His temper and habits were those of a man wholly given up to love and poetry.  In his youth he was volatile, and at no time without what is called some “affair of the heart.”  Every woman attracted him who had modesty and agreeableness; and as, at the same time, he was very jealous, one might imagine that his wife, who had a right to be equally so, would have led no easy life.  But it is evident he could practise very generous self-denial; and probably the married portion of his existence, supposing Alessandra’s sweet countenance not to have belied her, was happy on both sides.  He was beloved by his family, which is never the case with the unamiable.  Among his friends were most Of the great names of the age, including a world of ladies, and the whole graceful court of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, for which Catiglione wrote his book of the Gentleman (Il Cortegiano).  Raphael addressed him a sonnet, and Titian painted his likeness.  He knew Vittoria Colonna, and Veronica da Gambera, and Giulia Gonzaga (whom the Turks would have run away with), and Ippolita Sforza, the beautiful blue-stocking, who set Bandello on writing his novels, and Bembo, and Flaminio, and Berni, and Molza, and Sannazzaro, and the Medici family, and Vida, and Macchiavelli; and nobody doubts that he might have shone at the court of Leo the brightest of the bright.  But he thought it “better to enjoy a little in peace, than seek after much with trouble."[31] He cared for none of the pleasures of the great, except building, and that he was content to satisfy in Cowley’s fashion, with “a small house in a large garden.”  He was plain in his diet, disliked ceremony, and was frequently absorbed in thought.  His indignation was roused by mean and brutal vices; but he took a large and liberal view of human nature in general; and, if he was somewhat free in his life, must be pardoned for the custom of the times, for his charity to others, and for the genial disposition which made him an enchanting poet.  Above all, he was an affectionate son; lived like a friend with his children; and, in spite of his tendency to pleasure, supplied the place of an anxious and careful father to his brothers and sisters, who idolized him.

  “Ornabat pietas et grata modestia vatem,”

wrote his brother Gabriel,

  “Sancta fides, dictique memor, munitaque recto
  Justitia, et nullo patientia victa labore,
  Et constans virtus animi, et elementia mitis,
  Ambitione procul pulsa fastusque tumore;
  Credere uti posses natum felicibus horis,
  Felici fulgente astro Jovis atque Diones."[32]

  Devoted tenderness adorn’d the bard,
  And grateful modesty, and grave regard
  To his least word, and justice arm’d with right,
  And patience counting every labour light,
  And constancy of soul, and meekness too,
  That neither pride nor worldly wishes knew. 
  You might have thought him born when there concur
  The sweet star and the strong, Venus and Jupiter.