Abstract
Starting from the analysis of a sonnets’ cycle ignored by the critique (Rime 126-130), the paper aims to demonstrate the meaning of the private themes in Bembo’s lyric with regard to the historical context of the first thirty years of the XVI century, in connection with the uncertainty generated by the Italian Wars as well as with the intellectuals’ and writers’ role in Renaissance society. All the texts are tied to a precise moment, the year 1526: the ends of the series are two civic-political sonnets, addressed to Clemente VII and his datary Giberti, while the central texts are dedicated to the theme of friendship and to la Morosina’s illness. The series appears really uneven, even more because of its position just behind the ending of the amorous canzoniere, before the spiritual texts; however, the sonnets are bound by the theme of fortune and history, in which is rooted Bembo’s idea of love lyric. The paper proves that this thematic thread hints to an articulate discourse about poetic autonomy, grounded in the Latin classics, which represent the true substrate of Bembo’s poetry. The study of the sources and of the macrotext confirms indeed the importance of Propertius and Horace in the Rime: specifically in the Venusian poet Bembo identified a reference for the definition of the writers’ position in front of power and for the idea of a monumental work, capable to eternalise not only the memory of his author but also that of his friends, lovers, lords involved in the verses; instead in Propertius he saw an example for the treatment of the amorous theme in the poetical discourse.