The Book of the Courtier
keep from laughing, and greatly softened his anger and the punishment
intended for the offender.
62.—“It is also amusing to interpret names, and to pretend some reason
why the man who is spoken of bears such a name, or why something is
done. As a few days ago, when Proto da Lucca[228] (who is very amusing,
as you know) asked for the bishopric of Caglio, the Pope replied:
‘Knowest thou not that in the Spanish tongue _caglio_ means _I keep
silence_? And thou art a babbler; wherefore it would be unseemly for a
bishop never to be able to repeat his title without telling an untruth.
So be thou silent (_caglia_) now.’ Here Proto made a reply, which,
although it was not of this sort, yet was not less to the point; for
having several times repeated his request, and seeing that it was of no
avail, at last he said: ‘Holy Father, if your Holiness grant me this
bishopric, it will not be without advantage, for I shall leave your
Holiness two offices (_ufficii_).’ ‘And what offices have you to leave?’
said the Pope. Proto replied: ‘The full office (_ufficio grande_), and
the Madonna’s office (_ufficio della Madonna_).’[229] Then the Pope
could not keep from laughing, although he was a very grave man.
“Still another man at Padua said that Calfurnio[230] was so named
because he was accustomed to heat (_s_cal_dare_) ovens (_forni_). And
when I one day asked Fedra[231] why it was that on Good Friday, while
the Church offered prayer not only for Christians but even for pagans
and Jews, no mention is made of cardinals along with bishops and other
prelates,—he answered me that cardinals were included in that prayer
which says: ‘Let us pray for heretics and schismatics.’
“And our friend Count Ludovico said that the reason why I censured a
lady for using a certain cosmetic that gave a high polish, was because I
saw myself in her face, when it was painted, as in a mirrour; and being
ill favoured I could have no wish to see myself.
“Of this kind was that retort of messer Camillo Paleotto[232] to messer
Antonio Porcaro,[233] who, in speaking of a companion who told the
priest at confession that he fasted zealously, attended mass and the
sacred offices, and did all the good in the world, said: ‘The man
praises himself instead of owning his sins;’ to which messer Camillo
replied: ‘Nay, he confesses these things because he thinks it a great
sin to do them.’
“Do you not remember what a good thing my lord Prefect said the other
day? When Giantommaso Galeotto[234] was surprised at a man’s asking two
hundred ducats for a horse, because, as Giantommaso said, it was not
worth a farthing and among other defects was so afraid of weapons that
no one could make it come near them,—my lord Prefect (wishing to twit
the man with cowardice) said: ‘If the horse has this trick of running
away from weapons, I wonder that he does not ask a thousand ducats for
it.’
63.—“Moreover the very same word is sometimes employed, but in a sense
different from the usual one. As when my lord Duke,[2] being about to
cross a very rapid river, said to a trumpeter: ‘Cross over’ (_passa_);
and the trumpeter turned cap in hand, and said respectfully: ‘After your
Lordship’ (_passi la Signoria Vostra_).
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 42.171) of the portrait, in the
Pitti Gallery at Florence, long attributed to Raphael (1483-1520),
but pronounced by Morelli to be a copy, by a non-Italian painter, of
the original Raphael owned by the Inghirami family at Volterra and
now ruined by restoration.
“Another amusing kind of banter is where a man takes the speaker’s words
but not his sense. As was the case this year when a German at Rome,
meeting one evening with our friend messer Filippo Beroaldo,[235] whose
pupil he was, said: _Domine magister, Deus det vobis bonum sero_;[236]
and Beroaldo at once replied: _Tibi malum cito_.[237]
“Again, Diego de Chignones[238] being at the Great Captain’s[239] table,
another Spaniard, who was eating with them, said: ‘_Vino_,‘ meaning to
ask for drink; Diego replied: ’_Y no lo conocistes_,’[240] meaning to
taunt the man with being a heretic.[241]
“Another time messer Giacomo Sadoleto[242] asked Beroaldo,[235] who was
saying how much he wished to go to Bologna: ‘What is it that so presses
you at this time to leave Rome, where there are so many pleasures, to go
to Bologna, which is full of turmoil?’ Beroaldo replied: ‘On three
counts I am forced to go to Bologna,’ and lifted three fingers of his
left hand to enumerate three reasons for his going; when messer Giacomo
quickly interrupted him and said: ‘These three Counts that make you go
to Bologna are: first, Count Ludovico da San Bonifacio; second, Count
Ercole Rangone; third, the Count of Pepoli.’ Whereupon everyone laughed,
because these three Counts had been pupils of Beroaldo, and were fine
youths studying at Bologna.[243]
“Now we laugh heartily at this kind of witticism, because it carries
with it a response different from the one we are expecting to hear, and
in such matters we are naturally amused by our very mistake and laugh to
find ourselves cheated of what we expect.
64.—“But the modes of speech and the figures that are graceful in grave
and serious talk, are nearly always becoming in pleasantries and games
as well. You see that words set in opposition produce much grace, when
one contrasting clause is balanced by another. The same method is often
very witty. Thus a Genoese, who was very prodigal in spending, was
reproached by a very miserly usurer, who said to him: ‘When will you
ever cease throwing away your riches?’ And he replied: ‘When you cease
stealing other men’s.’
“And since, as we have said, the same situations that give opportunity
for biting pleasantries may also give opportunity for serious words of
praise,—it is a very graceful and becoming method in either case for a
man to admit or confirm what another speaker says, but to interpret it
in a manner different from what was intended. Thus a village priest was
saying mass to his flock not long since, and after he had announced the
festivals of the week, he began the general confession in the people’s
name, saying: ‘I have sinned by doing evil, by saying evil, by thinking
evil,’ and so forth, making mention of all the deadly sins. Whereupon a
friend and close familiar of the priest, in order to make sport of him,
said to the bystanders: ‘Bear witness all of you to what by his own
mouth he confesses he has done, for I mean to report him to the bishop.’
“This same method was used by Sallaza dalla Pedrada[244] in
complimenting a lady with whom he was speaking. First he praised her for
her virtuous qualities and then for still being beautiful; and she
replying that she did not deserve such praise because she was already
old, he said to her: ‘My Lady, your only sign of age is your resemblance
to the angels, who were the first and oldest creatures that God ever
made.’
65.—“Just as serious sayings are useful for praising, in like fashion we
find great utility also in jocose sayings for taunting, and in well
arranged metaphors, especially if they take the form of repartee, and if
he who replies preserves the same metaphor used by his interlocutor. And
of this kind was the answer made to messer Palla degli Strozzi,[245] who
being exiled from Florence, sent back a servant on a certain matter of
business and said to him rather threateningly: ‘Thou wilt tell Cosimo
de’ Medici from me that the hen is hatching.’[246] The messenger did the
errand commanded him, and Cosimo at once replied without hesitation:
‘And thou wilt tell messer Palla from me that hens cannot hatch well
away from their nests.’
Enlarged from Anderson’s photograph (no. 4268) of a part of the fresco,
“The Dispute of St. Catherine,” in the Borgian Apartments in the
Vatican, by Bernardino di Betto di Biagio, better known as
Pinturicchio, (1454-1513). For the iconographical identification of
this head, the translator is indebted to Professor Adolfo Venturi.
“Again, with a metaphor messer Camillo Porcaro[247] gracefully praised
my lord Marcantonio Colonna;[248] who, having heard that messer Camillo
had been extolling in an oration certain Italian gentlemen famous as
warriors, and had spoken very highly of him among the rest, he expressed
his thanks and said: ‘Messer Camillo, you have treated your friends as
some merchants treat their money when it is found to contain a false
ducat; for in order to be rid of it, they put the piece among many good
ones, and in this way pass it on. So you, to do me honour (although I am
of little worth), have put me in company with such worthy and excellent
cavaliers, that by virtue of their merit I shall perhaps pass as good.’
Then messer Camillo replied: ‘Those who forge ducats are wont to gild
them so well that they seem to the eye much finer than the good ones;
so, if there were forgers of men as there are of ducats, we should have
reason to suspect that you were false, being as you are of far finer and
brighter metal than any of the rest.’
“You see that this situation gave opportunity for both kinds of
witticism; and so do many others, of which countless instances could be
given and especially in serious sayings. Like the one uttered by the
Great Captain, who, being seated at table and all the places being
already taken, saw that there remained standing two Italian cavaliers
who had served very gallantly in the war; and he at once rose himself
and caused all the others to rise and make room for these two, saying:
‘Allow these cavaliers to sit at their meat, for had it not been for
them, the rest of us should now have no meat to eat.’ Another time he
said to Diego Garzia,[249] who was urging him to retire from a dangerous
position where the cannon shot were falling: ‘Since God hath put no fear
in your heart, do not try to put any in mine.’
“And King Louis,[250] who is to-day king of France, being told soon
after his accession that then was the time to punish his enemies who had
so grievously wronged him while he was Duke of Orleans, replied that it
was not seemly for the King of France to avenge the wrongs of the Duke
of Orleans.
66.—“Taunts are also often humourously uttered with a grave air and
without exciting laughter. As when Djem Othman,[251] brother to the
Grand Turk,[252] being a captive at Rome, said that jousting as we
practise it in Italy seemed to him too great a matter for play and too
paltry for earnest. And on being told how agile and active King
Ferdinand the Younger was in running, leaping, vaulting, and the
like,—he said that in his country slaves practised these exercises,
while gentlemen studied the liberal arts from boyhood, and prided
themselves thereon.
“Almost of the same kind, too, but somewhat more laughable, was what the
Archbishop of Florence said to the Alexandrian cardinal:[253] that men
have only their goods, their body, and their soul; their goods are put
in peril by the lawyers, their body by the physicians, and their soul by
the theologians.”
Then the Magnifico Giuliano replied:
“To this you might add what Nicoletto[254] said: that we seldom find a
lawyer who goes to law, a physician who takes physic, or a theologian
who is a good Christian.”
67.—Messer Bernardo laughed, then went on:
“Of these there are countless instances, uttered by great lords and very
weighty men. But we often laugh at similes also, such as the one that
our friend Pistoia[255] wrote to Serafino: ‘Send back the wallet that
looks like you;’ because, if you remember rightly, Serafino looked very
like a wallet.
“Moreover there are some who delight to liken men and women to horses,