At length Alfonso died, and this circumstance, and the death of a daughter, assassinated by a jealous husband, caused him to quit Ferrara, and to establish himself at Florence, where he was honourably received by the grand duke Ferdinand. Here doubtless he might have remained in peace, but for the irascibility of his temper, the indignation he felt when his views were thwarted, and his tendency to consider himself an ill-used man. His younger son, whom he mentions in the letter quoted above with so much interest, was placed at Pisa for the sake of his education, where he contracted an imprudent marriage with a young, beautiful, and dowerless widow. Guarini was transported by rage: he accused the duke of abetting his son in this act of disobedience, and indulged in implacable anger against the youth himself, to whom he refused any assistance, when reduced to the most necessitous circumstances. Guarini exalted the paternal authority, and exacted filial obedience, in a manner that displayed more pride than affection. Now in his old age, he was at variance with nearly all his children; his violent expressions is a proof that he suffered; but his heart did not relent nor open towards them, even when death snatched them from him; and it is impossible to sympathise in passions, which thus centred and ended in himself. On leaving Florence, he visited Urbino; but, dissatisfied with his reception, he retired to Ferrara. The citizens deputed him to Rome to congratulate Paul Usur on his being created pope. It was on this occasion that cardinal Bellarmino reproached him for having done more harm to the Christian world by his Pastor Fido, than Luther and Calvin by their heresies--a singular denunciation--since, though the softness and tenderness of love, which pervades the poem, may tend to enervate; yet the fidelity, the devotion, and purity of sentiment, exhibited in the actions of the chief personages, certainly do not lay it open to excessive censure. Guarini retorted by a witty reply, which the respect paid to the cardinal by the historians, has not permitted to be transmitted to us. [Sidenote: 1608. Ætat. 71.] This was the last public service of Guarini. A few years after he was invited to be present at the nuptials of Francesco Gonzaga and Marguerite of Savoy, during which a comedy of his was represented with great splendour. Chiabrera wrote the interludes, and the architect Viamini arranged the scenery and decorations. The last years of his life were taken up by the lawsuits, which so strangely chequered his career. He hired a lodging at Venice, where many of his causes were decided, as near as possible to the courts, and frequently visited that city to attend the proceedings; and he made a last journey to Rome at the time that two suits were decided in his favour. On his return to Venice he was seized by a fever, of which he died, after an illness of seventeen days, on the 7th of October, 1612, at the age of seventy-five.