Ancient and modern history, geography, the learning of the East, were familiar to him. He died at thirty-six, after a long and very painful illness; he had studied his complaint, and watched the slow-paced approach of death, knowing perfectly that neither the pleasant climate of Urbino nor the most assiduous attentions would retard it by an hour. And yet, even under the burden of his last anguish, he retained full possession of his intellect, with its charm and flame and serenity. His friends pretended not to have given up hope: “Why envy me so desirable a blessing?” he said to them gently. “To be freed from this load of terrible suffering—tell me, is not that a blessing?” At the very last he turned to Castiglione and recited to him one of the finest passages in Virgil. He died talking. Thus, with noble colloquies like these, radiant with natural kindliness, men lulled even pain asleep. Philosophy and love were naturally frequent subjects of conversation. People sought by their means to refine their sentiments, to analyse themselves, to set themselves ingenious problems to be investigated at leisure, to spiritualise love. For example: “Is it easier to feign love than to dissemble it?—_Answer_: Yes, because a voluntary act is always easier than an involuntary one.” “Is it more meritorious for love to lead the wise to folly than fools to wisdom?—No; it is better to build up than to destroy, and you can build nothing on folly.” “Is excess of love fatal?—Galen says yes; indirectly, through disease.” “Who loves the more easily?—Woman, because of her fickle nature.” “Who can best dispense with love?—Woman.” “Which is easier, to win love or to keep it?—To keep it.” “After perseverance, what is the best proof of love?—The sharing of joys and sorrows.” “Which is the stronger, hate or love?—Love.” “Can a miser love?—Yes, love can destroy avarice.” And so on. Bembo, in a little book dedicated to Lucretia Borgia (for three years the object of his passionate admiration), has left us an account of three days of conversation which followed a wedding. After a charming fête, in which young maidens furnished with tuneful viols had chanted hymns for and against love in turn, three noble damsels remained in discourse with three gentlemen on a flowery lawn, amid marble fountains and well-trimmed groves.