CARDINAL BEMBO AND HIS VILLA 



when he in his turn lost his wife a few months later. 

 " On returning last night from Praglia, where I had 

 ridden for exercise and change of scene, I found the 

 sad news of the death of your dear wife, Madonna 

 Franceschina, awaiting me. I feel for you as a fond 

 brother, who knows by experience how hard these part- 

 ings are to bear. For when we are already old and 

 want these sweet and faithful companions more than 

 ever, it is a bitter and cruel thing to be deprived of 

 them." l 



The two children whom Morosina had left him 

 were henceforth the object of Bembo's tenderest care 

 the boy Torquato and the little Elena, who grew up 

 so like her mother that the sight of her lovely face 

 often brought tears to his eyes. They still spent the 

 summer at the Villa, in Cola's charge, and when, in 

 1539, Bembo received the long-coveted Cardinal's 

 hat from Paul III, he came there to spend his last 

 few days with them. The sight of these familiar 

 places recalled the past vividly ; he wrote his beautiful 

 elegy on the death of Morosina and sent it to his 

 intimate friend Elisabetta Quirini at Venice, begging 

 her to let no one see the verses, or hear that they had been 

 composed after his election. Then the new Cardinal 

 went on to Rome, and in spite of the load of seventy 

 years that weighed heavily on his shoulders, took up 

 1 Lettere, ii. 103. 



'59 



