The few weeks which now remained before Charles left Bologna were spent for the most part in jousts and tournaments, visits to churches, and social entertainments.  Veronica Gambara threw her apartments open to the numerous men of letters who crowded from all parts of Italy to witness the ceremony, of Charles’s coronation.  This lady was widow to the late lord of Correggio, and one of the two most illustrious women of her time.[5] She dwelt with princely state in a palace of the Marsili; and here might be seen the poets Bembo, Mauro, and Molza in conversation with witty Berni, learned Vida, stately Trissino, and noble-hearted Marcantonio Flaminio.  Paolo Giovio and Francesco Guicciardini, the chief historians of their time, were also to be found there, together with a host of literary and diplomatic worthies attached to the Courts of Urbino and Ferrara or attendant on the train of cardinals, who, like Ippolito de’Medici, made a display of culture.  Meanwhile the Dowager-Marchioness of Mantua and the Duchess of Savoy entertained Italian and Spanish nobles with masqued balls and carnival processions in the Manzoli and Pepoli palaces.  Frequent quarrels between hot-blooded youths of the rival nations added a spice of chivalrous romance to love-adventures in which the ladies of these Courts played a too conspicuous part.  What still remained to Italy of Renaissance splendor, wit, and fashion, after the Sack of Rome and the prostration of her wealthiest cities, was concentrated in this sunset blaze of sumptuous festivity at Bologna.  Nor were the arts without illustrious representatives.  Francesco Mazzola, surnamed Il Parmigianino, before whose altar-piece in his Roman studio the rough soldiers of Bourbon’s army were said to have lately knelt in adoration, commemorated the hero of the day by painting Charles attended by Fame who crowned his forehead, and an infant Hercules who handed him the globe.  Titian, too, was there, and received the honor of several sittings from the Emperor.  His life-sized portrait of Charles in full armor, seated on a white war-horse, has perished.  But it gave such satisfaction at the moment that the fortunate master was created knight and count palatine, and appointed painter to the Emperor with a fixed pension.  Titian also painted portraits of Antonio de Leyva and Alfonso d’Avalos, but whether upon this occasion or in 1532, when he was again summoned to the Imperial Court at Bologna, is not certain.  From this assemblage of eminent personages we notice the absence of Pietro Aretino.  He was at the moment out of favor with Clement VII.  But independently of this obstacle, he may well have thought it imprudent to quit his Venetian retreat and expose himself to the resentment of so many princes whom he had alternately loaded with false praises and bemired with loathsome libels.

[Footnote 5:  See Ren. in It. vol. v. p. 289.]