DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0257
198 COUNT BAUDASSARE CASTIGUIONE
brought there as a babe by his widowed mother,
Altonsina Orsini, and tenderly nursed by the kind
Duchess.
Bembo's residence at the court of Urbino was even
more prolonged. ' Be of good cheer/ he wrote tive-
and-twenty years afterwards to his young protege,
Yettore Soranzo, who was groaning over his poverty
and lack of opportunities, ' be of good cheer, and do
not allow melancholy to oppress you, remembering
that I went to Urbino with only forty ducats in my
pocket, and remained there six years, and without
ever receiving more than fourteen ducats from my
familyU After many storms and troubles, Fortune
had at length brought him into a quiet haven.
In May of 1506 he had written disconsolately to
Elisabetta from Venice, saying that his father, who
was bent on seeing his son embrace a political career,
or at least take a rich wife, positively refused to
supply him with sufhcient funds to go to Rome,
and begging the good Duchess to get leave for him
to inhabit rooms in the Badia della Croce at Avel-
lana, in the mountains near Gubbio. A few weeks
later he was invited to Rome by his friend Bernardo
da Bibbiena, now secretary to Cardinal de' Medici,
and found a lodging under this prelate's hospitable
roof until he came to meet the Pope at Urbino.
He followed the Papal court to Forli, to present
a petition from the Knights of Rhodes, after which
he had intended to return to the Badia dell' Avellana.
But Elisabetta declared that she could not allow him
to spend the winter in so rigorous a climate, and
insisted on keeping him as a guest in her own house.
It was in vain that his friends in Venice—his
old father, who had grown grey in the service of
i Cod. Marciana, Cl. x., No. xxii., 52.
brought there as a babe by his widowed mother,
Altonsina Orsini, and tenderly nursed by the kind
Duchess.
Bembo's residence at the court of Urbino was even
more prolonged. ' Be of good cheer/ he wrote tive-
and-twenty years afterwards to his young protege,
Yettore Soranzo, who was groaning over his poverty
and lack of opportunities, ' be of good cheer, and do
not allow melancholy to oppress you, remembering
that I went to Urbino with only forty ducats in my
pocket, and remained there six years, and without
ever receiving more than fourteen ducats from my
familyU After many storms and troubles, Fortune
had at length brought him into a quiet haven.
In May of 1506 he had written disconsolately to
Elisabetta from Venice, saying that his father, who
was bent on seeing his son embrace a political career,
or at least take a rich wife, positively refused to
supply him with sufhcient funds to go to Rome,
and begging the good Duchess to get leave for him
to inhabit rooms in the Badia della Croce at Avel-
lana, in the mountains near Gubbio. A few weeks
later he was invited to Rome by his friend Bernardo
da Bibbiena, now secretary to Cardinal de' Medici,
and found a lodging under this prelate's hospitable
roof until he came to meet the Pope at Urbino.
He followed the Papal court to Forli, to present
a petition from the Knights of Rhodes, after which
he had intended to return to the Badia dell' Avellana.
But Elisabetta declared that she could not allow him
to spend the winter in so rigorous a climate, and
insisted on keeping him as a guest in her own house.
It was in vain that his friends in Venice—his
old father, who had grown grey in the service of
i Cod. Marciana, Cl. x., No. xxii., 52.