Among the names which shed a lustre upon Urbino, in return for hospitalities received at that court, was that of BERNARDO TASSO,[*173] whose splendour would have been more conspicuous in the galaxy of Italian poets, had he not given birth to a son of yet brighter genius. The house of Tasso was of ancient descent in the Bergamasque territory; but Bernardo drew his first breath at Venice, the home of his mother, a lady of the Cornari. Of his youth we know nothing, except that he enjoyed the advantage of a liberal education, and that his morals were no exception to the lax habits of the age. An avowed lover of the matronly Ginevra Malatesta, he sang her beauty in strains complaining of her continence; and at Rome he dangled in poverty after Tullia d'Aragona, one of those splendid examples of wasted powers and successful vice over which the philosopher puzzles while the historian sighs, whose talents were given to the Muses, whose graces were devoted to Venus. [Footnote *173: Cf. PASOLINI, _I Genitori di T. Tasso_ (Roma, 1895).] [Illustration: BERNARDO TASSO _From a picture once in the possession of James Dennistoun_] Finding himself past thirty without either an independence or a career, he commenced the life of a literary courtier, for which the social condition of Italy under her many principalities held out considerable inducements. His first essay was as private secretary to Count Guido Rangone, a warrior chief of some distinction; and during the Lombard campaign in 1526 Bernardo was sent by him on missions of importance to the Doge of Genoa and to the Pope.[*174] He remained with the latter on Bourbon's approach, and was commissioned by his Holiness to seek out Lannoy at Siena, and urge him to repair to Rome, take command of the imperial troops, and put an end to their outrages. In this journey the speed of his Turkish charger enabled him to escape from an assault which proved fatal to one of his attendants. Though unsuccessful in the negotiation, his dexterity recommended him as papal envoy to the court of France, in order to arrange the advance of Lautrec, whom he accompanied into Italy. After the destruction of the French army before Naples, we find him for a time secretary to Laura Duchess of Ferrara, and he accompanied the Marquis of Vasto on the Turkish campaign in Hungary. [Footnote *174: He went in 1528 to Paris on behalf of Conte Guido.]