At Genoa, on some public occasion, he was addressed in a Latin
oration, not one word of which he understood.
"I now feel," he said, "the justice of my preceptor Adrian's
remonstrances, who frequently used to predict that I should be punished
for the thoughtlessness of my youth."
He was fond of the society of learned men, and treated them with great
respect. Some of the nobles complained that the emperor treated the
celebrated historian, Guicciardini, with much more respect than he did
them. He replied--
"I can, by a word, create a hundred nobles; but God alone can create a
Guicciardini."
He greatly admired the genius of Titian, and considered him one of the
most resplendent ornaments of his empire. He knew full well that Titian
would be remembered long after thousands of the proudest grandees of his
empire had sunk into oblivion. He loved to go into the studio of the
illustrious painter, and watch the creations of beauty as they rose
beneath his pencil. One day Titian accidentally dropped his brush. The
emperor picked it up, and, presenting it to the artist, said
gracefully--
"Titian is worthy of being served by an emperor."
Charles V. never, apparently, inspired the glow of affection, or an
emotion of enthusiasm in any bosom.
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