Pietro Bembo

BEMBO, PIETRO (1470-1547), Italian cardinal and scholar, was born at Venice. While still a boy he accompanied his father to Florence, and there learnt to love the Tuscan dialect which he afterwards cultivated. He accompanied Giulio de' Medici to Rome, where he was appointed secretary to Leo X. (1513) . On the pontiff's death he retired to Padua, and in 1529 he accepted the office of historiographer to his native city, being shortly afterwards appointed librarian of St. Mark's. The offer of a cardinal's hat by Pope Paul III. took him in 1S39 again to Rome, where he re nounced the study of classical literature and devoted himself to theology and classical history, receiving before long as reward of his conversion the bishoprics of Gubbio and Bergamo. As a writer, Bembo is the beau ideal of a purist. The exact imitation of the style of the classics was the highest perfection at which he aimed.

His works (collected edition, Venice, 1729) include a

History of Venice (1551) from 1487 to 1513, dialogues, poems, and what we should now call essays. Perhaps the most famous are a little treatise on Italian prose and a dialogue entitled Gli Asolani, in which platonic affection is recommended, to the amusement of the reader who re members the relations of the beautiful Morosina with the author. The edition of Petrarch's Italian Poems (15o1) and the Terzerime (1502), both published by Aldus, were edited by Bembo. See Opere de P. Bembo (Venice, 1729) ; Casa, Vita di Bembo, in 2nd vol. of his works.