On this day in history, 20th May 1470, the scholar and poet Pietro Bembo was born. A lover of Lucrezia Borgia, he was influential in the development of the modern Italian language.
Pietro Bembo was a writer influential in the development of the Italian language. He was born in Venice, on 20th May 1470.
However, Bembo is probably most remembered for having an affair with Lucrezia Borgia while she was married to the Duke of Ferrara. He lived with them in the Este Court. When Lord Byron read Bembo’s letters to Lucrezia, he described them as ‘the prettiest love letters in the world.’
Language and poetry studies
Bembo visited Florence with his father and acquired a love for the Tuscan form of Italian. He used this as his literary medium. He later learnt Greek and went to study at the University of Padua.
He spent two years at the Este Court in Ferrara. His poetry was reminiscent of Boccaccio and Petrarch.
When he returned to the court at Ferrara a few years later, he started an affair with Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, and at the time the wife of Alfonso I d’Este. Their love letters are now in the collection of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
Related article: Mother of Lucrezia Borgia born
Historian, poet and librarian
Bembo moved to Urbino where he wrote his most influential work, a treatise on writing poetry in Italian, Prose della vulgar lingua.
Later, Bembo worked as a historian and librarian in Venice for a time before going to live in Rome, where he took Holy Orders. He was made a Cardinal by Pope Paul III in 1539.
He died in Rome in 1547 at the age of 76.
