CARDINAL BEMBO AND HIS VILLA 
fruit trees and vines for fuel, and burning the houses 
of the unhappy peasants. Even the Villa was not safe 
from alarms. In his terror at the approach of these 
savage hordes, Bembo prepared to remove his family 
to Venice in the spring of 1528, and begged Ramusio 
for the use of his father-in-law Navagero’s house, the 
Ambassador being in France at the time. “ Would to 
God,” he exclaimed, “that these vile Germans had 
stayed by their own stoves, instead of coming here 
to vex us.” Fortunately the Landsknechten took 
another road, and this cloud which darkened the 
horizon drifted away to the north. “I hear,” he 
wrote to Soranzo, “that these cursed Germans are 
marching on Peschiera, and we shall be rid of them by 
to-morrow. So Messer Trifone may stay quietly at 
Ronchi, and I need not load my barge for Venice.” 
Then he adds the following characteristic message: 
“Tell my Aunt, Madonna Cecilia, that for the last 
four days, a most delicious nightingale has been singing 
in my garden, filling my soul with rapture all day 
long, and the closer I stand and watch him, the better 
he sings. I know that if she were here, she would 
envy me, and I hope she will come to my house the 
more willingly, to hear this enchanting little bird.” 1 
The following year was saddened by the death of 
several of Bembo’s most intimate friends. Castiglione, 
1 Lettere , ii. 183. 
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