ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
his old comrade at the Court of Urbino, died in Spain, 
broken-hearted by the sack of Rome; and he lost both 
his neighbour Luigi da Porto, and the beloved 
Navagero, who died of fever at Blois. “ He was too 
excellent a man for these cruel and miserable times,” 
wrote Bembo. “ Cursed, oh! thrice cursed be the 
evil fate which has robbed me of the men I loved best. 
But my pen refuses to do her part, and I had rather 
weep than write.” 
He remained at the Villa all through the spring and 
summer, and found his best comfort in the sweet 
scents of the garden and the countless nightingales 
which soothed his wounded spirits with their delicious 
song. 
“Yet are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake, 
For Death, he taketh all away, but these he cannot take.” 
At Christmas Bembo went to Bologna to meet the 
Pope, and to see the Emperor, who came, it was fondly 
hoped, to restore peace to Italy and receive the Imperial 
Crown. Many of his old friends were there to welcome 
him—Isabella d’Este, her brother Alfonso, the Duke 
and Duchess of Urbino; and every day a brilliant 
company of scholars and poets met at the house of 
Veronica Gambara. But not all these splendours could 
keep Bembo away from his Villa in the springtime, and 
by March he was at home again with Morosina and 
her children. 
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