Bembo, Pietro - William J. Kennedy (essay date 1994)

William J. Kennedy (essay date 1994)

SOURCE: Kennedy, William J. “Authorizing Petrarch in Italy.” In Authorizing Petrarch, pp. 82-113. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994.

[In the following essay, Kennedy discusses Bembo's analysis of Petrarch's poetry in the Prose della volgar lingua and then examines Bembo's application of Petrarchism in his own poetry.]

AUTHORIZING PETRARCH'S LANGUAGE: PIETRO BEMBO'S PROSE DELLA VOLGAR LINGUA

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) could deem himself a citizen of all Italy. As son of the patrician Venetian ambassador Bernardo Bembo, he spent part of his youth in the embassies of Florence (1475-76, 1481-83), Rome (1487-88), and Bergamo (1489-90).1 As a young adult he studied Greek with Constantine Lascaris at Messina (1492-94). In 1497-99 and 1502-3 he lived at the court of Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara, where he pursued a celebrated love affair with Lucrezia Borgia, and in...

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