[Footnote 75: _Spicilegium Romanum_, tom. I. (Romæ, 1839). Vat. Urb. MSS. 941.] * * * * * Two members only of the brilliant and lettered court of Guidobaldo have gained enduring celebrity from their writings--CASTIGLIONE and BEMBO.[*76] The former may be considered a pattern of gentlemanly writing, the latter of scholarlike composition. We have already said what is necessary of both, and have introduced into our narrative an idea of Count Baldassare's _Cortegiano_, its objects and style. It is said to have been suggested by Louis XII., and written about 1516, but the author's preface seems to point at an earlier date. Two of his published letters to Bembo show how anxiously he awaited the suffrage of his friends, among whom it was handed about; but it was sent to press in 1528, only in consequence of the alarm of a pirated edition being in preparation, from a MS. which had been submitted to the famed Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara. The number of reprints which issued during the next fifty years was at least forty-two. A variety of circumstances conduced to this extensive and continued popularity. Books professing to initiate the many into habits and mysteries of refined society ever have claims on public curiosity, but the attraction was here increased by the dazzling reputation of the palace-circle at Urbino, as well as by the charms of erudition, wit, elegance, and worldly wisdom which sparkle in every page. It has, however, been remarked that most translations of the _Cortegiano_ have failed to obtain the applause bestowed upon the original. The observation may be taken as a compliment to the polish of its diction, and to those delicacies of expression that bear no transplanting into another idiom. It also proves that the celebrity of this work rests much upon its style. The subject could scarcely be treated at such length without falling into that diffuseness and repetition, which, though clothed in beauty by the rich fluency of the Italian language, must always degenerate into monotony when rendered by the bold expletives of a less copious tongue. [Footnote *76: For Castiglione, see works mentioned in note *2, p. 51 _supra_. I understand Mrs. Ady has written a biography of Castiglione, which is shortly to appear. For Bembo, I cite here a few works more especially relating to Urbino or to his general life: MORSOLIN, _Pietro Bembo e Lucrezia Borgia_, in _Nuova Autologia_, August, 1885. Cf. CIAN, in _Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital._, XXIX., p. 425. CIAN, _Un decennio della vita di P. Bembo_ (1521-31) (Torino, 1885), and LUZIO, in _Giornale St. d. Lett. Ital._, VI., p. 270, and D'ANCONA, _Studi sulla Letteratura de' primi secoli_ (Ancona, 1884), p. 151 _et seq._] [Illustration: CASTIGLIONE _After the picture by Raphael in the Louvre_]