Bembo in Rome: from Passion to Disenchanment

Pietro Bembo, the most influent 16th Century Italian man of letters, lived in Rome in different periods of his life, from his first journey at the age of eighteen, in order to gaze at the ruins of classical Rome in 1487, to his death in Campo Marzio in 1547. As a young humanist, Bembo lived the glorious renaissance of Julius the 2nd’s Rome. Later, as Secretary of the Curia, he had an enormous influence on the development of Roman literature, rhetoric and historiography. Finally, as a Cardinal, he knew the years of bitterness and disillusionment just before the Council of Trent. The paper presents some remarkable accounts of Roman life and culture at the end of the Renaissance that this extraordinary witness offered in his letters and literary works, and emphasizes his key role in Roman culture during the Cinquecento.