SOURCE: Kilpatrick, Ross. “The De Aetna of Pietro Bembo: A Translation.” Studies in Philology 83, no. 3 (summer 1986): 331-58.

In this excerpt, Kilpatrick introduces his English translation of De Aetna, Bembo's first Latin dialogue, which was originally published in 1496. Kilpatrick stresses the work's demonstration of Bembo's broad learning.

Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), Venetian, humanist, cardinal, papal secretary, “papabile”, began his literary career in 1496, with the publication by the Aldine Press in Venice of a Latin dialogue entitled: Petri Bembi De Aetna Ad Angelum Chabrielem Liber. This book had apparently remained untranslated until 1970, when a handsome commemorative edition was printed in Verona in three bilingual issues (English, Italian and German). The Latin-English issue, with a translation by Betty Radice, was limited to one hundred and twenty-five copies.¹ The following translation is only the second.²

De Aetna is a significant work not just because it is Bembo's first, and a landmark in typography...