Soon after the death of Father Aponte, Mezzofanti had the further grief of losing his friend, the celebrated Signora Clotilda Tambroni, who, although considerably older than he, had been, as we have seen, his fellow pupil under Father Aponte, and with whom he had ever afterwards continued upon terms of most intimate friendship. Like Mezzofanti, the Signora Tambroni was, after the publication of the concordat, reinstated in the Greek professorship from which she had been dispossessed at the occupation of Bologna by the French. She was an excellent linguist, being familiar with Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and English,[386] and a poetess of some reputation, not only in her own, but also in the learned languages.[387] The Breslau professor, already referred to, Herr Kephalides, was much interested by her conversation; and that the interest which she created did not arise merely from the unusual circumstance of a lady’s devoting herself to such studies, but from her own unquestioned learning and ability, is attested by all who knew her. “It was a pleasant thing,” says Lady Morgan,[388] “to hear her learned coadjutor [Mezzofanti] in describing to us the good qualities of her heart, do ample justice to the profound learning which had raised her to an equality of collegiate rank with himself, without an innuendo at that erudition, which, in England, is a greater female stigma than vice itself.” The lively but caustic authoress just named, visited Italy in 1819-20. In her account of Bologna she devotes a note to the Abate Mezzofanti, under whose escort, (which she recognises as a peculiar advantage,) she visited the library and museum of the University.