The Book of the Courtier
Page 41
Agesilaus was King of Sparta from 398 to 361 B.C., an outstanding commander and a friend of the historian Xenophon (born c. 444 B.C.) who fought with him against the Persians and the Athenians and who wrote his life.
Panaetius was a Stoic philospher from Rhodes who settled in Rome where he became friendly with Scipio Africanus the younger. It was Panaetius whom Cicero was following in De Officiis.
5. (p. 289) The story of Epimetheus is taken from Plato’s Protagoras.
Epimetheus (afterthought) and Prometheus (forethought) were sons of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene, daughter of the god Oceanus.
6. (p. 300) Bias, who lived c. 550 B.C., was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, quoted quite often by Plutarch in the Moralia.
7. (p. 301) Clearchus was tyrant of Heraclea (now Eregli) on the Black Sea in the fourth century B.C. The story of how he and Aristodemus (any one of several possible ancient tyrants) slept was told by Plutarch in the Moralia.
8. (p. 306) In Book Five of The Republic it is suggested that men and women Guardians ‘should be forbidden by law to live together in separate households, and that wives should be held in common by all; similarly, children should be held in common, and no parent should know his child…’. (H. D. P. Lee’s translation, Penguin Classics 1955.)
9. (p. 307) In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia – the story of Cyrus, founder of the Persian monarchy – these sentiments are expressed by Cyrus.
10. (p. 310) Cian notes that although this praise for Federico Gonzaga may have been excessive, together with Isabella d’Este he ensured that at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century the Mantuan Court was a great centre of artistic and cultural life.
11. (p. 311) These enterprises of Alexander the Great echo the words of Plutarch, who says that Bucephalia was named after Alexander’s favourite horse and that though he liked the idea of a city on Mount Athos he rejected it on learning that it would have to depend on imports.
12. (p. 311) Procrustes (or the ‘stretcher’) was the notorious robber of Greek legend who used to tie his victims to a bed and either stretch or lop them to fit. He was killed by Theseus, anxiously emulating the heroic deeds of Hercules.
Sciron was another great robber, who liked to make travellers wash his feet on the Scironian rock, and to kick them into the sea while they were doing so. He, too, was killed by Theseus.
Cacus was the giant son of Vulcan who stole Hercules’ cattle, cunningly dragging them into his cave by their tails to confuse their tracks. However, he was betrayed by their bellowing and killed by Hercules.
Diomedes, son of Ares, or Mars, was also slain by Hercules because of his habit of feeding his horses on human flesh.
Antaeus was the giant who remained invincible so long as he kept in contact with his own mother, earth. Hercules, therefore, held him up in the air and crushed him to death there.
Geryon was a triple monster of Hesperia (Spain) whose cattle were stolen by Hercules as one of the twelve labours imposed on him by Eurystheus.
13. (p. 312) This anecdote about Themistocles is told by Plutarch in several versions. In the Lives he is made to remark to his children when a magnificent banquet was set before him: “My children, we should have been ruined now, if we had not been ruined just when we were!” (The Rise and Fall of Athens, Penguin Classics.)
14. (p. 312) This ‘lord Henry’ was the future Henry VIII. The reference to Castiglione’s being in England maintains the fiction that he had not yet returned from his mission to accept the investiture of the Order of the Garter for Guidobaldo, and to bring suitable gifts to Henry VII. Castiglione, knighted by Guidobaldo before he left, landed in Dover in October 1506, was received, as ‘Sir Balthasar Castileon’ by Sir Thomas Brandon, and lodged in London with Paulus de Cygeles, the Pope’s Vice-Collector. At Windsor on 9 November as ‘proxie’ he went through the ceremony of installation, and on his return to London was presented to the Prince of Wales. At the end of February he was back in Urbino.
15. (p. 313) Don Carlos (1500–58) was the future Emperor Charles V, ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily and Austria.
16. (p. 316) Federico Gonzaga (1500–40), first Duke of Mantua, succeeded his father, Francesco, in 1519. In his Autobiography, Benvenuto Cellini records making for him, on the recommendation of the painter Giulio Romano, a ‘reliquary for the blood of Christ’.
17. (p. 320) This is a paraphrase of an ugly sentence which makes use of the Aristotelean distinction between Potentiality and Actuality and reads literally: ‘…and to both the one and the other it suffices to have this intrinsic end in potency, even when the failure to realize it extrinsically in act arises from the subject to which the end is directed’.
18. (p. 320) Phoenix was the son of Amyntor. In Book IX of the Iliad he describes how he ran away from home and was adopted by Peleus, King of Phthia, who put him in charge of Achilles’ upbringing, even to cutting up his meat.
19. (p. 321) Aristotle was invited by Philip of Macedonia to educate his son, Alexander, in 342 B.C.
Plato, during his journeyings after the death of Socrates (399 B.C.), is supposed to have known Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, but to have earned his displeasure and been sold by him into slavery. After he had set up school in Athens he was invited back by Dion (a relation of Dionysius) to help make a better man of the tyrant’s son, Dionysius the younger.
20. (p. 321) Callisthenes, who was one of Aristotle’s pupils, accompanied Alexander the Great to Asia but fell into disfavour for being too outspoken.
21. (p. 324) In Bembo’s prose work, the Asolani (published 1505) in the third book Lavinello is instructed by a hermit about the nature of Platonic love.
22. (p. 325) The word ‘intellect’ in English fails to convey the significance of intelletto for Renaissance thinkers and poets. Possibly ‘intuition’ comes nearer, in the Latin sense of ‘intellect’ as a perception or perceiving, and also reflecting the scholastic concept of angelic intelligence as a kind of understanding gained from data given directly by God, i.e. not through the senses.
In De Officiis, Cicero distinguishes between the two essential activities or forces of the soul: appetite, which ‘impels a man this way or that’ and reason ‘which teaches and explains what should be done and what should be left undone’. But the content of this magnificent concluding speech of Bembo’s is essentially a blend of Christian and Platonic concepts and imagery, derived from Plato and from the works of Renaissance neo-Platonists such as Ficino and Bembo himself.
23. (p. 330) Stesichorus of Sicily was a Greek poet of the seventh century B.C. who was supposed to have been struck blind after composing an attack on Helen of Troy.
24. (p. 336) The person whom Bembo calls, literally, the ‘divinely enamoured Plato’ may or may not have been the great philosopher.
25. (p. 337) At the beginning of the Song of Songs: ‘Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy breasts are better than wine,/Smelling sweet of the best ointments.’ (Douai version.)
26. (p. 343) Plotinus (c. A.D. 203–62) was the founder of the Neo-Platonic system, to whose mystical and theological doctrine, rather than to Plato himself, the humanists turned in reaction against the scepticism and aridity of late medieval philosophers.
27. (p.344) St Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) was the first great saint to receive the stigmata (in 1224), the miraculous wounds of Christ on hands, feet and side.
28. (p. 344) The references are to 2 Corinthians xii, 2–4: ‘…that he was caught up into paradise and heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter’; and to the Acts of the Apostles vii, 55: ‘…And he said: Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.’ (Douai.)
29. (p. 344) Diotima, as already noted, was the fictitious woman of Mantinea introduced by Socrates in the Symposium to describe the ascent of the soul from the world of the senses to the eternal world: ‘from one instance of physical beauty to two and from two to all, then from physical beauty to th
e beauty of knowledge, until from knowledge of various kinds one arrives at the supreme knowledge whose sole object is that absolute beauty….’ (Plato: The Symposium, translated by W. Hamilton, Penguin Classics.)
30. (p. 344) A pious tradition about St Mary Magdalene (‘Many sins are forgiven her, because she has loved much’ – Luke vii, 47) is that she was uplifted by angels during prayer.
INDEX
Note. The names of the people taking part in the conversations, occurring continually throughout the text, have not been included in this index and the reader is referred to the biographical notes on pages 23–9. Italic entries refer to the numbered notes in the text.
Achilles, 93, 95
Aesop, 110
Affectation, to be avoided by the courtier, 67, 115; dangerous in music, 69; a vice, 70; in women, incompatible with gracefulness, 87
Alexander the Great, 60, 66; envious of Achilles being praised by Homer, 93; stirred by music, 95; his favourite mistress given to a painter, 100; 174; as a child, 175; and the women of Darius, 243, n21, 257; military fame, 311, n1 1, 359; his victories, 312
Alexandra, and death of her husband, 226, n6, 354
Alonso Carrillo, 180; n22, 353
Apelles, 69, n7, 347
Aristippus, 91, n18, 349
Aristotle, 66; and education of Alexander, 321, n19, 360
Bassa, 104, n23, 350
Battle of Cerignola, 179
Beauty, in women, accompanied by cruelty, 264; despised by some, 330; springs from God, 330; angelic, 339; sacred, 341; divine, 343
Behaviour, among friends, 139
Berto, 58, n5, 347
Bias, 300, n6, 358
Bidon, 82, n11, 348
Boccaccio, 73, 74, 80–81; his stories discussed, 159, 193; an enemy of women, 199
Brando, 118, n3, 351
Bucentaur, 163, n14, 352
Calfurnio, 170
Callisthenes, 321, n20, 360
Camillo Porcaro, 172, n17, 352
Camma, story of, 229–31, n10, 354
Cardinal Galeotto, 154, n12, 352
Cardinal of Pavia, outrages by, 178, n24, 353
Cato, 178
Chastity, virtue of, 241–7
Catallus, 87, n15, 349
Chess, merits of the game, 140; played by a monkey, 165
Children, education of, 291, 306
Cicero, 76, 83; his use of words, 85
Classical writers, 81–2
Clearchus, 301, n7, 358
Companions, choice of, 137
Continence, 241–50 passim, 295
Cosimo de’; Medici, story of the broody hen, 172; advice to a friend, 183
Courage, 123
Court lady, 213; suitable recreations, 214; behaviour of, 258–9; 261; equal of the courtier, 262
Court of France, 129
Courtier, the profession of arms, 57; 115; appearance of, 60–61; to be accomplished in sports, 62–3; acquiring grace, 65; to write and speak well, 73; to be a good scholar, knowing Greek and Latin, 90; should possess good judgement, 112; speak and act with prudence, 114; rules of behaviour, 113–14; gentle and agreeable, 124; his dealings with his prince, 125; obeying his prince, 131; how he should be dressed, 134–6; should have a good reputation, 141; when to confess ignorance, 148; never lacks for elegance, 151; not to be malicious, 186; never to practise deceit, 271; perfection in, 284–5; and his prince, 320, n17, 360
Courts of Christendom, customs followed, 39
Courtiership, most appropriate form, 39; what constitutes perfection, 51–4; influence of noble birth, 54–6; importance of first impressions, 57
Darius, style of sword, 134
Democritus, 155, n13, 352
Demosthenes, on the fortunes of Greece, 85, n14, 349
Diotima, 344, n29, 361
Don Carlos, Prince of Spain, 313, n15, 360
Eleanora Gonzaga, 282, n1, 358
Emblems, 44, n2, 347
Epicharis, conspiracy against Nero, n8, 354
Epimetheus, 289, n5, 358
Evander, 76; and other Latins, n9, 347
Federico, Duke, 40; death of, 41
Federico Gonzaga, 310, n19, 359; great promise of, 316, n16, 360
Flattery, 89
Florence, war against the Pisans, 162
Folly, seed of, in each of us, 47
Foreign Courts, 208–9
Fra Mariano, 47, n3, 347
Francesco Diacceto, 83, n13, 348
Friendship, 138
Galleazzo Sanseverino, 66, n6, 347
Giorgio of Castelfranco, 82
Giovanni Gonzaga, 174, n19, 352
Girolama Donato, 168, n15, 357
Golden mean, 150
Gospel, 128, n5, 351
Government, republic or monarchy, 297–8
Grammatical rules, abuses of, 80
Grasso de Medici, 94, n19, 349
Great Captain, 173, n18, 352
Greek language, compared with Attic, 79
Greek writers, 82
Guidobaldo, son of Duke Federico, 41
Hannibal, book written in Greek, 89, n17, 349
Henry, Prince of Wales, 312, n14 360
Hercules, 207
Hesiod, 81, n10, 348
Homer, 73; first heroic poet, 81; 85
Horace, 76
Iacopo Sadoleto, 171, n16, 352
Imitation, 159
Incongruities, 183
Intellect, defined, 325, n22, 360
Isocrates, 82, n12, 348
Isola Ferma, Lover’s arch at, 358, n24, 357
Italians, their dress and recreations, 146
Jokes, 166; blasphemous, 175; sophisticated kind, 177; depending on action, 186; practical, 187–94 passim; played by women, 197
Judgement Day, 163, 169
Julius Ceasar, laurel wreath hid his baldness, 150
Justice, queen of virtues, 295
King Alfonso of Aragon, gift to a servant, 185
King Ferdinand, proud of his physique, 150
King Philip of Macedon, wished Aristotle to teach his son Alexander, 66
King of Portugal, story of monkey playing chess, 165
Kiss, not unseemly, 336; described by Solomon, 336
Lady at Court, 213; suitable recreations, 214; what things she should know, 216
Language, function of, 79
Latin, the language corrupted, 75; words abandoned by some orators and poets, 76; of Rome, 79; 81
Laughter, causes, 155, 184
Leona, 227, n9, 354
Leonardo da Vinci, 82, n11, 352
Letter ‘S’, its shape discussed, 48, n4, 347
Love, affecting judgement, 44; slights of, 50; ridiculous in old men, 121; provides excuses for faults, 198; pleasures of, 198; how to declare it, 267–8; kept secret, 271–4; sensual, 326–8; 333–6; proof of, 335; angelic, 344, n30, 361
Lovers, endless laments of, 49; their quarrels, 50
Lycurgus, 95, n20, 349
Manlius Torquatus, 132, n6, 351
Manhood, the age of, 123
Mantegna, 82
Marquess Federico of Mantua, 177; story of his doves, 180
Merchant from Lucca, story of, 164
Metaphors, 172
Michelangelo, 82
Minerva, 121, n4, 351
Mithridates, 227, n7, 354
Monseigneur d’Angoulême, 88, n16, 349
Monsignor, 185, n26, 353
Montefiore inn, 187
Muscovite merchants, 164
Music, power of, 95; a necessity for the Courtier, 96; suited to women but not to real men, 94; the time for it, 121; quality attributed to it by Pythagoras and Socrates, 122
Names, meaning of, 169
Nature, gifts of, found in those of low and noble birth, 56; 289; and moral virtues, 290
Niccolò; Leonico, 177, n20, 352
Nicoletto, 148, n10, 351; 174
Nonchalance, conceals artistry, 67; when it degenerates into affectation, 68; the real source of grace, 70
&nbs
p; Nuns, story of pregnancy, 168
Octavia, wife of Mark Antony, 226, n5, 354
Old age, its effect on men’s judgement, 107; its view of the past, 109; condemnation of modern dress, 109
Old men, and wine, 248–9
Olympic games, and measurements by Hercules, 207, n1, 353
Orators, judged by what they say, not the language used, 84
Oratory, qualities of, 77
Orestes, 137, n8, 351
Our Lady, 223
Ovid, his advice on ove, 273, n27, 358
Painting, not to be neglected by the Courtier, 96; the fabric of the universe, 97; compared with sculpture, 98–9; knowledge of it as a source of pleasure, 101
Palas, 232, n11, 354
Paola Tolosa, 183, n23, 358
Paris, university of, 88
Pedantry, 83
Petrarch, 73, n8, 347; 74; and the subject of love, 75; 80; 81; and Laura, n22, 357
Philip of Macedonia, and siege of Chios, 235, n15, 355
Pisa, women of, 240, n19, 356
Plato, 110; not a friend of women, 216; his Republic, 306, n8, 359; 315; 336, n24, 361
Plotinus, 342, n26, 361
Poliphian words, 271, n26, 358
Politian, 83, n13, 348
Pope Alexander, 179, n21, 352
Prior of Messina, letter to a lady friend, 183
Protogenes, 69; 100, n21, 349
Publius Crassus Mucianus, torture of the Athenian engineer, 133, n7, 351
Purs, 167
Pythagoras, 207
Queen Isabella of Spain, 238–9, n17, 356
Queens, remarkable examples, 239, n18, 356
Raphael, 82; his wit, 181
Reason, the part of, 293; overcome by desire, 293
Riches, evil of, 308
Rulers, and the task of government, 287; of the ancient world, 287, n2, 358; corrupted by evil living, 288
Sabine women, 234, n12, 355
Sannazaro, 144, n9, 351
Sardanapalus, 241, n20, 357
Self-praise, 59
Singing, styles of Bidon and Marchetto Cava compared, 82
Socrates, teaching of, 88, 89, 110; as a wit, 178