DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42861#0312
272
PIETRO BEMBO
his friend Ercole Strozzi to Mantua, but at that time
he had been unable to accept her invitation, which
thus, in his courtly phrase, rendered him at once the
happiest and most miserable man in the world.
Again, in October 1504, Bembo was on his way to
visit Mantua, when he heard, on arriving at Verona,
that Isabella had been summoned to her dying father’s
bedside. The Marchesa renewed the invitation early
in April, and Pietro wrote from Venice, saying that to
visit Mantua was one of the greatest wishes of his
heart, but regretting that as yet he is unable to wait
upon her. “ Since, however,” he adds, “ I cannot come
myself, I send Your Highness, by Zuan Valerio, part
of my family, that is to say, three youths who have
not yet left the house, and commend them humbly
to Your Excellency’s good offices.”1 The three
sonnets of his composition, which Bembo enclosed,
were highly appreciated by Isabella. She was still
better pleased when, two months later, their author
presented himself at Mantua on his way back to
Venice, with letters from Elisabetta and Emilia Pi a,
who availed herself of this opportunity to send the
Marchesa a flask of myrtle scent. On this occasion
Isabella showed her cultured guest the treasures which
she had collected in the little room in the old Castello,
with their delicately inlaid woodwork, and frieze of
music notes and playing cards, and the new studio of
the Grotta in the Corte Vecchia, where her choicest
pictures and marbles were arranged. There Bembo
saw Michel Angelo’s sleeping Cupids and Mantegna’s
two priceless paintings, the Triumphs of Venus and
of Pallas, as well as Perugino’s Triumph of Chastity,
which had lately arrived from Florence, and promised
1 D’Arco, Notizie d’Isabella, p. 312.
PIETRO BEMBO
his friend Ercole Strozzi to Mantua, but at that time
he had been unable to accept her invitation, which
thus, in his courtly phrase, rendered him at once the
happiest and most miserable man in the world.
Again, in October 1504, Bembo was on his way to
visit Mantua, when he heard, on arriving at Verona,
that Isabella had been summoned to her dying father’s
bedside. The Marchesa renewed the invitation early
in April, and Pietro wrote from Venice, saying that to
visit Mantua was one of the greatest wishes of his
heart, but regretting that as yet he is unable to wait
upon her. “ Since, however,” he adds, “ I cannot come
myself, I send Your Highness, by Zuan Valerio, part
of my family, that is to say, three youths who have
not yet left the house, and commend them humbly
to Your Excellency’s good offices.”1 The three
sonnets of his composition, which Bembo enclosed,
were highly appreciated by Isabella. She was still
better pleased when, two months later, their author
presented himself at Mantua on his way back to
Venice, with letters from Elisabetta and Emilia Pi a,
who availed herself of this opportunity to send the
Marchesa a flask of myrtle scent. On this occasion
Isabella showed her cultured guest the treasures which
she had collected in the little room in the old Castello,
with their delicately inlaid woodwork, and frieze of
music notes and playing cards, and the new studio of
the Grotta in the Corte Vecchia, where her choicest
pictures and marbles were arranged. There Bembo
saw Michel Angelo’s sleeping Cupids and Mantegna’s
two priceless paintings, the Triumphs of Venus and
of Pallas, as well as Perugino’s Triumph of Chastity,
which had lately arrived from Florence, and promised
1 D’Arco, Notizie d’Isabella, p. 312.