BEM'BO, PIETRO (1470-1547). One of the most celebrated Italian scholars of the Sixteenth Century. He was born in Venice, May 20, 1470. Having studied at Padua and Ferrara, he early devoted himself to polite literature. He edited the Italian poems of Petrareh, printed by Aldus in 1501, and the Terre rime of Dante (1502). In 1506 he proceeded to the Court of 'Urbino, where he resided until 1512, when he went to Rome, where he was made secretary to Pope Leo X. On the death of that Pope, Bembo returned to Padua, where he became a liberal patron of literature and the arts, as well as a fertile writer himself. In 1529 he accepted the office of historiographer to the Republic of Venice, and was also appointed keeper of Saint Mark's Library. In 1539 Bembo, who had taken only the minor ecclesiastical orders, was un expectedly presented with a cardinal's hat by Pope Paul III., who afterwards appointed him to the dioceses of Guhhio and Bergamo. He died
1S, 1547. Bembo united in his char acter all that is amiable. He was the restorer of good style in both Latin and Italian litera ture. Ilis taste is said to have been so fas• tidious with regard to style that he subjected each of his own writings to forty revisions pre vious to publication. Some of his writings are marred by the licentiousness of the time. Among his works may he mentioned the Rerun,. Veneti earum Libri III. (Venice, 1551), of which he published an Italian edition (Venice, 1552) ; his Prose, dialogues in which are given the rules of the Tuscan dialect; Gli Asolani, a series of disputation's on love, etc.; Rime, a collection of sonnets and eanzonets; his letters, Italian and Latin; and the work De Guliee et Torentii Fabulis. His collected works were pub lished at Venice. in 4 volumes (1729). Consult Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, Vol. II. (Lon don. 1881).