Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), scholar and critic, was one of the most admired Latinists of his day. The poems in this volume come from all periods of his life and reflect both his erudition and his wide-ranging friendships. This volume also includes the prose dialogue Etna, an account of Bembo's ascent of Mt. Etna in Sicily during his student days.

Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), a Venetian nobleman, later a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, was a celebrated Latin stylist and was widely admired for his writings in Italian as well. His early dialogue on the subject of love influenced the development of the literary vernacular, as did his Prose della volgar lingua (1525). From 1513 to 1521 he served Pope Leo X as Latin secretary and became known as the leading advocate of Ciceronian Latin in Europe and of the Tuscan dialect within Italy. He was named official historian of Venice in 1529 and began to compose in Latin his continuation of the city's history in twelve books, covering the years from 1487 to 1513. Although the work chronicles internal politics and events, much of it is devoted to the external affairs of Venice, principally conflicts with other European states (France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, Milan, and the papacy) and with the Turks in the East.

Carol Kidwell's lavishly illustrated book is the first full-length biography of Renaissance Cardinal Pietro Bembo. Her extensive use of translations from Bembo's 2,600 letters, including exchanges of love letters with Lucrezia Borgia, provides a picture of personal life in the brilliant, turbulent years of the Italian Renaissance. Bembo, a Venetian patrician and man of letters, had a close association with the printer Aldus. He enjoyed a rich life with illicit love affairs in the courts of Ferrara, Urbino, and finally Rome, where he was appointed Latin secretary to Leo X. Ten years later, ill and bored, Bembo left Rome for Padua with Morosina, the young sister of a Vatican courtesan. To guarantee a living he took vows of chastity, poverty and obedience in the aristocratic order of St John of Jerusalem, and then started a family. Bembo was active in education in Padua; and his great achievement was to have helped create a common language for Italy through the revival of medieval Tuscany in his poetry and prose. Appointed official historian of Venice, after Morosina's death he became a cardinal. An open mind, coupled with staunch support of the established church during the troubled years of the reformation, made him an asset to the papal curia. At the time of his accidental death in Rome in 1547 he was considered a likely successor to Paul III.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), a Venetian nobleman, later a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, was the most celebrated Latin stylist of his day and was widely admired for his writings in Italian as well. His early dialogue on the subject of love greatly influenced the development of the literary vernacular, as did his Prose della volgar lingua (1525). From 1513 to 1521 he served Pope Leo X as Latin secretary and became known as the leading advocate of Ciceronian Latin in Europe and of the Tuscan dialect within Italy. He was named official historian of Venice in 1529 and began to compose in Latin his continuation of the city's history in twelve books, covering the years from 1487 to 1513. Although the work chronicles internal politics and events, much of it is devoted to the external affairs of Venice, principally conflicts with other European states (France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, Milan, and the papacy) and with the Turks in the East. The History of Venice was published after Bembo's death, in Latin and in his own Italian version. This edition, in a projected three volumes, makes it available for the first time in English translation.

If history remembers Lucrezia Borgia at all, it is as a woman of extravagant vices whose name has become synonymous with political intrigue and poison. Cardinal Bembo is remembered primarily as the namesake of a popular typeface. But as this book of letters reveals, there was real substance, and real faces, to both of them. Borgia, a child bride who was ruthlessly exploited for political advantage by her three husbands, proved to be a girl of surprising resilience and cunning, anything but a monster. Pietro Bembo, the learned and (as demonstrated here) surpassingly gentle scholar, was the perfect product of the Renaissance. The covert love affair they conducted over sixteen years under the nose of Borgia s ruthless brother, Cesare, was as dangerous as it was impassioned and their letters, which provide a unique record of life during the Italian Renaissance, are a testament both to a relationship of rare beauty and to a feudal society of strict boundaries, dark dynastic drives, boundless political ambition, and extraordinary gallantry. Set in (what else?) Monotype Bembo, illustrated with the charming and delicate wood engravings of Shirley Smith, this elegant paperback will be a memorable gift for modern lovers.

This book is centered on the Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), on his ascent of Mount Etna in 1493, and above all on the striking artistic originality of the elegant Latin work that he wrote about his climb after his return to Venice in 1494: his De Aetna, published at the Aldine press in Venice in 1496.