'I have to stay in bed,' he writes, 'to mend my hose; and if it were not for the old arras I brought with me from home, I should not know how to cover my nakedness.'[3] Besides this he suffered grievously in the separation from his wife, who was detained at Naples by her relatives--'brothers who, instead of being brothers, are deadly foes, cruel wild beasts rather than men; a mother who is no mother but a fell enemy, a fury from hell rather than a woman.'[4] His wretchedness attained its climax when Porzia died suddenly on February 3, 1556.

Bernardo suspected that her family had poisoned her; and this may well have been.

His son Torquato, meanwhile had joined him in Rome; but Porzia's brothers refused to surrender his daughter Cornelia, whom they married to a Sorrentine gentleman, Marzio Sersale, much to Bernardo's disgust, for Sersale was apparently of inferior blood.

They also withheld Porzia's dowry and the jointure settled on her by Bernardo--property of considerable value which neither he nor Torquato were subsequently able to recover.
[Footnote 3: _Lett.Ined_.p.

100] [Footnote 4: _Letter di Torquato Tasso_, February 15, 1556, vol.II.