CARDINAL BEMBO AND HIS VILLA 
volous pursuit, unworthy of a modest and honourable 
lady. “ Besides which,” he adds, “ you will never play 
well, unless you devote ten or twelve years to this 
exercise, which you know would be impossible. And 
if you play badly, your music will bring you little 
pleasure and much disgrace. So give up this foolish 
desire, and tell your companions that you are not 
going to learn the clavichord for them to laugh at 
you.” 1 
On his seventy-first birthday—May 20, 1541 — 
Bembo wrote to Cola, thanking him for all his loving 
care of the children, and rejoicing to hear that Elena 
was writing Latin verses and learning grammar, and 
that Torquato showed some taste for antiques, the sure 
sign of a gentle nature. “ This month he enters his 
seventeenth year, and is no longer a child, but a man. 
Elena, too, will be thirteen on the last day of June. 
Tell me if she is growing up as tall and beautiful 
as she promised to be. For certainly there is nothing 
dearer in the world to me, or that I love half as 
well as I do this child.” That summer was spent 
by Torquato and Elena with Cola at the Villa, where 
they were as merry as crickets. “ I am glad,” wrote 
the Cardinal, “ to hear that you are staying longer 
than usual at my Villetta, especially for Elena’s sake, 
for this is one of the two seasons of the year when 
1 Lettere , iv. 105, 107. 
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