Pietro Bembo[*44] was born at Venice in 1470, and had the first rudiments of education at Florence, whither his father Bernardo was sent as ambassador from the Signory. Having learned Greek at Messina under Constantin Lascaris, and studied philosophy at Padua and Ferrara, he devoted himself to literary pursuits. At the court of the d'Este princes, where he was introduced by his father then resident as envoy from Venice, he met with the consideration due to his acquirements, and found a brilliant society, including Sadoleto, the Strozzi, and Tibaldeo. There he was residing when the arrival of Lucrezia Borgia threatened to establish for it a very different character; but the dissolute beauty seems to have left in the Vatican her abandoned tastes, and adopting those of her new sovereignty she became distinguished as a patroness of letters. The intimacy which sprang up between this princess and Bembo has given rise to some controversy as to the purity of its platonism, a discussion into which we need not enter. The life of the lady, the writings of the Abbé, and the morals of their time combine to justify suspicion, where proofs can hardly be looked for.[*45]

"But if their solemn love were crime,
Pity the beauty and the sage,—
Their crime was in their darkened age!"

Anon. des. L. Ceroni sculp.

CARDINAL BEMBO

From a drawing once in the possession of Cavaliere Agricola in Rome

Their correspondence lasted from 1503 to 1516, and many of his letters are published.[*46] The prevailing tone of these is rhetorical rather than passionate, and is quite as complimentary to her virtues as to her beauty. The Ambrosian Library at Milan possesses nine autograph epistles in Italian and Latin from Lucrezia, addressed "to my dearest M. Pietro Bembo," with the dates supplied in his hand. A tress of fair auburn hair, originally tied up with them, and doubtless that of the Princess, is now shown in the adjoining museum. That her tastes and accomplishments were not unworthy of such a friendship appears from many dedications of works to her while Duchess of Ferrara, including the Asolani of her admirer.

In 1505 Bembo repaired to Urbino, and sojourned chiefly at that court during the next six years, where his varied attainments were highly prized, and where his philological pedantry was probably regarded as ornamental. Besides enjoying the converse of many congenial spirits, he there formed a friendship with Giuliano de' Medici, to which he owed many subsequent honours. Accompanying him to Rome in 1512, he was recommended by him to his brother, the Cardinal, whose first act on being chosen Pope in the following year, was to name Bembo his secretary, jointly with his friend Sadoleto. For this situation he was in many respects well fitted, by the happy union of great learning with an extensive knowledge of men and manners, which his residence at Ferrara and Urbino had not failed to impart. The laxity of his morals, and the paganism of his ideas, were unfortunately no disqualifications under Leo X. He continued to earn his master's confidence in the discharge of his regular duties, as well as in occasional diplomatic missions, but, as Roscoe truly observes, his success as a negotiator did not equal his ability in official correspondence. The pensions and benefices which rewarded his services enriched him for life, and even before that Pontiff's death he sought at Padua an elegant literary retirement, refusing from Clement VII., and from the Signory of Venice, all offers of public employment. He surrounded himself with a most select library, including many invaluable manuscripts, and a precious collection of medals and other antiquities, which, with the society of the learned whom he attracted to his board, gave to his house a wide celebrity. It was not regarded as at all degraded by the presence of an avowed mistress at its head, with whom he openly lived for many years, and had several children; and neither this scandal, nor the gross indecency of some of his writings, prevented Paul III. from conferring upon him a scarlet hat in 1539. He is said to have accepted this dignity unwillingly, but having done so, he had the good sense at all events to "cleanse the outside of the cup and platter." His mistress was now dead; he laid aside poetry, literature, and pagan idioms, and, devoting himself to theological studies, at which he had formerly sneered in the habit of an abbé, he entered holy orders at the mature age of sixty-nine. In 1541 he succeeded Fregoso, his early companion at Urbino, in the bishopric of Gubbio, to which was added that of Bergamo. How little these preferments contributed to his comfort appears from a letter to Veronica Gambara in December, 1543. "Often," he there says, "do I desire to be the unfettered Bembo of other days, rather than as I now am. But what better can one make of it? Man's existence, abounding more in crosses than in gratifying incidents, will have it so; and wiser he who least desponds and best puts up to necessity, than one that less conforms to it. Yet I own myself unable to do this amid these privations, and exiled in a manner from myself. For verily I am neither at Venice nor Padua, as your Ladyship supposes, but at my church of Gubbio, a very wild place to say the truth, and offering few conveniences." He died at Rome six years after, in his seventy-seventh year, and was buried in the church of the Minerva, between his patrons Leo X. and Clement VII., where a modest flag-stone is all the memorial that his natural son and heir, Torquato, bestowed on one of the most famous men of his age.