rved in the Ambrosiana in Milan, where they
and the lock of blond hair near them are examined by every one who
visits the famous library. The letters are written in her own hand, and
there is no doubt of their authenticity; concerning the lock of hair
there is some uncertainty; still it may be one of the pledges of
affection which the happy Bembo carried away with him. Lucretia's
letters to Bembo were first examined and described by Baldassare
Oltrocchi, and subsequently by Lord Byron; in 1859 they were published
in Milan by Bernardo Gatti.[199] There are nine in all--seven in Italian
and two in Spanish. They are accompanied by a Castilian canzone.

It seems certain that she felt more than mere friendship for Bembo, for
she was young, and he was an accomplished cavalier, fair, amiable, and
witty, who cast the rough Alfonso completely in the shade. He excited
the latter's jealousy, and the danger which threatened him may have
been the cause of his removal to Urbino. Lucretia kept up her friendly
relations with him until the year 1513.

Several other poets in Ferrara devoted their talents to her
glorification. The verses which the two Strozzi addressed to her are
even more ardent than those of Bembo--perhaps because their authors
possessed greater poetical talent. Tito, the father, experienced the
same feelings for the beautiful duchess as did his genial son Ercole,
and he expressed them in the same poetical forms and imagery. This very
similarity indicates that their devotion was merely aesthetic. Tito sang
of a rose which Lucretia had sent him, but his son excelled him in an
epigram on the _Rose of Lucretia_, which could hardly have been the same
one his father had received.[200]

Tito, in his epigram, described himself as senescent, and consequently
not likely to be wounded by Cupid's darts, but he, nevertheless, was
ensnared by Lucretia's charms. "In her," so he says, "all the majesty of
heaven and earth are personified, and her like is not to be found on
earth." He addressed an epigram to Bembo, with whose passion for
Lucretia he was acquainted, in which he derives the name Lucretia from
"_lux_" and "_retia_," and makes merry over the _net_ in which Bembo was
caught.[201]

His son Ercole describes her as a Juno in good works, a Pallas in
decorum, and a Venus in beauty. In verses in imitation of Catullus he
sang of the marble Cupid which the duchess had set up in her salon,
saying that the god of Love had been tur