Pietro Bembo: Lover, Linguist, Cardinal

by Carol Kidwell

The first full-length biography of Renaissance Cardinal Pietro Bembo 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.

Genres: Biography

656 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2004

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found myself skimming the back half more than reading, but only because I'm more interested in Bembo's early life. Fascinating guy, who has major contributions but not so well known because they don't effect English speakers as much. But still, he was around for some interesting historical events. Well written, accessible history that really gives you a sense of Bembo's life.

[Gitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is easy to forget that people experienced the events we read about now, but Kidwell includes insights into Bembo's character which revive him as an individual. I've been dipping in and out of this book for some time now. I needed it for an essay I wrote on Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione's involvement in the Questione della lingua earlier this year. But this time I needed it for my dissertation on Vittoria Colonna.

Kidwell has written a very readable account of Bembo, which paints a vivid picture of him, his friends and acquaintances and the times during which he lived. He was born in Venice, was educated in Florence, and would publish a work that would lay the foundations for the standardised Italian language: Prose della Volgar Lingua (1525). He was also a poet and known to far and wide for his knowledge of the Petrarchism.

With it's footnotes, it is suitable for both an academic and a popular audience, unlike biographies which do not give reference aside from the bibliography. This book finds that balance to be appealing both to students and the enthusiast. It is not a historical novel or a biographical novel, but at times it reads like one and is just as entertaining.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and written in an accessible style. I wish we had been told more about the actual personality of the man, but I presume that is old fashioned now. He did write a lot of love letters and I felt as though I could have done without having to see so many, it tipped the balance of the book. It seemed that because there are all these letters, we had to read each one and some of them really were not interesting and ceratainly did not add any insight to the man himself. I would have been interested in some of the important relationships he had - the Duke and Duchess of Urbino and Duke Francesco Maria who actually promoted him, Castiglione, the Medici popes etc.