CHRISTMAS AND CARNIVAL

219

a gay party of fellow-students, whose riotous mirth sometimes leads to serious consequences. On one occasion a Mantuan friend of Ercole, who shared his studies and board, quarrelled with a Modenese youth and wounded him mortally, upon which the prince sent him away. At Christmas the feste were celebrated with all manner of entertainments, laurel wreaths were hung on Ercole's door, and at the end of lectures the college beadle recited comic verses in his honour amid great merriment. When the week's vacation was over, Ercole and his cousin Pirro attended an anatomical course, and, together with many painters and sculptors, were present at the dissection of the corpse of a thief who had been hung.

Like other young men at college, Ercole often found himself short of funds, and, although he was never as extravagant in his expenditure as his brothers, his tutor more than once had recourse to his mother, begging her to send him money by the next courier, since he was reduced to his last penny!

An attack of ague interrupted his studies that winter, and, by his doctor's advice, he only worked in the morning for some time. After carnival he resolved to make up for lost time. He attended lectures on logic, read Cicero's Letters, and composed Latin epistles for M. Lazzaro, often working late into the night. So diligent was the young prince that his master allowed him to pay a flying visit to Mantua at Easter, after which he remained at Bologna until the August vacation, which lasted three months. Isabella had every reason to be satisfied with her son's progress, and, at Pomponazzi's recommendation, Ercole was granted a dispensation from the daily recital of the breviary, in order to have more time

220

DEATH OF POMPONAZZI

for his classical studies. He also began to read Arabic with Forno, and engaged an Arab servant to help him acquire the language.1 His teachers all found him a docile and intelligent scholar, and Lazzaro, who afterwards became professor of Greek at Padua, remained all his life on friendly terms with his old pupil. But Pomponazzi inspired him with a still deeper feeling, and the death of the great teacher, on the 18th of May 1525, was a heavy blow to him.

The philosopher had long suffered from internal complications, which caused him acute pain at times, and in the end reduced him to a state of complete nervous prostration. In his suffering, he refused to take food, saying it was better to die once for all than to endure such continual agony. His pupil, Antonio Broccardo, the poet whose mournful and romantic features live for us in Giorgione's portrait, wrote a private letter to his father, giving a memorable account of the great sceptic's last moments. "On the seventh night of his fatal illness, when his end was hourly expected, he was heard to say, 'I depart with joy.' 'Where are you going?' asked a friend who stood at his bedside, eager to learn the master's 'Where all mortals go,' was Pomponazzi's reply. 'Whither do they go?' urged the former speaker. 'Where others are gone before,' replied the dying man. A last attempt was made to induce him to take nourishment, but he 'Leave me alone. I wish to die.'

secret.

refused, saying, And so," writes

his sorrowful pupil, "his spirit fled with a sigh to the shades." 2

1 Luzio, op. cit.

2 V. Cian, Nuovi documenti su Pomponazzi, p. 29.

HIS BURIAL AT MANTUA

221

Ercole was bitterly grieved, and sent the sad news to his brother the Marquis in the following short note: "I have nothing to tell you, but that last night about three o'clock our beloved M. Pietro Pomponazzi died. May God grant him peace!"1 On the 24th of May, Federico replied: "We received the news which you gave us of the excellent Messer Pietro Pomponazzi's death with no little sorrow, both because of the love which we bore him on account of his rare talents, and out of regard for Your Highness, knowing how much you loved him, and how useful he was to you in those studies which are your constant delight. We feel sure that you grieve for him from the depths of your heart."

After Messer Peretto's death, the young prince felt that he could no longer remain at Bologna, and wrote to his mother, who was then in Rome, saying that he was returning to Mantua now that M. Pietro was no more, and begged her to allow him to spend the summer at her villa of Porto, since the heat would be so great in the town.

Pomponazzi's remains were brought to his native city and buried in the church of San Francesco, where Ercole raised a noble bronze monument above his remains. To the end of his life Isabella's son retained the deepest affection for his master's memory; he sealed his letters with an effigy of Pomponazzi, and had a portrait of him which he describes as a "most speaking likeness." When, in 1545, Paolo Giovio begged for a copy of this portrait to add to his collection, the Cardinal replied that he could not spare the original, since this would leave him without 1 Davari, Lettere inedite di Pomponazzi. * Fontana, Sull' Immortalità, &c., p. 93.

222

ERCOLE'S REGARD FOR HIM

the image of the great man who had been his master, and regretted to say that Maestro Giulio (Giulio Romano) was too much occupied with buildings and plans to do the work, but promised that one of his scholars should copy the portrait as soon as he returned from Rome. It is worthy of note that Ercole Gonzaga, who still remembered the great sceptic with so much veneration, was before long to become the president of the General Council which met at Trent in that same year.

1 Luzio in Giorn. Stor., 1900, p. 45.

CHAPTER XXXIV

1523-1525

Castiglione in Rome--Pope Adrian's reforms-Chiericati at the Diet of Nürnberg-His letters to Isabella - Journey of Magellan-Visit of Isabella to Venice-Navagero and Titian -Doge Andrea Gritti enters into an alliance with Charles V. -The Pope joins the League-Death of Adrian VI.-Election of Clement VII.-Castiglione sent to Rome-Wars of Lombardy-The Connètable de Bourbon at MantuaIsabella in Venice-Ferrante Gonzaga goes to Spain-Castiglione sent by the Pope to Madrid-Giulio Romano at Mantua-Isabella Boschetti.

CASTIGLIONE'S embassy to the Vatican was prolonged until the end of March 1523. Owing to his exertions, Federico Gonzaga was confirmed in his post of Captain-General, and in this capacity held the baldacchino over the new Pope when His Holiness entered Rome in state on the 30th of August 1522. But although Adrian VI. showed himself friendly to the Gonzagas and their kinsfolk of Urbino and Ferrara, and was sincerely desirous of peace, his foreign habits and the changes which he introduced soon rendered him unpopular, alike to the officials of Leo the Tenth's court and to the people of Rome. He turned out the Cardinals who lodged in the Vatican, ordered them to shave their beards and lay aside their secular habits, engaged an old Flemish cook, and gave his steward a single ducat a day for the expenses of his household. The carnival was