[Footnote *141: Cf. ZACCAGNINI, _La vita e le opere edite e inedite di B.B._ (Modena, 1903); UGOLINI, _Versi e prose scelte di B.B._ (Firenze, 1859); see also MADIAI, _Pierantonio Paltroni e B.B. biografi di Federigo da Montefeltro in Le Marche_ (1902), vol. II., pp. 5-6.] [Footnote *142: Cf. AFFÒ, _La Vita di B.B._ (Parma, 1783).] In 1575 he returned home, to share the last labours, and watch the death-bed, of his friend Comandino, and to encounter from his parents many a remonstrance as to his neglected professional acquirements, of which, in the various food with which he had appeased his literary craving at the university, he seems entirely to have lost sight. But their efforts were vain. The Eugubinean tables, that philological enigma, having attracted his attention, he boldly encountered their solution, and studied Arabic as a stepping-stone to the lost dialects of Central Italy. His biographers insert Etruscan in the catalogue of his polyglot acquirements, but the tables of Gubbio remain a puzzle to antiquaries. Those who made literature a profession, before there existed a "public" to remunerate their exertions, looked for maintenance to princes or private patrons; and in 1580 Baldi gratefully accepted the offer of Don Ferrante Gonzaga, Lord of Guastalla, to instruct him in mathematics, on an allowance of ten scudi a month, besides board for himself and a servant,--an appointment which made him favourably known to Cardinal (afterwards St.) Carlo Borromeo, uncle of that prince, and to many persons of literary reputation who frequented his miniature court. There his time was divided between mathematical and poetic compositions, until, in 1586, a sudden change took place in his position by his adopting a clerical habit, at the request of Don Ferrante, in order that he might hold the Abbacy of Guastalla, the emoluments of which yielded him about 320 golden ducats. This promotion brought out a curious feature in the character of so hard a student, and we find him immediately repairing to Rome, to canvass for the higher honours of a titular bishopric, on being refused which, he struggled for permission to wear some trifling distinction in his canonical robes with pertinacity befitting a worldling rather than a philosopher. Neither was it from such a character that we should have looked for a zeal in the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline, which led him beyond the bounds of prudence in wielding his inquisitorial powers.[*143] [Footnote *143: In Rome he pursued too his artistic studies; it was this sojourn which inspired the _Sonetti Romani_. He seems to have passed the years 1592-1609 between Rome, Urbino, and Guastalla.]