the best texts of Bembo’s letters Travi obviously decided to accept the date given in RVSb1 and the printed book S2 rather than engaging in speculation as to when that letter might have been written. However, considering Carlo’s devotion and his assiduity in fulfilling his brother’s requests (see Bembo’s letters praising him, e.g., T I, 192), it is impossible to believe that he let six months pass before sending Gli Asolani and the strings. I am therefore convinced that

420

34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42

Notes to pages 77–9

I, 145 must have been written in May shortly before I, 152 and I, 154, as the pagination in the two manuscripts [Rvbo and RVSb1] and Scotto’s edition [S2] indicate. The December date must have been another example of Bembo’s irresponsible dating. Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 23; Raboni, La grande fiamma lettere, 91. Bellonci, Lucrezia, 398; Shankland, Ibid., 24. Raboni, La grande fiamma, 79. Bembo obviously read Spanish and even wrote some poetry in Castilian according to Battagia, Elogia di Pietro Bembo, 22n19 who refers to his Spanish poems in Conti’s Scelta di poesie castiglione tradotte in verso toscano, vol. 3. Quoted from Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, letter 2. EST ANIMUM, “it consumes the spirit,” Horace, Epistolarum I: 2, 39. For the sonnet, and for the commentary, see Dionisotti, ed., Bembo, Rime. Dionisotti also suggests, 501–11 note, that two other sonnets, V and VI, were written at this time, V describing ideal female beauty: golden hair, white throat, bright eyes, ruby lips, pearly teeth, soothing smile, sweet words, singing with divine harmony, an ivory hand, mature judgment at a young age, grace, uprightness; VI, the ideal lover’s state of mind, restrained desires, immense passion ... making another’s will one’s own law, promoting the lady’s honour far and wide, adamantine faith ... deserving, not demanding reward – this is my state and the reason why I hope for a grace that generous heaven destines for few. A fourth sonnet seems to be related to the previous three and to ideas expressed in Bembo’s letters to Lucrezia. Rime VIII is a dialogue between Amor and the poet. Love has asked him to write about his lady but he does not have the wings to rise to such a heavenly object. Love answers that her grace will shed light on his weak and dark style. He should write what Love has written in his heart and what he will read in her beautiful eyes. Another sonnet Rime IX, which Dionisotti, in his note, characterizes as “juvenile” may also refer to Lucrezia and might, therefore, have been written at this time. Here Bembo describes his lady gathering her golden hair, which had slipped from its knot, and with it entrapping his heart – though, of course, all his ladies had golden hair, as was the fashion at the time. Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 409–11. Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, 80. Raboni, Ibid., 101. The duchess of Urbino, Elisabetta Gonzaga, also used a cipher, the letter “S,” see Bull’s translation of Castiglione, Courtier, 48. Oddly, in the gatherings of the pages of Cortese’s De Cardinalatu of 1510, after A, B, C, D, E comes FF!! I doubt that the printer was Welsh. The only other doubled letter is NN. Another use of FF appears in a letter written by Bembo from Urbino to Bernardo Bibbiena in Rome on 2 December 1507. The Magnifico [Giuliano de’ Medici] has asked Bembo to remind Bibbiena that when he was in Rome this year he gave M Agostino Ghisi two rings, a diamond a

Notes to pages 80–5

43 44

45 46 47

48 49 50

51

52 53

54 55 56

421

tavola with 2 FF in the base and a green stone. If M Agostino should die he wants them back, T I, 267. The three sonnets about the dream are Rime LXXXVIII, LXXXIX, XC in Dionisotti’s edition of Bembo’s Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime. Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, 81. This letter is undated but I believe it must belong to the early days of their relationship because it is addressed “to the talented and very dear Miçer Pietro Bembo,” a form of address used otherwise only in the first letter (see Raboni, Ibid., 79), which was also written in Spanish. Strozzi, Carmina illustrium poetarum italorum, 256v. Retia are literally “nets” which are used to trap something. T I, 162n11. T I, index, gives Taddea’s name as Bembo and surmises that she is the wife of Bembo’s illegitimate half-brother, Bartolommeo. In an undated letter from Ferrara to both his brothers, Carlo and Bartolommeo, Pietro says that he is sending two gilt veils for Taddea (T I, 158). Bellonci, Lucrezia, 406; Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 28. See Cloulas, The Borgias, 243–4 for a summary of comments. The death of Alexander VI and the incapacitation of Cesare were celebrated throughout Italy, Luzio, Isabella, 119. Lucrezia’s father-in-law, Duke Ercole d’Este, did not proclaim mourning at court. He even said that he was glad that God had removed such a great scandal from the Church, Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 289. In Mantua they celebrated because now the duke of Urbino and the duchess, who was Francesco Gonzaga’s sister, would be restored to their state which Cesare Borgia had seized, Luzio, Isabella, 116. Humanists frequently, and Bembo almost invariably, sent their works to colleagues for comment. Antonio Tebaldeo was an old friend from Bembo’s earlier stay in Ferrara and now Lucrezia’s secretary. The only surviving elegy to Lucrezia is in Latin, a frigid poem in twenty-four couplets in which Bembo praises her as first among women in beauty and accomplishments, hardly an appropriate offering on this occasion, Bembo, Carmina, 224. Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 28. Apparently some Venetian business rule of thumb. Bembo often reveals his Venetian origin, usually in expressions about ships at sea and the dangers they face. Petrarch, Canzoniere 170, 12–13, Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, 95, note on letter 13 in her collection of the Bembo-Borgia correspondence. The cobla is a troubador poetic form. Dionisotti’s note on Bembo’s sonnet, “L’alta cagion, che da principio diede / a le cose create ordine e stato” (“The sublime reason which from the beginning gave / order and place to created things”), Rime XXXVIII, states that Rajna, in his study of Lucrezia and Bembo’s Spanish verse, believes that this is the sonnet referred to. If it is, it is very far from the Spanish “God created heaven

422

57 58 59

60 61 62 63

64 65

66 67 68 69 70

71

72 73

74 75

Notes to pages 85–91

and earth.” Bembo’s Neopatonic sonnet goes on to say that sublime reason determined that he should love her ... and turn always to her like the heliotrope to the sun. He again calls himself her heliotrope in one version of his letter of 5 January 1504, T I, 178. Bellonci, Lucrezia, 425; Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 31. 2 Chronicles IX, 31, Shankland’s note on this letter, which he numbered XIX. There is no pagination in Shankland’s letter collection. Probably a reference to Carlo’s assuming family responsibilities and following the cursus honorum in service of the Republic, as was expected of a member of the Venetian aristocracy. See his letter of 22 August 1503, T I, 167, quoted above p. 83. Cloulas, Borgias, 282 states that Louis XII of France advised the Este to repudiate Lucrezia. Bellonci, Lucrezia, 443, 462 ff. Gonzaga admired his wife, the formidable Isabella d’Este, but sought comfort with warmer and less pretentious women. He had many bastards, Bellonci, Ibid., 164–5. Luzio, Isabella, 121, tells of the women fussing over Francesco when the Gonzaga were in Ferrara for the St George celebrations in April 1504. Luzio, Isabella, 120. Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, 82. Although Bembo had written in his letter to FF of 18 October 1503 (T I, 173) that he longed for two lines in FF’s own hand this cannot be the letter she is answering here because I, 173 refers to their separation eight days ago and makes no reference to Carlo’s death or Pietro’s forced sojourn in Venice. Undoubtedly “two lines” was just a turn of phrase, and he more than once wrote that he longed to hear from her. Luzio, Isabella, 121. Ibid., 122n1. Ibid., 122. Gli Asolani, which was published by Aldus in March 1505, was dedicated to Lucrezia. Gli Asolani, parts of which, book three, “Lavinello,” he had not received from Carlo in June 1503 (T I, 152) and which Lucrezia had, presumably, not yet seen. He had had a pressing invitation from Isabella d’Este in January 1503 (see above p. 76). Bembo may have mentioned his planned visit to Mantua to make Lucrezia a little jealous. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 4, 112. See T I, 199 of 21 January 1505 in which he tells Gabriele Gabrieli, cardinal bishop of Urbino, that he visited the doge after he came home from committee and showed him his letter. The doge was full of his praises. Luzio, Isabella, 125–6. Ibid., 123.

Notes to pages 91–5

423

76 Ibid., 126. 77 T I, 192. Nicola seems to be the lady of Lucrezia’s court to whom Bembo was closest. She wrote him a letter of condolence on the death of his brother, Carlo, to which he replied with gratitude on 22 January 1504 (T I, 181). He regards her as a sister and feels that she must regard him as a brother – not the tone of this letter! 78 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 243; Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 445–6; Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 35; Santoro, Bembo, 24–5. It is curious that Travi accepted this date, 10 February 1503, which breaks the letter sequence in the manuscripts he was following, one in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the other in the British Library in London. In both these manuscripts Bembo’s classification, “juvenile and amorous letters written to ladies” contains six letters to FF, one undated, the other five of 1503, followed by a letter to one of Lucrezia’s ladies, Lisabetta da Siena, dated 5 April 1504, then this letter, beginning on the same page, addressed to Madonna Nicola, but dated 10 February1503 rather than 1505. The contents indicate that it belongs where it appears in the manuscripts, after 1504. 79 Benedetto Capilupi wrote to the Mantuan court from Ferrara on 9 April 1505 that Bembo was leaving to meet the Venetian delegation to Rome at Urbino, Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 445–6; Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, 468–70; Luzio, Isabella, 127. 80 Santoro, Bembo, 24–5, Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 247, Bellonci, Ibid., 447. 81 Cloulas, Borgias, 288; Bellonci, Ibid., 468–70; Luzio, Isabella, 127. 82 Bellonci, Ibid., 471. 83 Luzio, Isabella, 129–30. 84 Ibid., 130–1. 85 Ibid., 132, 137–41. Strozzi’s letters to Francesco Gonzaga are in the Gonzaga Archives in Mantua, Luzio, Isabella, 128. 86 Catalano, “La Tragica Morte di Ercole Strozzi,” 221; Catalano, Ariosto, 243. There still is a commemorative plaque at the street corner where Strozzi was murdered. 87 Catalano, Ariosto, 244. 88 Luzio, Isabella, 125. 89 The date of the marriage has been disputed. Luzio, Isabella, 141–2 found the date 25 September 1507 in the Gonzaga Archives, in a letter to Isabella d’Este. 90 Catalano, Lucrezia, 26. 91 Catalano, Ariosto, 245–7, 256ff; Catalano, Lucrezia, 27. For Barbara Torelli see Bertoni, La biblioteca estense, 169; Catalano, Ariosto, 247–55. 92 Catalano, Ariosto, 249ff. For Ariosto’s epitaph for Strozzi see Ariosto, Carmina, 56–7. 93 Catalano, Ariosto, 244; Bertoni, L’ “Orlando furioso,” 189. Bertoni names the assassin, Masin dal Forno, one of Alfonso’s soldiers, but does not give a source for the statement.

424 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107

Notes to pages 96–9 Bellonci, Lucrezia, 466–7. Luzio, Isabella, 146–8. For the strained relations see Luzio, Ibid., 132–3. Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 213. Since Ferrara was allied with France against Julius II French officers were entertained at the court in Ferrara. Ibid., 211. Lowry, Aldus, 53. Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 216–17. Cistellini, Figure della riforma pretridentina, 58–61. Orlando, canto 13, stanzas 69, 70, 71 and canto 42, stanza 83. Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 112. Ibid., 179. Ibid., 174. Nicholas II d’Este had had his wife, Parisina, and his son, Ugo, beheaded for adultery, in the palace where Lucrezia now lived. Ippolito d’Este, Alfonso’s brother, was born in 1479. He was destined for the Church. King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, who was married to his aunt, Beatrice d’Aragona, made Ippolito archbishop of Strigonia at the age of seven. At fourteen years of age, in 1493, he was made cardinal deacon of Santa Lucia in Silice, Bertoni, Orlando, 127–8. In 1505 Ippolito blinded his illegitimate half-brother, Giulio, in one eye after Angela Borgia, one of Lucrezia’s ladies, had praised the beauty of his eyes, Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 198–9; Cloulas, Borgias, 288–9. For the rest of this story see Gregorovius, Ibid., 201–3 and Cloulas, 289. Gregorovius, Ibid., 229.

chapter four 1 The first edition of Gli Asolani was published by Aldus in Venice in March 1505 in italic print and in his small format inspired by books in the Bembo library, Clough, “Bembo’s Edition of Petrarch and his Association with the Aldine Press,” 69. Clough believes that Aldus’s italic print was based on the handwriting of the copyist Bartolomeo di San Vito whose transcriptions of classical texts in small format were in the Bembo library. Bembo later turned against that presentation. In a letter to his nephew Gianmatteo Bembo dated 18 July 1534 (T III, 1591) he said that he definitely did not want Gli Asolani in ottavo now and asked Gianmatteo to send him a sample of the lettering proposed. The edition I am using here is that of 1553, edited by Dionisotti, in Pietro Bembo Prose della volgar lingua Gli Asolani Rime, Classici italiani 1989. 2 In his letter from Ferrara to Trifone Gabriele in Venice dated 11 December 1497, Bembo says that he spends much of the morning and almost all the hours before daybreak writing Gli Asolani (T I, 22). In a letter a year later, 3 December 1498, from Ferrara to Angelo Gabrieli in Venice, he wrote that he

Notes to pages 99–102

3

4

5 6 7

8

9

10

425

was studying and working on Gli Asolani, which was not going well (T I, 24). T I, 137 of 6 October 1502 to his brother Carlo and probably I, 214 of 30 September 1505, in which he tells Lucrezia that he had been enjoying a few days of courtly entertainment in the Treviso district. In his description of the location of Asolo in Gli Asolani I, 2, he says that it is above the Trivigiano, the territory of Treviso. In his letter to Lucrezia he must have been referring to the barco at Altivole in the plain below Asolo. The exact nature of the relationship is unknown, but a Marco Bembo, who is described as a nephew of the queen, was killed in her palace in Cyprus on 14 November 1473, during an attempted coup d’état in favour of Ferrante I of Naples, Ghinzoni, “Galeazzo Maria Sforza e il Regno di Cipro,” 723. Elsewhere Marco Bembo is called a nephew of Caterina’s uncle Andreas Cornaro and Caterina’s cousin, Joachim, “Caterina Cornaro,” 85. Bembo himself refers again to his relationship with the Cornaro family in a letter of condolence to Francesco Cornelio [Cornaro] on the death of his father Giorgio, Caterina’s brother and heir whom Bembo had regarded as a second father (T II, 801). The letter is dated 5 August 1527. Collins, “Bellini’s The Miracle of the Cross at the Ponte San Lorenzo,” 204. Bertoni, Biblioteca estense, 86. Kristeller, “Humanism,” in Schmitt and Skinner, Renaissance Philosophy, 125 states that the dialogue form, modelled on Cicero not Plato, offered the possibility of presenting opposing views with dramatic vivacity and facilitated the avoidance of the tight logic of medieval scholastic argument. Gregorovius, Lucrezia, 18 cites the Renaissance delight in cultured and learned dialogue between men and women. Arguments about love had been popular in the middle ages. Here Bembo presents them in a humanist form but in a modern language. Dialogue has always been part of the western literary tradition. Apart from the philosophic dialogues, in classical times there were also dialogues between shepherds in Theocritus and Vergil. Then there were medieval dialogues, The Owl and the Nightingale, for example, but in Gli Asolani Bembo invented something different, in the spirit of his age, giving both a Ciceronian structure to a medieval, courtly discussion and a trendy Neoplatonic conclusion. See Dionisotti’s notes on Bembo, Gli Asolani in his edition of Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime; Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione, 15–17 and the discussion of language below in chapter eight. The garden was a natural setting for discussions of love—after all that is where it all began and the garden was a staple of medieval romance in both literature and art. Boccaccio used it regularly from the early Filocolo through the Decameron. Dionisotti, ed., Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 317n6 states that Perottino was in fact the name of a famous medieval musician.

426

Notes to pages 102–9

11 This tripartite scholastic analysis resembles that which Bembo devised to clarify Dante’s treatment of sins in Aldus’s 1515 edition of The Divine Comedy. See above I n116. Gismondo’s analysis of emotions below is of a similar nature. Bembo was applying his studies of Aristotle in Ferrara. 12 Arcadia, chapter 4. A double sestina is the most difficult Italian verse form, for the same six rhyming words must be used, in changing order, in twelve six-line stanzas. 13 Pontano in Meliseus and Sannazaro in Arcadia, 12 cited equally improbable bark inscriptions. This was obviously an accepted Renaissance convention deriving from classical literature and from Petrarch. 14 Dionisotti, ed., Bembo Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 379n1. 15 Symposium, 190–3. 16 Richardson, “Cinquecento,” 216. See Cicero, Tusculan Disputations II, III, IV, Dionisotti, ed., Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 406n2. 17 Eggs, Purpura Docta, 566. 18 Here Bembo seems to be echoing a letter of the Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino to his father Bernardo, in which he stated that philosophy is the mother of all the sciences, Ficino, Opera, vol. 1, 668, quoted by Castelli, “Ficino e i luoghi della memoria,” 395. 19 Dionisotti, Carteggio, 151n65, thinks that these are the three sisters Bembo sent to Maria (T I, 123). 20 In the 1530 edition of Gli Asolani Bembo inserted here the hermit’s Aristotelian and Thomist refutation of Lavinello’s assertion that love and desire are the same thing, Dionisotti, ed., Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 483n1. As understanding involves three things, the intellectual faculty, comprehension, and enlightenment, so volition has three divisions, the will, the act of willing, and loving or hating. Desiring, a form of willing, is not possible without loving, but we can love what we already possess without desiring. Therefore love and desire are not the same, Gli Asolani III, 13–14. 21 A variant on the Platonic cave allegory in Republic VII. 22 See, for example, Bembo’s letter to Valerio Superchio of 23 May 1499 (T I, 40) in which he praises Superchio’s De laudibus astronomiae and Bembo’s later purchase of an astrolabe (T III, 1227, 1476, 1477). Pontano dedicated book VII of De rebus coelestibus to the youthful Bembo, who had probably looked him up in Naples on his trip to Sicily and whose interest in astronomy had impressed him. 23 The accepted Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model. 24 Here Bembo turns to Ficino’s Christian Neoplatonism in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. 25 Cecil Clough has informed me that he has examined some 150 copies of Gli Asolani and that almost all of them were in pristine condition. His own two copies look as though they were printed yesterday. None appeared to have been read. Like Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time in the twentieth

Notes to pages 109–11

26 27

28

29

30 31

32 33

34 35

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century, it appears that this was a book which one should possess but did not necessarily read. However, an eighteenth-century cardinal, Angelo Maria Quirini, in Tiara et purpura veneta, 195, said that Gli Asolani was read most eagerly by everyone in Italy, that a person who did not know it was not considered cultured. Mazuchelli in Gli scrittori d’Italia, vol. 2, part 2, 759, said much the same, that Gli Asolani was so famous and so prized that every educated person had to read it. People in the eighteenth century perhaps read later editions than those which Dr Clough has examined. On the other hand, clergymen and scholars may have a limited knowledge of the reading habits of the ordinary literate population. Dilemmi, Bembo, Gli Asolani, introductory note. Dionisotti, Carteggio, 55. See also 48 in which she tells him to revise his canzone. He can make it much better. The style does not suit the subject matter. “When you come I will tell you what does not please me about it.” And on 46 she says that she is returning his canzone with written suggestions for improvement and asks him to send it back to her when it has been rewritten. For his comparison of their love in happier days to that of Gismondo in Gli Asolani II, see T I, 75. Both Perottino and Gismondo represent Bembo in different moods. – For some reason or other he uses the name Lavinello for one of his nephews. See T I, 137, 138, 152, 154, 250 where Lavinello is linked with Marcella, his niece, and is a child to be kissed. Did he display precocious idealism? Richardson, “Cinquecento,” 216 states that the Aristotelian argument on the difference between love and desire, that good love comes from following reason, was not in the original version of Gli Asolani given to Lucrezia Borgia but was added to the second edition of 1530. Walsh, Courtly Love in the Carmina Burana, 16. Denomy, “Courtly Love and Courtliness,” 45. Denomy says that the troubadours took up Avicenna’s ideas which presumably reached them from Arabic sources, probably Spanish, because Avicenna was a Persian. Avicenna’s Treatise on Love has been translated by Emile Facenheim in Medieval Studies 7 (1945), 208–28. Walsh, Ibid., 7 says that the concerns of courtly love spread through all literature, that they appeared in the Carmina Burana of 1230. See Walsh, Andreas Capellanus On Love, Latin and English texts. Andreas Capellanus quotes some judgments by various noble ladies including Marie de France, Countess of Champagne, Eleanor of Aquitaine when Queen of France, the Countess of Flanders, Walsh, Ibid., 251–71. See also 155–7. See below, chapter 5, n63. For Ficino’s Christian Neoplatonism see Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. For a summary see Kraye, The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, 349–59. Ficino’s translations of Plato were first published in 1484. His complete works, Opera Omnia, were most recently republished in two volumes in Torino in 1959.

428

Notes to pages 111–12

36 Walsh, Courtly Love, 15–16. Muslim mystics like the Sufis found Neopatonism especially congenial with the Koran, Chittick, 4. 37 See above p. 6 and chapter one, notes 23, 24, 25. Ficino in his Teologica Platonica [Platonic Theology], published in 1482, described a dinner party at the Venetian ambassador’s house where a group of thinkers argued about the nature of the soul, Ficino, Teologia Platonica I:338–41. An English translation has recently been published by Michael B. Allen and John Warden (2001). For Florentine Neoplatonism in general see Schmitt and Skinner The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, 236, 257–8, 291, 349, 568–70, 572, 579–80, 584, 676, 738. See also, Robb, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance; Eisenfichler and Pugliese, Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism. There are only a few casual references to Plato in Bembo’s letters: T II, 301 (dated 16 Nov 1510); T II, 316 (dated July 1512); T IV, 1677A (dated 20 June 1535); T III, 1708 (dated 11 Aug 1535); T IV, 2478 (dated 20 May 1545). 38 See above chapter 1, n26 and Landino, Carmina Omnia, 190–1. 39 See Ficino, Lettere II, 21r–v, a letter of 15 July 1481 to Bernardo Bembo in which Ficino states that heaven destined them for friendship because they were born in the same year, on the same day, under the same star. In an undated letter to Bernardo, Lettere I, 212r–v, Ficino says that he is thinking of composing something philosophical about the Symposium and wants to discuss his ideas with Bernardo. Then he goes on to describe the ideal dining club which gives strength to its members, restores the humours, revives the spirit, satisfies the senses, nurtures and awakens the reason, the sort of thing which Aldus, Pietro Bembo, and their friends later tried to establish in Venice. Ficino wrote many other letters to Bernardo Bembo: Lettere (1548), I: 75v; 79r–v; 102r–v; 197v; 226v–228r; 234r–235r; 247v; 262v; 263r–v; 265r; 272r–v; 288v–289r; 300r–v; 307r–v; 310v; 314r; 319v–320v; II: 30v–31r; 32v–33r; 34v–35r; 40r–v; 54v; 88v; 108r; 142r–v; 203v. Most letters are undated. The dated letters cover the period 1472–94. However, since Ficino died in 1499, all the letters were written at a time when Pietro was still with his father, except for the two years in Sicily, and it is inconceivable that they were not discussed in the family. The letter in I, 319v–320v discusses the relationship of soul, body and beauty in the same terms as Bembo uses in The Courtier IV. 40 Garfagnini, Ficino, 111. This copy of De Amore is now in the Bodleian Library. See also Clough, “Bembo’s edition of Petrarch and his association with the Aldine Press,” 64. There is a recent English translation of De Amore by Sears Jayne. 41 Garfagnini, Ibid., 184. 42 Pavanello, Un Maestro del ‘400, 10. 43 Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione, 67. Bembo refers to Augurelli in various letters to mutual friends, T I, 14, 36, 45, 132, 183, 242. He also wrote him a couple of letters in Latin, the appropriate language to use with a schoolmaster, T I, 44 and 190.

Notes to pages 112–13 44 45 46 47 48

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Baldacci, Il Petrarchism italiano nel Cinquecento, 87n83. Garfagnini, Ficino, 185. See above, p. 17. See Nelson, The Renaissance Theory of Love, 33–34. Robb, Neoplatonism, 187–9; Santangelo, Il petrarchismo del Bembo, 75.

chapter five 1 Zorzi, Una città Una repubblica Un impero Venezia, 697–1797, 50, states that it was the duty of the Venetian patrician to serve the Republic, no one was exempt and the cursus honorum was very onerous. Bembo had been elected to the Great Council at the early age of twenty to participate in the government of his country, Pavanello, Un Maestro del Quattro-cento, 90, 94n5; Clough, “Pietro Bembo’s Edition of Petrarch,” 50. Two years later, he had gone off to study Greek in Sicily, gaining an expertise prized by the Venetian administration. But, on his return, he had started writing and had undertaken editorial work for the Aldine press. His vocation was clearly literary, though he did speak in the Senate on behalf of friends in 1495, Mazzuchelli, “Vita del Bembo,” 736. However he was not nominated for any office until 1499 when he was nominated for the post of army paymaster in the field (30 July 1499), and was heavily defeated, Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 2, 985. There were other nominations: for ambassador to Maximilian, king of the Romans, later Holy Roman Emperor; for ambassador to Louis XII of France; for ambassador to Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Spain and of Naples, etc. See Sanuto, Ibid., vol. 3, 1206, 1630; vol. 4, 112, 181, 182, 183, 226, 441. Perocco, “Studi bembiani,” 516, suggests that the reason he was never elected was that he started so late, when he was almost thirty, whereas his contemporaries started their careers in public service between eighteen and twenty-five. His late start could have suggested lack of interest. And the senators would have been right. However Clough has pointed out in “Pietro Bembo’s Petrarch,” 56–7, that one of Bembo’s problems was that he belonged to the old nobility. In 1450 a pact had been made by the new families to prevent the election of a doge from the old. This attack on the old nobility had filtered down to lower appointments. Nevertheless, some members of the old nobility were elected to administrative posts in Bembo’s time, his old friend, Vicenzo Querino, for example. And, of course, there was his father, but his father had begun his career at the very beginning of this discriminatory policy against the old nobility. 2 Bembo apparently got to know the ducal family of Urbino when they were exiles in Venice in 1502–3 when Cesare Borgia occupied their state. Bembo conducted a sporadic correspondence with the duchess and the chief lady of the court, the duchess’s sister-in-law Emilia Pia from that time onwards, see T I, 152, 163, 183, 184. He stayed at Urbino with his father in April 1505, on

430

3

4

5

6

Notes to pages 113–16

their way to Rome as part of the huge Venetian delegation to the pope which was made up of 40 gentlemen, 200 horse and 65 mules, Madiai, “Diario delle cose di Urbino,” 455, but Bembo had apparently visited it previously. In a letter to the duchess of 20 March 1504 he thanks her for her letter, brought to him by Messer Vincenzo, when he was in the Great Council. He wished, then, that he was in a little shepherd’s cabin on one of those hills which looks on Urbino. The duchess’s letter, like a fresh breeze, had driven the clouds of sad thoughts from his mind, T I, 184. This is the letter in which he said that the thoughts of heavenly things, which she imagines occupy his mind, never concerned him much and now do not at all. Another letter of the same date, to Emilia Pia, states that he hopes to return to Urbino one day. He refers to a letter from a member of the court of Urbino who has asked him to give the ladies the true story of something that had happened in the Ferrara area (Lagoscuro). Bembo says that Vincenzo should not have written what he did, and he would tweak his ear a little if Vincenzo were not bigger than he is. He will explain things to them when he sees them. He also tells of his envy of their carnival festivities. In Venice they have all been colder than the snow which has fallen these days, T I, 183. For Bembo’s movements at this time see Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 447. Bembo was in Ferrara again, at the ducal palace, in January 1510, Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 9, 484. Cian, “Pietro Bembo e Isabella d’Este Gonzaga,” 98. Bembo’s letter, T II, 344, dated by Travi 2 December 1514, must refer to this trip. In 1514 Bembo, travelling posthaste to Venice on a mission for the pope, had no time to dally in Gubbio and Urbino, then go on a diversion to Ferrara. The manuscript source for this letter is RVbo 27r–v. The following letter in this manuscript, 27v–28r, T I, 169, is addressed to his brother Carlo and dated 3 September 1506. Carlo died in 1503. The dates and order of letters in this manuscript are obviously unreliable. It is surprising, however, that Travi assigned the arbitrary date of 2 December 1514 to this letter considering Bembo’s papal responsibilities at that time. Ladies of the Italian Renaissance sang and poets expected their lyrics to be sung. Maria clamoured for songs from Bembo, Lucrezia sang, as did the duchess of Urbino. See Castiglione’s ode, “On Elisabetta Gonzaga singing to the lyre,” Perosa and Sparrow, Renaissance Latin Verse, 195–6. Woodhouse, Baldesar Castiglione, 189 says that “Castiglione’s contemporaries simply could not afford to ignore any possible preparation which might ingratiate them with a patron and so ensure themselves a relatively safe haven. It was a period when, outside the protective confines of the court, for the sophisticated individual, there existed only chaos and danger.” On 189–90, referring to Tasso’s Il Malpiglio, he added “adulation and sycophancy are taken for granted as obvious requirements, almost, indeed, as professional qualifications in themselves.”

Notes to pages 118–21

431

7 For the connotation of vigna, vinea, “vineyard,” in Renaissance Rome see above, pp. 171–4. 8 For example, RSVb1; RSVb2; MiA2; MiA5; Ob; PaN. The information about manuscripts and Scotto is derived from Travi’s introduction, vol. 1, ix-lxxi. 9 Other letters to da Porto published by Scotto in 1552 and not in RSVb1 or any other manuscript corrected by Bembo are T I, 217, 235, 246; II, 480, 593, 688, 847. 10 See the discussion of the letters in Clough, “Pietro Bembo, Madonna G, Berenice and Veronica Gambara,” 220–4. For Bembo’s most recent defeat, in an election to become ambassador to Spain, see Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 4, 226 of 4 September 1505. For his failure to receive an available benefice in Padua see T I, 226 of 5 February 1506. For Galeotto della Rovere’s bishopric in the Republic see Shaw, Julius II, 227–8. Galeotto was in no position to help Bembo. 11 For a complex discussion of the lady’s identity see Clough, “Bembo, Madonna G,” 209–27. Clough, 224, argues that Bembo had identified, in his own mind, the character of Berenice, which he had created in Gli Asolani, with Veronica Gambara, after he had met her in 1504, when Gli Asolani was already written. He did not know her when he was writing it. After meeting her, he called her Berenice, the Greek for Veronica, in a Latin letter to her brother, Uberto Gambara of 5 September 1505 as Clough has pointed out, 214. Here he asks him for news of his sister, Berenice, the sweetest and wittiest young woman, his darling and his delight, T I, 212. However, he calls her Veronica in his Italian letter to her of 11 September 1504, T I, 193. Dionisotti, Carteggio, xxn1 also believes that Bembo was referring to the poet, Veronica Gambara. 12 Bembo was actively collecting medals at this time. On 25 November 1505 he wrote to a friend in Rome, Giulio Tomarozzo, thanking him for the ten ancient medals he had sent, T I, 220. 13 Two other letters refer to this expedition, T I, 232 of 3 May 1506 to Filippo Beroaldo, Jr, in Rome and I, 233 of 5 May 1506 to Jacopo Sadoleto, also in Rome. In the latter letter he says that he had spent twenty days in Lombardy. Both letters comment on the poems which they had sent him about the newly discovered classical statue of Laocoon and his sons, which was immediately housed in the Belvedere in the Vatican, where it still is. 14 A famous thermal station, still operational, southeast of Padua. 15 At the first conclave in 1503, at which Pius III was elected, Carvajal had received the votes of the Spanish party, Cloulas, Jules II, 120. He was an exceedingly powerful cardinal under Julius II and one who tried to call him to account for his actions, Cloulas, Ibid., 213–15. 16 Doubt has been expressed about Bembo’s presence in Rome in the summer of 1506 and about the accuracy of the date of this letter, see Clough, “Bembo’s Rime,” 321–2. However, in his letter to Lucrezia of 6 July 1506, T I, 237,

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17

18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25

Notes to pages 121–4

Bembo mentions the death of the archbishop of Salerno. A new archbishop, Bembo’s friend, Federico Fregoso, was created on 7 May 1507, Dionisotti, Bembo, Prose, 77n6. He lived until 1541. Therefore this letter must have been written before May 1507. Since Bembo was almost continuously in the duchy of Urbino from September 1506 to May 1507, this letter must date from the summer of 1506. And indeed a letter to Filippo Beroaldo, Jr, of 17 December 1506, T I, 248, refers to their having been in Rome together that summer. I am assuming that this date is trustworthy. Santoro, Bembo, 27–8. In T III, 1191 of 3 February 1531 Bembo wrote that he had only forty scudi when he went to Urbino and that he never received more than twelve thereafter from his father. As to his whereabouts in September 1506, there is a letter to his half-brother, Bartolommeo, T I, 238, dated 2 September 1506 and written from Forlì, stating that he had received Bartolommeo’s letter of the twenty-eighth of the past month on the tenth of this one, just as he was mounting in Urbino to ride to Forlì. This is obviously an impossible date but reveals that he probably was in Urbino sometime in September. Two other letters indicate that he was in Forlì that autumn, T I, 240 and I, 247. The first letter, T I, 240, dated 8 November 1506, thanks Giovanni Gozadino, a papal official, for his hospitality in Forlì in the last few days, when Bembo went there to press his case with the pope. This date is plausible. The letter opens with Bembo’s joy on the surrender of Bologna to the pope, the occasion that gave him the opportunity to remind the official, yet again, of his interests and of his devotion to the papal cause. Julius II had received the news of the fall of Bologna in Imola on 2 November. Presumably it had reached Urbino shortly thereafter. Before moving on to Imola the papal court had stayed in Forlì for several days in mid-October. It had reached Imola on 20 October 1506. It seems to me, then, that Bembo’s letter to his brother, dated 2 September 1506, should be dated a few days after 10 October 1506 when Bembo left Urbino to ride to the papal court at Forlì. For an account of the pope’s movements see Shaw, Julius, 159–61. Santoro, Ibid., 39; Shaw, Ibid., 157–8. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 4, 441. See the argument for the date of his trip to Forlì in note 17 above. Scicluna, Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem, 96. For a general history of the Order see Nicholson, The Knights Hospitaller. Sire, The Knights of Malta, 165, 167–8. Venetian patricians who took the habit of St John lost their political rights. They had sworn allegiance to what was virtually another state. See L’abbé Aubert de Vertot, The History of the Knights Hospitaller, 209, 237. For the wealth of the Order see Schermerhorn, The Eight-Pointed Cross, 22–3. Del Rosso, Statuti della religione de’ cavalieri gierosolimitani, 17–19. Floriani, “La giovanezza umanistica di Pietro Bembo,” 43.

Notes to pages 124–9

433

26 T I, 245, lines 30–1. 27 Sire, Knights of Malta, 170. 28 This statement suggests that he wrote to her from Forlì, when he was there with the papal court that autumn, see note 17 above. No letter to Lucrezia from Forlì has been preserved. 29 Rime XLII, XLIII. The cardinal’s motto was a famous verse from Petrarch, Dionisotti’s footnote to Rime XLII, 541. 30 In 1507 Lent was from 17 February to 3 March. 31 For Urbino see Clough, The Duchy of Urbino in the Renaissance; Benevolo and Boninsegna, Urbino; Olsen, Urbino; Ugolini, Storia dei Conti e Duchi d’Urbino; Madiai, “Diario,” 419–64. For ladies of the court see Clough, “Daughters and wives of the Montefeltro,” 31–55. For thumbnail biographies of the gentlemen at the court of Urbino see Bull’s introduction to The Courtier, 23–9. See also Woodhouse, Castiglione, 16. For Emilia Pia see T I, 163 of 31 July 1503. Bembo, replying to one of her letters, says, “That you persuade yourself that short and fat ladies are of little account with me ... is unacceptable.” He honours all ladies, short or tall, and he praises her great humanity, her rare and shining virtue, her high mind and her great worth – all of which suggests that he did not find her physically attractive, as she suspected. In an earlier letter, of 10 September 1503, to her brother Ercole Pio, T I, 170, Bembo describes Emilia as a most excellent woman of the highest intelligence and greatest elegance whom he has long loved and revered. Castiglione in The Courtier calls her “a lady gifted with such a lively wit and judgment ... that she seemed to be in command of all and to endow everyone else with her own discernment and goodness.” Cian in his notes to the Cortegiano (1910), 524, says that it was rumoured that Emilia Pia was a sceptic and that she died without the last rites as she was discussing part of the Cortegiano with Ludovico Canossa. The duchess herself is described frequently in the text of this book. 32 Maddison, Flaminio, 16. 33 Woodhouse, Castiglione, 13–14. 34 Moncallero, Dovizi, 205–6, quotes the stanza. 35 Bigi, “Poesia giovanile dell’ Ariosto,” 13–14. 36 Ryan, “Book IV of Castiglione’s Courtier,” 159. 37 Castiglione, Courtier, 44. 38 Ibid., 43. 39 Ibid., 41–2. 40 Ibid., 44. 41 Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione, 137. The references to Cicero may seem pedantic, but Castiglione himself refers to Ciceronian influence in his introductory letter to The Courtier, Bull, 35–6. 42 Castiglione, Courtier, 57 43 Ibid., 64.

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Notes to pages 129–33

44 Ibid., 67. 45 Ibid., 77. There is a long passage on the Italian language here, indicating the influence of Bembo’s thinking. Castiglione also borrowed from and sometimes even translated Pontano’s De sermone, Renda, Pontano, 33. 46 Castiglione, Courtier, 90. 47 Ibid., 94. 48 Ibid., 96. 49 Garin, Portraits, 152 gives a simple summary of Ficino’s Neoplatonic theory: The splendour and grace of God’s face reflected in all things is universal beauty and the desire to attain it is universal love. 50 Castiglione, Courtier, 329. 51 Ibid., 330. 52 Ibid., 325. 53 Ibid., 330. 54 Ibid., 332. 55 Ibid., 334–5. 56 Ibid., 336–7. 57 Ibid., 338. 58 Ibid., 339–41. 59 Ibid., 341–2. It is notable that this pursuit of love and beauty makes Christianity and the Church irrelevant. 60 Castiglione, Courtier, 343–5. 61 Ryan, 159. 62 Ibid., 156–7. Ryan, 157, argues that Bembo’s speech forms a proper climax to the whole and refers to Castiglione comparing himself to Plato in his dedication to de Silva, Castiglione, Courtier, 35. Bembo had made treatises on love à la mode, see Santangelo, Il petrarchismo del Bembo, 78, who lists Francesco Barbaro, De re uxoria; Giannantonio Campano, De dignitate matrimonii; Leon Battista Alberti, Della famiglia; Mario Equicola, De natura de amore; Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi d’amore. 63 See Castiglione’s letter to Bembo, Sansovino, Delle lettere da diversi a Mons Pietro Bembo, 38r–39r, where Castiglione offers to change or remove the lines given Bembo if he does not like them. See also his subsequent letter, 39r. See Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 398–9; Quondam, “La ‘Forma del Vivere,’” 24; Cachey, “In and Out of a Renaissance Controversy,” 253, 254, 259. Cachey argues that the Aristotelian distinction between Love and Desire inserted in Gli Asolani III (1530) (see p. 107, p. 433n29) is a correction to the Neoplatonic image given Bembo in Courtier IV (1528). 64 See above pp. 307. 65 Kidwell, Sannazaro and Arcadia, 69, 98, 111. 66 Castiglione, Courtier, 31, 32. However studies of surviving manuscripts show that Castiglione worked on the book off and on for at least ten years, giving the courtier a political and moral role and introducing Bembo’s paean on Pla-

Notes to pages 133–40

67 68

69

70 71 72

73

74 75

76 77 78

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tonic love, Ryan, “ Book IV,” 159. See also Floriani, 22 and 104 where he refers to three versions, one begun in 1508 and completed in 1516, a second dating from 1520–21 when Castiglione added the section on the relationship between the prince and the courtiers and a third version, dating from 1521–24, which added Bembo on spiritual love. See Clough, Urbino, 37–8. Della Casa, Galateo ovvero de’ costumi, 364–440. Bembo, Stanze ed. Dionisotti, Prose della vulgar lingua, Gli Asolani, Rime, 651–71. The full title of the work has been paraphrased in this sentence. The stanze were stanzas in ottava rima. The previous year, at carnival in 1506, Castiglione’s Tirsi had been presented, with Castiglione and his cousin, Cesare Gonzaga, in leading roles, Cian, “Nel mondo di Baldassare Castiglione,” 48; Cian, Un illustre nunzio pontificio, 37, 188–90. Tirsi, Castiglione’s first Italian work, was a pastoral eclogue written in ottava rima in which three shepherds talk about love, a chorus of shepherds sings, then all sing and dance with nymphs. See Castiglione and Gonzaga, Stanze pastorali. The Stanze were published with Rime in 1530, 1535, 1540, 1544, 1548, 1552, 1557, 1562. Later Rime was no longer licensed and Stanze were put on the Index, Paschini, Cinquecento romano e riforma cattolica, 258–9. Santangelo, Petrarchismo del Bembo, 161–2. Madiai, “Diario,” 421. Clough, “Bembo, Madonna G,” 224. Clough proposes Costanza Fregoso as the likely woman and Bembo’s long correspondence with her and his letter of 30 November 1532, T III, 1435 strongly supports Clough’s thesis. Bembo wrote of his ill health and his regrets that he has been unable to go to see her. His feelings of love and friendship are unchanged from the time when they lived in the same house and saw one another daily, “and my many years, which have taken away my youthful strength and the hot courage of that time have not, however, in any part lessened my feeling for you and the love which I ... always bore you and always will while I am alive.” Bembo’s half-brother Bartolommeo is an example. If one looks at the cast of The Courtier, Emilia Pia was the widow of Guidobaldo’s half-brother, that is, of an illegitimate son of Duke Federico; the Fregoso were the offspring of Guidobaldo’s half-sister, another of Duke Federico’s bastards; Margherita Gonzaga, the duchess’s niece, was the illegitimate daughter of the duchess’s brother, Marquess Francesco Gonzaga, the husband of Isabella d’Este. See Travi’s note at the end of II, 275. In Scotto 4 (1552) Travi’s I, 276 precedes I, 275, like a covering note. Ferrajoli, Il ruolo della corte di Leone X, documents, 313–17. Julius II’s bull makes it clear that the vice-chancellor, Galeotto della Rovere, was responsible for his getting the commenda. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 7, 249. Madiai, “Diario,” 460–2. Castiglione, Epistola de vita et gestis Guidubaldi Urbini Ducis, “Ad Lectorem.”

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79 80

81 82 83

84

85 86

87 88

89 90 91

Notes to pages 140–5

The duke had sent Castiglione to London in 1506 as proxy to collect the award at the duke’s installation in the Order of the Garter, Clough, The Duchy of Urbino, 205, 206–7; Cian, “Mondo di Castiglione,” 48n7. This is why the discussions in The Courtier are represented as having been reported to him, because he had not yet returned from England in March 1507 when the pope visited Urbino for a second time and the discussions supposedly took place. See T II, 294 and 302. The full title of Bembo’s account of the duke’s death was De Guido Ubaldo feretrio deq Elisabeta Gonzagia Urbini Ducibus. It was in keeping with Bembo’s appreciation of women that he wrote an encomium of the duchess, after describing the death of the duke. Also, he was the duchess’s “client” in the old Roman sense, while Castiglione was a soldier in the employ of the duke. Ugolini, Conti e duchi d’Urbino, vol. 2, 153. For a comparison of Castiglione and Bembo on Duke Guidobaldo see D’Ascia, “Bembo e Castiglione su Guidobaldo da Montefeltro,” 51–69. Bembo began translating De Guido Ubaldo into Italian in 1509. He abandoned it in Urbino when he settled in Rome in 1513. This fragment was published by Maria Lutz in Geneva in 1980, Perocco, “Rassegna,” 524–5. In T II, 280, dated 10 June 1508, Bembo says that he returned to Urbino twenty-six days after the duke’s death. He also gives the date of the death as 11 May instead of 11 April. If he did stay in Rome twenty-six days after the duke’s death on 11 April, he could not have been writing from Urbino on 27 April, the date of a letter written to Bibbiena in Rome, T II, 277. For an account of the Apulian ports see Kidwell, “Venice, the French invasion and the Apulian ports,” 295–308. For an account of the war between Venice and Ferrara see Mallet, “Venice and the War of Ferrara, 1482–84,” Chambers, Clough, Mallet, eds., War, Culture and Society in Renaissance Venice, 57–72. See also Kidwell, Marullus, 109–19. T II, 290. For a more scholarly and sophisticated account of the League of Cambrai and the Holy League see the The New Cambridge Modern History I (1957), 359–62 and Sigismondo dei Conti da Foligno, Le storie de’ suoi tempi, I and II, books 16 and 17. For Julius II, in particular, see Shaw, Julius II, and Cloulas, Jules II. Bembo regularly called men he was fond of “brother.” This did not imply any relationship. The terms of Guidobaldo’s will, see T II, 280. Provincia di Udine, I Savorgnan, 146. See also Savorgnano, Lettere storiche and Ventura, Nobiltà e popolo nella società veneta, 211. Bembo in his Historiae venetae, 5, 6, 242, 251–2, 266, 320, 329, 335, 354, 374, 436 praises

Notes to pages 145–51

92

93

94 95

96 97 98 99 100

437

Savorgnan’s military exploits and his distinguished career in the service of the Republic. T II, 290, note on l. 95. This letter, originally undated, was later dated by Bembo 10 December 1509. Since his mother is still alive in this letter, and she died in November 1509, Travi believes that the letter should be dated 10 November 1509. This confirms that Bembo’s mother was Elena Morosini not Marcello. Giannetto, 25, 110–11 found an act of marriage between Bernardo Bembo and Elena Morosini, dated 1462, which corresponds with Bembo’s statement that his parents were happily married for forty-eight years. See above, chapter 1, n16. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 9, 484. Gaspare Pallavicino (1486–1511) was the youngest of the protagonists in The Courtier and suffered from ill health throughout his short life, Bull, introductory note to Castiglione, The Courtier, 28. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 253–4. Boerio, Dizionario di dialetto veneziano, 2nd ed. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 11, 519. For Giustiniani’s letters see Massa’s edition, Giustiniani, Trattati, lettere e frammenti, I, II. Bembo, Historiae venetae, 416.

chapter six 1 The estimate for 1500. See Partner, Renaissance Rome, 48–9; Pecchiai, Roma, 446. The results of a census of fires (that is, the number of hearths), of 1526–27 are variously reported: Pecchiai gives a population of 55,035 in 9,285 houses, a figure accepted by Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 14–15; Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome, 24 gives the population as 54,000; Mitchell, Rome, 38–9 gives 53,897, a figure De Caprio virtually accepted, “L’area umanistica romana,“ 332. 2 Stinger, Ibid., 24, reports that several wolves were killed in the Vatican gardens in the fifteenth century. 3 Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento, 14–15 gives a figure of 40,000 for the Campus Martius area. See also Stinger, Ibid., 24. The most serious floods were in 1513, 1530, 1547. On 8 October 1530 the Tiber rose four metres at Castel Sant’ Angelo. All Rome was navigable. At Sant’ Apostoli water covered the high altar. Even the Vatican was seriously damaged, Pecchiai, Roma, 419–20. 4 Partner, Rome, 17. 5 The outlying clusters of buildings around Santa Maria Maggiore and St John Lateran were connected to the rest of the city by the remnants of ancient Roman streets and to each other by winding dirt tracks, Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 21. See also Partner, Rome, 167.

438

Notes to pages 152–4

6 Stinger, Ibid., 23–4, 26; Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento, 12. Partner, Rome, 4, says that horses and sheep were grazed on four of the seven hills, that the Palatine was covered in vineyards and the Circus Maximus was a market garden. 7 Stinger, Ibid., 26; Magnuson, Ibid., 11; Partner, Ibid., 4. 8 Partner, Ibid., 5, 186–7. 9 Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 24, 26. 10 Ibid., 24. 11 Truc, Léon X, 101. 12 Partner, Rome, 3, 184; Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento,11; Truc, Ibid., 92. 13 Partner, Ibid., 54. 14 Rucellai, Rucellai ed il suo zibaldone I, 70–3. This is an account of the Florentine’s pilgrimage to Rome in 1450. See also Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 39, 42. The most extraordinary relics were preserved in the Sancta Sanctorum, the papal chapel in the Lateran palace, properly called San Lorenzo in Palatio. The steps on which Jesus walked are called the Scala Sancta and are now housed in a separate building opposite St John Lateran. 15 Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 37. Partner’s estimate for the 1520s is about 120 inns and 500 other establishments offering accomodation, Partner, Rome, 54. 16 Stinger, Ibid., 31. 17 Partner, Rome, 47–8, 88; Stinger, Ibid., 28. 18 Partner, Ibid., 99. 19 Mazio, “Le etere del rinascimento,” 191–7; Pecchiai, Roma, 299–303; Masson, Cortegiane italiane, 15–16 and passim. 20 According to Masson, Cortegiane, 63, 10 per cent of the population of the Borgo consisted of prostitutes and courtesans with their dependents. There was also a colony of courtesans in the Campus Martius area, Pecchiai, Roma, 302. 21 Masson, Ibid., 63–4. 22 Douglas, Jacopo Sadoleto, 5, 10. 23 Masson, Cortegiane, 64–5; Mazio, “Etere,” 196. Masson gives a full account of Imperia’s life and death, 63–91. 24 Mazio, “Etere,” 197 says that the house was in the via de’ Banchi; Gnoli, Roma, 199 says that she was living in the new via Giulia near the church of Santa Lucia del Gonfalone, that is just around the corner. 25 Masson, Cortegiane, 66–7. 26 Ibid., 75–6. 27 Gnoli, Roma, 207. 28 Mazio, “Etere,” 196. 29 It is estimated, on the basis of the 1526–27 census, that 85.5 per cent of the humanists in Rome were non-Roman, from other Italian states and other European countries, especially the German empire. It is also estimated that

Notes to pages 154–6

30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37

38

439

83.6 per cent of the entire Roman population consisted of immigrants. The workers on all the major building projects were from Tuscany and Lombardy, De Caprio, “L’area umanistica,” 332, 323–8; Pecchiai, Roma, 299, 318; Mitchell, Rome, 38–9. The clergy came from all Christian states. Gnoli, Roma, 198–9. Graf, Cinquecento, 234–5; Maddison, Flaminio, 47; Pecchiai, Roma, 318–20. Masson, Cortegiane, 53–5; Gnoli, Roma, 202; Burchard, Rerum urbanarum, 399–400. Burchard’s account reveals what grand ceremonies in Renaissance Rome could really be like: In Sant’ Agostino there were seats for the cardinals in the usual places on the left and right of the nave between the columns. On the feast of St Augustine in 1497 prostitutes and other vile persons stood in the whole space between the cardinals’ seats and the altar. Then, when Burchard was helping the blind monk, Raphael, who was to preach the sermon, up the steps to the pulpit the staircase collapsed and they both fell down but, by the grace of God, were unhurt. At this ceremony the candles were mean, the monks ill mannered, not greeting the cardinals or thanking them for coming. The whole event was a disaster. Gnoli, Roma, 199, 200; Graf, Cinquecento, 234–5. Pecchiai, Roma, 203. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 190, 193n3. Ibid., 190, 191. Shaw, Julius II, 296 describes the huge torchlight victory procession in June 1512 when the French were driven out of Italy. The procession started at San Pietro in Vincoli, Julius II’s old titular church, where he had been staying, and traversed the streets of Rome to the Vatican. The pope and the cardinals were escorted by 3000 torch bearers, the houses had candles or torches in the windows and there were celebratory bonfires in the streets. The French withdrawal from Italy meant the liberation of Genoa and the eventual, but brief, restoration of Bembo’s friend from Urbino, Ottaviano Fregoso, as doge of Genoa. Pecchiai, “Il secolo XVI,” 169 states that in 1517, on the news of the Sultan Selim’s victories over Syria and Egypt, Leo X and his whole court walked barefoot from St Peter’s to Santa Maria sopra Minerva carrying all the most revered relics to pray for salvation from the Turks. When Selim died of cancer three years later this was regarded as the answer to their prayers. Gnoli, “Il teatro capitolino,” 415 states that the Festa delle Palilie or birthday of Rome was revived in 1483. It was celebrated on 25 April. Two famous humanists, the Greek, Marullus, and the Paduan, Cosmico, collaborated with the Roman, Porcellio, to prepare the festival. The Roman Academy met at Pomponius Laetus’s house on the Quirinal. Gnoli, Roma, 89–90 says that the festival was later transferred to the Campidoglio and became public. Mass was celebrated in Aracoeli, the church which Gibbon called the temple of Jupiter in the opening of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, then a member of the Academy made a speech in praise of Rome. This was followed

440

39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60

61 62 63 64

65

Notes to pages 156–61

by a banquet in the town hall, the ancient Roman Tabularium [Archives], and then by a Latin play. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 191, 193, 194–5. Soranzo, Cronaca, 451. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 188–90; Stinger, Rome, 157–8; Pecchiai, Roma, 357–8. Castiglione, Courtier, 191–2. The Cardinal San Pietro in Vincoli referred to here was the Galeotto della Rovere whom Bembo cultivated so assiduously (T I, 205, 207, 224). He was a nephew of Julius II. Pecchiai, “ Il secolo XVI,” 163–4 and Roma, 357–8; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 578. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 190. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 58. Ackerman, “Renaissance Rome,” 3, 4, 5; Stinger, Ibid., 3. Stinger, Ibid., 32. Partner, Rome, 17. Albertini, Opusculum, V ivr. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 26. Ibid., 268. Ibid., 32. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 278–9; Mitchell, Rome, 38–9. Stinger, Ibid., 11, 269; Comito, Garden in the Renaissance, 152. Truc, Léon X, 115. See Bedini, The Pope’s Elephant. Albertini, Opusculum, Z iiiv. Comito, Garden, 162, 164; Partner, Rome 118–19. It had stood in the garden of his palace at Sant’ Apostoli when he was cardinal, Deborah Brown, “The Apollo Belvedere,” 236. It was brought by him to the Vatican when he became pope in 1503, Brummer, The Vatican Belvedere, 47. Brummer, Ibid., 22, 47, 75, 123, 137, 139, 154, 191; Comito, Garden, 164. This display of pagan statues in the Vatican aroused criticism, Brummer, 18. Bembo’s opponent in the epistolary discussion of imitation in literature, Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, wrote a poem, De Venere et Cupidine expellendis, on getting rid of Venus and Cupid, Comito, Ibid., 164. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 32, 270; Partner, Rome, 22. Pecchiai, Roma, 448, 504, 514, 521. Partner, Rome, 17. Truc, Léon X, 94; Ligorio, Roman Antiquities Drawings, 16; Cian, “Nel mondo di Baldassare Castiglione,” 75 says that Bembo’s hand appears in the revisions. De Caprio, “L’area umanistica,” 326, found records of 210, for 150 of which he was able to establish biographies. For lists of the most famous see

Notes to pages 161–4

66

67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

441

Rodocanachi, Léon X, 197; Gnoli, Roma, 126; Moncallero, Il Cardinale Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, 228. Marc-Bonnet, Les Papes de la Renaissance, 109. Albertini, Opusculum, X iiirY v and Z iir, praises the libraries established by Julius II, when he was cardinal, at his titular church of San Pietro in Vincoli, as well as at Sant’ Apostoli, where he built himself a palace and a garden adorned by the statue which was later called the Apollo Belvedere (see D. Brown, “Apollo Belvedere,” 236). He also praises the library of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, later Leo X, where anyone can study, even in the cardinal’s presence, Albertini, Ibid., Z iir–v. Partner, Rome, 21; Marc-Bonnet, Les Papes, 115; Shaw, Julius II, 284–6, 291–2, 298–300, 309, 310, 311, 315. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanfrancesco, Ad Petrum Bembum De imitatione libellus, 24–38. Dionisotti in his biography of Bembo in the Dizionario Biografico Italiano, 140 states that Pico’s argument about imitation was that used by Poliziano twenty years earlier in his dispute with Paolo Cortese. Bembo, De imitatione, 39–61. Ibid., 39–40. Ibid., 42–3. Ibid., 43–4. Ibid., 48. Ibid., 49. Ibid., 52–3. Ibid., 53. Ibid., 54. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 55. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 55–6. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 58–9. Ibid., 60–1. Pico, De imitatione, 62–76. Sabbatino, La bellezza di Elena, 28; Santangelo, Il Bembo critico, 59–60. See T II, 314 of 4 February 1512; 315 of 1 April 1512; 318 of 31 August 1512; 321 of 7 December 1512; 324 of 1 January 1513. Shaw, Julius II, 312. Giovio, Vita di Leo X, 63v; Paschini, Roma nel Rinascimento, 406–7. See also Gnoli, “Il Cardinale Giovanni de’ Medici,” 442–59. Giovio, Ibid., 63r. Ibid., 64r. Partner, The Pope’s Men, 142; Truc, Léon X, 58. On Inghirami’s death in 1516 Filippo Beroaldo, Jr, another of Bembo’s friends, was appointed librarian. See also Santoro, Bembo, 34; Giovio, Ibid., 65v; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 32.

442

Notes to pages 164–7

93 Woodhouse, Baldasar Castiglione, 22. 94 Moncallero, Dovizi, 185, 189–90; Gnoli, “Cardinale Giovanni de’ Medici,” 445, 447; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 63; Mitchell, Rome, 14. Six months later Dovizi was made Cardinal of Santa Maria in Porticu. 95 Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Courts, 144. La Calandria was first presented at the Court of Urbino at carnival in 1513 with a prologue written by Castiglione who had not yet followed other members of the Urbino court to Rome, Woodhouse, Castiglione, 22. See also Moncallero, Dovizi, 515, 586, 592, 600. 96 Moncallero, Ibid., 6, 515. Cian, “A proposito di un ambasceria di M. Pietro Bembo,” Archivio Veneto, 31, 71. 97 Paschini, Roma, 407, 515; Moncallero, Dovizi, 344. 98 Giovio, Leo X, 64v. 99 Ibid., 64v; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 56. The processional route, called the via Sacra or via Papalis, ran from St Peter’s to Castel Sant’ Angelo, across Ponte Sant’ Angelo to Monte Giordano, past the south end of Piazza Navona to San Marco on what is now Piazza Venezia, then up to the Campidoglio, down into the Forum, through the imperial arches to San Clemente, to Santi Quattro Coronati, then to St John Lateran, Stinger, Ibid., 53. The quotation is from Zimmermann, “Renaissance Symposia,” 365. 100 Pecchiai, “Il secolo XVI,” 138–9; Giovio, Leo X, 64v–65r; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 53–6. 101 Pecchiai, Roma, 171, 184; Partner, Pope’s Men, 28. 102 Bembo, Epistolarum Leonis Decimi Pont. Max., dedication to Paul III, 3–4, states that these letters were written by thirty different scribes; Partner, Pope’s Men, 44. 103 Partner, Pope’s Men, 21–2, 29–30, 124, 128–9. 104 Bellonci, Lucrezia Borgia, 623–4. 105 See T II, 329 of 17 June 1513 and Bembo, Epistolarum Leo X, 85–6 of 20 July 1513. Lucrezia wanted a brief of absolution confirming indulgences she had enjoyed under Alexander VI and Julius II. See her letters to Bembo, Shankland, The Prettiest Love Letters, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIII and Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, 9, 8, 5. Bibbiena, now cardinal Santa Maria in Porticu, and Latino Giovenale, at that time papal nuncio to Venice, acted as go-betweens, transmitting oral messages. 106 Bembo, Epistolarum Leonis X, 5–8, letters of 14, 15, 17, March 1513. 107 Ibid., 8–10. 108 Ibid., 11–12. 109 Ibid., 12. 110 Ibid., 14–16. 111 Ibid., 20–1. 112 Ibid., 22–3. 113 Ibid., 23–4.

Notes to pages 167–73

443

114 Ibid., 24–6. This letter is dated 3 April 1513. He expresses his affection for King Henry of Britain in another letter of 29 April 1513 to the king of Dacia, Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 39–40. 115 Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 26. 116 Ibid., 30–1. 117 Ibid., 34–5. 118 Ibid., 37–8. 119 Ibid., 8–9. 120 Ibid., 51–2. Gonzaga, who had been a condottiere for Venice and had won the battle of Fornovo in charge of Venetian troops in 1495, had later betrayed Venice and fought for the French against Venice in 1509, when he had been captured and imprisoned by the Venetians. Julius II had secured his release the following year, Shaw, Julius II, 262, but relations with Venice had remained strained. 121 Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 70. Eggs, Purpura Docta, vol. 4, 568, wrote in the eighteenth century that Bembo’s official correspondence for Leo X was still admired for its elegant Latinity and grave sentiments. 122 Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 85–6. 123 She knew that he read these letters because he had said that he was jealous of the treasurer for the letters that he received in her own hand, T II, 329. 124 Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, 85. Though Bembo had assigned this letter to 1517 Raboni, 102n7, argues, convincingly, that the letter must have been written in 1513 because Bibbiena is referred to as Treasurer and, in September of that year, he was made cardinal and therefore resigned his position in the papal administration. 125 See Travi’s note at the end of the letter. 126 A sparvier da letto was a quadrilateral baldachin with curtains which gave the appearance of a sparrow hawk with its wings open. Bembo includes a drawing of part of it in this letter. 127 Marcella was his niece, the daughter of his sister Antonia and Sebastiano Marcello. 128 Benzui is defined as benzoico in Travi’s glossary, vol. 4, 665. According to the OED “benzoic” refers to a monobasic acid of the aromatic series existing in large quantities in gum benzoin (also called benjamin) which is obtained from a tree which is native to Sumatra. It may be used in the manufacture of incense, medicines or perfumes. 129 Papafava, Vatican, 55, 88. 130 Woodhouse, Castiglione, 22–3. 131 Cartwright, Italian Gardens, 65. 132 Coffin, Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome, 4–6. 133 Coffin, Ibid., 3; Comito, Idea of Garden, 52, 68. 134 Ubaldini, Vita di Mons. Angelo Colocci, 65. 135 Coffin, Gardens, 235; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 217.

444

Notes to pages 171–5

136 Coffin, Ibid., 215–16. 137 In 1497 he was one of the notaries of the Rota, by 1512 he was protonotario apostolico, then maestro delle suppliche, all posts which brought in substantial fees, Gnoli, “Orti Letterarî nella Roma di Leon X,” 137. See also Bober, “The Coryciana and the Nymph Corycia,” 227. 138 Gnoli, “Orti,” 138. It had been moved in Gnoli’s time but it has now been restored to its original position under the Raphael fresco. See Bonito, “The Saint Anne altar in Sant’ Agostino,” 268–76. 139 Gnoli, “Orti,” 4–6, 137–44; Roma, 153; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 218; D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome, 108; De Caprio “L’area umanistica,”321–3. See Palladio’s dedication of Coryciana, A iir–ivr, to Goritz, and Valeriano, De Litteratorum Infelicitate, 87–8. Valeriano argues that Goritz should be included among men of letters because he was so good and generous to all men of letters during the papacies of Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, and he was more celebrated in poetry than any prince. His fellow Germans captured him during the sack of Rome in 1527 and despoiled him of his property. He died in poverty in Verona on his way home. 140 Gnoli, “Orti,” 15–18; Cartwright, Italian Gardens, 78–9; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 217; Paschini, Roma, 436; Zimmermann, “Symposia,” 364; Fanelli, “Le case e le raccolte archeologiche del Colocci,” 111–12, 114; Ubaldini, Angelo Colocci, 38–9; Santoro, Bembo, 40–2; Bober, “The Coryciana,” 223–5. 141 Rodocanachi, Léon X, 219; Gnoli, “Orti,” 145; Maddison, Flaminio, 172; Coffin, Gardens, 237–8; Partner, Rome, 77. 142 Rodocanachi, Léon X, 217, 219; Partner, Rome, 75. 143 Cartwright, Italian Gardens, 77. 144 Coffin, Gardens, 23. 145 See note 23 above. The Farnesina, so called because it was later purchased by a cardinal of the Farnese family, was built by the architect, Baldassare Peruzzi, in 1509. 146 Cartwright, Italian Gardens, 84–95. 147 Coffin, Gardens, 12. 148 Gnoli, Roma, 99–100. Gallo also had a suburban villa near Castel Sant’ Angelo which Sadoleto used as a setting for his dialogue, Phaedrus, Coffin, Ibid., 235, as did Lelio Giraldi for his De poetis nostrorum temporum, Coffin, Ibid., 236. Both these dialogues were set in the early years of Leo X’s pontificate. According to Bober, “The Coryciana,” 230, it was for this garden that Michelangelo had created his Bacchus and Cupid. Gallo was a papal official. 149 Zimmermann, and Levin, “Fabio Vigile’s Poem of the Pheasant,” 265. 150 Della Casa in his preface to Bembo’s Historiae Venetae, xiiii. 151 The meta had been a post in Nero’s stadium in the Vatican area and was now a landmark.

Notes to pages 175–8

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152 Ferrajoli, Il ruolo della corte di Leone X, 341–2. 153 Ferrajoli, Ibid., 476–9. 154 Ferrajoli, Ibid., 342–3. Ferrajoli, 342n2 states that one of Mariola’s legacies was to La Todeschina, a German courtesan. 155 Ferrajoli, Ibid., 343–4. 156 Rodocanachi, Léon X, 35. 157 Rodocanachi, Ibid., 6, 200–210; Truc, Leon X, 61; Paschini, Roma, 439; Gnoli, Leo X, 133. 158 He sent emissaries to Germany, Sweden, Venice in search of manuscripts and books, opened his library to the public before he became pope and, by his example, encouraged the establishment of other libraries in Rome, Truc, Ibid., 58. See also De Grassis, Il diario di Léon X, 7. 159 Truc, Ibid., 59. 160 Giovio, Leo X, 65v–66r; Gnoli, Roma, 360–1; Truc, Leo X, 59, 60; Paschini, Roma, 456; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 224–9. Rodocanachi, 226 says that he even encouraged Arabic studies. 161 Marc-Bonnet, Les Papes, 106 drily remarked that it could not be considered a work of Christian inspiration. 162 Rodocanachi, Léon X, 185–8. 163 Pirro, “Léon X et la musique,” 221–31; Rodocanachi, Ibid., 36–7; Truc, Léon X, 70. Pirro, “”Léon X et la musique,” 226, cites Badoer’s report to the Senate in Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 17, 164. 164 Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 114; Truc, Léon X, 63. 165 Cesareo, “Buffoni, parasiti e cortegiane alla corte di Leone X,” 73. 166 Giovio, Leo X, 91r; De Caprio, intro. to Ferrajoli, Il Ruolo, 5; Gnoli, Roma, 365–8; Paschini, Roma, 408. Leo supposedly said to his cousin, Giulio de’ Medici, the future Clement VII, “Now we have the papacy let’s enjoy it.” 167 Graf, Attraverso il Cinquecento, 383–4; Maddison, Flaminio, 11. Mariano, however, was not a complete fool. He wrote a useful guide book to Rome, Itinerarium urbis Romae, with the point of departure for the exploration of various districts always the forum. He also left many devotional or historical writings, Bulletti, in his introduction to Mariano, Itinerarium, iv. 168 Cesareo, “Buffoni,” 78. 169 Paschini, Roma, 441; Cesareo, Ibid., 80. The expression attributed to him was “Viviamo, babbo santo, che ogni altra cosa è burla,” a remark similar to that attributed to the pope in conversation with his cousin Giulio de’ Medici. See above, n. 166. 170 Maddison, Flaminio, 11. 171 Giovio, Leo X, 92r–v. Baraballo on the elephant appears in intarsio on one of the doors of the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. See Bedini, The Pope’s Elephant, drawing p. 97. 172 Giovio, Ibid., 93r. 173 Giovio, Ibid., 95r–96v; Truc, Léon X, 71; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 175–9;

446

174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181

182 183 184 185 186 187

188

189

Notes to pages 178–9 Gnoli, Roma, 228; Guglielmotti, La guerra dei pirati, vol. 1, 156; Ferraro, I vini d’Italia, 41, 42. De Grassis quoted by Gnoli, Roma, 228. Guglielmotti, Pirati, 157n49; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 178–9. Guglielmotti, Ibid., 157. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 178. Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 102. Ibid., 106; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 178. Rodocanachi, Ibid., 6. Partner, Rome, 49, 130; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 28. Mantuan was the name by which Battista Spagnuoli of Mantua was known. He was a monk and prolific writer of Latin verse which was very successful in the sixteenth century. Pecchiai, Roma, 4; De Grassis, Il diario, 6. Audin, Histoire de Léon X, vol. 2, 102–3. Bembo, “Oratione per Leone X,” Sansovino, Delle orationi volgarmente scritte, 174r–180v. See also Bembo, Epistolarum Leonis X, 70. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 54–5. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 19, 306. Ibid., vol. 18, 182. This report would inevitably arouse suspicions that Bembo was betraying Venetian interests. However Cian, “A proposito di un ambasceria di M. Pietro Bembo,” Archivio Veneto 30, 364–6, in a long discussion of April 1513, states that both Bembo and Quirini used their positions close to the pope to try to bring about a reconciliation between him and Venice and that they were supported in this by Giuliano de’ Medici, the pope’s brother. They also worked with the Venetian ambassador, Pietro Lando, Cian, Ibid., 368, while another Venetian, Gianfrancesco Valier, Bibbiena’s secretary, tried to win him over, Cian, Ibid., 366n1. All in vain. Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 30, 370n2 says that Bembo and Bibbiena went to Loreto on 7 May 1513 and that Sanuto reported that visit on 10 May 1513 and interpreted it as a sign that an alliance was being made between the emperor, the Spanish and the pope. For Bibbiena’s hostility to the French see Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 30, 361, 366. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 18, 210 comments further on that visit and, 217, reports that Bembo and Bibbiena were in Pescara, a possession of the duke of Urbino who was commander of the papal army. He implies that they must have been up to no good. Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 31, 75, says that Bembo left Rome secretly on 29 November. That is inconsistent with Bembo’s statement to the pope, but Bembo is not always reliable. What is indisputable is that he reached Venice on 4 December, Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 19, 306. Note: Travi II, p.86, note, assigns to 2 December 1514 Bembo’s undated letter to Lorenzo da Pavia, from Aqualagna in the duchy of Urbino. He has

Notes to pages 179–83

190 191 192

193

194 195 196

197

447

numbered it II, 344. I believe that that letter must have been written in May 1505, when Bembo was returning privately from Rome to Venice after he had accompanied the official Venetian delegation to congratulate Julius II. Bembo was making all possible speed on his mission for the pope in December 1514, not stopping off with the duchess in Gubbio, dining in Urbino and trying to persuade a friend to join him on his trip home. Furthermore, the only duchess he ever referred to in such familiar terms was Elisabetta Gonzaga, now the dowager duchess of Urbino, who was extremely unlikely to be holding court in freezing Gubbio in December. She had been worried about Bembo spending a winter at nearby Fonte Avellana, T I, 245 lines 167–9. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 19, 306. Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 31, 75–6. Sanuto, Ibid., vol. 19, 308. Ibid., 308. Sanuto said that no one wanted to escort Bembo, but Bembo, in his letter to the pope, reported his lack of escort differently. He said that the Senate had wanted to send a noble escort to honour the pope but that he had refused it because he was there for only a few days and had come by the post. Assuming that Sanuto was reporting accurately, it seems that Bembo was covering up either to protect his own prestige with the pope or to defend Venice against a charge of insulting the pope, something which would not fail to exacerbate their relations. One thing he could be sure of, that the pope would have heard that he had received no escort. Ibid., 308 refers to the heavy rain that winter. De Grassis, Diario, ed. Armellini, 20 describes the flood in Rome in November 1514. Armellini’s note, Ibid., 113n29, cites the marble plaque which can still be seen on Santa Maria sopra Minerva showing the level of the flood. Bembo, “Oratione per Leone X.” Rodocanachi, Léon X, 35; Moncallero, Dovizi, 5–6. Santoro, Bembo, 37; Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 31, 77–8. As recently as the preceding August Bembo himself had created the impression that the pope was favourably disposed towards Venice in a letter which he wrote to the Venetian ambassador in Rome, Pietro Lando, giving him a copy of a letter from Henry VIII to Leo X which, with the pope’s permission, had been copied in the dead of night, T II, 340. In the letter Bembo said that yesterday the pope showed himself very disposed and most inclined towards the recuperation of our country’s cause. Let the doge know. The copied document was dated 12 August 1514, T II, 83 note. Bembo seems not to have taken into account the pope’s habit of saying what people wanted to hear. Cian, “ Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 30, 367n1, states that Leo practised duplicitous diplomacy and liked to give the impression that he wished Venice well. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 19, 327.

448 198 199 200 201 202 203 204

205

206 207

Notes to pages 183–4 Perocco, “Rassegna,” 519–20. Pertile, “Le edizioni dantesche,” 400–1. Ibid., 398, 398n12, 399. Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, 31, 102. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 255–6. Chioggia to Pesaro is about 120 miles, 190 kms, a considerable distance to travel in two days on horseback in bad weather. The death of Louis XII led to further intervention into Venetian affairs by Bembo on behalf of Leo X. On 7 January 1515 he wrote to Doge Leonardo Loredano: The pope had sent me to you with the interests of the Republic at heart and I spoke believing this. He had told me to inform you that the king of France was near his end. He has now had a letter from Paris, dated 1 January 1515, announcing the king’s death. I wanted you to know this and, with the pope’s permission, I have sent the courier Francesco Bresciano at top speed. Bembo begs Loredano now, with all the love which he bears for his native land and the reverence he feels for him as the doge, to place himself under the pope’s protection, T II, 357. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 19, 369 records the speedy arrival of this letter. Bembo wrote to the doge again, on 15 January 1515, urging him to make a settlement with the pope: If I did not love Venice I would do as others do and let things take their course and only consider my personal interests ... but, having been born Venetian, in the first city and the first fatherland in the world, I cannot abandon the love and affection which I owe it ... He has never known and never wished to know how to adulate and feign, therefore he will speak frankly. The pope, in the face of Venice’s rejection of his offer, believing that one of the aims of the Venetian alliance with France to be the recuperation of Ravenna and Cervia [traditionally papal possessions which Venice had occupied after the fall of Cesare Borgia and which Julius II had recuperated], has worked out a division of northern Italy with the emperor and the duke of Milan. Milan gets Brescia, Bergamo and Crema to strengthen it against the French, the pope gets Parma, Piacenza, Modena and Reggio and the emperor the remainder of the Venetian state. In these circumstances Bembo urges the doge to make up with the pope. He reminds him what opposition to Julius II cost Venice. Unless the doge acts quickly Venice will be forced to submit, T II, 358. It is strange that the Vatican, usually so well-informed, had not weighed up the potential of Francis I. Venice was the better judge. Vincenzo Quirini was one of Bembo’s two companions on his trip to Rome in May 1502. The other was the doctor, Valerio Superchio. For their friendship see T I, 65, 135, 140, 141, 149, 154, 176, 194, 201, 236, 238, 242, 245, 250 and II, 280, 282, 311, 315. Cian, “Ambasceria,”.Archivio Veneto, vol. 30, 361, 361n3, 362, 362n1. See his letter of 20 October 1520 to Giovan Matteo Bembo, T II, 407. As

Notes to pages 184–6

208 209 210 211 212 213 214

215

216

217

218 219 220

449

long ago as May 1515 Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 20, 230 had reported that it was said in Rome that there would be six new cardinals, four Florentine and two Venetian, Bembo and Lipomano. On 19 July 1517, after receiving a ruined abbey from the pope, Bembo wrote to Bibbiena that he was as proud as the Grand Turk of Cairo. “Think what I will do when I am bishop!” T II, 384 He clearly expected to rise in the hierarchy. See the Catholic Encyclopedia, “Cardinal.” Cian, “Ambasceria,” Archivio Veneto, vol. 30, 362n3 which runs on to p. 364. Massa, L’Eremo, 27. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 18, 455. Ibid., 456. Ibid., vol. 19, 97. This would suggest that Raphael’s double portrait of Navagero and Beazzano, now in the Doria-Pamphili collection in Rome, was painted no later than 1516. It appears from Bembo’s letter to Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, written from Cerveteri, that, although Bembo accompanied the pope on some of his hunting expeditions he was free to decline the invitation at times, T II, 361. In Feb. 1515 Bembo wishes that he had stayed for the masquerades in Rome, as the cardinal had done, rather than accompanying the pope. He did, in fact, get back to Rome in time to enjoy a very fine carnival, T II, 362 of 22 February 1515. In his letter to Card. Alessandro Farnese of 29 July 1539 Bembo thanks him for arranging for him to stay in the house of Card. Campeggio where he had stayed for some years in the time of Leo X, T IV, 2103. That mut be where he was now. Bembo may have had to move from his first lodgings because of the demolition of old St Peter’s. I presume that it was in Campeggio’s house that Tebaldi had his accident. Bembo gives the twenty-second as the date of his return from Tivoli, but then the figures do not add up. Tebaldi could not have been unconscious for three days and just come round that day, the 30th, if the accident took place on the twenty-second, so I have omitted the date in the absence of facts which might have explained the discrepancy. Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 206–7. Progress was made. De Grassis, Diario, 21 reports that the roof of St Peter’s had been taken down by 5 January 1515 with the result that the pope had to celebrate vespers in the chapel because of heavy rain. Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 264–5. Kidwell, Sannazaro, 46–8. Ligorio, Pirro Ligorio’s Roman Antiquities Drawings, 16. Ligorio succeeded Michelangelo as architect of St Peter’s. Fra Giocondo had collected 3000 Roman inscriptions and published them in three volumes dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1489, Kidwell, Sannazaro, 48.

450

Notes to pages 186–90

221 Paschini, Roma ,437. 222 Ligorio, Drawings, 16 and 16n1; Cian, “Nel Mondo di Baldassare Castiglione,” 70–6. 223 For Bibbiena’s bathroom, his stuffetta, see Moncallero, Dovizi, 236–8; Battaglia, “La ‘Stuffetta’ del Cardinal Bibbiena,” 203–12. Today Bibbiena’s apartment houses the Vatican secretariat of state, Papafava, Vatican, 44 and illustration 155. 224 Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 312–14. Bembo’s acquisitiveness has already been noted, see above, pp. 120–2 and Bembo’s Rime XCI, addressed to Bibbiena, begging for his Diana. 225 Clough, “Francis I and the courtiers of Castiglione’s Courtier,” Urbino, XVI, 34. 226 Guicciardini judged Leo X, as a political theorist, not inferior to Machiavelli, as a practitioner, perhaps superior, Pecchiai, Roma, 3. 227 De Grassis, Diario, 25–6, 28. The papal party reached Bologna on 7 December 1515. Francis I arrived on 11 December 1515 and stayed until 15 December 1515. The papal party left on 19 December 1515 to be in Florence for Christmas. 228 Shankland, Prettiest Love Letters, dates this letter, his XL, to late 1515. Raboni, Pietro e Lucrezia, postulates no date for this letter, her no. 6. 229 Bembo. Ep. Leo X, 297–8. 230 Ibid., 417. 231 Audin, Histoire de Léon X, vol. 2, 101–2; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 67. 232 Rodocanachi, Ibid., 100. Della Rovere had not been faithful to his uncle, Julius II, either. See Armellini’s note to De Grassis, Diario, 116–7n39. 233 Rodocanachi, Ibid., 101; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 12; Woodhouse, Castiglione, 24. 234 Giovio, Leo X, 78v; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 100. 235 Rodocanachi, Ibid., 109–110. 236 De Grassis, Diario, 47–51 and 57; Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 89–127; Mitchell, Rome, 108–16; Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 12. For biographies of the prelates involved see Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 35ff. 237 De Grassis, Diario, 50–1. 238 Ibid., 52–4. 239 For the full story see Kidwell, Sannazaro, 125–6. 240 Though “friend” appears in the masculine, it seems rather more likely that the embroidery was done by Cassandra Marchese. 241 Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 432–4. 242 Jardine, Worldly Goods, 335–7; Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 118–21. Jardine, 335, describes the indulgences. They were single printed sheets containing the assurance from the pope that the purchaser, name to be inserted in the blank space, was granted remission from the spiritual penalties for his sins. 243 De Grassis, Diario, 62–3. 244 Ibid., 71.

Notes to pages 191–4

451

245 T II, 400 of 26 June 1520, written by Bembo from Rome to his nephew in Venice, expresses his happiness at the way the family have embraced Morosina. 246 See, for example, the papal brief of 5 June 1519 to Gabriele Veneto, master of the Augustinians, congratulating him on his election and praising Venetian generosity to him and to Card. Egidio, Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 427–9. 247 Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 4, 9. 248 Ibid., vol. 8, 361. 249 Ibid., vol. 9, 61. 250 Ibid., vol. 10, 18. 251 T II, 299 of 7 July 1510; II, 333, probably of the autumn of 1512; II, 398 of 8 May 1520; II, 400 of 26 June 1520; II, 412 of 6 January 1521. 252 Bembo, Ep. Leo X, 436–7. The pope, in Rome, must have instructed Bembo, in Venice, to write this letter. It seems improbable that Bembo would have falsified the date of a public document like a papal brief. Therefore the date of December 1519 must be accepted as correct. At the same time Bembo’s personal letters and a letter written about him make it clear that he was in Venice at that date. See T II, 397, 399 and Sadoleto, Epistolae Familiares, vol. 1, 52–3. Bembo apparently did not return to Rome until the spring.

chapter seven 1 Longolio had written a defence which Bembo was circulating. For the Longolio affair see D’Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal Rome, 110–11 and Rodocanachi, Léon X, 213–16. 2 Bembo was responsible for Longolio’s scholarship, Pastore, Flaminio fortune e sfortune, 35n26. A letter by Paolo Manuzio to Rodolfo Pio is his source. 3 “At home” here is apparently Padua, probably his villa on the outskirts. 4 Rodocanachi, Léon X, 213–16. 5 Sadoleto, Epistolae Familiares, vol. 1, 523. The French scholar Guillaume Budé also praised Bembo for his kindness to and support of Longolio. See T II, 397 of 4 January 1520 and II, 416 of 6 April 1521. For Longolio’s letters to Bembo, Sadoleto, Budé see his Epistolarum libri IV. 6 “My house” here is apparently in Venice because of the ease with which Morosina and Giovan Matteo’s family visit one another. This is perhaps the house his father, Bernardo, had been renting before his death and which Pietro temporarily took over. There is no evidence that Bembo or his father ever owned a house in Venice. In fact, in 1525, Bembo wrote to Cola, who stayed with Giovan Matteo when he was in Venice, that he did not like going to Venice because he did not have a room there, T II, 614. Two years later Bembo wrote to his nephew in Venice, attaching a letter from the newly appointed French ambassador to the Republic, Ludovico Canossa, bishop of

452

7 8

9

10 11

12 13 14 15 16

Notes to pages 194–7

Bayeux, Bembo’s friend from Urbino days and The Courtier. In the letter Canossa asked Bembo to put him up in Venice. Since he has no room there Bembo asks Giovan Matteo to show the letter to the doge to arrange something for the envoy. Bembo also asks the doge’s permission to have Canossa stay with him for a night in Padua, T II, 427. Later, when Bembo was commissioned to write the official history of Venice, the Signoria had to provide accommodation for him when he went to Venice, see above, p. 277. In 1520, when he went back to Rome, Bembo left Cola in Venice (T II, 409, where he is called the preposito, the man in charge). Cola probably looked after Morosina there. She was still only 23. Later Cola looked after Bembo’s children, as well as his household, his financial affairs and his publications. A boy was born in August, duly named Quintilio, T II, 404 of 28 August 1520 and 412 of 6 June 1521. Note Lucina was Maria’s daughter’s name. “Here” must now mean Cardinal Campeggio’s house in the Vatican where Bembo lived for some years when he was secretary to Leo X and where he wanted to return when he was made cardinal, T IV, 2103. The rooms Bembo had first occupied on St Peter’s square, in Paul II’s Benediction Loggia fronting the courtyard of old St Peter’s, were now on the perimeter of a building site. See De Grassis, Diario, 76. Bembo’s words were that they would have to live as sbirri on the palata of the Moranzano. Sbirri are policemen or regulatory officials. Palata is defined in the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana as a palisade constructed along the banks of rivers to regulate their course and for the protection of ports. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 22 is quoted. He refers to the Moranzano and its palata where payment is exacted (dove si paga una certa limitazione). This is under the Collegio delle acque, the Water Board. Bembo’s reference to his brother is quoted here in the dictionary. He is also quoted under sbirro. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 273. See T III, 1092 of 20 May 1530. Travi has printed fifty letters referring to Villanova and its administration: II, 418, 590, 591, 593, 604, 616, 903; III, 1092, 1097, 1104, 1189, 1194, 1200, 1226, 1246, 1279, 1471, 1495, 1612, 1692, 1698, 1717, 1757, 1782, 1783, 1801; IV, 1842, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1884, 1887, 1909, 1935, 1945, 1957, 1958, 1966, 1969, 1992, 2199, 2339, 2461, 2540, 2550, 2553, 2556, 2559, 2575, 1682B. Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 115. On benefices as part of family patrimony see Partner, Pope’s Men, 14. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 322–4. Ibid., 255–7. Ibid., 313–17, also in Archivio della Reale Società Romana di Storia Patria 37 (1914), 465–9. Gleason, Reformation Thought, 199; Hay, The Church in Italy, 19; Sire, The Knights of Malta, 104; Scicluna, The Knights Hospitaller, 97. Bembo, T IV,

Notes to pages 197–9

17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

32 33

453

1824, gives the contribution normally due from the commenda of Bologna as 133 ducats. There was a one-off increase of 50 per cent for the move of the Order to Malta in 1530. See also Partner, Pope’s Men, 13–14 and Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 131. Bembo refers to his church in T III, 1525 of 24 October 1534. T II, 532. A model of medieval Bologna in the Palazzo Communale reveals the arcades, typical of Bologna, which were there in Bembo’s time. See Julius II’s bull of 14 January 1508, Ferrajoli, Ruolo, ed De Caprio, 313–17 for a reference to the hospital and T II, 890, where Bembo complains that the papal commission established to oversee the 120 hospitals in Bologna and the surrounding countryside wanted jurisdiction over his manor. Bembo protests that the Knights of St John are independent of the papacy and that their hospitals are not the concern of the papal commission. I have not, however, found any direct reference to a hospital in Bembo’s letters about his manor and there is only one reference to a church. Bembo’s interest in his commenda was purely financial. He was not concerned with pastoral care, which was the business of the rank and file of the Order: chaplains formed a second class and nurses a third, Aubert de Vertot d’Aubeuf, The History of the Knights Hospitallers, vol. 5, 210–11. See T, II, 875, III, 1038. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 313–16. Ibid., 292. Elisabetta Gonzaga, duchess of Urbino, addressed him as Knight of Rhodes in a letter of 26 October 1517, printed in Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 15v–16r. Ferrajoli, Ibid., 255n3. Ibid., 293, 327–9. Ibid., 257. All postulants to become knights of the Order had to be of noble birth, Aubert de Vertot, V, 208. Scicluna, 96, states that in Italy they must supply proof of four noble grandparents. In other countries there were even stricter demands of noble ancestry going back several generations. Del Rosso, Statuti della Religione, 17–19. Ibid., 379. Ibid., 380. Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, Dionisotti, “Nota biografica,” 56. See Julius II’s bull, Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 313–17 and Ferrajoli’s analysis of the problem, 260–1; Bembo’s letter to Lucrezia Borgia of 13 October 1517, T II, 386; Elisabetta Gonzaga’s letter of 26 October 1517 (see note 22 above); and Bembo’s letter to Sannazaro of 24 December 1517, T II, 387. See T II, 875 of 3 May 1528 and III, 1038 (n.d., 1529?). See T II, 477, 502, 532, 596, 746, 875, 890; III, 983, 1024, 1027, 1029, 1038, 1071, 1092, 1097, 1120, 1180, 1194, 1200, 1226, 1242, 1246, 1264, 1268, 1341, 1408, 1410, 1415, 1417, 1439, 1446, 1473, 1495, 1507, 1542,

454

34

35

36 37 38

39 40

41 42

43 44 45 46 47

Notes to pages 199–200

1547, 1552, 1557, 1565, 1569, 1582, 1584, 1597, 1604, 1612, 1622, 1661, 1689, 1692, 1698, 1732, 1757, 1765, 1773, 1792, 1802, 1811, 1812, 1813; IV, 1820, 1822, 1824, 1825, 1828, 1829, 1836, 1842, 1847, 1849, 1851, 1857, 1862, 1875, 1878, 1882, 1886, 1888, 1890, 1893, 1897, 1919, 1958, 1959, 1965, 1986, 2005, 2046, 2047, 2157, 2164, 2319. Sannazaro to Bembo, Naples, 4 December 1518, Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo. 38r–v. See T II, 406 of 18 October 1520 discussing the problem. See also Dionisotti, “Appunti sul Bembo: per la storia del Carminum libellus.” 285–6. T II, 843. In his letter of 3 May 1528 to the Grand Master, Philippe de Villiers, Bembo says that he has not received a penny from Benevento for the last two years, T II, 875 and, in his letter to Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci of 12 June 1528 Bembo says that he has received nothing from Benevento for three years, T II, 890. See other letters about the administration and problems of the commenda in Benevento, T II, 406, 843, 875, 890; III, 1084, 1096, 1097, 1098, 1104, 1124, 1138, 1139, 1155, 1178, 1188, 1189, 1204, 1208, 1211, 1212, 1218, 1225, 1228, 1232, 1257, 1313, 1355, 1388, 1413, 1441, 1443, 1446, 1502, 1566, 1639, 1717, 1754, 1782, 1789, 1803; IV, 1821, 1921, 2172, 2201. Dionisotti, “Appunti sul Bembo: per la storia del Carminum libellus,” 260–1. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 257. See, for example, T III, 1139 of 7 September 1530; III, 1691 of 13 June 1535; and III, 1869 of 20 July 1537. Giovan Battista Ramusio, secretary to the Signoria, always addressed Bembo as prior of Hungary, see Ratti [Pope Pius XI], “Una lettera autografa della Morosina a P. Bembo,” 340. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 276. Ibid., 275–80. For his correspondence about Hungary see T III, 1139, 1513, 1553, 1559, 1691, 1693, 1732, 1736, 1758, 1793, 1802, 1806, 1807, 1809, 1811, 1812, 1813; IV, 1820, 1821, 1825, 1828, 1829, 1834, 1842, 1847, 1862, 1870, 1887, 1893, 1895, 1897, 1901, 1913, 1915, 1917, 1918, 1933, 1949, 1957, 1960, 1963, 1977, 1983, 2080, 2088, 2089, 2093, 2160. Ibid., 276n1. Ferrajoli, 275–80 outlines Bembo’s struggle to gain possession of this romantic and important-sounding benefice. Ibid., 256. This followed Leo’s granting, on 11 April 1514 (Ibid., 327–9), of a one year dispensation allowing Bembo to enjoy his benefices without having to take his vows. Ibid., 263. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 23, 38, a dispatch of 29 September 1516 from the Venetian ambassador in Rome. Ibid., vol. 22, 363. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 264–7, 264n4. For other letters about Arbe [Rab] see T II, 481, 526, 824, 828, 833, 836; III, 986, 1032, 1116, 1130. 1266; IV, 2144.

Notes to pages 200–3

455

48 Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 256. In T II, 370 of 14 April 1516 Bembo says that he had had the benefice of S. Maria di Montambano in the diocese of Verona by renunciation three years ago but could not get possession, despite much intercession. Then two or three months ago one of the Venetian proveditori with the army took it in his name. He wants the archpriest of Verona to take possession now on his behalf. He says that in good times it is worth ninety ducats. He had also asked for help from the emperor to gain possession of this benefice, see T II, 343 of 20 November 1514. 49 See Ibid., 267–73 about the controversy over the canonry in Piove del Sacco. Benefices were often disputed. See also Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 131–2. 50 Ferrajoli, Ibid., 255–7. In a letter to Carlo Gualteruzzi of 8 March 1529 Bembo adds another deanship to the list, that of Brescia, which he has in commenda. He says that he cannot find the bull, perhaps it was never issued, but he has a note to prove it, of which he sends a copy, T III, 931. There was also a pension on a benefice in Corfù, T II, 694. In this letter Bembo says that his pension is five payments in arrears. 51 For an account of Bembo’s efforts to gain the canonry in the cathedral [duomo] of Padua from 1514, when he was elected to a vacancy later given to someone else, see Cestaro, “Controversie canonicali,” 317–28. For the resolution of the problem see Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 272–3 and 272n3 and T II, 533 of 24 May 1525; II, 553 of 18 July 1525; and II, 597 of 19 September 1525. Bembo refers to paying tithes on it in 1536, T III, 1801. Bembo’s portrait as a cardinal appears in the sacristy of the cathedral. 52 Partner, Pope’s Men, 1, 15–16, 28, 36. 53 The architect, Bramante, had enjoyed this office as part of the payment for his work on St Peter’s. On the very day of his death, on 11 March 1514, Leo X named his buffoon, Fra Mariano, to the post, Cesareo, “Buffoni, parassiti e cortegiane,” 80. The Venetian painter, Sebastiano Luciani was called del Piombo because he was rewarded with that office in 1531. He thereupon gave up painting to enjoy the good life on a sizeable and secure income. He held the post until his death in 1547, Ettlinger, “Sebastiano del Piombo.” 54 Partner, Pope’s Men, 28, 36, resale of offices. 55 Cestaro, “Controversie,” 321 says that Bembo stayed in Rome until 6 April 1521. 56 Ibid., 321. 57 Pecchiai, Roma, 4. 58 De Grassis, Diario, 88; Rodocanachi, Léon X, 277. 59 Graf, Cinquecento, 390. 60 Sannazaro, Epigrammaton III, 8. For Sannazaro and Leo X see Kidwell, Sannazaro, 125–8, 175, 243n17. 61 Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 105. 62 Giovio, La Vita di Leon X, 103v. 63 Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 1, 87–8.

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Notes to pages 203–6

64 Travi has printed one letter, II, 423, to a doctor in Venice dated 20 December 1521 which apologises for its brevity because he has been very busy. I believe that this must be one of Bembo’s misdated letters because there is, otherwise, a gap in Bembo’s correspondence from 21 August 1521 to 19 April 1522, a gap of eight months which substantiates his statement, T II, 246, that he had been ill for eight months. 65 De Grassis, Diario, 81. 66 Longolio, Epistolarum, letter of 25 August 1522. 67 The Goddesses carried you off in your youth, they who spin the fatal Threads. They knew that you would never die, Longolio, if they granted you white-haired old age. Bembo, Carmina, XXXV 68 Floriani, I gentiluomini letterati, 60 and 60n16. 69 Bertelli, Cardini, Zorzi, Courts, 205–6. 70 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 190n259. 71 Cartwright, Gardens, 137. 72 Puppi, “La residenza di Pietro Bembo,” 33. 73 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 190n259. 74 Puppi, “La residenza,” 32. 75 The description of the property in Bembo’s daughter’s dowry, Puppi, Ibid., 33. Here there are four mill wheels listed, with a miller’s house. 76 Pavanello, Un maestro del Quattro-cento, 10–12, 42, 143–4; Puppi, “La residenza,” 32; Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 190. 77 Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, 189–90. 78 Gian Matteo Giberti (1495–1543) was the illegitimate son of Franco Giberti, a wealthy Genoese merchant settled in Palermo, trading in grain with Tunis. On the elevation of the Genoese pope, Julius II, the father moved to Rome and became a Vatican official and later condottiere for the Church. His son received a good education in Rome and in 1514 was legitimized by Leo X. This opened the road to Church offices and benefices, both of which, with commercial acumen, young Giberti accumulated in quantity, Prosperi, Tra evangelismo e controriforma, 1–11. He became close to Leo X. He was the first to enter his bedroom in the morning to take him the latest news from every part of the Christian world and to receive instructions, Grazioli, Gian Matteo Giberti, 16. Giberti also bought offices which would guarantee future income, Prosperi, Ibid., 11. In 1515 he became secretary to Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, vice-chancellor of the Church, and rapidly gained great influence over him, Grazioli, Ibid., 15. On the day of his election Clement VII made him his datary. People later blamed Giberti’s policy for the sack of Rome in 1527. He then retired to his bishopric in Verona where he became involved in the reform movement, although he still grabbed a benefice from Bembo in 1527–28, T II, 812, 845. Hale in his biography of Giberti in Encyclopedia of

Notes to pages 206–9

79 80 81 82 83

84 85 86

87

88 89

90 91

457

the Italian Renaissance says that Giberti tried to have the satirist Pietro Aretino assassinated. Partner, Pope’s Men, 21–2, 29–30; Grazioli, Giberti, 17. Prosperi, Evangelismo, 120. Grazioli, Giberti, 17. Prosperi, Evangelismo, 11. He criticized Giberti’s acquisitive nature, saying that he was drawn to plunder. See T II, 437 of 28 March 1523 in which Bembo says that Sadoleto is going to leave Rome for Carpentras because he is fed up with Rome, its court, its jostling, its crowds. Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda, segretario del Bembo,” 46 and notes 42 and 44. Dionisotti, ed. Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 56. Cian, Decennio 27n2 quotes Litta on the Famiglia Gonzaga Ramo dei Conti di Novellara. Camilla Gonzaga da Porto was the daughter of Gioanpietro Gonzaga, Count of Novellara, and sister of Alessandro, later Count of Novellara. Cian believes that Castiglione, who was a relative, had wanted to marry her. Castiglione wrote to his mother from Lugo on 7 October 1512 to tell her that the duke had given him the castle of Ginestreto and asks Polissena to tell Camilla this and that now all he lacks is the 5000 ducats. Cian, 28n1 quotes Casio as saying that Camilla was the sister of the Countess Isabella with whom she kept court in Bologna when Bembo was there in 1524–25. Partner, Rome, 218. See T III, 1044, 1399, 1501, 1526; IV, 1925, 2015, 2024. In a letter of 10 January 1540 Bembo describes her as a truly saintly, very talented, and most courteous lady, of an elevated and eminent mind, T IV, 2152, but obviously not someone he would imagine kissing on the lips as he did Camilla (T II, 510). She, for her part, wrote in 1530 to Giovio, who was often their epistolary go-between, that she was wholly enamoured of Bembo, but purely, Dionisotti, “Appunti sul Bembo e su Vittoria Colonna,” 264. Kidwell, Sannazaro, 96, 98, 100, 101, 120, 138. Francesco Maria Molza (1489–1544), a talented Latin poet, was part of the literary circle in Leo X’s Rome where, though a married man with four children in Modena, he led a very dissolute life with the courtesans, Giraldi, De poetis, II, 396. He stayed on in Rome after the death of Leo X and was severely injured in the disturbances in the city during the six month interregnum before Adrian VI arrived from Flanders to assume the triple tiara, Maddison, Flaminio, 39–40. He then moved to Bologna where he joined the circle of Camilla Gonzaga. He later died of syphilis. Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 58r–59r. Two poems in Bembo’s Rime are thought to have been written about Camilla Gonzaga. See Dionisotti’s notes on Rime XCVIII and XCIX. In XCVIII Bembo writes that he had retired to Padua, heavy with years and withdrawn from society, but Amor condemned him to weep again. “Here, among the

458

92 93 94

95 96 97 98

99 100 101

Notes to pages 210–17 woods and the fields and the grass and the water, then when I thought to live secure, you [Amor] attacked me and struck me harder than before . Alas, now I see clearly how hard it is to flee what pleases heaven, nor can a man ever be far from his fate.” This poem contrasts with XCVII of 1523, at the time he took his vows in the Jerusalem Order. There he prays to the Virgin to preserve him from Sirens. Rime XCIX is again about Amor attacking him in his old age – he was fifty-four at the time he met Camilla. “I feel a new pleasure, vigorous and strong, reach the ancient hearth in my soul so that I am doubly afire, and it appears that I do not regret it.” But then he goes on to say that he is close to death. This was, certainly, to some extent, solicited gallantry. See pp. 120–2 about Bembo’s discreditable quarrel with Trissino over the possession of an antique medal and T I, 202 of 21 March 1505 (or 1506). Bembo’s aunt and his two nieces, Maria and Giulia, who were now living with him, T II, 648. Ratti, “Una lettera della Morosina,” 342. Ratti, 335, says that he found this letter in a manuscript in the Ambrosiana in Milan in a collection of fortyfive letters to Bembo from his friend Giovanni Battista Ramusio. Ratti says, 339, that it looks like the hand of a sixteenth century lady not much used to writing, and a poor speller. The Rota was the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal for judging cases brought before the Holy See. See pp. 255, 256. See T II, 533 of 24 May 1525 and Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 272–3 and 272n3. Bembo refers to Morosina’s being in the villa on 24 July 1525 if one can trust his date. See T II, 559 and Travi’s note on lines 5–7. Cola must, therefore, have escorted Morosina to Venice later that day or early the next one. They apparently stayed in Giovan Matteo’s house, Ca’ Bembo on the Campo di Santa Maria Nova. See T II, 552, 598, 616. Giannotti, Epistolae, 19–20. Ibid., vii. Trifone Gabriele (1470–1549) was Bembo’s lifelong friend from student days, T I, 16, 22, 23, 24, etc.. Like Bembo he was unsuccessful in gaining admission to high office in the Venetian administration or in the Church in Venetian territories, see Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 37, 22; vol. 35, 652 and 662. He then decided to devote himself to his studies, Paschini, Tre ricerche, 94. As papal secretary Bembo obtained an absolution for him from the vow that he had made, on taking orders, that he would not read pagan books. He was allowed to do so, providing that he confessed it, T II, 360. Trifone had a house at Tergolina, about one hour’s ride from Villa Bozza, Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda,” 43n23 and a garden on Murano where he entertained many of the Venetian intellectuals and writers, Molmenti, La Storia di Venezia nella vita privata, vol. 2, 388. Bembo sent the first two books of Le

Notes to pages 217–20

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Prose to him for criticism in 1512, Prose, Gli Asolini, Rime, 108n3. Gabriele was also one of the speakers in Le Prose. Gabriele and Bembo were exactly the same age and kindred spirits. In Rime CXXII, addressed to Gabriele, Bembo says that in place of attendants and servants, of balconies and of marbles, of woven gold and of purple, Gabriele prefers to see branchy holm-oaks and a cloister of fertile hills, grass, and brooks. The world certainly ought to revere him, wondering at his pure and open spirit, content with that which only our simple and natural state preserves, a soul in which shines the chastity and wisdom of the Golden Age. He came down here to assure that, morning and evening, every ray of good manners and courtesy should not be extinguished among us. 102 Girolamo Quirini, nephew of Bembo’s old friend and sometime opponent Vincenzo Quirini (Brother Peter of the Camoldolensium Order, who died in Bembo’s house in Rome in 1514) had been elected Patriarch of Venice in October 1524, Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 37, 22; Pertile,”Apollonio Merenda,” 38. He repeatedly clashed with the Venetian government over jurisdictional issues and was absent from his see for long periods of time. Like Bembo he was never elected to office by the Venetian Great Council, Dionisotti, Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, note to Rime CXXIX. 103 Nicolò Leonico, now seventy, was a philosopher who had dedicated a blameless and saintly life to Latin and Greek literature, T II, 622 and 689. Bembo praises him again in T II, 899.

chapter eigh t 1 Beccadelli, Vita di Pietro Bembo, Cardinale, xxxiii. 2 See above, pp. 6, 7. Landino did write a commentary on Dante. 3 Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime Dionisotti edition, 85. See also T III, 1676. For Lorenzo’s acquaintance with Pietro see above, p. 7. 4 Rossi, Il Quattrocento, 361. 5 See above, p. 10. 6 Kidwell, Marullus, 164–5. 7 Clough, “Bembo’s edition of Petrarch,” 66–7, 73–4; Nolhac, La bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, 308, 453. The Petrarch manuscript used for Aldus’s 1501 edition of his lyrics was written in his own hand and contained his own corrections, Nolhac, Ibid., 101. 8 Clough, “Bembo’s edition of Petrarch,” 76 and Pertile, “Le edizioni dantesche del Bembo,” 394, 400–1. 9 Floriani, “La giovanezza umanistica,” 36–7. 10 Richardson, Print Culture, 48. 11 Kohler, “Le provençalisme de Pietro Bembo,” 236; Elwert, “Pietro Bembo,” 137. 12 Debenedetti, Gli studi provenzali, 27.

460

Notes to pages 220–1

13 Bembo, Carmina, 38–9. 14 See, for example, Sadoleto to Longolio, Epistolae Familiares, vol. 1, 52–3. For Bembo’s enjoyment of jolly company see T II, 370, lines 27–34. 15 Ad Sempronium, lls. 23–4. Santoro, Pietro Bembo, 154 suggests that this poem may have been directed at Ercole Strozzi, the Latin protagonist in Prose. In this case Ad Sempronium may have been written in 1503 when Bembo was staying with Strozzi and writing Gli Asolani. However Pesenti, “Poesie latine di Pietro Bembo,” 342 and n2 challenged the general view, supported by Carducci, that Ad Sempronium was addressed to Strozzi. Flamini, Cinquecento, 541 had pointed out that in one manuscript in the Biblioteca Antoniana in Padua, cod. xxiii, 635 Bembo had added to the title, “Teque Naugeriumque Strotiumque,” so Sempronio could not be Strozzi. Pesenti, Ibid., 344, 346 believes that the poem was addressed to an unidentified member of the Semproni family in Urbino after Bembo had published Gli Asolani. Dionisotti, in his review of Pecoraro’s Per la storia dei carmi del Bembo, 576, 580, discusses various people who could be Sempronio but believes that it is a fictitious name. The classicist Bembo’s virtual abandonment of Latin for Italian at the beginning of the sixteenth century makes Poliziano and Sannazaro’s shift from Italian back to Latin puzzling. It is for their early works in Italian that both are remembered, for Stanze per la giostra and Arcadia respectively, though Sannazaro’s later Latin poetry was first rate. One can understand why he wrote on the birth of Christ, De partu virginis, in Latin, as the language of the universal church, but why he chose to write about shepherds in Italian and fishermen, Naples’s shepherds of the sea, in Latin is hard to understand. Was it his sojourn in France which made him return to the international language and “marble villas on distant shores”? 16 See above pp. 161–3, 268. 17 Belardinelli, La questione della lingua, vol. 1, 19, 35, 164; Hay, The Italian Renaissance, 58. 18 Santangelo, Il petrarchismo del Bembo, 108. 19 Hay, Italian Renaissance, 47 and 47n1. 20 Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, 44–5. 21 Ibid., 48ff. 22 Debenedetti, Studi, 1–2. Debenedetti believes that the survival of much Provençal poetry was due to Italian interest. Bertoni, I trovatori d’Italia, 3; De Bartolomaeis, “La poesia provenzale,” 3–4, 6ff. 23 Parducci, ”Dante e i trovadori,” 81 states that in Dante’s time poets in Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia and the Veneto wrote in Provençal, both love lyrics and martial and moral poetry. Sordello of Mantua was the most distinguished. See also Debenedetti, Ibid., 2; Bertoni, Ibid., 147–8; De Bartolomaeis, “La poesia provenzale,” 4. Belardinelli, 30, states that in Dante’s day many people disparaged all Italian dialects and exalted Provençal.

Notes to pages 221–4

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24 Debenedetti, Studi, 2–3. 25 Ibid., 3; Belardinelli, Questione della lingua, vol. 1, 20–1. See Bembo, Prose, I, VII, Dionisotti, 88–9. 26 De Bartolomaeis, “La poesia provenzale 4; Parducci, “Dante e i trovadori,” 86. 27 Belardinelli, Questione della lingua, 20, 21, 35. 28 Dionisotti, Geografia e storia, 33. 29 See Kidwell, Pontano, passim. 30 Rossi, Il Quattrocento, 140–1, 145. 31 Schileo, Bembo e le sorti della lingua, 41. See Grayson’s edition of Leon Battista Alberti, La prima grammatica. According to Grayson, xlv this did not serve as a guide to Bembo, though he did transcribe Alberti’s text. Alberti had no influence on linguistic thinking in the 1500s. 32 Hall, The “Questione della lingua,” 13. 33 Sabbatino, La “scienza,” 67; Hall, Ibid., 13; Schiaffini, “Problemi del passaggio del latino,” 691–715. 34 Pontano, De aspiratione, Opera, vol. 4, 214v–285v. 35 Monti, “Ricerche Dialoghi di Pontano,” 252. 36 Pontano, De bello neapolitano et De sermone. 37 Pontano, I dialoghi, 127–239. 38 Dionisotti, introduction to Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, 24. For Arcadia and Sannazaro’s language see Folena, La crisi linguistica, 1, 15, 21 and introduction by Bruno Migliorini. For an account of the writing and publication of Arcadia see Kidwell, Sannazaro and Arcadia, 1–3, 9–32, 54–70, 111. 39 Dionisotti in Bembo, Ibid., 111–12 n1. Belardinelli, Questione, 7. 40 Dionisotti, Carteggio, letter no. 46. 41 Ibid., letter no. 21. 42 Battagia, Elogio di Pietro Bembo Cardinale, 23n22. The shelf number at that date was 3193. The Dante which Bembo copied was a manuscript sent to Petrarch by Boccaccio in the 1350s, Clough, “Bembo’s edtion of Petrarch,” 76. 43 Pertile, “Le edizioni dantesche,” 394. 44 Giovan Francesco Fortunio came from Trieste to Venice in 1499 and stayed until 1502. This was the time Aldus published Petrarch and Dante. In 1509 he made a request for privilege for a book of grammatical rules for the vulgar tongue. His grammar was published in 1516. The second book of the Regole dealt with spelling, doubling of consonants, aspirations, etc. He referred to Tuscan pronunciation from time to time and occasionally to other dialects, Dionisotti, Gli umanisti e il volgare, 18–23. 45 Clough, “Bembo’s Edition of Petrarch,” 51, gives the year as 1503. I accept Dionisotti’s date of 1502, Bembo, Prose, 77n5. The text says that the group met on Carlo’s birthday, 10 December. and “that he was not destined to see that day again except when ill and with little of life left, because he died on

462

46

47 48 49 50

51

52

53 54 55

Notes to pages 224–5

the following 30th of December,” Prose, book 1, section II, 77. I interpret this as 30 December of the next year, i.e., 30 December 1503. The discussion, therefore, took place in December 1502. There is no indication whatsoever in the intensive discussions of language spread over three days in Le Prose that Carlo was in any way, infirm as was the crippled Strozzi. He had arranged a dinner party for his birthday, he had the stamina to play a major part in learned argument over three days, and he organized a supper for his friends on the twelfth, after which they stayed up late, chatting by the fire, Prose book 3, 79, Dionisotti, 309. He could not have been near death’s door to have been presented in this way even in Bembo’s fiction. Bembo, Ibid., book 1, section 7. Dionisotti, 86n1 cites Biondo’s De verbis romanae locutionis and his Italia illustrata. Bembo also relies on Biondo’s Historiae ab inclinatione romanorum imperii, Ibid., 87n3. Ibid., book 1, section 7, 87. Ibid., 88–9. Debenedetti, Studi, 1, 18. See Varchi’s funeral oration in Istorici vol. 2, 26. Debenedetti, Ibid., 89, 111, 120, 126, 211–14, the last a list of Provençal manuscripts associated with Bembo. Fulvio Orsini possessed, in his library, a manuscript said to contain notes by both Petrarch and Bembo, Ibid., 242. See Nolhac, La Bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, 93, 109, 312–13, 313n3, 314, 315, 317, and 323. See also T III, 1037 of 22 December 1529; III, 1041 of 7 January 1530; III, 1174 of 12 November 1530. Pulsoni, “Luigi da Porto e Pietro Bembo,” 330, 332, 351. Following della Casa’s biography of Bembo in Istorici, vol. 2, there is a list, on p. xxviiii [sic], of Bembo’s unpublished works which includes the lives and poems of the Provençal poets. Della Casa states that “Bembo devoted no little study and work to writings in the old Provençal tongue to which language, who will deny, the Italian Muses owe very much.” Mario Pozzi, review of Arnoldi and Stocchi, Storia della cultura veneta, vol. 3, 299. See also Lazzarini, “Petrarca e il primo umanesimo,” 75, 92; Bertoni, “Le citazioni provenzali,” 263: Cian, “Pietro Bembo postillatore,” 255–90. On 1 April 1512, when Bembo sent the first two books of Le Prose to Trifon Gabriele for criticism, he listed a number of people in Venice who might want to read and criticize it. Venetian interest in early Tuscan poetry is revealed in Bembo’s letter to Ramusio, here called chancellor of the Signoria, sending him a list of the first lines of the poems by Guido Cavalcanti which he possessed and asking Ramusio if he has any others, T II, 312 written from Urbino on 27 November 1511. Bembo, Prose, book 1, sections 8–11, Dionisotti, 89–105. Ibid., 90n3. Calmeta, the nom de plume of Vincenzo Collo, was a Lombard who served in the various Italian courts and on the staff of Cesare Borgia. He spent some time in Urbino when both Castiglione and Bembo were there. He died about

Notes to pages 225–7

56

57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66

463

1508. His book about language has been lost, Dionisotti, Prose 106n1. For more biographical details about Calmeta and his relationship with Bembo see Grayson, introduction to Vincenzo Calmeta,. See also Bembo’s letter to his brother asking him to receive Calmeta hospitably in Venice, T I, 250. Calmeta’s only intervention in book I is to say that it is time for bed, Castiglione, Courtier, 104. In book II, as one familiar with many courts, he talks about how to win the prince’s favour, 129 and how the courtier should behave, 148. Castiglione, Courtier, 72–3, 74. Ibid., 84. See above pp. 161–3, Bembo’s letter to Pico. Ibid., 74. Bembo, Prose, book 1, sections 13–14, 106–10. In his edition of Calmeta Grayson published short pieces found in a manuscript in Saragossa which could have been drafts for Calmeta’s book on language, Prose, Grayson’s introduction, xlii–iii. Calmeta was apparently the first person to write criticism of works in the vulgar tongue, including those of some contemporaries, Ibid., liv. In his essay “Qual stile tra’ volgari poeti sia da imitare,” 20–5, Calmeta establishes a hierarchy of styles, a scale of values in which he includes ancient and modern genres each with its material, tone, and appropriate vocabulary so that a writer can choose a master to imitate. For an amatory subject the guide should be Boccaccio in Filocolo and Fiammetta; for stanze, Morgante, Orlando innamorato; for strambotti sung, Chariteo and Serafino; for serious writing, Dante and Petrarch, Ibid., lvii–iii. Calmeta’s examples include thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Tuscan authors (Dante, Petrarch, Pulci) and fifteenth-century poets from Ferrara (Boiardo), Naples (Chariteo), and the Abruzzi (Serafino), an eclectic lot, all examples of courtly Italian. According to Castelvetro Calmeta reserved to Rome the perfection of literary idiom, Ibid., xxxvii. Castelvetro states that Calmeta knew a little book of Bembo’s, Ibid., liv n94. Was this the notazione della lingua which Bembo refers to in his letter to Maria of 1500 (T I, 106), Ibid., xxxvii–iii? And did Bembo believe that Calmeta had stolen his ideas? See Bembo to Trifon Gabriele of 1 April 1512, T, II, 315, in which he asks Trifon not to divulge the content of Le Prose, which he has sent him for criticism, because he has heard that others are writing on the vulgar tongue and Calmeti are not lacking in every place, cited by Grayson, Ibid., xcvi. Bembo, Prose, book 1, sections 15–17, 111–17. Ibid., sections 18–19, 117–23. Ibid., section 20, 123–5. Ibid., 128–9n1. See Ibid., book 2, sections 1 and 2, 127–32. Ibid., book 2, section 3. Dionisotti, 133n1 points out that this passage is written in the style of Gli Asolani.

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Notes to pages 227–30

67 In Ibid., 136n2, Dionisotti says that Bembo is following the traditional classical rhetorical approach. Cicero quotes Caesar as saying that the choice of words is the origin of eloquence. Both Cicero and Quintilian stress the importance of vocabulary and the positioning of words. 68 Ibid., book 2, sections 4–5, 137–9. 69 Ibid., section 6, Dionisotti, 139–40. Bembo possessed a manuscript of Petrarch with Petrarch’s own revisions. See above, n7. 70 Ibid., sections 7–9, 140–7. 71 Ibid., section 10, 147–51. 72 Ibid., 152n7, 153n8. 73 Ibid., section 11, 151–3. 74 Ibid., sections 12–13, 154–9. 75 Ibid., sections 14–17, 159–69. 76 Ibid., section 18, 169–72. 77 Ibid., section 19, 172–5. 78 Ibid., 176n1 states that this chapter constitutes the earliest critical assessment of Dante and Petrarch. Caesar, in his article on Dante in Hale, Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance, says that Bembo’s criticism of Dante is important because it was the first to ignore the moral and intellectual world of the Comedy and judge the work on aesthetic and rhetorical grounds. 79 Bembo, Prose II, XX, Dionisotti, 175–81. 80 Ibid., section 22, 181–2. 81 Ibid., book 3, section 1, 183–5. 82 Ibid., section 6, 186–94. 83 Ibid., section 7, 194–6. 84 Ibid., section 8, 196–8. 85 Ibid., sections 9–11, 198–203. 86 Ibid., section 12, 203–5. 87 Ibid., sections 13–26, 205–28. 88 Ibid., sections 27–41, 228–51. 89 Ibid., section 42, 251–2. 90 Ibid., sections 43–8, 252–61. 91 Ibid., sections 49–52, 261–6. 92 Ibid., sections 53–5, 266–9. 93 Ibid., sections 56–78, 269–309. 94 Ibid., section 79, 309. 95 Grayson, “The Renaissance in Italy outside Florence,” 63; Grayson, “Lorenzo, Machiavelli and The Italian Language,” 429–30; Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch, 84; Debenedetti, Studi, 24; Belardinelli, Questione, 34, 40; Mazzacurati, La Crisi della Retorica, 70, 71; Braden, “Applied Petrarchism, 399; Bembo, Prose, Marti edition, xiv, xxiii–iv. Sansovino, dedication of Bembo’s letters to his nephew, Gian Matteo Bembo [first published in Venice

Notes to pages 230–4

96 97

98 99

100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110 111 112 113

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in 1562], Le Lettere volgari, 384, wrote that the vulgar tongue was almost interred in ignorance in Bembo’s early days, so much so that it was difficult to understand and know the beauties of Petrarch. But Bembo dug the vulgar tongue out of the shadows, bringing about a rebirth. Vittoria Colonna said that Bembo purified Tuscan and ennobled it with his elegant style, shaming the old writers and rousing envy in the recent ones, Fontana, Palazzi, 127–8. Belardinelli, Questione, 111–12, says that Trissino was the first writer to call the language Italian, to the annoyance of the Tuscans, in a letter to Pope Clement VII in 1524. Mazzacurati, La crisi, 43, 48, 50, 51. Cian, “Bembo postillatore,” vol. 98, 267, 269, 270, 272, 273; vol. 99, 225. Cian, vol 100, 255n1 states that Bembo wrote a philological study at the head of the Decameron. See chapter 10, pp. 270–1. Belardinelli, Questione, 39–40. Migliorini, “La questione della lingua,” 3 quotes the Florentine chancellor Poggio Bracciolini as saying that Tuscan was for the unlearned, for things of no importance. Dionisotti, Umanisti, 128. P. Valeriano, Dialogo sopra le lingue volgari, 182–7. Woodhouse, “Conversazione e Conservazione,” 356–7. Dionisotti, Umanisti, 62–77. Fortunio, Regole grammaticale della volgar lingua. Dionisotti, Umanisti, 23–4. Toffanin, Il Cinquecento, 113, 121n8. Marti in Bembo, Prose, viii quotes Navagero’s dedication of volume 2 of the Aldine edition of Cicero’s letters to Bembo. Here he refers to Bembo’s writings, part of which have been in everybody’s hands for some time now and most highly praised, part of which have got off to an excellent start but have not yet been released. Marti thinks that this refers to the circulation of Le Prose, books 1 and 2, in Venice in the second decade of the sixteenth century. Schileo, Bembo e le sorte della lingua, 57; Liburnio, De vulgari elegantie, book I, part 3, 23r. Partner, Pope’s Men, 43. Woodhouse, Castiglione, 4 says that Charles V kept a copy of The Courtier by his bed along with the Bible. Castiglione, The Courtier, 33–5 introductory letter to Don Michel. Ibid., 70–85. Santoro, Bembo, 41. Griffith, “Matteo Bandello,” 146. In a letter written to Bembo in Padua from Ferrara on 23 February 1531 Ariosto said that he was finishing the revision of Orlando furioso in the light of Bembo’s advice on language and that he would come to Padua to confer with and learn from him,

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115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

128 129 130 131 132 133

Notes to pages 234–7 Ariosto, Lettere, 297–8. Santangelo, Il Petrarchismo del Bembo, 55–6 quotes Ariosto, Orlando furioso XLVI, 15, 2–5 praising Bembo who has lifted our pure and sweet language out of the foul vulgar use and has shown us what it should be with his own example. Ariosto’s musical octaves form part of the new classicism derived from Petrarch through Bembo’s interpretation. Dionisotti, Geografia, 37. Guicciardini, Historia d’Italia, introduction liii: The language of Guicciardini’s history is the illustrious Tuscan according to the canons of Bembo’s reform of 1525. Sabbatino, La “scienza,” 145, 149. Carroll, review of Sabbatino, La “scienza,” 254 states that the manuscript is written on paper, the first half of which has watermarks attested to in Padua between 1527–50, the second half, watermarks found in Treviso in 1548. It appears, then, that the manual was devised by a teacher moving from Padua to Treviso in or after 1548. Marcantonio Flaminio also organized a version of Le Prose for instruction, Sabbatino, Ibid., 146. Flaminio’s manual was published in Bembo’s Opere II (1729), because the publisher considered it to be a useful work. Liburnio, who had published De vulgari elegantie in Venice in 1521 published a new book, Le tre fontane, in Venice in 1526. It was a manual with grammatical and rhetorical notes and a vocabulary drawn from the three great Tuscan writers. It was not derivative from Le Prose, but may have been inspired by Bembo, Sabbatino, Ibid., 98. Marchesi, “Paolo Manuzio,” 240–66. Borsellino and Aurigemma, Il Cinquecento, 138–9. Hall, Questione della lingua, 16. Cox, The Renaissance Dialogue, 22–3, 64. Trissino, Il castellano; Schileo, Bembo, 76–7. Hall, Questione, 17, gives the date as 1530, Cox, Dialogue, 64, as 1542. Logan, Culture and Society, 102. Tolomei, Il Cesano; Cox, Dialogue, 64; Hall, Questione, 18. Griffith, “Bandello,” 143. Ibid., 133–4. Ibid., 143. Sanuto, I Diarii, vols. 4, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19. Bembo, Historiae, Opere I (1729), 57 who mentions a Pietro Bembo shot while exhorting his men in 1495 at the Venetian attack on Monopoli, defended by the French. Marti edition of Bembo, Prose, vi. Toffanin, Il Cinquecento, 107. Ercolano was not published until 1570. Varchi, L’Ercolano. Logan, Culture, 94. See also Dionisotti, Geografia, 138, 140; Tafuri, Venice and the Renaissance, 31; Floriani, I gentiluomini letterati, 93. Grayson, “Renaissance outside Florence,” 63. Dionisotti, Geografia, 32–3.

Notes to pages 238–42

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chapter nine 1 Padua and Bologna were the great universities of the Italian Renaissance and attracted students from all over Europe. See Nardi, “Letteratura e cultura veneziana,” 117; J.B. Ross, “Venetian Schools and Teachers,” 530–1; Bouwsma, Venice, 85. 2 Puppi, “La residenza di Pietro Bembo,” 31, prints and engraving of Palazzo Foscari at the Arena. The building was demolished in the eighteenth century. 3 Ibid., 39. 4 See the following letters to Ramusio, T II, 792, 797, 806. 5 See the following letters to Giovan Matteo Bembo telling him that he could increase his bids by fifty ducats and steadily raising the price Bembo was willing to pay, T II, 802, 805, 807. 6 T II, 806. He describes his silver in T II, 802 of 9 August 1527. Giovan Matteo had written that Vincenzo Michele had wanted to borrow some silver. Bembo lists what he has which may not, however, be available: two basins, two platters, six small plates, six soup bowls, six small bowls, six little dishes for salad, six cups, eighteen under-plates. He also mentions copper pots which must have been valuable. 7 See T II, 825 of 15 October 1527; 830 of 2 November 1527; 856 of 20 March 1528; 859 of 26 March 1528. 8 Puppi, “ La residenza,” 40, thinks that the house took its external shape in the 1490s. Bembo was able to move in in the autumn of 1532. In a letter of 11 October 1532, T III, 1407 he says that Cola is moving his books. In a letter of the following month, dated 30 November 1532, T III, 1437 he asks his nephew Giovan Matteo in Venice to speak to the builder over his charge for the roof, window glass, and removing some soil which was in the house. The builder is threatening Morosina over payment. 9 Puppi, Ibid., 40, quoting Elena Bembo’s marriage contract. 10 Ibid., 41. 11 Ronchi, “La casa di Pietro Bembo a Padova,” 297–8. 12 Bembo, Opere III (1729), index of notable things in the letters, on unnumbered pages after p. 381, mentions the garden as still being there. 13 Ronchi, “La casa,” 296 quotes Cola’s letter to L. Beccadelli of 12 March 1537. 14 Colonna, Carteggio, 309–12, 311n1. 15 Bembo, Prose, ed. Marti, viii and McLaughlin, Literary Imitation, 278. See also Richardson “The Cinquecento,” “Prose,” 183 and Pertile, “Gabriele’s Commentary,” 17. 16 My attempt to translate “Mag.ca mia Commandre.” Old English “gossip” would have been an exact translation, but the modern connotation of the word rules it out, though Morosina and Violante undoubtedly gossiped. 17 An attempt to translate “mio Compadre.”

468 18 19 20 21

22

23 24

25 26

27

28 29 30

Notes to pages 242–51

Travi, “Due nuove lettere della Morosina,” 179. See above pp. 211–12. See above p. 243. Andrea Alciato (1492–1550) was the outstanding Italian jurist of the Renaissance. He analyzed the text of Justinian’s Corpus iuris civilis, using a formidable knowledge of late Roman history and literature and exceptional philological gifts, to discover the original Roman laws, under a thousand-year layer of commentary, and explain their evolution, illustrating the underlying principles and subsequent applications, Hale, Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance. Hale, Ibid., says that Alciato’s Emblemata “went through over 170 editions, was widely translated and pioneered the study and diffusion of emblems in their Renaissance, classicizingly moralistic, form.” Tafuri, “Il problema storiografica,” 25–6, 41. See T III, 1177, 1201, 1245, 1259, 1277, 1319, 1333. The Collegio Spinelli was established by the Neapolitan nobleman, Belforte Spinelli, in 1439 to provide room and board for poor but able students so that they could attend courses at the University of Padua, Giomo, “L’archivio della Università di Padua,” 436. See pp. 262–3. Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553) had studied mathematics and philosophy at Padua, where he was appointed professor of medicine. When his work in Padua was interrupted by war, he returned to his native Verona, where he practised medicine, gaining a Europe-wide reputation, studied philosophy and astronomy and wrote a number of works in Latin verse, including an art of poetry. He ended his life as official doctor to the Council of Trent, Hale, Encyclopedia of the Italian Renaissance. Fracastoro, “Avertimenti di Pietro Bembo,” 35–61. Kristeller, “Humanism,” 129, emphasizes that Bembo was a careful reader of manuscripts, which he annotated. He refers to details in Nolhac’s La Bibliothèque de Fulvio Orsini, 93, 96, 121, 193–4, 314. Fulvio Orsini bought much of Bembo’s library from his son, Torquato. Cian, “Pietro Bembo postillatore,” GSLI, vol. 98, 270–86; vol. 99, 225, 227, 231, 232, 245, 251, 252, 261, 262; vol. 100, 219, 224, 230, 231, 235, 241, 242, 256, prints Bembo’s notes referring to classical literature, the Bible, and medieval authors like the Provençal poets Folquetz de Marseilla and Bernar de Ventadour, Dante, Petrarch, Cavalcanti and his presumed teacher, Ermolao Barbaro. He also comments on metrical structure and the meaning of poems. Fracastoro, “Avertimenti,” 52–3. Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 45v–46r, Fracastoro to Bembo, 25 September 1530. Bembo had a poor opinion of the literary talents of churchmen. In a letter to his friend, Federico Fregoso, archbishop of Salerno, thanking him for sending him two epistles by Padre Don Gregorio, Bembo wrote that no one would

Notes to pages 251–8

31

32

33 34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45

469

imagine that they were written by a monk. Don Gregorio had dispelled his long-held prejudice against monks for their uncouth style, T III, 1318. Garcilaso de la Vega (1501/3–1536) was a nobleman from Toledo who attached himself to the court of Charles V and married one of its ladies. At court he probably met the Venetian and papal envoys, Navagero and Castiglione. He fell under Italian influence and joined the Accademia Pontaniana when he was in Naples with Charles V’s army. He was wounded in the emperor’s expedition against Tunis and died in an engagement against the forces of Francis I in 1536, Perosa and Sparrow, Renaissance Latin Verse, 521. Cian, Cola Bruno, 61–2. Schileo, Le sorte della lingua, 82, states that Bembo had influenced the majority in the Veneto to prefer Tuscan to their own dialect and to Latin. Bembo was regarded as the most cultivated and sweetest writer in Italian. His influence was apparent in official documents. See below pp. 378–80. See above p. 236. Cian, Cola Bruno, 62–3. Travi in his note at the end of the letter assigns it to late 1529. It seems to me that it could equally well have been written in late 1527 or 1528. In the manuscript from which this letter is taken, RVbo, the letter immediately preceding it, on 123r (T II, 785), is dated 9 July 1527. The letter immediately following it, on 124r–125r (T II, 844), is dated 4 January 1528. This could suggest that the intervening letter, on 123r–124r, (T III, 1038), was dated sometime between 9 July 1527 and 4 January 1528, which seems a plausible date. However, the letters in RVbo are, unfortunately, not generally in chronological order. Could this group have been an exception? Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 115. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 474–6. Ibid., 322. In a bull of 3 June 1530 Clement VII had ordered that ecclesiastical benefices belonging to parents who were priests, clerics or monks could not be passed on to offspring born of fornication, not even through a third party. Ferrajoli, Ibid., 322n2 states that Clement had ordered that there could not be any dispensation from this bull and that if he did give a dispensation it must be considered that he did it absent-mindedly and that it was of no value. Ibid., 476–8. T III, 1089, 1093, 1110, 1124, 1132, 1134, 1155, 1179, 1226, 1246. See T III, 1375, 1448, 1495, 1500, 1528, 1534, 1535, 1544, 1546, 1552, 1557, 1566, 1688, 1731, 1736; IV, 1831, 1834, 1881, 1884, 1887, 1893, 1901, 1907. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 318. T III, 1569, 1579, 1584, 1664, 1667, 1671, 1675, 1684. Dionisotti, “Appunti – per la storia del Carminum libellus,” 285.

470

Notes to pages 258–68

46 Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 38r–v, Sannazaro to Bembo, Naples, 4 December 1518 and T II, 406 of 18 October 1520 and III, 1226 of 26 April 531. 47 Dionisotti, “Appunti sul Bembo e su Vittoria Colonna,” 260–1, 266. See T III, 1044, 1226. Much later Vittoria Colonna helped Bembo transfer the commenda, T III, 1803. 48 In T III, 1139, his agent who was attacked is referred to simply as a Roman gentleman. This is obviously Tomarozzo. It is the same attack which is described in these letters. 49 For other letters about Bembo’s debts in relation to Benevento see T III, 1208, 1212, 1216. 50 See above p. 200. 51 Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 333. 52 See above pp. 241–2. 53 See chapter seven, note 78 for Giberti’s background. 54 Greengrass, The European Reformation, 216, 299; Maddison, Flaminio, 73–5. See also Pighi, Gianmatteo Giberti and Cuccoli, Flaminio. 55 Prosperi, Tra evangelismo e contro-riforma, 85, 116–17, 118, 120. 56 Bembo, Rime, Dionisotti ed., CX note.

chapter ten 1 Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime, ed. Dionisotti, 2nd edition (1989), Appendix, 691; Richardson, “The Cinquecento,” 183; Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione,79. 2 For De Aetna see above pp. 11–12; for Virgilii Culice, etc., see above pp. 17–18; for De Urbini ducibus see above pp. 140–1; for De imitatione see above pp. 161–3. De Urbini ducibus was only published after Sadoleto, as one of the speakers, had given his approval. See T III, 1001 and Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 1, 294–6 dated 27 May 1529 (?). Sadoleto wrote that he had read the dialogue very carefully and was delighted with it. It is brilliant, elegant. Nothing more beautiful can be desired, either in the choice of words or the dignity and abundance of the sentiments. This book revives memories of their happy time together. He cannot find anything to correct. 3 The 1520 rime were numbers 1, 29, 31, 33, 37, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 80, 81, 87, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 145, 146, 147, 151, 152 in Dionisotti’s edition cited above. I am relying on Dionisotti for the dates as well as for Petrarchan borrowings. Like the poems written up to 1512, 60 per cent of them are about love, its ups and downs, mostly downs, and his cruel mistress, but in both the early poems and the later ones there were lyrics about specific women which expressed some form of happiness. In the early period it was Lucrezia Borgia, nos. 7, 38, 42, 43, 47, 88, 89, 90, the last three a dream sequence, 22 and 24 about separation from her, and

Notes to pages 268–72

4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23

471

possibly 5 and 6 on her beauty and the necessary restraint. An early lyric, 73, appears to refer to Maria, as do 15, 16, 25, 36, 55. See Dionisotti’s notes. In the Paduan 1520s it was Morosina he wrote about in nos. 69, 100, 102, 111, 112, and probably also 37. It is notable that there were no lyrics written, or at least preserved, from Bembo’s Roman period, 1512–21. Although Bembo pursued his studies of the vulgar tongue in Rome – see above p. 210 – Rome was a Latin city and it was there that Bembo wrote many of his carmina. Dionisotti, “Appunti sul Bembo: Per la storia,” 279. See Bembo’s letter of 18 October 1526 in which he thanks God that Sannazaro has published his Partu and Piscatorie. This will bring our age near the glories of the ancients and the poet will enjoy, in his own lifetime, the same glory, and will hear himself marvellously praised in the whole world, T II, 712. Cian, “Pietro Bembo postillatore,” vol. 98, 255–90; vol. 99, 225–64; vol. 100, 209–63. Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 400. Kennedy, Authorizing Petrarch, 83. Ferrero, Il petrarchismo del Bembo, 7, 13, 15. Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 401. Molmenti, Venezia nella vita privata, vol. 2, 256. Logan, Culture and Society, 101–2. Braden, “Applied Petrarchism,” 402. Ibid., 400. Bembo, Rime, ed. Dionisotti, (1989), 623–4 note. Ibid., 644 note. Ibid., notes to the poems. Ibid., 519 note. Ibid., 535–6 note. See above p. 67. Some of Bembo’s lyrics were set to music which has survived. Haar, “Madrigals,” 396 cites one of Bembo’s set to music by Arcadelt and published in Venice in 1539. There is also a letter of 24 January 1545, from Gualteruzzi in Rome to della Casa in Venice, saying that Bembo wants him to instruct his chapel master not to publish the stanzas under Bembo’s name, but to put them in his own name, as all other musicians have always done and do, entitling the works by the author of the music, and not by the author of the words, Moroni, Corrispondenza, 98. See also T I, 206 in which Bembo says that he is sending the duchess ten sonnets for her to sing. Castiglione wrote a poem about the duchess singing to the lute, Perosa and Sparrow, 195–6. Bembo, Rime, ed. Dionisotti, 572 note. Ibid., 575–6 note. Ibid., 521 and 649 notes. The sonnets addressed to Bembo are printed at the end of the Rime in Serassi’s edition of 1745 together with the first verse of Bembo’s replies.

472

Notes to pages 273–6

24 Bembo, Rime, ed. Dionisotti, 559 note, gives the date and makes the Gambara suggestion. 25 Quoted in Bembo, Rime (1552), 47r–v. 26 See above p. 56. 27 Quoted in Bembo, Rime (1552), 48r and in (1745), 141. 28 Colonna, Carteggio, 62–3. 29 This must be the medal by Valerio Belli, see pp. 275, 391. 30 Bembo, Rime, ed. Dionisotti, Appendix, 692. For Ugolino Martelli’s lectures on the Rime in the Accademia degli Infiammati see Ibid., Rime CXXXI note. 31 Though Bembo did not send Benacus to a printer he did circulate it in manuscript among friends. See his letter of 18 July 1525 to Romulo Amaseo in Bologna, T II, 530. 32 Bembo wrote another much longer poem in Vergilian hexameters about Lake Garda and its rivers which he never published. It was discovered in Vienna, in a manuscript of unquestionable authenticity, and published by Angelo Mai in Rome in 1842. It is included in the Appendix to the 1990 RES edition of Bembo’s Carmina. Sarca, 495 verses against the 195 of Benacus, tells how Lake Garda was formed by the union of Sarca, a river in the Tridentine Alps, with Garda, then a small stream. Bembo describes the wedding festivities attended by the gods and rivers. Manto prophesies that Garda will have a son, Mincius, on whose banks Vergil will be born. He will be buried in Naples, where he will inspire a new line of poets, first Statius, later Pontano and Sannazaro, whose works are praised. Since Bembo refers to Sannazaro’s Piscatory Eclogues and Partu (Sarca, v. 480) Sarca must have been completed after 1526 when they were published. Bembo does not suggest, in his letter of 18 October 1526, (T II, 712), celebrating the publication of these poems, that he had seen them in ms before they were published. 33 Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 53, 568 for 26 September 1530. Sanuto noted that Bembo would take no money for writing the history, asking only for a rented house in Venice at sixty ducats per annum, while Navagero had taken 3000 ducats and had written nothing. This seems to have impressed Sanuto so much that he repeated it twice the following year in I Diarii, vol. 54, 186 and 596. See Castellani, “Bembo bibliotecario,” 864. The offer to Bembo was made at this date although the podestà of Padua had informed the Senate on 11 September 1530 that Bembo had been poisoned, Sanuto, Ibid., 548. Was it making haste to honour a man whose life was in danger? As the official historian and librarian he was certainly honoured henceforth in Venice. 34 Castellani, Ibid., 863, 865, Sanuto, Ibid., vol. 54, 186 for 10 April 1531. 35 Castellani, Ibid., 862–3. 36 Epistolae (Basle, 1521), quoted by Castellani, in Ibid., 862. For the fate of Petrarch’s books, many of which ended up in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Pavia Collection having been carried off by Louis XII, see Elisabeth

Notes to pages 277–84

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

473

Pellegrin, La Bibliothèque des Visconti et des Sforza Ducs de Milan, au XVe siècle, 6, 9. Tafuri, “Renovatio urbis,” 53n98 quoting Sanuto. Ibid., 34–5. Castellani, “Bembo bibliotecario,” 872. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 54, 189, 190. Sansovino, Venetia, 112v. Castellani, “Bembo bibliotecario,” 865n2. Ibid., 868. Ibid., 865–6. Ibid., 865. Bembo got this book just in time. Leonico died that year and Bembo wrote a commemorative sonnet. Sansovino, Venetia, 113r. For another nostalgic letter to Sadoleto about old times see T III, 1489 of 25 April 1533. Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 2, 48–51. See pp. 282, 288, 322, 333, 362, 474n97. T II, 677, 691, 907; III, 1250, 1254, 1345. T III, 1103, 1542. T III, 1264. T II, 766, III, 966, 1292, 1296. T III, 974. T III, 1247. T III, 1476, 1477. T III, 1126. T III, 1484. T II, 677, III, 997, 1307. T II, 760. T III, 1626, 1682. T III, 1329, 1348. T III, 1394. T II, 775. T II, 809. See above, pp. 138, 139. T II, 472. T II, 837, 914. T II, 847. T III, 1331. T III, 1444. T III, 963. T III, 1082. T III, 1317. T III, 1325. T III, 1663.

474 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

98 99

Notes to pages 284–99

T III, 1394. T III 1624. T III, 1209. T II, 817. T III, 1265, 1307. Manna Calabrese: Manna is described in the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana as a sweet plant secretion, but the Calabrese variety is not mentioned, although the dictionary quotes Bembo here. Masticina is a bitter essence extracted from mastice di lentischio. Lentischio is an evergreen shrub of the family Anacardiacee found in Mediterranean scrub and common in Puglia. Again Bembo is quoted. T II, 817, III, 966, 980, 1127, 1285, 1318. T II, 498. T II, 810, III, 1157, 1616. T III, 1175, 1265, 1319. T III, 707. T III, 1057, 1117, 1251, 1265, 1307, 1318, 1394. T III, 1251. T III, 1099. T III, 1252. T III, 1175. T III, 1339. T III, 1183. T III, 1265, 1319. T III, 1013. T III, 1307. The following letters covering the period from 8 October 1526 to 25 March 1541 refer to the litigation with the Loredani over the water supply for Bembo’s mill: T II, 708; III, 1020, 1021, 1046, 1130, 1255, 1290, 1293, 1294, 1295, 1297, 1302, 1459, 1472, 1476, 1480, 1483, 1504, 1516, 1519, 1531, 1541; IV, 2156, 2207, 2238. Straparola, Le piacevole notti; Elwert, “Pietro Bembo,” 136. Bembo, Opere (1729), vol. 4, 215, Morosina’s epitaph in San Bartolommeo in Padua.

chapter eleven 1 Sansovino, Delle lettere a Mons. Pietro Bembo, 29r–30r. 2 Ibid., 30r–31v. 3 In T III, 1898 of 8 November 1537 Bembo sent Gualteruzzi a procuration to allow him to renounce, on his behalf, a benefice in Monselese in favour of the children’s tutor, who was not named in the letter. 4 Benedetto Lampridio, c.1500–1540, was born in Cremona, studied in Rome

Notes to pages 299–302

5

6 7 8

9 10

475

with Paolo Cortese under John Lascaris and taught at the Collegio dei Greci founded by Leo X. He perhaps helped in the publication of the first Greek book in Rome, Callierges’ edition of Pindar. In 1521 Lampridio moved to Padua and set up a school where he taught Latin and Greek and became one of Bembo’s circle. In 1536 he was summoned to Mantua by Federico Gonzaga to tutor his son and it was there that Bembo sent Torquato the following year. Lampridio adapted the triadic Pindaric ode to Latin, daringly experimenting with Latin metres. Unfortunately his metric inventiveness was not matched by a like fertility of mind so that his odes tended to be a patchwork of Horatian ideas and phrases, Maddison, Apollo and The Nine, 105–9. See also Perosa and Sparrow, Renaissance Latin Verse, 298–300. Her tutor was Iacomo Alciato (T IV, 2166), not Iacomo Rosso who is described as the children’s tutor in Travi’s index to vol. IV. There is no evidence whatsoever in Bembo’s letters that Rosso was ever the children’s tutor, though he was academically qualified to teach, IV, 1923 and apparently did teach on some occasion, IV, 2170. He appears to have been a relative, who was closely associated with Bembo’s aunt, Madonna Cecilia, who made him her universal heir, IV, 2170. It was rumoured that he had poisoned her and Bembo believed that this was possibly true, but did not support any investigation for family reasons, IV, 2381. Rosso helped Bembo in connection with the litigation over water for his mills, IV, 2132 and about the renting of the villa and the house in Padua when Bembo went to Rome as cardinal and Elena was sent to a convent. This would free Cola to go to Rome, IV, 2193. Rosso had also acted as middleman for Bembo in his attempt to increase the size of his villa by the purchase of additional fields, but Rosso kept the money and Bembo had to pay twice, IV, 2381. Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 31r. Elena wrote in Latin. Ibid., 30v. The plaque on Bembo’s Paduan house, now 59 via Altinate, the museum of the Italian third army, says that Benvenuto Cellini made Bembo’s portrait there in April 1536. Cellini, Autobiography, 92–4. For Bembo’s beard see Titian’s portrait of the new cardinal in 1539, p. 320. Cellini’s medal, p. 302, was also supposedly completed in 1539. Cellini calls Bembo cardinal and portrays him in ecclesiastical garb, not in the simple robe of the Knights of St John which he would have been wearing when Cellini visited him. He also gives him a long beard which he obviously did not have at the time. The resemblance of this portrait to Cattaneo’s bust of Bembo in the basilica of Sant’ Antonio in Padua (see the illustration p. 384) has led some scholars to attribute the medal to Cattaneo. See Rizzoli, “Una medaglia del Bembo,” 279; Attwood, Italian Medals, vol. 1, 168–9. The long beard and ecclesiastical garb also appear in engravings of Titian’s last and lost portrait of Bembo in his seventy-seventh year. There is a version of this portrait by Enea

476

11

12 13

14 15

Notes to pages 302–5

Vico in the British Museum and another by Bonasone in the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. There certainly was a Cellini medal. It is mentioned in a letter to Bembo of 26 March 1546, Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 52r–53v. Does this indicate when Cellini finally fulfilled his obligation to Bembo? Was it completed in the mid-1540s at about the same time as Titian’s last portrait when Bembo had grown a long beard, not when Bembo was newly appointed cardinal? If the medal was completed in 1539 Cellini was remarkably prescient with his fictitious beard. Cattaneo was not much known as a medallist. See also pp. 371–2. By her sister’s will Morosina had received half ownership of a house in the via Alessandrina in the Borgo near the Vatican. On 1 November 1536 Bembo asked Gualteruzzi to rent the house in the names of Torquato and Elena, not that he wants the modest rent, but to establish their ownership. He should “give the rent money, for Morosina’s soul, to that good lady, but quietly, so that no one but she knows it, so that the poor lady may make use of it as she wishes,” T III, 1803. There are several other references, in Bembo’s letters to Gualteruzzi after Morosina’s death, to a mysterious poor woman who seems to have had some connection with Morosina. On 10 February 1536 Bembo wrote, “If you have any money please give ten scudi to that poor woman who has lost her little girl and do not let her people know about it,” T III, 1748. He wrote again on 19 March 1536, “To yours of the 12th I reply that if you love that good lady to whom you gave the ten scudi and like to see her, this pleases me. And be assured that your judgment is not deceiving you. I have always loved her,” T III, 1754. And again, on 26 July 1536, “Of that good lady who wants to go to Ascesi for the soul of her parent, I am pleased, and you should give her what is needed to have a mass said,” T III, 1769. Finally, on 23 November 1536, the lady who is to receive the rent from the house is called Monna Tessa, T III, 1806. After that we hear no more about her. Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 257. T III, 1732 of 11 December 1535; III, 1736 of 29 December 1535; III, 1825 of 3 February 1537; IV, 1828 of 18 February 1537; IV, 1829 of 22 February 1537; IV, 1834 of 3 April 1537; 1842 of 20 May 1537; IV, 1895 of 24 October 1537; IV, 1897 of 30 October 1537; IV, 1901 of 13 November 1536; IV, 1913 of 29 January 1538. Bembo wrote to both of them at times as to schoolboys. See especially IV, 2497 of 27 September 1545, to Ranuccio Farnese, now sixteen years of age, archbishop of Naples and cardinal, and IV, 2557 of 20 September 1546. T IV, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, all of November 1538. See T III, 1664, 1667, 1671, 1675, 1684, 1731, 1736, 1757, 1782, 1783, 1785, 1787. Torquato ended up with the abbey of Villanova which he gave, in 1562, to the Olivetans, the white-robed Benedictines who are still there today.

Notes to pages 305–7

477

16 For a proposed swop involving Torquato’s interest in the priory of Venice and Clement VII’s ambitions for his family see T III, 1584. 17 For Venice see T III, 1732; IV, 1828, 1829, 1847, 1848, 1862. Torquato’s net income from Venice was 250 ducats, Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 323. 18 For Brescia (Cogniolo, Corniolo) see T III, 1732, 1765; IV, 1828, 1829, 1842, 1848, 1849, 1851, 1875, 1886, 1893. 19 For Bologna see T III, 1732, 1765; IV, 1828, 1829, 1842, 1848, 1849, 1851, 1875, 1886, 1893. Paul III wanted Ranuccio to have Bologna, Ferrajoli, Ruoli, 322. When Bembo finally renounced the commenda of Bologna on 5 July 1537 he reserved to himself the title, administration, income and the right of regression. 20 Shaw, Julius II, 285. 21 Jedin, “Gasparo Contarini,” 110. 22 See Massa, L’eremo, 24. See also Giustiniani, Trattati, 2 vols.; Martin, “Spiritual journeys,” 363–4. For an entertaining account of the experiences of the two Venetian patricians, Giustiniani and Quirini, in trying to become monks see Bowd, “How to be a Renaissance Hermit,” 8–17. 23 Fragnito, “Cultura umanistica e riforma,” 116 and n175. See also 118. 24 See above, p. 185. 25 Marc-Bonnet, Les papes, 116. See Paschini, Tre ricerche, “Le compagnie del Divino Amore,” 3–88. Fragnito, “Cultura umanistica,” 95–7 believes that Quirini had no genuine vocation like Giustiniani, that he, a former Venetian ambassador, was seduced by the grandeur of Rome and was, therefore, merely exploiting his friendship with Bembo who could provide a room in the Vatican palace near the pope. Quirini did, however, bring into Bembo’s lodgings, for a three month stay, a follower of Savonarolo from Florence, Francesco da Meleto, who prophesied that 1517 would be the year of the renovation of the Catholic church, which would be completed, in 1536, with the conversion of the Jews and the Muslims. Ironically 1517 was Luther’s year. Meleto was condemned in Florence in 1517, his writings were burnt and he was forced to compose an apology, Garin, La cultura filosofica, 219–20; Minnich, “Prophecy,” Prophetic Rome in the High Renaissance, 76. 26 Cantimori, Umanesimo e religione, 522. 27 Fragnito, “Cultura umanistica,” 80. This book was published posthumously in Paris in 1571 and dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It was approved by the Theological Faculty of Paris but the Inquisition in Rome forbade its diffusion until it was revised and corrected so that it would agree with the rulings of the Council of Trent, despite the fact that it had already been revised by the French theologians, Fragnito, 76–9. 28 Jedin, “Contarini,” 117. 29 See below pp. 349, 350. 30 Schenk, Reginald Pole, 49–50. 31 Fragnito, “Cultura umanistica,” 175. Reynolds, Renaissance Humanism, 279.

478

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Notes to pages 307–11

In 1518 Leo X warned Pomponazzi to bring his teaching into line with the fifth Lateran Council’s decree on immortality. Further proceedings against Pomponazzi were forestalled by Bembo’s intervention and Pomponazzi died in 1525. Gleason, Gasparo Contarini, 29, 31. Jedin, “Contarini,” 114, 117. Massa, L’eremo, 16. Jedin, Ibid., 117. The signatories of the report were Contarini, Caraffa, Sadoleto, Pole, Giberti, Fregoso, Girolamo Aleandro, Gregorio Cortese, Ibid., 118. Hallman, Italian Cardinals, 2, 20, 34 (regressus and accessus), 122 (nepotism), 125 (legitimizations). Ibid., 39, 41. Ibid., 24. For Pontano and Egidio see Kidwell, Pontano, 295–8. Maddison, Flaminio, 105–7. Jung, “On the Nature of Evangelism,” 523. Bembo, Epistolarum Leonis Decimi, 432–4. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 152. Pastore, Flaminio fortune e sfortune, 36 and n2, the letters of 23 October 1521 and 3 March 1522. Cantimori, Eretici, 3. M Girolamo was a doctor in Gubbio who lent Bembo money, then wanted it back for his daughter’s wedding in February 1531, T III, 1203. He became Paul III’s physician in 1536, T III, 1792. Lazzaro Buonamico da Bassano was Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Padua, T III, 1676. He lodged in Pole’s house in Padua, Schenk, Pole, 34. Sadoleto found meanings that had been neglected, but his comments on the commentators on St Paul emphasize style. He had no religious passion, Cantimori, Eretici, 15. Flaminio, Lettere, 20–1. Maddison, Flaminio, 94–5. Ibid., 142–6. A single copy of the Beneficio was found in 1855 in St John’s library, Cambridge. Ibid., 201–2. Pastore, Flaminio, 92. Fenlon, Heresy and Obedience, 26–7. Maddison, Flaminio, 27. Schenk, Pole, 89–90; Fenlon, Heresy, 72. Schenk, Pole, 90. Colonna, Carteggio, 187. Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano, 15n65. Schenk, Pole, 103–4; Partner, Rome, 221; Coffin, Gardens, 237. Paschini, Un amico del Cardinal Polo, 134. See T IV, 2354 and 2436. See above pp. 273–4.

Notes to pages 311–15

479

62 Fenlon, Heresy, 72. For Valdes’s circle in Naples see Maddison, Flaminio, 107–12 and Lopez, Il movimento Valdesiano. 63 Partner, Rome, 218–19. Michelangelo wrote sonnets for her about his art and love of God. 64 She was in Rome in 1538–41 and in 1544–47. See her 1540 letter to Marguerite d’Angoulême, Simoncelli, “Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 3 and Colonna, Carteggio, 187. 65 Simoncelli, “Bembo e evangelismo,” 4. 66 Maddison, Flaminio 137–8. 67 Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda, segretario del Bembo,” 34. 68 Maddison, Flaminio 38–9. 69 Ibid., 197–8. 70 Colonna, Carteggio, 191–3. This letter was published in Venice in 1544 in Paolo Manuzio’s collection Lettere volgari di diversi nobilissimi huomini, vol. 1, 100. 71 Paschini, Amico del Polo: Priuli, 3. For Carnesecchi and the Pole-Flaminio circle see Manzoni, Estratto del processo di Pietro Carnesecchi and Maddison, Flaminio 107, 108, 110, 111, 116, 121, 122–3, 140, 142, 146, 186, 202, 205. 72 Maddison, Ibid., 139, 203; Perosa and Sparrow, Renaissance Latin Verse, 309. 73 Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda,” 26. See also De Frede, “Un calabrese (Apollonio Merenda),” 193–203 and Moro, “A proposito di antologie epistolari,” 84–5 and 86–9. 74 Simoncelli, “Bembo e evangelismo,” 8, 14. 75 Ibid.,11–12. 76 Ibid., 13. Colonna’s Rime Spirituali were published four times between 1538–44. 77 Simoncelli, “ Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 15–16. Flaminio’s letter of 24 November 1541 to Gualteruzzi is printed in the Appendix, 51. 78 Ibid., 15. For the letter see Gualteruzzi, Lettere Inedite, 44. 79 Simoncelli, “Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 3. Colonna, Carteggio, 187. In 1540 Bembo writes that the Signora Marchese di Pescara [Vittoria Colonna] is here in Rome, truly a saintly and very talented and most courteous lady and of an elevated and eminent mind, T IV, 2152. 80 Bowd, in “Pietro Bembo and the ‘monster’ of Bologna,” 40–54, argues that Bembo’s letters of 1506–13 indicate spiritual concerns. I am not convinced. I believe that Bembo’s only concerns then were his love life and his financial insecurity. However, it is true that a rumour had spread through Venice that he was going to become a monk when he went to Fonte Avellana, T II, 311. 81 Paschini, Cinquecento romano, 258–9. Stanze had been published with Rime in 1530, 1535, 1540, 1544, 1548, 1553, 1557, 1562.

480

Notes to pages 315–23

82 Niccoli, Prophecy, 89. Baura slipped out of Venice and his book was published in Ferrara, Ibid., 90. 83 Antonovics, “Counter-Revolution Cardinals,” 302. 84 Dionisotti, “Appunti sul Bembo e su Vittoria Colonna,” 273. 85 Ibid., 271. 86 Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 2, 446–8. 87 Eubel, Hierarchia Catholica, vol. 3, 28 and notes 13, 14, 15. 88 Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 3, 58–60. 89 Capasso, “La elezione de M. Pietro Bembo al cardinalato,” 234. 90 Ibid., 233. 91 Ibid., 238–9. 92 Ibid., 242. 93 Pulsoni, “Luigi da Porto e Pietro Bembo,” 351. 94 When he reread his first letter to the pope he was not pleased with it. With all the people milling about he had not been able to give it the diligence needed, T IV, 2040. He wrote a second one but, in the distractions of the time, Cola had mutilated it and he was so tired writing so many letters that he had not noticed that some things were transposed. On 9 April 1539 he therefore sent a third version to Gualteruzzi, asking him to substitute it in the record, T IV, 2055. That is presumably the letter which we have now as T IV, 2029. 95 For the letters from the duchess of Mantua, the duchess of Urbino, Girolamo Fracastoro, Giambattista Giraldi see Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 18v; 20r–v; 46r–v; 56r–57v; for Paolo Giovio and Francesco Guicciardini, see Zucchi, Segretario, vol. 2, 63, 77–8; for Pole see his Epistolae, vol. 2, 204–5. 96 T IV, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2031, 2032, 2033, 2039, 2043, 2044, 2045, 2046, 2047, 2048, 2049, 2050, 2051, 2052, 2053, 2054, 2056, 2057, 2058, 2059, 2061, 2065, 2066, 2068, 2069, 2072, 2074, 2079, 2082, 2083, 2084, 2087, 2090, 2108, 2109. 97 Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 3, 98–100 writing to Cardinal Farnese. 98 Aretino, Lettere, 543–5. 99 Dittrich, Regesten und Briefe, 113; Simoncelli, “Bembo e evangelismo,” 5–6. 100 Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 31v.

chapter twelve 1 For Gian Matteo’s appointments see T IV, 1817,1883, 1936, 1940, 1941, 1949, 2006, 2149. 2 He probably had stratioti (stradiots, Greek or Albanian light cavalry) with him, as was customary in the Venetian colonies, and they were usually paid by the number of heads they brought back from the battlefield, Kidwell, Marullus, 42.

Notes to pages 324–6

481

3 See T III, 1125 of 19 July 1530 in which he tells Soranzo that he was thinking of passing off his recent sonnets as juvenilia If people thought that he had written them at the age of sixty they would laugh lewdly. 4 See Bembo, ed. Dionisotti, footnote to Rime CLXIII. 5 Ibid., footnote to Rime CXVI. 6 Moroni, Corrispondenza, 224n3. This must have occurred sometime between 6 June 1537, when Bembo sent his greetings to Piero Massolo in his letter to his mother, Lisabetta Quirina, T IV, 1846, and 25 June 1538, when he wrote to Gregorio Cortese, abbot of San Benedetto near Mantua, asking him, on behalf of Lorenzo Massolo and Lisabetta Quirina, to allow their only son, Don Lorenzo, to continue his literary studies as far as possible. Bembo supports their request, T IV, 1937. 7 Moroni, Correspondenza, 20–1n7. 8 See T IV, 1847 advising her that the medal that she wanted was over-priced and not very good. He could happily do without it. See also the conclusion of the letter quoted, T IV, 1846. 9 In Bembo, Rime 133 note, Dionisotti points out that della Casa borrowed this conceit from Bembo in one of his sonnets in praise of Lisabetta, though the Judgment of Paris was commonplace and used by Ariosto, among others. 10 This sonnet is discussed in the previously mentioned letter to Anselmi about Beccadelli and Gualteruzzi sharing Bembo’s bed, T IV, 1943. As Bembo’s scribe Anselmi had shown Lisabetta the first version of this sonnet in which Bembo had referred to the three nude goddesses and Lisabetta being presented to Paris as a choice. Lisabetta did not like the implication that she too was nude or that she was a goddess. This letter 15 of July 1538 gives the sonnet its date. 11 Tiziano, Lettere, 73, letter of October 1543. 12 Della Casa, Prose e Poesie, 201–2, sonnet 32 on Titian’s painting; 203–4, sonnet 37 on the parrot. Sonnet 39 is also about the bird. 13 Bembo calls himself now not a sight to delight the eye as she is. If one assumes that he must have sent a contemporary portrait it must have been Titian’s painting of the new cardinal, if it were finished by that date. The fact that Titian sent him a second portrait in 1540 (T IV, 2191) could support this view. He had given away the first one and needed to have one himself. However, would he have asked Lisabetta who, now that he was cardinal, refused to see him, to lavish caresses on his image as cardinal? It seems unlikely. Titian’s portrait does not look kissable. Therefore I believe he must have sent the Belli medal of which he had several copies. This shows him younger and cleanshaven, a fine figure of a man, semi-nude, by a stream. That would be caressable. 14 During the reign of Leo X Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio was twice legate to the Emperor Maximilian, then, in 1518–19, legate to Henry VIII. Henry VIII gave him a magnificent villa which he had bought for the English ambassador

482

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39

Notes to pages 327–30

in Rome. Now known as Villa Torlonia, it was built by Bramante on the right bank of the Tiber on the road leading to St Peter’s. Henry also gave Campeggio 6000 gold pieces to do it up, ten fine horses and forty gold and silver vases, Sigonio, Vita Laurentii Campegii, 35–6, 41, 46; Cardinal, Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, 66, 75n55. But Campeggio also had a house in the Vatican palace where he preferred to live, Chambers, “The economic predicament of Renaissance cardinals,” 292n15. This gave him special access to the pope as a palatinate cardinal. Cardinal Campeggio had died on 18 July 1539. Bembo’s letter to Cardinal Farnese was dated 29 July 1539. As usual Bembo was quick to spot an opportunity. Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 3, 126. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, vol. 3, 28. Ibid. Mariano, Itinerarium urbis Romae, 204–5 and 205note. Armellini, Le chiese di Roma, vol. 1, 221; Huelsen, Le chiese, 245–6; Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, vol. 3, 70n10. Infessura, Diarii della città di Roma, 269. Chambers, “The economic predicament,” 303; Hallman, Italian Cardinals, 16; Partner, Rome, 134; Partner, Pope’s Men, 36, about 1458. Chambers, Ibid., 304. Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 53, 568 for 26 September 1530. T III, 1712, 1713, 1775, 1779, 1782, 1785, 1787; IV, 1886. Chambers, “The economic predicament,” 305–7. Ibid., 289. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 29; Partner, Rome, 134. Stinger, Ibid., 28. Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 230–1, 233, 236. Everyman Guides, Rome, 249. Ibid., 378. Ibid., 244–5. Chambers, “The economic predicament,” 293. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 29, says that the households numbered up to 200. Rodocanachi, Léon X, gives a figure of 100 to 300 at the time of Leo X. D’Amico, Humanism in Papal Rome, 42, 47. For a discussion of Cortese’s De cardinalatu see, D’Amico, Ibid., 49–53 and 227–40. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 29. Partner, Rome, 96. Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 344–5. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 172–4, 180–1. This letter addressed to Gualteruzzi about Dr Superchio’s son is interesting for the picture it gives of a well-born, well-educated young clergyman who was trying to make his way in Vatican circles; Bembo would love to please his father, but he knows the son from his student days in Padua. He is so corrupt,

Notes to pages 330–3

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48

483

wicked, and empty-headed, and did so many mad things in Venice that he would rather have the devil in his household than him. He is presumptuous, evil-tongued, and scandalous. He would destroy the harmony of the household. But possibly he has changed. He asks Gualteruzzi to find out how the young man has behaved in Campeggio’s household, T IV, 2092. Bembo later recommended him to Rodolfo Pio, legate of the Marches, because young Superchio had benefices in Pesaro, T IV, 2135. There is no indication that Bembo had received a good report on him. Bembo may be passing a headache on to someone else in order to please his old friend, Valerio Superchio. Cortese, De cardinalatu. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 48. De Grassis, De ceremoniis cardinalium. Partner, Pope’s Men, 21. Hallman, Italian Cardinals, 4. Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 46. Ferrajoli in Società romana di storia patria, 357–8. Pasquino was the remnant of a classical statue discovered in 1501 during renovations of Cardinal Oliviero Caraffa’s palace near Piazza Navona. The cardinal ordered it to be placed on a pedestal by the palace, next to the place where a portable altar was set up for processions connected with the Feast of St Mark (25 April which was also the official birthday of Rome). The custom developed of dressing the statue in costume alluding to contemporary events. In 1513 it was dressed as Apollo to salute the election of Leo X. Anonymous epigrams and poems were attached to the statue or adjoining wall, frequently satirising the pope and his policies, Stinger, Ibid., 50. See also Gnoli, Roma, 300–29. Bembo was consecrated priest on Christmas day 1539, Simoncelli, “Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 31n1. Federico Fregoso, of the sometime ruling family of Genoa, had been made archbishop of Salerno in 1507 at the request of Duke Guidubaldo of Urbino. In 1508 he had become administrator of the diocese of Gubbio. In 1513, when his brother Ottaviano had been restored to the dogeship of Genoa, Federico had taken charge of the navy and had defeated Cortagli, a famous Barbary corsair. He was therefore made general of the papal galleys. When Genoa was conquered by the Germans in 1522 Federico fled on a French ship and was made abbot of San Benigno in Dijon. In 1533 Federico returned to Gubbio, renounced Salerno and received, in return, the rich abbey of Santa Croce at Fonte Avellana. In Gubbio he dedicated himself to pastoral care. He was called Father of the Poor and the Refuge of the Unfortunate. As the reform movement in the Church gathered pace Paul III appointed Fregoso, who was now regarded as a model bishop, to the Reform Commission of 1535–37 and produced a devastating report on the condition of the Church. Then Fregoso returned to Gubbio, only to be appointed cardinal priest at the end of 1539. He refused the appointment at first, but was

484

49

50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60

61

62

Notes to pages 334–7

ordered by the pope to accept, Cardella, Memorie storiche de’ cardinali IV, 216–19. I believe that this must refer to one of Titian’s almost identical portraits of Bembo as a newly appointed cardinal with a short beard, either the one in Washington or the one in Naples. Perhaps Titian made the second painting, more or less a copy of the first one, as a gift to Bembo if Bembo had given the first one to Elisabetta and a cardinal should have a portrait (see note 13). I believe, because of the date, that this cannot refer to Titian’s last, much copied painting of Bembo with a long beard. This painting has been lost. In May 1541, after the first reports had been received from Regensburg, Bembo wrote the Votum de rebus Germanicis, apparently at Paul III’s request, Simoncelli, “Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 27–8. For the full text see Ibid., 52–3. Gleason, Gasparo Contareni, 129–37. See pp. 307–8. Matheson, Contarini at Regensburg, 15, 37, 39. Ibid., 63. Ibid., 79–80. Schenk, Pole, 101–2. Pole was apparently in Rome with Contarini throughout 1540. Bembo wrote to Sadoleto on 3 December1539 that Pole had returned to the city yesterday – he had been with Sadoleto in Carpentras – and that they had dined with Contarini, T IV, 2140. Sadoleto also refers to Pole as being in Rome in January and April 1540, Simoncelli, “Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 5n19. Then, on 30 January 1541, Sadoleto wrote to Contarini in Rome sending him his thoughts on the Church, the sacraments and Luther to discuss with Fregoso, Bembo, Pole and Rodolfo Pio whom he calls like-thinking brothers, Epistolae, vol. 3, 252–4. Matheson, Contarini, 7. Simoncelli, “Bembo e l’evangelismo,” 21n9. As he indicates in his notes Travi changed the original date of this letter to 1539, and the place from which it was written from Rome to Padua, because Bembo starts out by thanking Sabino for his congratulations on his cardinalate. Travi believes that Sabino would not have waited two years to congratulate Bembo and that Bembo would not have waited two years to reply to his congratulations. Therefore the letter must have been written in the year of Bembo’s appointment and from Padua where he was at the time. However, Travi ignores the fact that the main body of the letter is about the Diet of Ratisbon (Regensburg), which took place in 1541, and May 1541 was the time of optimism for those who wanted to preserve the unity of Christianity. Matheson, Contarini, 107–9; Schenk, Pole, 101–2. However Calvin found that the Catholics had committed themselves to the essentials of our true teaching, Matheson, Ibid., 109. Matheson, Contarini, 151.

Notes to pages 337–46

485

63 Ibid., 102, 134, 136–8. 64 See Contarini’s letter to Bembo of 4 July 1541, Dittrich, Regesten und Briefe, 344: He is heartbroken. He finds only a spirit of emulation and discord. For a sensitive analysis of Contarini’s position see Martin, “Spiritual journeys,” 363–4. 65 Gleason, Contarini, 251. See Bembo’s letters, T IV, 2189, 2258, 2259, 2264. 66 Vittoria Colonna was with Pole in Capranica, Gualteruzzi, Lettere Inedite, 39–40. Contarini wrote to Bembo from Regensburg on 28 June 1541 regretting that Pole was not in Rome at that time. There could not be a worse time for him to be absent. He would have urged him to return if he had not been worried about his health, Dittrich, Regesten und Briefe, 341. 67 See also T IV, 2272, 2273, 2274, 2279, 2281, 2283, 2285, 2289, 2290 on the division of Fregoso’s spoils. 68 See also T IV, 2215, 2227, 2245, 2252, 2282, 2296, and later, 2355, 2356, 2435, 2451, 2499, 2507, 2510, 2511, 2546. 69 Bembo’s letter to Girolamo Quirini of 1 December 1540 illustrates attitudes at the highest level. He wrote that he had proposed in Consistory that the Calamonense or Rotemense church be given to Cardinal Gambara to administer until his nephew, Vincenzo, is of age to become bishop … This was passed unanimously … Girolamo should see to it that his nephew studies well to be worthy of office, T IV, 2217. However, in a later letter, of 28 December 1540, to his nephew Gian Matteo, Bembo explained that a benefice swop was not possible. Gian Matteo had asked that the deanship of the church at Cividale, which had been destined for his son Marc Antonio should be transferred to another son Perino. Bembo wrote, “Perino is such a little boy, and now such extravagant things are not done as were previously.” However, he has another scheme, T IV, 2227. Later he agreed to try to have benefices transferred to Perino “although he is such a child,” T IV, 2451. Another letter shows how the clergy still watched like vultures over their ailing colleagues. Writing to Gian Matteo again, on 20 May 1541, Bembo explained that he was not neglecting Marc Antonio. Cola had told him that a canon of Padua was on his deathbed and had benefices worth 800 ducats. Bembo asked the pope for them and he said that he would reserve them for him. He had thought of giving one worth 130 ducats to Marc Antonio, but the next courier brought the news that the canon had recovered. Then Bembo adds that Marc Antonio should have the first tonsure. Was he still under seven years of age?! In the same letter Bembo asked for the ages of the children he was being asked to provide for, T IV, 2245. It was not until the Council of Trent was called that the pope finally put his foot down on the inheritance of benefices, T IV, 2468. 70 See Travi I, LIV, n83 for source. 71 Greengrass, The European Reformation, 200; Maddison, Flaminio, 139–40. 72 See Gualteruzzi, Lettere, 47–50, 51–2, 53–4, 55–7, 59–60, 61–3, 65–7, letters of June 1543 from Gualteruzzi in Parma to Bembo in Bologna.

486

Notes to pages 346–59

73 Castellani, “Pietro Bembo bibliotecario,” 875; Morelli, Della libreria di San Marco, 134–5. 74 Gualteruzzi, Lettere, 82. 75 The portrait is lost, Wethey, Paintings of Titian, vol. 3, 204. Dionisotti thinks that Bembo had received it in Gubbio. 76 Because of this statement and Bembo’s letter to Girolamo Quirini of 15 March 1544, T IV, 2425, it was thought that Gualteruzzi made the translation. However a manuscript of the History, in Italian, was found in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice in Bembo’s own handwriting, apart from a few pages at the beginning written by a secretary, Lagomaggiore, “L’istoria viniziana,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto vol. 7:172. The Italian history had been published in Venice in 1552 by Gualtiero Scotto and dedicated, appropriately, to Lisabetta Quirina. Scotto’s introductory note to the Istoria viniziana stated that Bembo was the translator. 77 In line 12 of T IV, 2426 Bembo refers to the twenty-ninth of the previous month, and in lines 51–4 he refers to taking possession of the diocese of Bergamo. The following letter, T IV, 2427, which again refers to taking possession of Bergamo, is dated 15 March 1544. Since 1544 was a leap year the preceding month had twenty-nine days and this undated letter, T IV, 2426, must therefore have been written in March. 78 See above, p. 291. 79 Burke, The Italian Renaissance. 80 T IV, 2265, 2266, 2296, 2451, 2455, 2492, 2493. 81 T IV, 2473. 82 T IV, 2545, 2551. 83 T IV, 2215. 84 T IV, 2296. 85 T IV, 2473, 2492. 86 T IV, 2545. 87 T IV, 2215, 2227, 2245, 2252, 2282, 2296, 2351, 2451. 88 T IV, 2296, 2304, 2455, 2546. 89 T IV, 2265. 90 T IV, 2310. 91 T IV, 2443, 2451, 2455, 2507, 2510, 2511, 2546.

chapter thirteen 1 He seems to have felt an obligation to serve his country in his old age which he did not feel in his youth. Note his emphasis on the duty of Venetians to serve the Republic in his letters to his son-in-law, Pietro Gradenigo, T IV, 2495, 2511. 2 Bembo’s two predecessors, Sabellico and Navagero, had been paid, and Nav-

Notes to pages 359–66

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19

20

21 22 23

487

agero had produced nothing, Cozzi, “Cultura politica,” 219, 225 and Sanuto, I Diarii, vol. 53, 568. For his father’s needs see pp. 6, 9. T IV, 2184, 2271, 2295. T IV, 1928, 2187, 2189, 2472. T IV, 1845. Alazard, Venise, 101. Cozzi, “Cultura politica,” 218. Holmes, “Flavio Biondo.” Cozzi, “Cultura politica,” 218. Ibid., 219–22. Ibid., 225, 228–9. The history of Venice by an Andrea Navagero which Muratori published, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol. 23, 923–1216, was written by the poet’s grandfather and ended about the time the poet was born, Carile, La chronachistica veneziana, 164. See T, III, 1178–90. Soranzo wrote to Bembo on 14 April 1531 that he had received the proemium, Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 116v. Sadoleto, Epistolae, vol. 2, 48–51. Although Bembo praises Columbus and his achievements he does not specifically indicate in his text that the descriptions of the voyages and of the idyllic life of the islanders is based on Columbus’ printed letters. See Clough, “The New World,” 291–328. The anonymous Drake Manuscript, Histoire naturelle des Indes, contains coloured drawings of West Indian plants, animals, fish, birds, and people in their usual activities, made by a Huguenot sailor aboard one of Drake’s ships only a generation after Bembo wrote. They give a very good impression of the world Bembo was describing. Bembo and Drake were surprisingly close in time. Quoted by Romeo, Le scoperte, 112. Ibid., 111–12. See Libby, “Venetian History,” 14–15. Clough, “Le ‘Lettere Storiche,’” 5–15. The wagons of grain strategy to gain admission to Padua, e.g., is something which Bembo learnt from someone other than da Porto. Della Casa to Gualteruzzi, 1 April 1547, Moroni, Corrispondenza, 354–7. Bembo’s Italian history was used as a text by the Accademia della Crusca, Lagomaggiore, “L’istoria viniziana,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto, vol. 8, 170. The Italian version of the history was dedicated, by the publisher, Gualtiero Scotto, to Lisabetta Quirini who had inspired it. Scotto prefaced it with a life of Bembo attributed to Carlo Gualteruzzi. Guicciardini, History of Italy, 53. Ibid., 18, 27. Guicciardini worked on his history from 1537 until his death in 1541, Ibid.,

488

24

25 26 27 28 29 30

31

32

33 34 35

36

Notes to pages 366–72

23. On 12 November 1538 Guglielmo de Pazzi wrote to Bembo enclosing questions that Guicciardini wanted him to answer for his history, Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, vol. 3, 47r. See his letter about Loredano’s speech, T III, 1611. His job was to offer instruction in civil and political wisdom to the governors of Venice so that they could govern better and foresee problems, Cozzi, “Cultura politica,” 230. Lagomaggiore, in his criticism of the History, points out how Bembo glorified Venice without actually falsifying history, “L’istoria viniziana,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto, vol. 9, 112–13; 322–4, as does Queller, The Venetian Patriciate, 11. Lagomaggiore, “L’istoria viniziana,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto, vol. 8, 173–4, 322–4, 326; Della Casa, Petri Bembi vita, 23. Lagomaggiore, “L’istoria viniziana,” Nuovo Archivio Veneto, vol. 9, 319–21; Cozzi, “Cultura politica,” 232–4. Lagomaggiore, Ibid., “L’istoria viniziana,” vol. 8, 317, 318; vol. 9, 92, 321. It should be noted that Guicciardini was also very chary with dates. Ibid., vol. 8, 179. Ibid., vol. 8, 318. Twelve seems to have been an acceptable age for Roman boys to ride to Venice for secondary education in Padua! Ranuccio Farnese, the pope’s grandson, rode there at twelve, T IV, 2306, as did Carlo Gualteruzzi’s son Orazio, see T IV, 2524 of 8 April 1546 where Orazio’s age is given as 12 and T IV, 2533 of 7 May 1546 where Orazio mounts his horse. See T IV, 2270 of 27 August 1541 in which Bembo wrote to Lisabetta Quirina telling her that Ranuccio Farnese was going to Venice to visit his priory and pay his respects to the doge, then he was going to Padua to study. Bembo would like her to arrange for various people to visit him and make him and his tutor, a knight of Rhodes, feel welcome. See also T IV, 2306. Bernardo Tasso, Torquato’s father, and long Bembo’s friend, wrote to Bembo from Bergamo in the summer of 1545 asking for his protection. He had been summoned to Rome to die in prison, Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 100v–101r. T IV, 2136, 2446, 2472, 2512, 2547. This may be the occasion on which Titian made his last portrait of Bembo, now with a long beard. Apart from the architecture of the villa, Titian would have been interested in the antique bronze Bacchus which was considered to be as important a work as the nude with a thorn in his foot in the museum on the Campidoglio, T IV, 2333. Titian had already painted his famous Bacchus and Ariadne which is in the National Gallery in London. Tiziano, Lettere, 81. Aretino was very interested in art. See Aretino, Lettere sull’arte, four volumes.

Notes to pages 372–4

489

37 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, vol. 3, 28. San Chrysogono, in Trastevere, is an early twelfth century church with thirteenth century mosaics, like San Clemente built on top of an early Christian church (fifth century) with frescoes from the eighth and tenth centuries. San Clemente, in central Rome, between the Colosseum and St John Lateran, is one of the most important Roman churches, a thirteenth-century basilica with splendid mosaics built on top of a frescoed early Christian church, itself built on top of a Roman house church and a Mithraic temple. In Bembo’s day only the upper church was known. Unfortunately none of Bembo’s letters refers to any of his titular churches. Virtually the only Roman church he mentions is Sant’ Apostoli in whose rooms he stayed frequently in the summers, both when he was secretary to Leo X and later when he was cardinal. 38 There is a problem in that, in this letter to Trifon Gabriele, Bembo regrets that they did not see one another when he was back home “this past year.” He was in the Veneto from August to November 1543. November 1543 and January 1545 are a bit more than a year apart, but could seem about a year to Bembo, who was always vague about dates. 39 Armellini, Chiese, vol. 1, 166. 40 See above p. 351. 41 For Bembo’s letters to Soranzo between 1531–6 see T III, 1191, 1240, 1279, 1299, 1301, 1312, 1336, 1378, 1413, 1415, 1463, 1464, 1470, 1488, 1498, 1770, 1782. 42 Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano, 6. 43 See also Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda,” 24. 44 Paschini, “Un vescovo disgraziato,” 120. See also Simoncelli, Evangelismo italiano, and Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda.” 45 Simoncelli, Evangelismo, 15n65, quoting the Processo Carnesecchi, 553. 46 Paschini, “Un vescovo disgraziato,” 123. Simoncelli, “Bembo e evangelismo,” 46 says that Bembo could not have made a more imprudent choice. Seven years later, in March 1551, Soranzo was imprisoned by the Inquisition, Simoncelli, Ibid., 46–7. See also Pertile, “Apollonio Merenda,” 26. 47 Paschini, Ibid., 125–6. 48 See Ibid., 128–9 and 129n3. 49 Dionisotti, “Bembo,” Dizionario Biografico Italiano, 133–56. 50 Paschini, “Un vescovo disgraziato,” 130–3, 138–151. 51 This is a baffling statement. One would have thought that Bembo would have had the portrait of Lisabetta which Titian had completed in December 1543 (T IV, 2403) and which was apparently for him. The painting in della Casa’s house would appear to be this one, which Bembo would get when Titian had finished another one. See della Casa’s letter to Gualteruzzi of 23 May 1545: “When Messer Titiano has made the portrait then your Most Reverend Lordship will have that which is in the wardrobe and not before and this one will

490

52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

Notes to pages 374–81

be mine,” Corrispondenza, ed. Moroni, 151. How did della Casa get the portrait of Lisabetta? Had it been sent to him in Rome to send on to Bembo in Gubbio? How could della Casa have kept it? Why, if he was so smitten with Lisabetta – see his sonnet on Titian’s painting of her and his other poems about her above, p. 325 – did della Casa leave it behind in his house in Rome? Because Bembo was going to live there, and it really belonged to him, and he, della Casa, was going to see the living Lisabetta in Venice? This is very puzzling. Titian’s two paintings of Lisabetta appear to have been lost. Della Casa, Corrispondenza, 20, letter of della Casa to Gualteruzzi, 20 September 1544. See also T IV, 2465. Montini, and Averini, Palazzo Baldassini, 11–14; Portoghesi, Roma, vol. 1, 77; vol. 2, 443; della Casa, Corrispondenza, 18n11, 50n2. Della Casa, Corrispondenza, 24. Ibid., 87. Ibid., 91. For the date see the correspondence between Gualteruzzi and della Casa of August 1546, Ibid., 178, 179, 181, 182. Della Casa’s “L’altero nido, ov’io si lieto albergo” is printed in the 1745 edition of Bembo’s Rime, 145. Dionisotti’s note to Rime CXLI in his edition of Bembo, Prose, Gli Asolani, Rime. He went there on 9 September 1546 and returned to Rome on 16 November 1546, Colonna, Carteggio, 311n1. Ibid., 309–12. The two biographies appear in the introduction to Bembo’s Historiae venetae, della Casa’s, 2–29, Beccadelli’s, 32–51. People regularly rode into the courtyard of a house before dismounting, see Cian, “Nel mondo di Castiglione,” 77. Della Casa, “Vita del Bembo,” 20. Beccadelli, “Vita del Bembo,” 49. Della Casa, Corrispondenza, 335. See also the inscription on his tombstone and Cornaro, Pianto per la morte del Bembo, 87. Rodocanachi, Léon X, 279. Recorded by Gregorovius, Le Tombe de’ Papi, 128 and The Tombs of the Popes, 103n1. Quoted in the 1718 edition of Bembo’s Historiae venetae, p. 50. Cian, Un decennio, 201–3. About the dowries for the five poor girls see Ferrajoli, Ruolo, 473–4. Gualteruzzi to della Casa, 12 February 1547, della Casa, Corrispondenza, 340. Ibid., 333–4.

Notes to pages 381–8

491

74 Ibid., 334. 75 Ibid., 339. 76 Cozzi, “Cultura e religione,” 235. See also della Casa’s letter, Moroni, Corrispondenza, 354–7 and Teza, “Correzioni alla Istoria Veneziana,” 75–93. 77 Della Casa, Corrispondenza, 344–5. 78 Ibid., 349. 79 Ibid., 347–8 and 356. 80 Cozzi, “Cultura politica,” 235. 81 This was presumably the new edition which Bembo had been working on just before his death, whose publication the Inquisition tried to stop. They were checked by Cardinals Sirleto and Giustiniano, Schileo, Bembo, 149–50. See also Paschini, Cinquecento romano, 258. 82 Dionisotti, “Bembo,” Dizionario Biografico Italiano. 83 A collection of laments on the death of Bembo, including this one by della Casa, appears in the 1745 edition of Rime, 155–8. Lachrymae in funere P. Bembi collected by Agostino Beaziano was published in Venice in 1548, as well as In P. Bembi mortem eclogae tres incerti auctoris, Dionisotti, “Bembo,” Dizionario Biografico Italiano. 84 Dionisotti, Ibid. 85 Santoro, Bembo, 70. 86 Pietro Aretino argued that the monument should be placed in San Salvatore in Venice where his parents were buried. The clay model would do for Padua, Lettere sull’arte, vol. 2, 273–4. Aretino had also been very keen to see the sculptor, Danese Cattaneo, at work on the bust. In a letter of April 1548 he complained to Cattaneo that Titian and Sansovino had gone one hundred times to see his portrait of immortal Bembo, whom he has restored to life by his art. Why can’t he come too? Danese also reads Bembo’s poetry aloud and compares him to Petrarch and Dante, Lettere sull’ arte, vol. 2, 213–14. 87 Ludovico Dolce wrote that all the tongues of all the peoples are few and feeble for his praises and that his image was like a ray of sun shining through glass, Sansovino, Lettere a Bembo, 54r.

chapter fourteen 1 See Sadoleto’s epitaph quoted above, p. 381 and his Epistolae, III, 453–7. Gualteruzzi, Moroni, Corrispondenza, 335, refers to Bembo’s most innocent life and, 310, to his nature like the most transparent crystal. Even Pietro Aretino praised Bembo’s innocence, modesty, integrity, wisdom, honesty and sanctity, Lettere, II, 545. 2 Beccadelli, “Vita,” 43. 3 Simoncelli, “Bembo e evangelismo,” 37–8. See also Gleason, Contarini,

492

Notes to pages 388–93

250n259 quoting Gigliola Fragnito in Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 25 (1989), 46. 4 Brecht, Luther, 255–6. 5 Gualteruzzi to della Casa in Moroni edition of Corrispondenza, 335. 6 McLaughlin, Literary Imitation, 278.

iconography 1 Collins, “Time, Space and Gentile Bellini’s The Miracle of the Cross at the Ponte S. Lorenzo (Portraits of Caterina Cornaro and Pietro Bembo), 204. The canvas, dated 1500, is now in the Accademia in Venice. 2 Hendry and Goldscheider, Giovanni Bellini, 27, an identification accepted by Dionisotti, Carteggio d’amore, frontispiece; Pallucchini, Giovanni Bellini, plate 197; Palluchini, Giorgione, 103; Robertson, Giovanni Bellini, 110; Pignatti, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Giovanni Bellini, 104. For the date see Bembo’s letters, Travi I, 219 of 20.11.1505 and 225 of 11.01.1506 where he says that he has been with Bellini these days. 3 Marcantonio Michiel described a portrait of Bembo by Raphael which he saw in Bembo’s house in Padua in 1530, Coggiola, “Per l’iconografia di Pietro Bembo,” 476; Vecchi, The Complete Paintings of Raphael, 91n29, 95n58. Titian apparently painted Bembo when he was secretary to Leo X and trying to persuade Titian to visit Rome, Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. 4, 203; Kenner, “Die Porträtsammlung des Erzherzogs Ferdinand von Tirol,” 156; Brown in Titian Prince of Painters, 238. Bembo, in a letter of 30 May 1540, Travi IV, 2191, writing from Rome asks his friend Girolamo Quirino in Venice, to thank Titian for his second portrait which Titian has sent as a gift. This may be a reference to an early portrait or to a second one of Bembo as cardinal, the Capodimonte after the Washington one. See p. 481n13. 4 For the date see Bembo’s letters to Belli, Travi III, 1334 of 29.02.1532 and 1339 of 12.03.1532. Habich, Die Medaillen der Italienischen Renaissance, 110 describes this as a medal of the young poet. Mazzuchelli, “Vita del Bembo,” 754 also calls this a medal of the young Bembo. However Fabriczy, Italian Medals, 199, refers to the correspondence about this medal in 1532 and uses that to date it. Bembo was 62 in 1532. He looks younger in the medal but the letters are decisive. 5 For a discussion of the authorship of this medal and possible date see chapter 11, note 10, p. 475. 6 Attwood, Italian Medals, 168. See Dolce, Imprese Nobili, no pagination. Bembo’s impresa was elaborate, an architectural creation with Pegasus appearing through a window on a mountain top, a spring at his feet, rearing up to a hand proffering a laurel branch and a palm and a floating ribbon with the words, SE TE FATA VOCANT, “If the fates call you,” a classical version

Notes to pages 391–2

7 8 9

10

11 12

13 14 15

16

17

493

of the words Bembo heard at mass on the day he was appointed cardinal, “Peter follow me.” Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, vol. 2, p.83 note on Tav. 254. Coggiola, “Per l’iconografia di Pietro Bembo,” 511; Pavoni, Collezioni Giovio, 45. Bembo is #164 in the Museo Garibaldi. Pavoni, 43. The Swiss publisher, Perna, sent Tobias Stimmer to Como to copy paintings in the museum for the Basle publication of Giovio’s Elogia in 1575, 1578, 1596. See also Rovelli, Paolo Giovio Il museo dei ritratti, 144, 146. Rovelli, Ibid., 186 lists the 18 men whose portraits Giovio displayed but who were not honoured with eulogies. Reusner, Icones sive imagines…clarorum virorum, M8v, reproduces a rather poor copy of Bembo’s portrait accompanied by various eulogies he had assembled. Coggiola, “Per l’iconografia di Pietro Bembo,” 498; Wethey, Titian, vol. 2, 83. Coggiola, Ibid., 499–501; Chiari, Incisioni di Tiziano, 152; Wethey, Ibid., vol. 2, 83. Titian finally accepted Bembo’s invitation to Rome in 1545. See Bembo’s letter, Travi IV, 2500 of 10 October 1545. He was there from September 1545 until June 1546. Sometime during that period he must have painted this last portrait of Bembo on which Bonasone inscribed “Pietro Bembo Cardinal in his 77th year.” Bembo entered his 77th year in May 1546. Coggiola, “Per l’iconografia di Pietro Bembo,” 500; Chiari, Ibid.; Wethey, Ibid., vol. 2, 155. Coggiola, Ibid., 502–4 traces the history of the painting until it is thought to have been sold in England around the beginning of the 20th century. For the Bonasone and Vico engravings see Wethey, Titian, vol. 2, #256, # 257. Coggiola, “Per l’iconografia,” 500, 501 n2, 505 refers to more than 10 other engravings of this lost Titian. This last portrait was used in editions of Bembo’s works, e.g., as the frontispiece of vol. 2 of the 1718 edition of Istorici delle cose veneziane which is devoted to Bembo’s official Latin history of Venice and as the frontispiece of the 1790 edition of the Italian version of Bembo’s history. There were no engravings of the earlier Titian paintings of Cardinal Bembo, those in Washington and Naples, Coggiola, 498, but a copy in oils of the Capodimonte painting of Bembo was given to Bergamo of which Bembo was bishop. It was deposited in the Accademia Carrara, Coggiola, 498, Wethey, vol. 2, 83. There was also a copy or close derivative in the Pinacoteca of Urbania, the former Castel Durante which Bembo frequented when he was at the court of Urbino, Klinger, The Portrait Collection of Paolo Giovio, 28. Chiari, Incisioni, 152; Wethey, Ibid., vol. 2, 155. Coggiola, Ibid., 507. Coggiola, 505 states there was also a copy in the Correr Museum in Venice and in the Museo Civico in Pavia. Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. 4, 214; Cogiola, “Per l’iconografia,” 512

494

18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Notes to pages 392–3

note, continued from p. 508; Wethey, Titian, vol. 2, 83 who gives the date as 1541. Zimmerman, Paolo Giovio, 350. Coggiola, “Per l’iconografia,” 509. Coggiola, Ibid., 510. It was described by the Venetian Anton Francesco Doni who visited the villa in 1543. It was destroyed with the dilapidated villa in the early seventeenth century, Müntz, Le musée de portraits de Paul Jove, 15n1; Luzio, “Il museo Gioviano descritto de A. F. Doni, 143–50. Aretino, Lettere sul Arte, vol. 2, 413. Aretino, Ibid., vol. 2, 495. Pignatti and Pullan, Le scuole di Venezia, 34. Tiziano, Lettere, note by Clemente Gandini to Tav. 24. Vecchi, The Complete Paintings of Raphael, 102n85. Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art, 460–2. See above, p. 150. See above, p. 164. See above, p. 186. Wind, Bellini’s Feast of the Gods, 22. Vecchi, The Complete Paintings of Raphael, 91 n.29. Vecchi, 95 n. 58. See note 3 above. Vasari, Le Vite de’ Piu Eccellenti Pittori Scultori ed Architettori, III, 306. Coggiola, 498. Mazzuchelli, “Vita del Bembo,” vol 2, part 2, 754. See Coggiola for an exhaustive discussion of all representations of Bembo including a cameo (Coggiola, 508 n1).

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Index

Abbey of Arbe (Rab), 200, 207, 259 Abbey of Villanova, 195, 196, 258; tax on 259–60, 261, 263, 289, 299, 377, 476n15; war damage, 259 Accademia degli Infiammati, Italian language studies, established by Bembo supporters, 254 Accademia della Crusca, used Bembo’s Italian History of Venice as text, 487n20 Agnadello, Venetian defeat, 143, 144, 362, 364, 366 Alberti, Leon Battista, 205, 221 Alchemy, 293 Alciato, Andrea, emblems, 245, 468n22; law lecturer, 244–5, 248, 468n21 Aldus Manutius, 12–17; Bembo font, 12, 219; font copyrights, 405n105; italic font, 16, 17, 219, 424n1; logo (dolphin and anchor) from Bembo, 16; Lucrezia Borgia executor of his will, 96; New Academy, 14; octavo format, 16, 404n103; published original versions of Dante and Petrarch, 17, 219, 405n112; work with Bembo mss, 16–17, 24, 69, 183, 219, 405n112 Aleandro, Geronimo, Cardinal, reports Germanic support for Bembo as cardinal, 321 Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), 83, 159, 329, 416n7; death by poisoning, 364, 421n50 Amaseo, Romulo, 216, 241–2, 261 Andreas Capellanus, 110, 427n33 Angoulême, Marguerite de, Queen of Navarre, 311, 313, 314

Apollo Belvedere, 160, 440n59 Arabic mysticism, 110 Aragon, Alfonso d’, Lucrezia Borgia’s second husband, murdered, 416n7 Arbe. See Abbey of Aretino, Pietro, 321; Bembo’s bust 491n86; praise of Bembo, 491n1; and Titian, 372, 488n36 Ariosto, Ludovico, 18, 19, 72, 82, 100, 127; influenced by Bembo’s Stanze, 135; I Suppositi in Vatican, 158, 176; organized theatrical productions, 406n126; praises Bembo in Orlando, 465n113; revised Orlando following Prose, 465n113 Aristotle, 8, 19, 108, 111, 311, 397n11, 403n89 Asolo, 21, 99, 101 Astrolabe, 283–4 Astrology, Badoer’s prediction re Bembo, 351; Bembo’s interest in, 359, 370, belief, 412n34, horoscope for Lucrezia’s baby, 94–5; Church’s condemnation of, 351, 412n34; Ficino’s horoscope of Giovanni de’ Medici (Leo X), 164; fixed time for theatrical performances in Ferrara, 406nn126–7 Astronomy, 108, 322, 359, 370 Augsburg Confession, Contarini and Pole found not contrary to Catholic doctrine, 336 Augurelli, Giovanni Antonio, advocated Petrarch as linguistic model, 219; dedicated poetry to Bernardo and taken into Bembo household, 6; possibly

526

Index

taught Pietro Tuscan, 205, 219; published Petrarchan lyrics with Neoplatonic colouring, 401n53 Averoes, 216, 397n11 Avicenna, 110, 427n31 Avolta, Gabriele /Gabriele Veneto, general of the Augustinian monks, Bembo’s friend, 195, 285, 296, 303, 361, 451n246; head of Luther’s Order, 190 Badoer, Federico, astrologer/astronomer in Bembo’s household, 330, 351, 371 Bandello, Matteo, discusses language of Novelle, 236 Barbaro, Ermolao, 8, 14, 17, 400n40 Barbarossa, 294, 323 Baura, Andrea, Augustinian monk, critic of Church, 315 Beazzano, Agostino, 185; Raphael’s double portrait with Navagero, 323 Beccadelli, Ludovico, 7, 218; has to share Bembo’s bed with Gualteruzzi, 323 Beds, apparent scarcity of, 209, 323 Belleau, Rémy, 102 Belli, Valerio, Bembo provided him with dogs, 287–8; medal for Bembo, 274, 275, 391 Bellini, Gentile, 99–100, 391 Bellini, Giovanni, Bembo portrait, 30, 391, 492n2; Isabella d’Este’s request for her study, 114, 116; Maria wants portrait by him, 56 Belvedere, 159, 160, 170, 173 Bembo family, 3, 4 Bembo, Antonia, Pietro’s sister, 23, 192, 194 Bembo, Bartolommeo, Pietro’s halfbrother, 123, 124, 133, 168–70 195 Bembo, Bernardo (1433–1519), Pietro’s father, ambassador to Seville, Burgundy, Florence, 6–7; collector of mss, 5, 6, 7, 10, 17, 218, 397n12, 398n13; death, 191; delegations to Rome, 5, 9, 91, 94; education, 4–6; Ficino’s influence, 111; in Ficino’s Teologia Platonica, 6; financial problems, 6, 9, 191, 359; friendship with Lorenzo de’ Medici, Ficino, Landino, 6; governor of Bergamo, 10; governor of public finance, Venice, 24; governor of Ravenna, 8; illegitimate son, Bartolommeo, 5; illness, 123, 149; judge in

criminal court, 10; Louis XII’s escort into Milan, 70; marriage, 5, 398n16; member of Council of Ten, 7, 116; Platonic lover of Ginevra de’ Benci, 6–7; podestà of Verona, 70; public prosecutor, 147; restores Dante’s tomb, 8; Senate’s suspicions, 183; takes Pietro to Bergamo, 10, Florence, 7, Rome, 9, 91, 94; visdomino in Ferrara, 18, 100 Bembo, Carletto/Carlo, Pietro’s nephew, 195; given benefice, 261; poisons Bembo for it, 262–5 Bembo, Carlo, Pietro’s brother, 17, 36, 38, 40, 46, 61, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 219; canzone on death, 138; death, 85–6; impact on Pietro, 86, 87, 89–90; supporter of Pietro, 70, 77, 79 Bembo, Elena, Pietro’s daughter, 174, 334, advice on baby and on husband’s infidelity, 354; character, 344–5; congratulates father on cardinalate, 321; desire to learn clavichord, 341, monochord, 343; education 298–300, 321, 332, 341; estrangement and forgiveness, 352–3; marriage, 343–6; student days, 342, 343 Bembo, Giovan Matteo/Gian Matteo, Pietro’s nephew by marriage, his career, 290–1, 322, 323–4, 480n1: found husband for Elena, 355; marriage to Pietro’s niece, Marcella, 191–2, 195; Pietro’s factotum, 207, 239, 259, 260, 278, 285, 289, 290; his sons’ careers, 357, 376, 377 Bembo, Helena, Pietro’s mother, 5, 146, 437n93 Bembo, Lucilio, Pietro’s son, 199, 212; death, 258, 289; legitimized, 257, 258, 289 Bembo, Pietro (1470–1547), accidents, 377, 378–9; acquisitiveness, 120–1, 187, 288, 322, 331, 388; alchemy, 293; Aldus, association with, 16–17, 24, 69, 183, 219, 405n112; antiquities collection, 121, 137, 187, 212, 322, 371, 431n12; Aristotelian studies, 19, 108, 111; astrology, 94–5; astronomy, 108, 283–4, 322, 359, 370; Augurelli’s influence, 111, 219; “Bembino,” dog, 34, 65, 66, 193, 287; Bembo font, 12; his benefices, 27, 195, 196–8, 200–1, 213–14, 258, 340, 455n51; benefices, pursuit of, 116, 121, 123, 136–7, 141, 150, 170, 266–8, 306;

Index bishop of Bergamo, 315, of Gubbio, 307; burial, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 303; Cambrai, war of League of, 144, 145, 146, 149, 150; cardinal, 317, 320; carol, singing and dancing, 291; celebrity, 278; character, 356; consecrated priest, 332; Contarini correspondence, 335, holiday with, 336, support of in Consistory, 337–9, 388; Coryciana, 171–2; criticized for imitation of Petrarch, 56, 273; education, 7, at University of Ferrara, 19, at University of Padua, 10, 11, 12; educational advisor, 367, 369–70; educator, 245–50, 284; epistles of St Paul to be printed in language of India, 377; epitaphs, 381; Este, Ercole d’ 19; Este, Isabella d’, 76, 94, 113–14, 116; evangelical, 313; Ferrara with father, 21–3; Ficino notes in Gli Asolani, 111; financial problems, 255–6, 258–61, 278–81, 322, 328, 330, 332, 333, 341, 346–7, 375; flirtation with Camilla Gonzaga da Porto, 208–9; free discussion of Luther, 309; Gambara, Veronica, 271, 273, 330, 431n11; Garcilaso de la Vega’s poetry, 253; gardens at villa, house in Padua, 212, 241, 289, 334, 377; Genga, 294, 347; Giberti, 206, 207, 266–7; Giovio, 273–4, 392, 493n10; Giustiniani, Tommaso (fra Paolo), 148, 150, 202; Goritz, 171–2; Greek studies, 10, 13; Gualteruzzi, Carlo, 257, 263–5, 282–3, 289, 303, 381–3; historian, appointment, 276–7, 359, 472n33; horses, 285–7; hospitality, 214, 254, 285–6; house in Padua, 238–41, 282, 361, 388, 467n8; humanist gatherings in Rome, 171–4; humanities, praise of, 369–70, support of at University of Padua, 243; Hungary, priory of, 199, 203, 211, 257, 304–5, 321, 454nn38, 40; iconography, 391–3; illnesses, 76, 80, 82–3, 88, 136, 148, 190, 191, 195, 202, 203, 210, 211, 217, 262, 281, 285, 346, 376, summary, 375–6; Knight of St John, 123–4, 141, 198–9, 208; librarian of St Marks, 277–8, 279, 280, 299, 346; literary critic, 250, 251–4, 310, 370, 371; on marriage, 199; marriage of daughter, Elena, 343–6; monuments to, 383–5; his museum, 121, 322; music, 35, 291, 356, 471n19; Neo-

527

platonism, 108–9, 110, 111, 131–2, 428n37, 434n49; New World, 279, 283–4, 350, 355, 359, 360, 363–4; Ochino, 312, 319; Ostellato, 67, 73, 80, 82, 83, 84, 94; papabile, 351, 378; papal mediator in Ravenna, 188; papal mission to Venice, 179–83; Petrarchism, 24–5, 56, 69, 99, 105, 111, 135, 270–1; poisoned, 262–3; publishers, 293, 370, 371; punctuation, Bembo’s invention of, 17; Roman shorthand, 163–4; Sansovino, Jacopo, architect, 277, 278, 280, 371; Sanuto, diarist, 281, 361, 362, 404n92; secretary to Leo X, 164, 166; Sicily, 11–12, Sicilian poets, 221, 225; his silver, pawned, melted for debts, 260, 278, 322; singing, 291, 356, 372; spectacles, 376; his speech, 232; with spirituali, 313–15; storytelling, 291–2; titular churches: San Ciriaco, 317–18, San Chrysogono, 372, San Clemente, 372; Trissino, dispute with, 120–1; tomb, 383–5; vigne gatherings, 171–4; wounded, 10; works sent to him for criticism, 250, 251–3, 254, 310, 370, 371, 468n27; his works submitted for criticism, 83, 84, 137, 149, 163, 223, 252–3, 280, 303, 421n51, 462n52. See also Abbey of Arbe; De Aetna; Gli Asolani; Benacus; Brievi Leonis Decimi; commenda of Benevento; commenda of Bologna; children, Elena, Lucilio, Torquato Bembo; De Guido Ubaldo; History of Venice; imitation in literature; language discussions; nieces, Marcella, Giulia, Maria Marcello; Paleario; Pole; Le prose della volgar lingua; Priory of Hungary; Rime; Sadoleto; Soranzo; Stanze; Strozzi, Ercole Bembo, Pietro, officer, administrator, and relative, 4, 236, 466n127 Bembo, Torquato, Pietro’s son, 174, 208, 213, 214, legitimized, 257; benefices, 258, 476n15; benefice swops with Farnese family, 257, 258, 304, 305; character, 344, 345; education, 298–300, 326, 341, 345, 356; father’s epitaph, 381; Pasquino’s attack, 331–2; student days and debauchery, 341, 343, 355–7 Benacus, 267, 269, 274–6

528

Index

Benefices, traffic in condemned by Church, 307, 340, 469n39 Beneficio di Cristo, 310; condemned and burnt in Rome, 311, 314, 478n49 Benevento, commenda of, 198, 255, 258, 259, 305–6, 454n35; Bembo helped by V. Colonna, 199, 247, 258, 470n47; helped by Sannazaro, 199, 258; income to provide for Carletto, 263, 265; Vittoria Colonna, governor of Benevento, 199 Bergamo, 10, 180, 402n59; Bembo bishop of, 351, 372; desires good governance, 373; his portrait there, 392–3; safe place for Torquato, 357; Vettor Soranzo appointed vicar, 372 Beroaldo, Filippo, Jr, 140, 154 Bessarion, Cardinal, 10, 277, 279 Bibbiena, Bernardo Dovizi, 114–15, 124, 136–8; bathroom painted by Raphael, 186–7, 450n223; cardinal, 176; farce La Calandria in Vatican, 176; military command, 189; nuncio in France, 190; papal treasurer, 164; policy former, 182; tricked at carnival, 156–8 Biblioteca Marciana, 10, 277–8, 279; Bembo’s sketches for roof, 280, 299, 346 Biondo, Flavio, 221–2, 225, 360 Boccaccio, Decameron, 42, prose model, 69; pan-Italian popularity, 221, 222 Boiardo, 18, 100 Bologna, Bembo with pope in, 257; capture by French, 148–9; coronation of Charles V, 262; peace with Francis I, 184, 187; university, 141, 216, 221, 241 Bologna, Bembo’s commenda, 139–40, 191, 196–8, 199, 211, 213, 257, 258, 266, 333–4; collecting income, 217, 255, 256; war damage, 255–6 Borgia, Cesare, 71, 76, 83, 89, 94, 142, 364; murder of Lucrezia’s second husband, 416n7 Borgia, Lucrezia, Alexander VI’s regent, 416n7; Bembo romance, 71–98; Bembo’s evaluation of her, 110; Bembo’s last visit, 113; Bembo sonnets, 126; biography, 416–17n7; correspondence with Bembo as papal secretary, 166, 167–8, 168, 187–8; familiarity with Petrarch, 69, 418n10; marriage to

Alfonso d’Este, 71–2, 364; portraits, 72, 97; praised by Aldus, Ariosto, Chevalier Bayard, Giovio, 96; relationship with Francesco Gonzaga, 87, 89, 91, 94, 95 Borgo, 149–50, 151, 153, 159, 174 Bramante, 127, 159, 160, 170, 177 Brievi Leonis Decimi (Bembo’s letters for Leo X), 166–7, 302–3 Bruni, Leonardo, 221, 225 Bruno, Nicola, see Cola Burchard, Jacobus, 417n7, 439n32 Caesar, Bembo’s model for historical writing, 367 Calmeta, Vincenzo (Vincenzo Collo), 133, 225–6; biography, 462n55; on language, 463n60 Calvin, discussed in Pole’s circle in Viterbo, 373; found Contarini’s draft on justification acceptable, 484n61 Cambrai, League of, 142, 179, 365; war of, 143–4 Campeggio, Cardinal Lorenzo, 481n14; Bembo, as cardinal, requests permission to live in his house in the Vatican, 327, 449n215, 452n8 Canossa, Ludovico, 129, 136, 164, 170; offers Bembo a room in the Vatican, 137 Capellanus, Andreas. See Andreas Capellanus Caraffa, Giampietro, appointed cardinal for Reform, 316; founder of Roman Inquisition, 311, 331; founder of Theatine Order, 316 Cardinalate, 304, Bembo’s candidacy, 316–20; cardinals’ life style in Rome, 328–9; De cardinalatu, Paolo Cortese, 329–30; De ceremoniis cardinalium, Paris de Grassis, 330–1 Carnesecchi, Pietro, Bembo praises his character, 313; later executed by the Inquisition, 313 Carnival, Ferrara, 63, 72, 91; Rome, 156–8 Castel Durante (Urbania), 116, 123, 127, 134, 136, 294 Castelvetro, 463n60 Castiglione, Baldassare, Courtier, 110–11, 127–33, 156–8, 170; Courtier sent to Bembo for publication, 250; in Coryciana, 172; in England, 128, 140; Guidubaldi, 140; lover of Imperia, 154;

Index nuncio in Spain, 291; Raphael’s portrait, 186; Tirsi,127; visits Tivoli, 185 Cats, Egyptian, 74, 418n16 Cattaneo, Danese, bust of Bembo, 383–5, 392, 491n86; possible maker of Bembo medal, 475n10 Cavalcanti, Guido, 462n52 Cavana, 58 Cecilia, Bembo’s aunt, 212, 214, 283; possibly poisoned for inheritance, 475n5 Cellini, Benvenuto, 300–2; medal, 301–2; discussion of date, 475n10 Chalcondyles, Demetrius, 70 Chigi/Ghisi, Agostino, 137, 154, 173, 201 Church, administration of, 122, 161, 184, 207; purchase of offices, 201 Cicero, influences Courtier, 128, 129, 433n41; Gli Asolani, 104; letters, 8, 26; model for prose, 161, 162, 163, 365 Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici), 177; as cardinal, policy-maker, 182; death, 295, 302; governor of Florence, 193; illness, 294; language discussion, 231; opposes inheritance of benefices, 256, 307, 469n39; pope, 206; receives Prose, 211; tomb, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 381 Clocks, 28; alarm clock, 357; in bed rooms, 410n19; for piazza San Marco, 410n19; present to Torquato, 344 Cola (Nicola Bruno), administrator of commenda of Bologna, 333–4, of abbey of Villanova, 289, 299; Bembo’s right hand man, 11–12, 23, 73, 451n6; created botanical garden, 241; death, 344, 345; finds tutor for Elena and Torquato, 341–2; go-between in Maria affair, 31, 35, 38, 40, 45, 49, 51, 55, 56; illnesses, 334; looks after Bembo’s children, 298, 341–2; organized exhibition of Bembo’s works of art, 322 Collegio delli Spinelli, 246 Coloccio, Angelo (Agnolo Collozio), discussion of language, 231; garden (vigna), 172–3; interest in Provençal, 173; lover of Imperia, 154 Colonna, Vittoria, 17, 132; admiration for Bembo, 273–4; Bembo’s description of her, 457n87, 479n79; Bembo’s relationship with her, 208, 311, 314–15; Bembo’s sonnets to her, 273–4; Benevento commenda, 199, 247, 258, 470n47; correspondence with Queen of

529

Navarre, 311, 314, devotional sonnets sent, 314 discussion of Calvin and Luther in Viterbo, 373; discussions with Michelangelo, 311; focus of evangelical movement, 311; follower of Valdès in Naples, 311; governor of Benevento, 199; investments in Venice, 293; moved to Viterbo to be near Pole and his circle of spirituali, 311; her poetry, 252–3; her qualities, 333; relationship with Pole, 241, 311, 485n66; Rome, 333; supports Bembo for cardinalate, 316, 319 Columbus, 363, 364, 487n15 Commenda of Benevento, 198, 199, 247, 258, 259, 263, 265, 305–6, 454n35, 470n47 Commenda of Bologna, 139–40, 191, 196–8, 453n19 Commenda of Pola and Aquileia, 198 Consilium de emendenda ecclesia prepared and presented in Consistory by Contarini, 307–8, 336 Contarini, Gasparo, advised Occhino to flee, 312; appointed cardinal for reform, 316; Augsburg Confession not contrary to Catholic doctrine, 336–7; Bembo’s letters to in Germany, 335; Bembo sole support in Consistory, 337–9, 388; compromise with Lutherans possible, 336; death, 372; draft on justification accepted at Diet of Ratisbon, pleased Melanchthon but rejected by Luther and Rome, 336–7; duties of bishop, 307, 477n27; evangelical, 313; head of commission on reform, 307, 335; heartbroken, 485n64; holiday with Bembo in Rome, 336; immortality of soul, 307; legate to Diet of Ratisbon (Regensburg), 334, 336; life of hermit selfish, 306–7; supported Bembo for cardinalate, 317, 319 Cornaro, Caterina, Queen of Cyprus, 100; barco near Treviso, 94, 99; court at Asolo, 21, 99; in painting by Gentile Bellini, 99–100 Cortese, Paolo, re spoken language, 232, 330; De Cardinalatu, 329–30 Coryciana, 171–2 Council of Pisa, 161 Council of Ten, 7, 116, 183, 184, 276, 277; Bembo’s History, 362, 382;

530

Index

response to condemnation of Luther, 309 Counter Reformation, 106, 132, 306–8; Consilium de emendenda ecclesia, 307–8, 335; Paul III appoints reform cardinals, Caraffa, Contarini, Pole, Sadoleto, 316 Courier service, 201; Venice to Rome in thirty hours, 342 Courtesans, 153–5, 175 Courts of love, 18, 100, 110–11 Dante, Aldus publishes Bembo ms of Commedia with Pietro’s assistance, 17, second edition, Pietro’s diagrams of Hell and Purgatory, 183, 223–4, also published by Paganini, 183; Bernardo Bembo restores Dante’s tomb in Ravenna, 8; Pietro copies Commedia, 223, 415n70; Trissino’s ms of De vulgari eloquentia, 220, 235; Pietro criticizes Dante’s vocabulary, 229, 464n78 Da Porto, Luigi, 121, 126; Giulietta e Romeo, 69, 360–1; Lettere storiche, 365 De Aetna, 11, 12 De Guido Ubaldo Feretrio deq. Elisabetta Gonzaga Urbini Ducibus, 140–1, 254 Della Casa, Giovanni, 174, 175, 254; Galateo,133; lends Bembo Roman house, vigna, 374–5; Lisabetta’s portrait by Titian, 374, 489n51; love, sonnets for Lisabetta Quirina, 325; mediates Bembo’s will, 382–3; nuncio in Venice, 374; praised by Bembo, 375; re Venice, 397n3 Della Rovere, Francesco Maria, 115; captain general of the Church, 165, 167; in Courtier as lord prefect of Rome, 129; confined to duchy, 143; duke of Urbino, 140; Leo X’s attempt to seize duchy, 188–9; marriage to Eleonora Gonzaga, 146; restoration to duchy, 203 Della Rovere, Galeotto, Cardinal, 113, 114, 115, 116, 124, 125, 142; Bembo’s commenda in Bologna, 196–7 Della Torre, Ambrogina Faustina Morosina, see Morosina Dialects, 100, 219, 220, 221, 224, 232, 235; Venetian, 226 Dialogue as popular literary form, 425n7. See Bembo’s De Aetna, 12; Gli Asolani,

99, 100, 111; De Guido Ubaldo, 141; Le Prose, 233; Trissino’s Il castellano, 235 Diet of Ratisbon (Regensburg), 336–8, optimism, 337, 484n60 Diet of Worms, 307 Discoveries, 359, 363, 366 Dogs, “Bembino” given to Maria, 34, 66; second “Bembino” in Padua, 193; third “Bembino,” dead, 287; for Belli, 287–8; from Ferrara, 22; gifts from him, 287–8; gifts to him, 215, 284, 288; greyhounds, 133–4; Navagero’s dog coveted, 288; purchase of, 215; shipment of, 287 Dolce, Ludovico, praises Bembo, 491n87 Dolce stil nuovo, 112, 221 “Dolce vita,” Bembo’s phrase, 211 Dreams, Bembo does not believe in, 57; his mother’s prophetic, 9–10; Giovanni de’ Medici’s mother’s prophetic, 164; Giuliano de’ Medici’s interest in, 9; hermit’s, 108; Maria’s, 57 Egidio, Cardinal, 204, 217, 289, 308 Erasmus, letters for publication, 26; lodger with Aldus, 15–16, 404n101; New Academy, 403n82; publication of Adages, 15; on Rome, 161 Este, Alfonso d’, administrative reforms, 95; artillery expert, 72; duke of Ferrara, 165, 166; League of Cambrai, 142, 365; marriage to Lucrezia Borgia, 71–2, 91, 97–8; violinist, 72 Este, Ercole d’, Bembo’s sonnet to, 19; chapel choir, 406n124; death, 91; expands Ferrara, 20, 406n125; fosters drama, 20; generosity to Bembo, 19; introduces printing, 18; receives Lucrezia Borgia, 71; summons Moise to make medal, 66, 414n58, 415n60 Este, Ippolito d’, Cardinal, 91, 97, 424n106 Este, Isabella d’, asks Bembo for help with Bellini, 114; Bembo asks her help with Mantegna, 116; Bembo composes ten sonnets for her to sing, 114; Bembo visits Mantua, 94, 113–14; escorts Lucrezia Borgia to wedding, 71; invites Bembo and Strozzi, 76; jealous of Lucrezia Borgia, 87; Lucrezia’s visit to Mantua, 94; in Rome, 212 Evangelical movement in Italy, 309, 312, 313, 373; spirituali, 311, 313, 314–16, 373

Index Farnese, Alessandro, cardinal, grandson of Paul III, benefice swops with Bembo, 258, 305, 328; plurality of benefices, 306, 308; supports Bembo’s candidacy for cardinalate, 316, 318 Farnese, Ranuccio, grandson of Paul III, Bembo writes him on study of humanities vs law, 369–70; benefice swops with Bembo, 305, 307; Prior of Venice, 305, 488n31; rides to Venice at twelve to visit priory and study, 488n30 Ferrara, 4, 18–21; Bembo’s visits to Lucrezia, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 85, 94, 99; Bembo’s visits to Maria, 65, 66, 67; court, 18, 100; university, 18, 19, 108, 407n127; vernacular literature, 219–20 FF, 420n42, in Chigi’s ring, 137; Lucrezia’s cipher, 79, 81, 82, 84, 87; papal sign, 79 Ficino, 6, 111, 218, 428nn37, 39 Flaminio, Marcantonio, with Bembo in Padua, 311; co-author of Beneficio di Cristo, 310; discussion of Luther, 309; Giberti in Verona, 310; with Pole in Viterbo, 311, 373; secretary to Council of Trent, 311; suspected by Inquisition, 311 Florence, 4, 6, 7, 8, 142, 163, 231 Fonte Avellana, 118–19, 122, 127, 306; benefice of Federico Fregoso given to Rodolfo Pio, 340 Fortunio, Gianfrancesco, Regole grammaticali della volgar lingua, 224, 232, 461n44 Fracastoro, Girolamo, biography, 468n26; doctor to Council of Trent, 371; Syphilis dedicated to Bembo and published, 269; Syphilis sent to Bembo for criticism, 250–1 Francis I, 184, 189, 211; congratulates Paul III on Bembo appointment to cardinalate, 321 Fregoso, Costanza, gifts to Bembo, 284; Madonna B/G, 138–9, 435n72; son, Agostino de Landi, Bembo’s pupil, 248, 284; visits Bembo in Padua, 322 Fregoso, Federico, 128, 146, 149, 161, 163, 284, 294; archbishop of Salerno, 150; Bembo his heir, 340; biography, 483n48; cardinal, 333; death, 337–8; evangelical, 313; initiates theological discussion in Padua, 310; legate to France, 203, 211

531

Fregoso, Ottaviano, prisoner and death, 204, 483n48; restored doge of Genoa, 163 Friuli, 28, 65; defended by Girolamo Savorgnan, 145, 181; Maria’s party in Udine, 68–9; pillaged by Maximilian, 143 Gabriele, Angelo, 11, 16, 20, 22, 73, 124, 248, 251 Gabriele, Cornelio, ill-behaved student in Bembo’s house in Padua, 248–50 Gabriele, Gabrieli, Cardinal, 115–16 Gabriele, Trifone, 21, 22, 23, 24, 137, 208, 211, 217, 223, 243, 296–7; biography, 458n101; guarding Prose, 463n60 Gambara, Veronica, 271, 273, 330, 431n11 Garcilaso de la Vega, 253; biography, 469n31 Gardens, Rome, Vatican, 160; vigne, 171–4; Venice, 4, 29, 39, 53, 55; house in Padua, 241, 334, 377; villa Bozza, 289, 334 Genga, Girolamo, 294, 347, 348 Genoa, 70, 143, 166, 203, 204; Bembo’s inscription for walls, 322 Giannotti, Donato, 217 Gheri, Cosimo, Bembo’s pupil, bishop of Fano, teacher in Padua, 174, 246, 298–9 Gherio, Goro, governor of Bologna, 212–13 Giberti, Gianmatteo, Bembo dedicates Benacus to, 267; biography, 456n78; bishop of Verona, 133, 307, 308; character, 267–8, 457n82; datary, 206, 207; dispute with Bembo over benefice, 266–7 Giocondo, Fra, 186, 403n82, 449n220 Giovenale, Latino, 136, 189, 303 Giovio, Paolo, 164, 165, 174; belief about murder of Ercole Strozzi, 95; BemboColonna go-between, 273–4; historian, 202; jealousy of Bembo, 392, 493nn8, 10; lover of Imperia, 154; praised Lucrezia Borgia for good works, 96 Giudecca, 53–5, 413nn47, 49; Barbaro’s school, 8; Dandolo house with two towers, 53, 55, 56; Marcello house, 53, 55

532

Index

Giulietta e Romeo (Romeo and Juliet), Luigi da Porto, 414n56; Bembo a new Romeo, 60; dedicated to Lucina Savorgnan, 69; edited and published by Bembo, 360–1 Giustiniani, Bernardo, historian, 360, 361 Giustiniani, Tommaso (fra Paolo), 148, 150, 202, 309, Libellus ad Leonem X, 306 Gli Asolani, 77, 99–112, 113, 183; comparisons with The Courtier, 128, 129, 131; dedication to Lucrezia Borgia, 90; editions, 183, 269; first book sent to Lucrezia, 77–8, 82; presentation to Lucrezia, 94; Strozzi’s financial help, 90–1; success, 426n25; working on, 21, 46, 50, 52, 56, 70, 219, 220, 408n152 Gonzaga, Cesare, 127, 128, 145 Gonzaga, Eleonora, duchess of Urbino, 146, 147 Gonzaga, Elisabetta, duchess of Urbino, 71, 110, 113–14, 125, 127, 145, 199, 203 Gonzaga, Francesco, marquess of Mantua, 167, 443n120; famous stable, 70; League of Cambrai, 142, 143; relationship with Lucrezia Borgia, 87, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97 Goritz, Johannes, 171–2, 328, 444n139 Gradenigo, Pietro, 346, 352–5, 377 Grassis, Paris de, De ceremoniis cardinalium, 330–1 Greek studies, 10, 13 Gualteruzzi, Carlo, Bembo’s factotum in Rome, 257, 263–5, 282, 289, 303; executor of Bembo’s will, 381–2; “life” of Bembo prefixed to his History of Venice in Italian, 487n20; publishes Bembo’s works, 383; spirituali close to Carnesecchi, Colonna, Flaminio, 314 Gualteruzzi, Goro, Bembo’s pupil, 246–8, 368; receives commenda of Benevento, 247, 305–6 Gualteruzzi, Orazio, education in Venice, 368–9, 382 Gubbio, 71, 94, 113, 238, 333, 346–51; Bembo’s sermon as bishop, 388 Guicciardini, Francesco, adopts Bembo’s rules for Tuscan, 366, 389, 466n114; compared with Bembo as historian,

366–7; discusses historical problems with Bembo, 487n23; governor of Bologna, 279; re Venice, 396n3 Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, see De Guido Ubaldo Henry VIII, 167, 179, 481n14 History of Venice/Historia veneta, Bembo’s, 359–67, 382, 383; Caesar as model for historiography, 367; censored, 382; Cicero for style in both Latin and Italian, 365; comparison with Guicciardini’s history, 366–7; criticism, 367, 382–3, 486n76 Horses, 285–7 Humanists, 6, 10, 13, 14, 18, 159, 161, 171–4, 176, 218, 221 Humanities, 243, 369–70 Hungary, Priory of, 199, 203, 211, 257, 304–5, 321, 454nn38, 40 Imitation in literature, exchange of letters with Pico, 161–3, 220, 226 Imperia, 153–4 Index of prohibited works, Bembo’s Stanze, 315 Indulgences, 190, 307, 450n242 Inquisition, 309, 311, 312, 313, 314, 316, 331, 374, 491n81 Istoria viniziana, Bembo’s, 350–1, 359, 486n76; dedication to Lisabetta, 383, 487n20; inspired by Lisabetta, 350; used as text by Accademia della Crusca, 487n20 Italic font, 16, 17, 99 Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), Bembo’s prophetic sonnet, 23; Fifth Lateran Council, 161; gives Bembo Bologna commenda on condition he take vows, 196; League of Cambrai, Holy League, 142–3; makes Rome humanist centre, 159–60; rebuilds Rome, 159–61, 202–3; restores papal states, 122, 143 Justification by faith, 336–7, 373, 388 Knights of St John/Hospitallers, 123–4, 140, 141, 166, 197–8, 208, 453nn19, 26; exemption from papal taxation, 213, 255, 453n19; ritual of profession, 198–9; Venetian attitude toward, 432n22. See also commenda of Ben-

Index evento, Bologna, Pola, and Aquileia, Priory of Hungary, of Venice Lampridio, Benedetto, 299, 326, 341, 474n4 Landino, Cristoforo, 6, 7, 8, 218 Lando/Landi, Agostino de, Bembo’s pupil, 248, 284, 322 Language, discussions of, 163, 221–2, 231–2, 235–7; societies for study of, 254; treatment in The Courtier, 233–4, 434n45 Laocoon, 160, 431n13 Lascaris, Constantine, 11, 14, 16 Lateran Council (Fifth), 161, 195, 256, 306, 477n31 Latin, 13, 17, 18, 100, 220, 221, 224, decline in use, 231, 232 Leo X (Giovanni de’ Medici), 164; bishop of Rome (possesso), 164–6; character, 176–9; fostered humanism, University of Rome, Vatican library, 176; peace with Francis I, 184, 187 Leonardo da Vinci, see Vinci, Leonardo da Leonicino, Nicolà, professor in Ferrara, 18, 76 Leonico, Nicolò, professor in Padua, 217, 279, 459n103 Leto, Pomponio (Pomponius Laetus), 18, 171, 439n38 Letter-writing manuals, 26–7, 410n15 Letters for publication, 26, 69, 409n10; Bembo’s, 386–8, 409n4, 410n16; Petrarch’s, 409n6 Libellus ad Leonem X, fra Paolo Giustiniani, 306 Liburnio, Nicolo, De vulgari elegantie, 233 Lisabetta da Siena, Lucrezia alias, 88 Literary works, Bembo conscientious annotator, 350–1, 468n27; sent for peer criticism, Bembo’s, 83–4, 137, 149, 163, 223, 253–4, 421n51, 462n52; sent to Bembo for criticism, 250–4, 310, 370, 371 Longolio, Cristoforo (Christophe Longueil), 193, 202, 203, 451nn1, 2, 5; and Luther, 309, 311 Loredano, Lorenzo, doge of Venice, 91, 167, 192, 201, 362, 364, 365; Bembo honours him in history, 362, 488n24; litigation with Bembo over water for his mills, 282, 322, 362 Louis XII, 70, 142, 180, 182, 184, 365

533

Luther, Bembo’s letter to his superior, Avolta, 190, 309; condemned by Leo X, 309; Contarini’s draft on justification by faith rejected by, 337; his ideas discussed by Bembo, Fregoso, Longolio, Pio, Pole, 311, 484n57, in Pole’s circle in Viterbo, 373, freely in Venice, 309; split with Church, 388; wanted compromise, 388 Machiavelli, Discorso o dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua, 235 Magellan, 363 Mantuan, Battista Spagnuoli, 446n181 Manutius, Aldus. See Aldus Manutius. Marcello family, 5–6, 29 Marcello, Giulia, 192, 265, 266 Marcello, Marcella, 23; married to Gian Matteo Bembo, 191, 192, 194, 207, 265 Marcello, Maria (Marietta), 23, 265 Marcello, Sebastiano, married to Antonia Bembo, 22, 29, 148, 192, 354, 411n31 Mariano, Fra, 177, 202, 327, 455n53 Masuccio da Salerno, Novellino, 222 Maximilian, emperor, League of Cambrai, 142–3, 145, 181, 365 Medici, Giovanni de’, Cardinal, Lorenzo de Medici’s son, 137; captured, battle of Ravenna, 143, pope Leo X, 164. See also Medicini, Giulano de’ Medici, Giuliano de’, Lorenzo’s brother, 9 Medici, Giuliano de’, Lorenzo’s son, duke of Nemours, 125, 143, 148, 185; death frees Leo X to attack Urbino, 188 Medici, Ippolito/Ippolitino, 185, 188 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 6, 7, 9; fostered Greek studies, wrote vernacular lyrics, 218 Melanchthon, 309; pleased by Contarini’s draft on justification by faith, 336 Merenda, Apollonio, Bembo’s secretary, 208; fled Inquisition, 314; Pole’s chaplain, 314 MG, Bembo’s first love, 21, 22, 24, 37, 52, 57, 64, 100 Michelangelo, 159, 170, 174, 176, 311, 315, 381, 413n46; sonnets to Vittoria Colonna, 479n63 Milan, 70, 142, 143, 179, 182, 184, 202 Modon/Methoni, 4, 29, 51

534

Index

Moise, Jewish goldsmith, 63, 64; to Ferrara to make medal of Ercole d’Este, 66 Molza, Francesco, 208, 209, 210, 303, 361, 457n89 Monaci, Lorenzo de’, Venetian chronicles, 360 Montefeltro, Guidobaldo da, duke of Urbino, death, 140. See Bembo, De Guido Ubaldo, 140–1 More, Thomas, Utopia, 366 Morone, Giovanni, Cardinal, legate to Council of Trent, 346; imprisoned by Inquisition, 311 Morosina (1497–1535), Bembo’s companion of twenty-two years, 174–6, 191, 194, 198, 208, 211, 214, 241, 271, 360; canzone on her death, 272, 326, 331; character, 242; death, 296, and consequences of, 304; description, 296–7; illness, 289, 294–6; inheritance in Rome, 476n11; letters, 211–12, 242. See also Bembo, Elena, Lucilio, and Torquato Murano, 291–2 Music and Bembo, against Elena studying clavichord, 341, monochord, 343; as cardinal employed organist, 356; invited Venetian street singer to his rooms, 35; ordered Torquato’s violins and fifes to be destroyed, 355; sang carol (choral dance) on Murano, 291; sang New Year’s mass in Rome before the pope and all the cardinals, 372; some musical settings have survived, 471n19; tried to poach French boy musician from della Casa (for his chapel?), 356; wrote lyrics for ladies to sing, 67, 114 Navagero, Andrea, 185; discussion of Luther, 309; double portrait with Beazzano, 323; historian of Venice, 276, 281, 360, 361, 368, 487n11; house on Murano, 291; librarian, 277; praised Bembo’s writings, 465n106 Neoplatonism, 108–9, 111, 131–2, 135, 428n37, 434n49 New Academy, Philhellenes, 14 New World, 279, 284–5, 355, 359, 360, 363–4 Nicola, Madonna, 423n77; marriage occasion of gift of Gli Asolani, 90; Lucrezia alias, 92

Ochino, Bernardino, evangelist invited to Venice by Bembo, 311–12, 319; friend of Colonna, Flaminio, Pole, Soranzo, 373; summoned by the Inquisition, fled to England, canon of Canterbury, 312–13; preached polygamy in Poland, 313 Oratory of Divine Love, 132, 307 Ostellato, 67, 73, 80, 82–5, 94 Oviedo e di Valdes, Consalvo Fernando di, 364 Padua, Accademia degli Infiammati, 254; basilica of Sant’ Antonio, Bembo’s tomb, 383–5; Bembo’s house, 238–41, 467n8; Bembo student, 10–12; canonry, 200, 213–14, 258, 455n51; cathedral, Bembo’s portrait in sacristy, 392; centre for Tuscan studies, 254; Collegio Spinelli, 246, 468n24; defence of, 143, 144–5, 364–5, 487n19; description of city, 238; university, 13, 241, 243–5, 310, 322, 367, 368 Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, 292 Paleario, Aonio, teacher recommended by Bembo executed by the Inquisition, 313–14 Palladio, Blosio, 154, 171, 173 Palleano, Giorgio, Bembo’s secretary, 241 Pasquino, 202, 331, 388, 483n46 Paul III (Alessandro Farnese), appoints cardinals for reform, 316, 318; benefice swops with Bembo for grandsons, 305, 307, 387; Brievi as gift, 302–3; compared with Leo X, 303; elected pope, 295; grief on Bembo’s death, 388–9; palace as cardinal, 329 Pavia, 211, 245 Pesaro, 117, 184 Petrarch, Bembo’s autograph ms, 7, 17, 459n7, copied by Bembo, 69, 223, 270; Bembo’s Petrarchism, 9, 24–5, 69, 99, 105; Lucrezia knew his poetry, 79–80; Maria accused Bembo of plagiarism, 56; pan-Italian popularity, 219; Petrarchan lyrics in Ferrara, 18; brings humanism to Venice, 13, 402–3n72; sonnet discussed in Vatican, 210; on Venice, 395n3 Petrucci, Raffaele, Cardinal, abbey of Villanova given to Bembo, 195; plot to poison Leo X, 189

Index Pia, Emilia, 114, 116, 127, 128, 132, 184, 433n31 Piacevole notte, Le Straparola, 291, 356 Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, on imitation, with Bembo, 161–3; papal reprimand, 188 Pio, Rodolfo, Cardinal, 211, 268, 318, 319, 327, 331, 333; dispute with Bembo over grain, 340 Pirates, 4, 178 Pisa, 23, 28, 142 Plato, 14, 105, 108, 111, 135; Aldine publication, 163 Plague, 82, 85, 208, 209, 258, 289 Poisoning, Alexander VI and Cesare Borgia, 83; attempt to poison Leo X, 189; Aunt Cecilia poisoned for inheritance? 471n5; Bembo poisoned by nephew, 262–3; Bernardo Bembo rejects suggestion to poison Charles VIII, 412n36; how a cardinal can avoid it, 330 Pole, Reginald, Cardinal, archbishop of Canterbury, appointed reform cardinal, 316; at Bembo’s deathbed, 379; Bembo’s friend, 217, 311; in Bembo’s house in Padua, 375; circle in Viterbo, 373; with Contarini in Rome, 484n57; discussion of Luther and Calvin, 311, 484n57; evangelical, 311, 313; inherits Longolio’s books, 203; governor of Patrimony of Peter, 311; legate to Council of Trent, 311, 373; Longolio as lodger, 311; with Sadoleto in Carpentras, 327; recalled to Rome, imprisoned, interrogated by Inquisition, 311; student at Padua, 202 Poliziano, Angelo, 6, 10, 218, 219, 254, 460n15 Pomponazzi, Pietro, professor at Padua, protected by Bembo, 316, 477n31 Pontano, 172, 221, 222, 251, 276, 434n45, 469n31 Printing, 12–17, 18, 176, 293 Priuli, Luigi, 293 Prose della volgar lingua, Le, Bembo, dialogue on language between a Ferrarese, Florentine, Genoese and Venetian, 224–31; dedicated to Clement VII as cardinal, 211; first two books sent to Venice for criticism, 223; importance, 389; pirated edition, 293; publication, 214; rules followed by Ariosto and

535

Guicciardini, 234; studied, 254; success, 234; working on it, 208, 223 Provençal, 18, 100, 173, 219, 220, 221, 225, 359, 389, 407n129, 460n23, 462n51 Publishing, Bembo’s interest in, 163, 183, 214, 370, 371 Punctuation, Bembo’s invention of, 17 Quirina/Quirini, Elisabetta Massola (Lisabetta), 299, 318, 322; Bembo’s confidante, 318, 326, 332–3, 347; Bembo helps son who murdered wife, 324; Bembo’s sonnets for, 324, 325, 326; della Casa’s poems, 325; description of Lisabetta, 324–5; persuades Bembo to translate history into Italian, 350–1; which dedicated to her, 383, 486n76; Titian’s portrait, 325, 349 Quirino/Quirini, Girolamo, 217, 248, 299, 334; commissioned Bembo tomb for St Anthony’s, 383–5; executor of Bembo’s will, 381–3; helps find husband for Elena, 344–6; helps with Torquato, 355; provides housing for della Casa in Venice, 374 Quirino/Quirini, Vincenzo (fra Pietro), 39, 90, 91, 124–6; death in Bembo’s house, 185, 307; Libellus ad Leonem X, 306; rivalry with Bembo, 184–5; spirituale, 309 Rab. See Abbey of Arbe Ramusio, Giovan Battista, Bembo’s deputy at library, 279; Navigations and Voyages, 279, 360; secretary to Senate, 201, 279, 362 Raphael, 127, 154, 159–60, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176–7, 185, 323, 449n214; Bembo and Castiglione ghost writers for, 160; Bibbiena’s bathroom, 186–7; double portrait of Beazzano and Navagero, 323; master of works at St Peter’s, 186; possible representation of Bembo, 393; set for Ariosto’s I suppositi at Vatican, 158; use and preservation of stones of Rome, 186 Ratisbon/Regensburg, Diet of, 336–7, 338, 485n66 Ravenna, battle of, 143, 362; Bernardo Bembo governor of, 8; Dante’s statue

536

Index

restored, 8; Pietro Bembo as papal mediator in, 188 Rialto School, 4, 8, 13 Right of clergy, 263 Rime, Bembo’s, 270–4, 290, 293, 324; Inquisition tried to stop new edition, 491n81; later denied imprimatur, 315; success, 274 Rome, 4, 113, 151–92; Bembo’s early visits, 9, 9–10, 70, 91, 94, 121, 127; efforts to establish himself in, 114–15, 117–19; carnival, 156–8; city birthday celebrations, 156, 439n38; courtesans, 153–5; description, 151–61; librairies, 441n66; pilgrimages, 153; university, 159 Romeo and Juliet. See Giulietta e Romeo Sabellico, Marc Antonio, 4, 276, 277, 360 Sadoleto, Jacopo, 140, 170, 171, 173, 193–4, 254, 470n2; Bembo’s encouragement to accept cardinalate, 317; Bembo’s epitaph, 381; biblical exegesis, 281, 310, 478n46; bishop of Carpentras, 207, 327, 347; cardinal for reform, 316; in Coryciana, 172; education of children, 310; garden in Rome, 171, 444n148; help with Prose, 214; lover of Imperia, 154; on Luther, 484n57; secretary to Clement VII, 207, Leo X, 164; supported Bembo for cardinalate, 317, 318 St Mark’s, Venice, 3, 278 St Peter’s, Rome, 159, 170, 190, 449n215, 452n8 Sale of offices in Church, 201 San Chrysogono, Rome, Bembo’s second titular church, 372 San Ciriaco in Thermis, Rome, Bembo’s first titular church, 327–8 San Clemente, Rome, Bembo’s last titular church, 372 San Marco School, Venice, 8, 13 San Trovaso, Venice, 29, 48, 49 Sannazaro, 189, 199, 208, 417n7; Arcadia, 104, 133, 222–3, 460n15; character in Trissino’s Il castellano, 235; De partu virginis, 269, 275, 460n15, 471n4; Piscatorial Eclogues, 269, 460n15, 471n4; epigram on Leo X, 202 Sansovino, Andrea, sculptor, 171 Sansovino, Francesco, 278, publisher,

Bembo correspondence, 383; Del secretario, 26–7 Sansovino, Jacopo, architect, 277, 278, 289, 371; Bembo sketches for library roof, 280 Sant’ Agostino, Rome, 155, 171, 439n32 Sant’ Antonio, Padua, 382–5 Sant’ Apostolo/Sant’ Apostoli, Rome, 190, 375 Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, 380–1 Sanuto, Marino, 148, 192, 281, 282, 361, 362, 404n92 Savorgnan, Giacomo, Maria’s husband, Venetian condottiere, dead at Pisa, 28–9 Savorgnan, Girolamo, Venetian condottiere, 25, 133, 145, 243 Savorgnan, Lucia/Lucina, 69; da Porto dedicated Giulietta e Romeo to her, 69 Savorgnan, Maria, 24–70, 77; knew works of Petrarch, Boccaccio, 223; critic of Bembo’s style, 52, 56 Savorgnan, Tristan, 29, 46, 48, 56, 65 Schomberg, Nicolò, archbishop of Capua, cardinal, 206, 257, 316 Sebastiano del Piombo, 455n53 Sforza, Giovanni, Lucrezia Borgia’s first husband, 95, 416n7 Sicily, 11, 12 Sicilian poets, 221, 225 Sistine Chapel, 154, 159, 170, 315 Sixtus IV, 159 Soranzo, Vettor, accused of heresy, 374; Bembo’s coadjutor in Bergamo, 351, 372–4; Bembo’s protégé, 287, 372–3; bishop of Bergamo, 374; Clement VII’s chamberlain, 305; evangelical, 373; exchanged sonnets with Bembo for criticism, 252; helped with Rime, 252; imprisoned by Inquisition, 489n46; reformer, 373; sent to Trent, 373–4 Spectacles, 376 Spenser, Edmund, 111 Speroni, Sperone, Dialogo delle lingue, 235–6; Bembo’s funeral oration in Padua, 383 Stanze, 134–5, 435n68, 479n81; on Index, 315 Straparola, Gianfrancesco, Le piacevoli notte, 291–2, 356 Stratioti/stradiots, 365 Strozzi, Ercole, 19, 70, 73, 74–5, 80, 406n126; Barbara Torelli’s sonnet,

Index Ariosto and Bembo’s epitaphs, 95; financial support for Gli Asolani, 90–1; go-between Lucrezia and Gonzaga, 94–5; murdered, 95; poetry, published by Aldus, dedicated to Lucrezia, 96 Strozzi, Tito, 19, 73, 81, 96 Superchio, Valerio, doctor, 123, 148, 330, 482n39 Syphilis, 22. See Fracastoro, Syphilis Tasso, Bernardo, father of Torquato, 220, 252, 488n32 Tebaldeo, Antonio, Lucrezia’s secretary, 80; criticizes Bembo’s elegy, 84; language discussion, 231; poet, 90; Raphael portrait, 186 Tiepolo, Nicolò, governor of University of Padua, 243, 244, 248 Titian, Bembo mosaic, 392; Lisabetta’s portrait, 325, 349, 489n51; portraits, 391–3, 475n10, 488n34, 493nn12, 15; thanks for second portrait, 334, 484n49, 492n3; visit to Rome, 372 Tolomei, Claudio, Cesano, de la Toscana lingua, 236; in language discussion, 231 Tomarozzo, Flaminio, Bembo’s secretary, 234, 298; death, 374; mugged on road to Benevento, 259, 298; takes possession for Bembo of diocese of Bergamo, 372, of Gubbio, 347 Torelli, Barbara, wife of Ercole Strozzi, sonnet on his death, 95 Torresani, Andrea, Aldus’s partner, father-inlaw, printer, 15; Erasmus lodger, 15–16 Trent, Council of 328, 346, 371, 373–4, 375, 468n26, 485n69 Treviso, 94, 99 Trissino, Gian Giorgio, advocates new alphabet, 235; Il castellano, 219, 235; Dante ms, 220, 235; dispute with Bembo, 120–1; first to call vulgar tongue Italian, 465n95; language discussion, 231; I ritratti, 70 Troubadours, 18, 221, 407n129, 427n31 Turks, 4, 6, 10, 166, 199, 255, 293, 304, 323, 356

537

Tuscan, 7, 17, 69, 100, 112, 218, 223, 225, 226, 231, 232, 465n99, 469n32 Urbino, 94, 111, 113, 115, 188, 189, 211, 294; Bembo’s early visits, 429n2; court, 122, 123, 127–8, 136, 141, 145 Urticio, Alessandro, Bembo’s Latin teacher, 11 Valdes, Juan de, 311, 373, 479n62 Valeriano, Piero, Dialogo sopra le lingue volgare, 231 Varchi, Benedetto, 231, 254, 300, 301; Bembo’s funeral oration, 225, 383; L’Ercolano, 236, 254 Vasari, Giovio, 392 Vatican, 75, 79, 103, 159–60, 169, 171, 184, 185, 194, 338, 351, 440nn59, 60 Venice, 3–4, 10, 13, 395–7nn3, 4; book trade, 403nn74, 75; constitution, 217; day, 27–8; education in, 4, 7–8; food, 16, 404n100; leaders in language study, Fortunio, Liburnio, Speroni, Trissino, Valeriano, 231, 232, 233, 235–6; printers, 13; priory, 257, 305; schools, 7–8, 399n39 Vergerio, Pietro, bishop of Capodistria, 304, 313 Vergil as model for poetry, 162 Vermigli, Peter Martyr, exile, invited by Cranmer, worked on Book of Common Prayer, 313 Verona, 142, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 200, 259–60 Vicenza, 5, 195 Vigna (Roman garden), 118, 171, 172, 173, 174 Villa Bozza/Noniana, outside Padua, 12, 21–2, 39, 204–5, 211, 214, 283–4, 288–9, 294, 352 Villa Imperiale, 118, 294, 347–8, 372, 488n35 Villanova. See Abbey of Vinci, Leonardo da, 6–7, 176, 398n14, 399n26 Watches, 28, Bembo’s watch, 410n19

538

Index