(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2zbAO5_jCE This isn't technically any one specific piece, rather a compilation of Venetian lute compositions but hopefully it will suffice.)
Venice, 1503
Even in the darkness Venice was sweltering. Long after the sun had gone to bed the heat lingered, hovering above the canals in a transparent mist that seeped into his very pores, coating him with a sheet of sweat. He hadn't even moved and yet beads of it were rolling onto his forehead from his hairline, and sinking into the crevices between his fingers.
He had forgotten how humid Venice grew to be in late July. It seemed there was more moisture in the air than air itself but surely it hadn't always been so damned hot?! 555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsX9qjM0i76
He had never remembered it so, but perhaps it was because a fire burned in his soul that had not before.
Pietro had been away from Venice for a while; Ferrara had claimed him for nigh on a twelve-month as he served her Duke and Duchess. It had been enough to make him forget about Venice. She had been enough to make him forget about Venice.
He stood now on his balcony, looking out onto the canals that wound their way through the city like raindrops down a pane of glass. The moonlight filtered down onto the water, glinting off of the gentle waves that, come day time, would have the slightest hint of green to them.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzzkmcRMLhf
Venice was like a siren calling to him, demanding to be loved; up until two years ago she had been his chief mistress. The orange and red brick buildings and the water that was never quite blue yet never quite green; the magnificent palace and the basilica with its four golden horses stolen from Constantinople long before any one of them had been alive; the great crowds in the narrow streets and the cries of the merchants and sailors arriving in the ports. He had every aspect of the city engraved into his being. Venice had her claws deep in his very soul and he would never have dreamed of leaving her.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtFkPEOCuyX
Until Ferrara.
There Lucrezia had talked to him of love letters and of great poets, a gleam in her eye and a playfulness to her touch. He had admired her from afar, watching as she danced and walked through the gardens. In silence he worshipped her as she passed by him in the hallways of her husband's ducal palace, lamenting that her golden hair would never pass through his fingers, that his lips could never touch the skin at the curve of her neck where it met her shoulders. What injustice was it, he thought, that she could be so close and yet never be possessed by him? That she should look at him with those eyes and know that he could never have her was fresh torment each time her eyes met with his.
It was on the balcony, with the moon as their witness, that she had pressed her first chaste kiss to his cheek. She had smiled as she backed away, leaving him to return to the music and dancing inside. He could hear the strings of a lute, and as he watched her retreating, all gold hair and silver skin, he could swear his heart beat twice as fast in his chest. The moon gave her an ethereal glow, gave light to each and every strand of that blonde hair and, when she stood with her back to it, it gave her a halo.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuluJus6lbV
She was an angel - or a goddess, he was not yet quite sure which - and it pleased him to be able to serve her. She was something else entirely.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTIGY6Jrkug
When she had gone back inside to continue dancing, he had remained out in the fresh air. Through the gap in the curtains covering the open doors, he saw her twirling across the great hall, pale hands grasping those of another. He caught the light glinting from her jewelled ruby earrings, noticed the gold brocade that extended an inch above the neckline of the dress sticking to her shoulders with fresh sweat. His gaze lingered on her breathless smile and the rapid rising and falling of her chest. With a poet's eyes he saw in her an untold beauty that seemed to speak to his very soul. With every pluck of the lute's strings he felt his own heartstrings grow taut. She was breathtaking. The Duchess of Ferrara had taken him, heart and soul.
And then he had left Ferrara to return to Venice, but mere days after his homecoming he received a letter. Inside were deliciously playful words from Lucrezia telling how much she missed him and how much her heart longed for him; how much she had missed his voice singing to her, his fingers playing instruments for her, his lips speaking his poetry into her ear. She told him how a heat swelled in her chest upon the very sight of him and that to hear his voice just once more would be more of a blessing than anything God could ever bestow upon her.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5nsvhArXDw
She had even enclosed a lock of her perfect hair.
He stood on the balcony now, running the hair through his fingers, only wishing it were still attached to her skull, and that instead of holding her letters, he could hold her slender, graceful frame close to his own.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡndubdD2LXK
Dazily wandering back inside, passing through the Venetian glass doors and brushing aside the thin shift curtains to sit at the writing desk, Pietro Bembo dipped his quill in the small pot of black ink and composed a letter in reply to his love.
Every day you find a new way to fan my ardour. Like a flame it burns within me and it cannot be put out - nor should I desire it to be.
He resigned himself to be hopelessly in love with her for the rest of his days, for she was his everything. She was light and darkness, sorrow and pleasure. She held his happiness in the silken palms of her hands and she could reach out and crush him with only minimal effort if she so desired. He was only lucky that she desired him and not his misfortune. He vowed he would thank his lucky stars for all eternity that she longed for him too; it was a gift he was surely not worthy of. No mortal man could be enough for the love of one such as Lucrezia, for she was so much more than a mere woman. She was an angel, sent down to grace the Earth with her sharp wit and gentle caress.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSeUUjR0W5v
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He was cruelly aware that their relationship could never be a physical one - the Duke of Ferrara would have his head cut from his shoulders and his guts pulled from his stomach if he so dared to touch his wife - and so as much as he dreamed of her soft skin against his silken sheets, and of his hand venturing up her lithe thighs, he resigned himself to words only.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ06yE84Jdaq
Love letters would have to suffice for the pair of them. Yet if that was to be all this world would permit them to share, Pietro swore they would be the prettiest love letters in all the world.
A/N: Right-io. Pietro Bembo was a Renaissance poet that sent a number of letters to Lucrezia Borgia (you may have heard of her) and received several back (including a lock of her hair, which, if memory serves me right, is now on display at a museum in Milan). They have been described as "the prettiest love letters in all the world", but unfortunately they don't appear to be anywhere online. They are published in a book called "The Prettiest Love Letters in The World" but I've yet to get my hands on it (its on my Christmas list tho) so unfortunately I've yet to actually read the words they exchanged. She was a patron and great lover of music and poetry, and I believe he was also a bit of a musician as well as a poet (the Netflix series Borgia has him teaching Lucrezia how to play the lute) and though their relationship was probably never anything physical (or never anything really serious, in any case) their letters were very typical of courtly love at the time - people in Renaissance courts were in love with the idea of love and had all these tales of great Romantic poets writing great poems about loving from afar and from a distance. Lucrezia and Pietro embodied this ideal.555Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4qxF5WCz4t
From the excerpts I've read Pietro seems to really, deeply care for Lucrezia and her safety (politically she's in danger from 1503 onwards for reasons too complex to explain here) and the general consensus is that the two must have really loved each other. I have this image in my head of a lovelorn poet in Venice longing for his girl who is not only hundreds of miles away, but married to another. Poor Pietro Bembo.
and then Add to home screen.