One of Flaminio's best poems is written from his friend Stefano Sauli's villa near Genoa.[498] It describes how he spends his time between the philosophy of Aristotle and the verses of Catullus, while Sauli at his side devotes himself to Cicero. The fall of evening lures them from their study to the sea-beach: perched upon a water-girded rock, they angle with long reeds for fishes, or watch the white sails on the purple waves. The same theme is repeated in a copy of hexameters addressed to Sauli.[499] Flaminio had fallen ill of fever at Rome. To quit the city was his cure:-- Scilicet ut Romæ corruptas fugimus auras, Et riguos patriæ montes saltusque salubres Venimus, effoetos venit quoque robur in artus: Diffugit macies, diffugit corpore pallor; Et somnus vigiles irrepsit blandus ocellos, Quem neque desiliens crepitanti rivulus undâ, Nec Lethea mihi duxere papavera quondam.[500] [Footnote 498: 'Ad Christophorum Longolium,' _Ib._] [Footnote 499: _Poemata Selecta_, p. 163.] [Footnote 500: 'No sooner had I left Rome's tainted air for the clear streams and healthful forests of my native land, than strength returned into my wasted limbs; my body lost the pallor and emaciation of disease, and sweet sleep crept upon my wakeful eyes, such as no waters falling with a tinkling sound or Lethe's poppies had induced before.'] Sauli, for his part, is congratulated on having exchanged the cares of Church and State for Ciceronian studies among his laurel groves and gleaming orange gardens. Flaminio's intimate relations with the ablest men of the century, those especially who were engaged in grave and Christian studies, add extrinsic interest to his fugitive pieces. In one poem he alludes to the weak health of Cardinal Pole;[501] in another he compares Plato's description of the ideal republic with Contarini's work upon the magistrates and commonwealth of Venice:-- Descripsit ille maximus quondam Plato Longis suorum ambagibus voluminum, Quis civitatis optimus foret status: Sed hunc ab ipsâ sæculorum origine Nec ulla vidit, nec videbit civitas. At Contarenus optimam rempublicam Parvi libelli disputationibus Illam probavit esse, plus millesima Quam cernit æstas Adriatico in mari Florere pace, litteris, pecuniâ.[502] [Footnote 501: _Poemata Selecta_, p. 162.] [Footnote 502: 'Plato, the greatest of sages, once described in his long volumes the best form of a State; but this from the beginning of the world till now hath never yet been seen, nor will it afterwards be seen in any city. Contarini in his little book has proved that the best commonwealth is that which now for more than a thousand years has flourished in the Adriatic with peace, letters, and wealth.'--_Poemata Selecta_, p. 162.]