[*42] Serassi, in Poesie volgari e latine del B.C. aggiunti alcune Rime e Lettere di Cesare Gonzaga (Roma, 1760), gives a full notice of his life, and Castiglione, in the Fourth Book of the Cortegiano, speaks affectionately of him.
[*43] Cf. Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. (ed. Class. It.), vol. VIII., p. 3.
[*44] For a splendid account of Bembo, cf. Gaspary, Storia della Lett. Ital. (Torino, 1891), vol. II., part II., pp. 60-7, and the Appendice Bibliographica there, pp. 284-5.
[*45] This is altogether unfair, uncalled for, and untrue. Dennistoun is not to be trusted where a Borgia is concerned; like Sigismondo Malatesta they hurt the Urbino dukes too much.
[*46] Cf. Morsolin, P. Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia, in the Nuova Antologia (Roma, 1885), and Bembo, Opere (Venice, 1729), vol. III., pp. 307-17; also Cian, in Giorn. Stor. della Lett. Ital., XXIX., 425.
[*47] For all concerning this play and its performance at Urbino in 1513, see Vernarecci, Di Alcune Rappresentazioni Drammatiche alla Corte d'Urbino nel 1513 in Archivio Storico per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 181 et seq. The original prologue, by Bibbiena, was only recently made known by Del Lungo, La Recitazione dei Menaechmi in Firenze e il doppio prologo della Calandria, in the Arch. Stor. Ital., series III., vol. XXII., pp. 346-51. Machiavelli's estimate of Bibbiena will be found in Lettere Famil. di N. Machiavelli, Firenze, 1883, p. 304, "Bibbiena, hora cardinale, in verità ha gentile ingegno, ed è homo faceto et discreto, et ha durato a' suoi di gran fatica."
[*48] On the Unico Aretino Bernardo Accolti, see especially d'Ancona, Studi sulla Lett. Ital. de' primi secoli (Ancona, 1884), in the essay, Del Seicentismo nella poesia cortigiana del Secolo XV., pp. 217-18. He professed an extraordinary devotion for the Duchess of Urbino.
[*49] For Canossa, cf. Luzio e Renier, op. cit., p. 87, and especially Orti-Manara, Intorno alla vita ed alle gesta del Co. Lodovico di Canossa (Verona, 1845), and Cavattoni, Lettere scelte di Mons. L. di Canossa (Verona, 1862).
[*50] The books, pamphlets, poems, and stories, both contemporary and subsequent, dealing with the position, beauty, learning, dress, etc., of women would fill a library. I shall content myself by naming a very few among them under a few headings for the entertainment of the reader. The list of works I give is, of course, in no sense a bibliography. The best source is Castiglione himself—for the sixteenth century and for court life, at any rate. But the picture he paints, remarkable as it is, was by no means altogether realistic, as a consultation with the following works will show. I have included a few dealing with earlier times, and have only quoted works with which I am familiar.
GENERAL LIFE.