The Book of the Courtier Read online

  FREGOSO, OTTAVIANO (1470–1524) was politically the most outstanding member of his family. After being exiled from Genoa in 1497 he returned to Urbino, where he had spent several years in his youth. Francesco Maria della Rovere appointed him ambassador to France. Subsequently, after two abortive attempts to seize power in Genoa, he was elected Doge in 1513. He had to rely, however, on French protection, and when this failed, in 1522, he was taken prisoner (after the sack of Genoa by Imperial troops) by the Marquis of Pescara and died in exile.

  FRISIO, OR FRIGIO, NICCOLÒ was a German who spent most of his life in Italy, where he became friendly with Castiglione and Bembo and acquired a reputation as a skilled diplomat and man of culture. In 1510 he retired to a monastery in Naples.

  GIOVAN CRISTOFORO ROMANO (c. 1465–1512) was a sculptor and medallist, given the task in The Courtier of expounding one of the favourite subjects of the Renaissance: the superiority of one kind of art over another (and in this case, of sculpture over painting). He was also an accomplished musician, who probably first met Castiglione in Mantua in 1497 and is known to have visited Urbino in August 1506 and March 1507.

  GONZAGA, CESARE (1475–1512) was a cousin of Castiglione and like him studied in Milan and served the Marquis of Mantua before entering the service of the rulers of Urbino as a soldier and diplomat. His relations with Bembo and Castiglione were very close and affectionate.

  GONZAGA, ELISABETTA (1471–1526), the second daughter of the Marquess Federico Gonzaga of Mantua, married Duke Guidobaldo in 1488 and earned great admiration during twenty years of childless married life for her fortitude and virtue. In his edition of The Courtier Cian cites as an instance of the process of idealization by her admirers some verse by Castiglione describing her great beauty – in rather exaggerated terms to judge from her portrait in the Uffizi. After her widowhood and exile, she returned to Urbino in 1522 and there spent the remaining years of her life.

  GONZAGA, MARGHERITA was Elisabetta’s niece, and the natural daughter of the Marquess Francesco. She was reputed to be vivacious, gay and, according to Bembo, extremely witty. A marriage was planned for her in 1511 with Agostino Chigi, who cried off when he discovered that she was threatening to go into a decline at the prospect of being tied to such an old man.

  MARIANO, FRA (1460–1531): a Florentine, Mariano Fetti entered the Medici service as a young man (he was Lorenzo’s barber), and in 1495 became a Dominican friar. The Medici Pope, Leo X, enjoyed his jolly company at Rome, and he was a talented buffoon and versifier.

  MEDICI, GIULIANO DE’ (1479–1516) was the youngest of the children of the great Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice Orsini. He spent a good deal of time at Urbino after the exile of the Medici from Florence in 1494. When they were restored to power, he became governor of Florence for a time before being called to Rome by his brother, Pope Leo X, and made a General of the Church. More of a courtier than a warrior, he sorely disappointed the Pope as a commander, lived a dissolute life, but was spoken well of by Castiglione, had his portrait painted by Raphael, was immortalized in sculpture by Michelangelo, and but for his death would have had Machiavelli’s The Prince dedicated in his honour.

  MONTE, PIETRO, a Court official, was probably the Pietro del Monte mentioned by the Venetian, Luigi da Porto, in his Letters as ‘squint-eyed but extremely brave’ and ‘an experienced soldier as well as a man of the world’. For a time he was in the service of Duke Guidobaldo at Urbino, where he was Master of the Horse in charge of the tournaments.

  MONTEFELTRO, GUIDOBALDO DA (1472–1508), the Duke of Urbino to whom the references in The Courtier are few and rather snide. He succeeded his father, the renowned Federico, in 1482, soldiered as a condottiere for the Church, but failed to live up to his father’s reputation. His marriage to Elisabetta being childless, in 1504 he adopted his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, as his heir. This was after the death of Alexander VI during whose reign Cesare Borgia had twice driven him out of Urbino not, it appears, altogether to the displeasure of the citizens.

  MORELLA DA ORTONA was probably a member of the Abruzzese family of Ricciardi. He served Guidobaldo vigorously as a soldier and, when past fighting, as a trusted retainer at Court, being a witness, for example, to the Instrument of Adoption of Francesco Maria della Rovere. He is the only old courtier portrayed by Castiglione, with a rather endearing tetchiness.

  PALLAVICINO GASPARE (1486–1511) was one of the youngest (namely, twenty-one) of those taking part in the conversations. He was a Lombard, a descendant of the Marchesi of Cortemaggiore, near Piacenza. He died young after a life of constant illness.

  PIETRO DA NAPOLI makes only a brief appearance in The Courtier in order to tell a joke. He is mentioned elsewhere as one of the six men to accompany Pope Julius to Viterbo on his return from the Bologna expedition.

  PIA, EMILIA (d. 1528) was the daughter of Marco Pio of Carpi and Benedetto del Carretto, and the faithful companion of the Duchess of Urbino. She remained in Urbino with her children, Veronica and Lodovico, after the death in 1500 of her husband, Antonio da Montefeltro (a natural brother of Guidobaldo). Like the Duchess, on a less lofty plane, she was extolled as a model of virtue and gaiety.

  PIO, LODOVICO (d. 1512) was distantly related to Emilia. He probably first made friends with Castiglione at the Court of Milan where he married one of Lodovico Il Moro’s maids of honour. He served as a papal captain with Castiglione, and in the end died of wounds received in battle.

  ROBERTO DA BARI (d. 1512), another of Castiglione’s wide circle of devoted friends, belonged to the noble Massimi family of Bari. He was a clever mimic, a keen dancer and an extremely elegant courtier.

  ROVERE, FRANCESCO MARIA DELLA (1490–1538) spent his early youth in France. In 1504 Pope Julius II made him Prefect of Rome, as which he appears in The Courtier, aged seventeen. Papal pressure won him the succession to Urbino and he served as a commander of the papal forces against Venice and subsequently against the French. During this period he stabbed to death Cardinal Francesco Alidosi, in revenge for the loss of Bologna (where Alidosi was Legate) for which Francesco Maria was blamed. After trial he was acquitted and restored to favour. In 1516, he was ignominiously driven from Urbino by Pope Leo X, who bestowed the Duchy on his own nephew, Lorenzo de’ Medici. After Leo’s death, Francesco Maria reconquered Urbino (the papal governor being thrown out of the palace windows as he stormed in) in 1522. He was an incapable Captain-General of the armies of the Church at the time of the sack of Rome. After his death, Urbino remained in the hands of the Rovere family until 1631, when it passed under the direct rule of the Papacy.

  SERAFINO, FRA was probably born at Mantua and at any rate resided most of the time at the Gonzaga Court. He was a great traveller and correspondent and a frequent visitor to Urbino. His rather crude humour got him into trouble in Rome, in 1507, when he was assaulted because of his lack of respect for the Pope.

  SILVA, MICHEL DE (c. 1480–1556), to whom The Courtier is dedicated, was Dom Miguel da Silva, son of the Count of Portalegre, a province of central Portugal. Castiglione knew him in Rome, at the Court of Leo X, and met him again in Seville. For some years, he represented the Portuguese king at the papal Court. In 1541 he was publicly created a cardinal by Pope Paul III.

  TERPANDRO was called Anton Maria and was probably a Roman who acquired his nickname in reference to the Greek poet and musician, Terpander of Lesbos. He was a good musician and singer, and a frequent visitor to Urbino during the reign of Julius II.

  To the Reverend and Illustrious

  SIGNOR DON MICHEL DE SILVA

  Bishop of Viseu

  AFTER the death of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, I, along with some other gentlemen who had served him, remained in the service of Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, who was Guidobaldo’s heir and successor; and since my recollection of Duke Guido’s great qualities and of the happiness I had known in the friendly company of those outstanding men and women who used to frequent the Court of Urbino was still fresh and vivid, I
was encouraged to write these books on Courtly life and behaviour. I spent but a short time on them, intending to correct later on the errors caused by anxiety to discharge my debt as soon as possible. Unfortunately, for many years I have been so continuously harassed and burdened that I have never been able to bring the work to the state that would satisfy even my poor judgement. As a result, I was naturally more than a little aggrieved, when in Spain, to receive from Italy the news that the Marchioness of Pescara, Vittoria Colonna, to whom I had once entrusted the work, had, contrary to her promise, had a large part of it written out. I was worried to think of the kind of mishaps that are likely in such circumstances. Nevertheless, I felt confident that the good sense and discretion of that lady (whose qualities I have always respected and admired beyond words) would prevent any misfortune resulting from my having obeyed her in writing what I did. Eventually I discovered that the part of the book concerned had found its way into the hands of many people in Naples; and since men are always eager for something new, it appeared that they would try to have it printed. I was so alarmed by this threat that I at once made up my mind to revise what little I could in the time available with the intention of publishing it myself, in the belief that it would do less harm to let the work be seen only slightly corrected by my own hand rather than badly mangled by others. So with this resolve I began to re-read it; and the moment I looked at it, my memories being stirred by the heading itself, I experienced no little sorrow, which intensified as I read farther and as I recalled that most of those introduced in the conversations were already dead. Thus, apart from those who are mentioned at the beginning of the last book, death has taken the one to whom it is dedicated, Alfonso Ariosto himself, an affable and discreet young man, who was of perfect behaviour and proficient in everything required of someone living at Court. Duke Giuliano de’ Medici, whose goodness, nobility and courtesy the world deserved to enjoy longer, is also dead. And Bernardo Dovizi, Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico, whose keen and ready wit charmed and delighted all who knew him, is also dead. So is signor Ottaviano Fregoso, one of the exceptional men of our time, magnanimous, devout, full of goodness, talent, prudence and courtesy, a true friend of honour and virtue, and so deserving of praise that even his enemies could never withhold it from him. (The misfortunes which Ottaviano endured so bravely, I may say, were enough to prove that Fortune hasn’t changed her ways: she still hates virtue as much as she ever did.) Many of the others named in the book, who seemed destined to live for a very long time, are also dead. But what should not be recounted without tears is that the Duchess herself is dead; and if I am so distraught through the loss of all the noble friends I have mentioned that I seem to be living in a desert of solitude and misery, it is no wonder that my grief over her death is more bitter still, seeing that she was of even greater worth than the others and that I was even closer to her than to them. Therefore in order not to delay in paying what I owe to the memory of so great a lady and of those others who are no longer living, and in view of the threat I mentioned, I have had the book printed and published in such form as was possible in the short time available. And since, except for Duke Giuliano and the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Portico, you knew neither the Duchess nor the others while they were living, in order, as far as I can, to make you acquainted with them after their death I am sending you this book as a portrait of the Court of Urbino, not indeed by the hand of Raphael or Michelangelo but by a worthless painter who knows only how to draw the outlines and cannot adorn the truth with pretty colours or use perspective to deceive the eye. Moreover, although I determined to indicate in these conversations the character and qualities of those who are named, I have to admit that I have not even suggested, let alone done justice to, the virtues of the Duchess, because not only is my style incapable of expressing them but my mind of conceiving them. And if I am censured for this or the other fault in this book (and I know there are only too many) I shall not deny the truth.

  All the same, people sometimes get so much pleasure out of passing censure that they find fault even with what does not deserve it. So to those who blame me for not having imitated Boccaccio or followed current Tuscan usage I shall not hesitate to answer that although Boccaccio was a man of noble discernment by the standards of his time, and although to some extent he wrote with discrimination and ability, nevertheless he wrote far better when he let himself be guided solely by his natural genius and instinct, without care or concern to polish his writings, than when he went to great pains to correct and refine his work. For this reason his own partisans declare that he greatly deceived himself when he judged his work himself, and that he put little value on what has done him honour and a great deal on what is worthless. So if I had imitated the style of writing for which he is censured by those who praise him otherwise, I certainly could not have escaped the same accusations as are levelled against him in this regard; in fact, I would have deserved them all the more in that he committed his error in the belief that he was doing right, whereas I would have done so knowing I was wrong. And if I had imitated him in the style which many people hold to be good, but which he himself thought little of, then in doing so I would have proved that I disagreed with the opinion of the author I was following, and this, in my judgement, would have been quite wrong. Even if I had not been influenced by this consideration, I could not imitate Boccaccio in subject matter, since he never wrote anything on the lines of these books on the courtier; and I thought it wrong to do so in the matter of language, since the power and correct rules of good speech consist more in usage than in anything else and it is always wrong to employ words which are not current. So it was inappropriate for me to employ many of those used by Boccaccio, which were current when he was alive but which have now fallen into disuse among the Tuscans themselves. At the same time, I was unwilling to commit myself to using contemporary Tuscan. After all, intercourse between different peoples has always carried new words from one place to another, just like articles of trade, after which they either take root or disappear, depending on whether they are admitted or rejected by usage. And not only is this proved by what happened in the ancient world but it can also be clearly seen in the case of Boccaccio, in whom there are so many French, Spanish and Provençal words, as well as some that are probably meaningless to Tuscans today, that it would greatly reduce the size of his book if they were all cut out. Moreover, in my opinion we should not simply reject the language in use in the other noble cities of Italy, where one finds men who are talented, wise and eloquent, and who are concerned with important political subjects as well as with literature, warfare and business affairs. I think that of the words current in such centres I have been justified in employing those which are graceful, euphonious and generally accepted as valid and expressive, even though they are not Tuscan and may even have originated outside Italy itself. Moreover, in Tuscany they use many words which are quite obviously corruptions of the Latin but which in Lombardy and other parts of Italy have remained unchanged in their original form, in which everyone uses them, so that they are acceptable in upper-class speech and yet understood without any trouble by ordinary people. So I do not think I have done wrong in using some of these words in my writing, preferring to take from my own country what is intact and genuine rather than from another’s what is corrupt and mutilated. Neither do I agree that it is a sensible rule (as many people claim) that the further away ordinary speech is from the Latin the more attractive it is. Nor, again, do I understand why one idiom should be granted so much more authority than another that, whereas corrupt and defective Latin words are held to be ennobled and enhanced by being used in Tuscan, and therefore, quite rightly, universally acceptable, yet the same Latin words in their proper form, pure, intact and unaltered, are rejected when found in Lombard or any other tongue. Indeed, just as to try to coin completely new words or to preserve old ones, regardless of usage, is silly and presumptuous, so also, as well as being difficult, it is surely almost impious, equally regardless of usage to try to de
stroy and, as it were, bury alive, those which have already survived many centuries and under the protection of usage have defended themselves against the envy of time and maintained their dignity and splendour despite all the changes, caused by war and upheaval in Italy, of language, buildings, dress and customs. Therefore if in my writing I have refused to use words found in Boccaccio which are no longer current in Tuscan, or to accept the rules imposed by those who believe that it is impermissible to use words not found in modern Tuscan, I believe I have every excuse. So both in the subject matter of my book and in its linguistic style, insofar as one style can help another, I think I have followed writers who are at least as praiseworthy as Boccaccio. Nor do I think I should be held at fault for having chosen to make myself known as a Lombard speaking the language of Lombardy rather than as someone who is not a Tuscan speaking Tuscan, and so having avoided the mistake of Theophrastus1 who was easily recognized as not being Athenian by a simple old woman, because he spoke Attic too much. However, since this is discussed enough in the first Book I shall say nothing more now, save that, to forestall all debate, I confess to my critics that I do not know this terribly difficult and recondite Tuscan language of theirs; and I admit that I have written in my own, just as I speak, and for those who speak in the same way. So I don’t think I have done anyone any harm; for, in my view, nobody in the world is forbidden to write and speak in his own language, and still less is anyone forced to read or listen to what he does not like. Therefore if they do not want to read my Courtier, I shall not consider myself the slightest bit offended.