The Book of the Courtier

by Baldassare Castiglione

  Niccolò Piccinino (1380–1444) was a condottiere, with a reputation for wit, who served Duke Federico of Urbino.

  3. (p. 118) The brando was a dance of Spanish origin. In a sixteenth-century description quoted by Cian ‘all the men dance with all the ladies, leave their partners and kiss the lady they join, dance away and then kiss their partners when they join them again.’

  4. (p. 121) Minerva (the Roman name for Athena) is said to have thrown the flute away when she saw in a spring the effect it had on her face. Alcibiades ‘refused to learn the flute, which he regarded as an ignoble accomplishment and quite unsuitable for a free citizen. He argued that… once a man starts blowing into a flute, his own friends can scarcely recognize his features.’ (Plutarch’s Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert, Penguin Classics.)

  5. (p. 128) A quotation from Luke xiv, 8–10.

  6. (p. 132) Titus Manlius Torquatus was a Roman consul (in 347, 344 and 340 B.C.) whose son disobeyed a command not to engage in single combat with the enemy and was, in consequence, executed before the troops on his father’s orders. The story is referred to in Plutarch’s Lives.

  7. (p. 133) Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus was Roman consul in 131 B.C., when he fought in Asia Minor against Aristonicus of Pergamus. The story comes from the Epitomes of Livy’s History.

  8. (p. 137) In Greek legend, Orestes (the son of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra) after the murder of his father fled to Phocis, where he formed a close friendship with Pylades, the son of King Strophius. The reference may have been suggested to Castiglione by a passage in Plutarch’s On having Many Friends.

  Theseus, the legendary hero of Attica, struck up his great friendship with Pirithous (King of the Lapiths in Thessaly) after the latter had stolen his cattle. Subsequently, they fought the centaurs together.

  9. (p. 145) Jacopo Sannazaro (c. 1455–1530) was a Neapolitan poet (much admired by Castiglione) who wrote both in Latin and Tuscan and is best known for his Arcadia.

  Josquin des Près (c. 1450–1521) was one of the great composers of the early Renaissance who served a number of rulers including Lorenzo de’ Medici, and whose music today ‘does not seem strange or remote, but makes essentially the same appeal as Byrd, Bach, or even… Wagner.’ (Pelican History of Music: Renaissance and Baroque p. 15.)

  10. (p. 148) Nicoletto was the fifteenth-century philosopher Paolo Nicola Vernia, who studied and then taught at Padua, whose bishop very forcefully persuaded him to change his ideas from Averroism to Thomism.

  11. (p. 149) This painter is undoubtedly Leonardo da Vinci. In his Life of Leonardo, Giorgio Vasari remarks that on his death-bed Leonardo said he had offended God and mankind by not working at his art as he should have.

  12. (p. 154) Cardinal Galeotto della Rovere was the favourite nephew of Pope Julius II, a generous patron of the arts and very popular.

  13. (p. 155) Democritus (c. 460–361 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher, noted for his cheerful frame of mind, his wealth and his formulation of the ‘atomic theory’.

  The reference here is from Cicero’s De Oratore.

  14. (p. 163) The Bucentaur or Bucintoro was the name of the galley used for important ceremonies in the Republic of Venice including the wedding of the sea mentioned here. The last Bucintoro was demolished in 1824. The name survives in a Venetian rowing club.

  15. (p. 168) Girolamo Donato (1457–1511) was a Venetian diplomat and scholar.

  16. (p. 171) Sadoleto (1477–1547), a philosopher and Latinist and secretary to Pope Leo X, who was made a cardinal by Pope Paul III.

  17. (p. 172) Camillo Porcaro or Porzio was a Roman aristocrat and scholar, created Bishop of Teramo by Pope Leo X, brother of the Antonio mentioned on page 170.

  Marc’ Antonio Colonna fled from the Borgias in 1502 and spent the rest of his life fighting in the Italian wars.

  18. (p. 173) The Great Captain (already mentioned) was Gonzalo de Cordoba (1443–1515), a commander of great adaptive genius who played a part in the conquest of Granada, from 1494 fought successfully in Italy against the French, and was made Constable and Viceroy of Naples. Subsequently he fell into disfavour with King Ferdinand and was recalled to Spain.

  19. (p. 174) Giovanni Gonzaga (1474–1523) was a soldier and diplomat, the third son of the Marquess Federico of Mantua (1442–84) and uncle of Marquess Federico Gonzaga whose service Castiglione entered in 1516.

  20. (p. 177) Niccolò Leonico Tomeo (1452–1531) was born in Venice of an Albanian father, taught and wrote about (Aristotelean) philosophy at Padua, was a poet, an art collector and a wit.

  21. (p. 179) In 1502 Cesare Borgia carried out a campaign on behalf of Pope Alexander VI for the conquest of Camerino and Urbino. Duke Guidobaldo retired from Urbino to the fortress of San Leo, about eighteen miles distant, and then fled first to Mantua and subsequently to Venice.

  22. (p. 181) Alonso Carrillo has been identified as the nephew of an Archbishop of Toledo.

  Signora Bobadilla was probably Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, a close friend of Queen Isabella of Spain.

  23. (p. 183) Rafaello de’ Pazzi (1471–1512) was a Florentine exile who fought for Cesare Borgia and Pope Julius II, and died fighting against the French in the battle of Ravenna.

  The Prior of Messina has been identified as a Spanish soldier, don Pietro de Cuna, who was also killed at Ravenna.

  Paolo Tolosa was a contractor for supplies to the Imperial armies.

  24. (p. 183) The advice given by Giannotto de’ Pazzi (possibly a Florentine, Giovanni de’ Pazzi who lived 1476–1523) was, literally; ‘Take the words and deeds of the Cardinal of Pavia.’ The cardinal (also referred to earlier) was Francesco Alidosi, a descendant of the rulers of Imola, who was patronized by Pope Julius II. He was made a cardinal in 1505 and Archbishop of Bologna in 1510. A violent and persecuting prelate, he was driven out of Bologna in 1511 and murdered by Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke Guidobaldo’s nephew and successor, in the same year.

  25. (p. 184) Peralta, Aldana and Molart are identified by Cian as three captains (the first and third Spanish, the second French) who fought with foreign armies in Italy.

  Molart taunted Peralta for being a marrano, a fairly common term of abuse at the time, and referring originally to Spanish Jews or Moors forcibly converted but remaining at heart unbelievers.

  26. (p. 185) ‘My monsignor’ being Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Pope Leo X, to whom Bibbiena was secretary.

  THIRD BOOK

  1. (p. 207) The anecdote is taken from the Noctes Atticae – extracts from Greek and Latin writers – of the Latin grammarian Aulus Gellius.

  2. (p. 218) The subtleties discussed by Giuliano de’ Medici were based on scholastic philosophy, whose terminology is used fairly loosely in various parts of The Courtier. In this passage the key words are ‘essence’ – or that which answers the question, what a thing is – and ‘accidents’ – which modify what a thing is. The usual distinction is between ‘substance’ and ‘accidents’.

  3. (p. 220) The ‘great philosopher’ is Aristotle.

  4. (p. 224) St Jerome, one of the early Fathers of the Christian Church, in his De viris illustribus.

  5. (p. 226) Octavia was abandoned by Mark Antony for Cleopatra.

  Portia, who killed herself after the death of Brutus, the assassin of Julius Caesar, is said to have wounded herself after learning of the assassination plot in order to demonstrate her courage and ability to keep a secret.

  Caia Caecilia Tanaquil appears in Roman legend as the wife of one of the early kings of Rome, whose rise to power she assisted through her virtues, ambition and powers of divination.

  Cornelia was the daughter of P. Scipio Africanus the elder, the devoted mother of the two Roman tribunes, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, and reputedly a distinguished literary stylist.

  6. (p. 226) Alexandra was the wife of Alexander Jannaeus, King of the Jews in 104–78 B.C.

  7. (p. 227) In the Life of Lucullus, Plutarch descri
bes how after his defeat by the Romans, Mithridates VI, King of Pontus, gave orders for his wives and sisters to be put to death, to save them from outrage.

  Hasdrubal was the Carthaginian general who, during the third Punic War after the siege and capture of Carthage by the Romans, in 146 B.C., threw himself on the mercy of the victors, whereas his prouder wife threw herself into the flames of a burning temple.

  8. (p. 227) In the Annals Tacitus describes how Epicharis, involved in a plot against Nero (in A.D. 65) throttled herself with her breast-band when on the way to be tortured a second time.

  9. (p. 227) Leona or Leaena was an Athenian hetaera mentioned in Pausanias’ Itinerary of Greece, involved in the assassination of the brother of the Greek tyrant Hippias in 514 B.C. and tortured to death. She bit her tongue out, rather than betray the assassins.

  10. (p. 229) The story of Camma is derived from Plutarch’s De Mulierum Virtutibus (On The Virtues of Women).

  11. (p. 233) Pallas Athene was one of the chief divinities of ancient Greece, the daughter of Zeus and Metis.

  Ceres or Demeter was the sister of Zeus, and the daughter of Cronos and Rhea.

  The sibyls were the prophetical women of the classical world.

  Aspasia, one of the most famous of the Greek hetaerae, became the mistress of Pericles.

  Diotima was the fictitious woman of Mantinea introduced by Socrates in the Symposium.

  Nicostrata or Carmenta (mentioned in Plutarch and Livy) was the mother of Evander, legendary founder of Pallantium on the Tiber which later became part of Rome.

  Pindar, the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, is supposed to have been taught by Myrtis, of Anthedon in Boeotia.

  Corinna was another poetess, also from Boeotia, and a contemporary of Pindar, flourishing c. 500 B.C.

  Sappho lived about 600 B.C., was enthusiastically admired for her lyric poetry, fragments of which survive, and established a women’s literary society at Mytilene.

  12. (p. 234) The story of how the Trojans settled in Italy is derived from Plutarch’s On the Virtues of Women; that of the Sabine women from Livy’s History of Rome.

  13. (p. 235) The young girl who betrayed the Romans to Tatius, King of the Sabines, is said by Livy to have been crushed to death by their shields (History of Rome, Book I).

  14. (p. 235) A temple was built to Venus Armata (the Armed Venus) by the Spartans (according to the fourth-century Christian writer, Lactanius); the Romans built two temples to Venus Calva (the Bald Venus) one explanation of the name being that it was to commemorate the occasion when Roman women cut off their hair to make bow-strings during a siege by the Gauls. The story of how the slave-girls saved Rome from the Latins (by taking the place of free-born girls demanded as hostages and then disarming their hosts) is told in Plutarch’s Life of Camillus.

  Catiline’s conspiracy took place during the consulship of Cicero in 63 B.C. The woman who is supposed to have informed Cicero was called Fulvia.

  15. (p. 235) Philip reigned over Macedonia from 220–198 B.C., and twice warred against the Romans. The story is again derived from Plutarch’s On the Virtues of Women, as is the account of the bravery of the Persian women.

  16. (p. 237) Amalasontha was the daughter of Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths, who ruled Italy for about thirty years till his death in 526. She is said to have been strangled by her second husband on the instigation of Theodora, wife of Justinian the Great, who was jealous of her intellectual accomplishments.

  Theodolinda, the daughter of Duke Garibald of Bavaria, was married first to Autharis, King of the Lombards, then to Duke Agilulph, Duke of Turin; she was famous for her piety and learning, and corresponded with Pope Gregory I.

  The Theodora referred to is probably the wife of Theopilus, Emperor of Constantinople from 829–42, who was canonized by the Greek Church.

  Countess Matilda (1046–1115) was the daughter of Duke Boniface of Tuscany and Beatrice of Lorraine, renowned for her culture, religious zeal and austere life.

  17. (p. 238) Anne of Brittany (1476–1514) was the daughter of Duke Francis II of Brittany, which was joined to France through her marriages to Charles VIII and Louis XII.

  Margaret of Austria (1480–1530) after being rejected by Charles VIII (while Dauphin) in favour of Anne, married first Juan of Castile and then Duke Filiberto of Savoy. After she was widowed again, in 1507 her father entrusted her with the government of the Low Countries and the education of her nephew, the future Emperor Charles V.

  Isabella the Catholic (1451–1504) married Ferdinand (1452–1516) in 1469. This accomplished the union of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile, a major step towards the unification of Spain under the Emperor Charles V. The Arab kingdom of Granada was conquered in 1492.

  18. (p. 240) The two ‘remarkable queens’ were probably Joanna III of Aragon, the widow of Ferdinand (Ferrante) of Naples, and her daughter, Joanna IV, the widow of Ferdinand II of Naples (Ferrantino).

  Matthias Corvinus (1443–90) was proclaimed King of Hungary in 1458 and married Beatrix of Aragon (who failed to give him the heir he needed) in 1476. She returned to Naples in 1501, and died shortly after the conversations recalled in The Courtier took place.

  The Duchess Isabella of Aragon (1470–1524) was the daughter of Alfonso II of Naples. In 1489 she had married Gian Galeazzo Sforza, to find that he was increasingly deprived of authority by the regent, Lodovico il Moro. Gian Galeazzo died in 1494, and the following year, her family were driven from Naples by the French.

  Isabella d’Este (1474–1539) was the daughter of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara. Her sister Beatrice married Lodovico Sforza; she married Francesco Gonzaga, who succeeded as ruler of Mantua in 1484. She was, therefore, a friend of Castiglione’s who corresponded with her and gave her a presentation copy of The Courtier in 1528.

  Eleanora of Aragon (1450–93) was the daughter of Ferrante I of Naples and the elder sister of Beatrix, mentioned above. In 1473 she married Duke Ercole I of Ferrara; her two daughters, as we are told, were Isabella d’Este and Beatrice.

  Isabella of Naples was a daughter of the Prince of Altamura, and the wife of Federico, who became King of Naples in 1496 and at whose expense King Louis XII of France and Ferdinand of Spain made their treaty for the partition of Naples in 1500.

  19. (p. 240) In 1499, the Florentines sent an army under the mercenary captain, Paolo Vitelli, to attack Pisa, during the siege of which the women acted with conspicuous bravery – according to Francesco Guicciardini (the diplomat and historian who was a near contemporary of Castiglione), helping throw up new fortifications and urging their men to die rather than submit.

  20. (p. 241) Sardanapalus was one of the great kings of Assyria, who reigned for about forty years from 668 B.C., conquered (and lost) Egypt, and was a notable patron of Assyrian literature. He had a perhaps undeserved reputation for voluptuousness.

  21. (p. 243) Alexander the Great finally defeated Darius, the last King of Persia, in 331 B.C. His restraint towards the king’s women was highly commended by Plutarch.

  The tact shown by Scipio Africanus Major when commanding the Roman armies in Spain in 210 B.C. (at the age of twenty-four) is described by Valerius Maximus (an assiduous compiler of anecdotes who lived during the reign of Tiberius) in his De Factis Dictisque Memorabilibus (Memorable Sayings and Deeds).

  Valerius Maximus also supplied the material for the story of the notable self-control of Xenocrates, philosopher, friend of Plato and Socrates, who lived 396–314 B.C.

  The account of just rebuke given by Pericles (the great fifth-century Athenian statesman and general) comes from Cicero’s De Officiis XI, where he says to the poet Sophocles: ‘Hush, Sophocles, a general should keep not only his hands but his eyes under control.’ (Loeb translation.)

  22. (p. 256) Laura, whom Petrarch first saw in 1327 was very probably Laura de Noves, wife of Hugues de Sade. Petrarch’s love for her provided the constant theme for his lyric poetry, collected together to form the great Canzoniere.

  23. (p. 2
57) Solomon’s ‘amorous dialogue’ was, of course, the Song of Songs (or Canticle of Canticles).

  24. (p. 258) Isola Ferma is referred to in the Spanish romance Amadis of Gaul as containing a garden at whose entrance is an arch supporting the statue of a man holding a trumpet which is blown sweetly at the approach of true lovers but with a dreadful sound to repel the false.

  25. (p. 268) The idea of the vital spirits – spiriti vitali or vivi spiriti – was inherited by the Renaissance as a medical concept from the Middle Ages to be blended with the neo-Platonism in vogue in art and philosophical theory from the end of the fifteenth century. The concept expounded by Castiglione is to be found in similar form in the writings of neo-Platonists such as Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), in the Candelaio of Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) and in the poetry of Petrarch, Michelangelo and Donne.

  26. (p. 271) Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was a curious romance story (first published in 1499) whose vocabulary was a bizarre mixture of Italian and neologisms derived from Latin stems. In an Elizabethan translation the effect is conveyed by the adjectives ‘flamigerous’ for maids, ‘remigiall’ for bones, ‘cavernate’ for eyes and ‘wrympled’ for foreheads. (Quoted by E. H. Wilkins in A History of Italian Literature, Harvard 1954.)

  27. (p. 273) Namely, Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.

  FOURTH BOOK

  1. (p. 282) Eleanora Gonzaga (c. 1492–1543), the eldest daughter of Francesco Gonzaga and Isabella d’Este, married Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Pope Julius II, in 1509.

  2. (p. 286) Piazza d’ Agone (today’s Piazza Navona) on the site of the Circus Agonalis, the ancient stadium of Domitian. Before and after Castiglione’s time it was used for jousts and open-air sports.

  3. (p. 287) Cimon (died 449 B.C.) was the great Athenian commander who won several notable victories against the Persians. Plutarch recorded that he ‘earned a bad name for disorderly behaviour, heavy drinking, and in general for taking after his grandfather…’. (The Rise and Fall of Athens, Penguin Classics.)

  4. (p. 287) These examples are based on comments by Cicero and Plutarch. Lysias was a sixth-century philosopher and follower of Pythagoras, who fled from Italy to Thebes when the Pythagoreans were persecuted.