Never since Petrarch’s day had the sceptre of Italian literature rested so unequivocally in one hand as in PIETRO BEMBO’S during the second quarter of the sixteenth century. In one respect Bembo’s pre-eminence is even more remarkable than his predecessor’s, for Petrarch towered immeasurably above any possible competitor except Boccaccio, while Bembo was so far from being the first man of his day that he was not even a man of genius. His wonderful gift for felicitous imitation, whether in prose or verse, was unaccompanied by any power of original thought. But he possessed beyond any contemporary the formal perfection of style, whether in Latin or Italian, demanded by the age. His History of Venice, which alone concerns us here, was originally published in the former language, but Bembo vindicated his claim to a place among Italian historians by himself translating it into Italian. He had succeeded Andrea Navagero as Venetian historiographer in 1529. Born at Venice in 1470, and son of the magistrate who so honourably distinguished himself by raising a monument to Dante at Ravenna, Bembo had all his life enjoyed the favour of the great. He had been the Platonic admirer of Lucrezia Borgia, who had honoured him with the shining tress and the dull letters religiously preserved in the Brera Library at Milan. Leo X. had made him his secretary before issuing from his own conclave, and, with munificence for once well applied, had provided him with means to occupy a delicious retreat at Padua, where he was residing when he received the Venetian commission. At a later period Paul III., who loved to surround himself with illustrious men, raised him to the Cardinalate and drew him to Rome, where he died in 1547, more admired and lamented than any man of letters of his time. His history, which extends from 1487 to 1513, and which he composed with his eye upon Cæsar, is the image of the writer, perfect in the harmony of its periods, and carrying the reader rapidly along its smooth surface, but surface alone, describing every occurrence as the ordinary man saw it and the statesman did not, with no attempt to search out the secret springs of action, no reference to documents public or private, and, which is more surprising, no effort to delineate a remarkable character. That this would not have exceeded his powers is shown by his beautiful portrait of the Duchess of Urbino, in his Latin life of her husband.