[299] Op. cit. vol. ii p. 210. It is the opening of the peroration to Book i.

[300] "But what land is that where now, O glorious Francis, the husbandman may thus enjoy his labors with gladness and tranquillity in peace? Not the fair nest, from which I dwell so far away; nay, not my Italy! She since your ensigns, mighty king, withdrew from her, hath had naught else but tears and war. Her tilled fields have become wild woods, the haunts of beasts, abandoned to lawless men. Herdsman or shepherd can scarce dwell secure within the city beneath their master's mantle; for those who should defend them, make the country folk their prey.... Let Italy's husbandman fly far from his own home, pass the Alpine barrier, seek out the breast of Gaul, repose, great lord, beneath thy empire's pinions! And though he shall not have the sun so warm, the skies so clear, as he was wont to have; though he shall not gaze upon those green Tuscan hills, where Pallas and Pomona make their fairest dwelling; though he shall not see those groves of orange, laurel, myrtle, which clothe the slopes of Parthenope; though he shall seek in vain the banks and waves of Garda and a hundred other lakes; the shade, the perfume, and the pleasant crags, which Liguria's laughing sea surrounds and bathes; the ample plains and verdant meadows which flower beneath the waters of Po, Adda, and Ticino; yet shall he behold glad fields and open, spreading too far for eyes to follow!"

[301] Vol. i. p. 251. It is the end of the third satire. "He who saw truly, would perceive that thyself brings on thee more dishonor than thy Martin Luther, and heavier burdens too. Not Germany, no, but sloth and wine, avarice, ambition, sensuality, and gluttony, are bringing thee to thy now near approaching end. It is not I who say this, not France alone, nor yet Spain, but all Italy, which holds thee for the school of heresy and vice. He who believes it not, let him inquire of Urbino, Ferrara, the Bear and the Column, the Marches and Romagna, yet more of her who weeps because you make her serve, who was once mistress over nations."

[302] I Dialoghi di Messer Speron Sperone (Aldus, Venice, 1542), p. 146. The passage is taken from a Dialogue on Rhetoric. I have tried to preserve the clauses of the original periods.

[303] Trifone Gabrielli was a Venetian, celebrated for his excellent morals no less than for his learning. He gained the epithet of the Socrates of his age, and died in 1549. His personal influence seems to have been very great. Bembo makes frequent and respectful references to him in his letters, and Giasone de Nores wrote a magnificent panegyric of him in the preface to his commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica, which he professed to have derived orally from Trifone.

[304] Sperone probably alludes to works like Minerbi's Vocabulary of words used by Boccaccio (Venice, 1535); Luna's Vocabolario di cinque mila vocaboli toschi del Furioso Petrarca Boccaccio e Dante (Naples, 1536); Accarigi's dictionary to Boccaccio entitled Ricchezze della lingua volgare (Venice, 1543); and so forth.

[305] It should be mentioned that the passage I have paraphrased is put into the lips of Antonio Broccardo, a Venetian poet, whose Rime were published in 1538. He attacked Bembo's works, and brought down upon himself such a storm of fury from the pedants of Padua and Venice that he took to his bed and died of grief.

[306] The difficulty is well put by one of the interlocutors in Castiglione's dialogue upon the courtier (ed. Lemonnier, p. 41): "Oltre a questo, le consuetudini sono molto varie, nè è città nobile in Italia che non abbia diversa maniera di parlar da tutte l'altre. Però non vi ristringendo voi a dichiarar qual sia la migliore, potrebbe l'uomo attaccarsi alla bergamasca così come alla fiorentina." Messer Federigo Fregoso of Genoa is speaking, and he draws the conclusion which practically triumphed in Italy: "Parmi adunque, che a chi vuol fuggir ogni dubio ed esser ben sicuro, sia necessario proporsi ad imitar uno, il quale di consentimento di tutti sia estimato buono ... e questo (nel volgar dico), non penso che abbia da esser altro che il Petrarca e 'l Boccaccio; e chi da questi dui si discosta va tentoni, come chi cammina per le tenebre e spesso erra la strada."

[307] In the famous passage of the Furioso where Ariosto pronounces the eulogy of the poets of his day, he mentions Bembo thus (Orl. Fur. xlvi. 15).

Pietro
Bembo, che 'l puro e dolce idioma nostro,
Levato fuor del volgar uso tetro,
Quale esser dee, ci ha co 'l suo esempio mostro.