One of the most celebrated of these numerous poets was Veronica Gambara, Countess of Correggio, a woman of fine gifts, many virtues, and great personal charm, who was left a widow after nine happy years of marriage. Like her friend Vittoria Colonna, she spent the rest of her life in mourning her husband, draping herself, her apartments, and everything she had in black, and refusing all offers of a second marriage. But this sable grief did not prevent her from managing her affairs, her little state, and her two sons, both of whom reached high positions, with great judgment and ability. Her husband had trusted her implicitly, and left her in full control at his death. It was largely to his memory that she devoted her poetic gifts. She did not write a great deal, but her verses were simple and showed masculine vigor. Many of them were tender, though by no means sentimental. She wrote on the vanity of earthly things, a subject on which women have always been specially eloquent, as they have so often written out of their own sad experience. Her home at Bologna was a sort of academy, where the most distinguished men of the age met, and it was noted as a center of brilliant conversation. One of its chief attractions was Cardinal Bembo, a lifelong friend, to whom she addressed a sonnet at ten. Philosopher, high priest of Platonism, critic, poet, and man of the world, this famous cardinal paid the highest tributes to the distinguished women of his time. Intellectually he lived in an air that was somewhat tenuous, but he sought the society of those who loved things of the spirit--especially princesses. It was a convenient fashion among these diplomats and churchmen to have two lives--one poetic, Platonic, with ecstatic glimpses of the celestial, the other running through various grades of the terrestrial. The versatile Bembo was no exception. Veronica Gambara, who combined grace and delicacy with a distinctly mundane vigor, sat metaphorically at his feet, and was an ardent disciple of the new Platonic philosophy. She had natural eloquence, and gave a charm to the serious discussions at her house. Among her noted visitors was Charles V, who was fascinated by her talents and gracious manners. She reproached him and Francis I with the quarrels that had flooded Europe with tears, and wrote him a poem fired with patriotic ardor, in which she asks peace for Italy and protection against the infidel. In her poetry and her letters she followed Petrarch. Without commanding genius, and less mystical than Vittoria Colonna, but with possibly more strength in a limited range, she was greatly considered for her learning, her poetry, her social graces, her practical ability, and her spotless character. These are a few out of a multitude of poets and savantes who are of little interest to-day, except as showing the notable attainments of women in a new field and the drift of public sentiment regarding them. VI