The Book of the Courtier
Then everyone rose to his feet in great surprise, for the discussion did
not seem to have lasted longer than usual; but by reason of having been
begun much later, and by its pleasantness, it had so beguiled the
company that they had not perceived the flight of hours; nor was there
anyone who felt the heaviness of sleep upon his eyes, which nearly
always happens when the accustomed hour of sleep is passed in watching.
The windows having then been opened on that side of the palace which
looks towards the lofty crest of Mount Catria,[486] they saw that a
beautiful dawn of rosy hue was already born in the east, and that all
the stars had vanished save Venus, sweet mistress of the sky, who holds
the bonds of night and day; from which there seemed to breathe a gentle
wind that filled the air with crisp coolness and began to waken sweet
choruses of joyous birds in the murmuring forests of the hills hard by.
So, having reverently taken leave of my lady Duchess, they all started
towards their chambers without light of torches, that of day being
enough for them; and as they were about to quit the room, my lord
Prefect turned to my lady Duchess, and said:
“My Lady, to finish the controversy between my lord Gaspar and my lord
Magnifico, we will come with our judge this evening earlier than we did
yesterday.”
My lady Emilia replied:
“On condition that if my lord Gaspar wishes to accuse women and put some
fresh imputation upon them, as is his wont, he shall also give bond to
sustain his charge, for I account him a shifty disputant.”
NOTES
VXORI DILECTISSIMAE
OPERIS ADIVTRICI
Reduced from Anderson’s photograph (no.2955) of the anonymous portrait
in the Corsini Gallery at Rome. This may possibly be a copy of a
second portrait that Raphael is said to have painted of Castiglione,
in 1519.
PRELIMINARY NOTES
Baldesar Castiglione was born on his father’s estate of Casatico in the
Mantuan territory, 6 December 1478. Michelangelo was his senior by four
years; Leo X by three years; Titian by one year; Giorgione and Cesare
Borgia were born in the year of his birth, while his friend Raphael and
also Luther were his juniors by five years.
His surname is said to be derived from the little town at which
Bonaparte defeated the Austrians near Mantua in 1796, and which is by
some supposed to have taken its name from _Castrum Stiliconis_, Camp of
Stilico, a Roman general of the 4th century. One Tealdo Castiglione was
Archbishop of Milan as early as 1074, from which time the family is
often and honourably mentioned in the annals of northern Italy.
Baldesar’s parents were Count Cristoforo Castiglione, a
soldier-courtier, and Luigia Gonzaga, a near kinswoman of the Marquess
of Mantua. The boy studied at Milan,—learning Latin from Giorgio Merula
and Greek from Demetrios Chalcondylas, an erudite Athenian who had fled
from Byzantium about 1447, and of whom another pupil wrote: “It seems to
me that in him are figured all the wisdom, the civility and the elegance
of those ancients who are so famous and so illustrious. Merely seeing
him, you fancy you are looking on Plato; far more when you hear him
speak.”
Having spent some time at the splendid court of Ludovico Sforza at
Milan, Castiglione lost his father in 1499, and (the Sforzas being
expelled the same year) he returned to Mantua and entered the service of
his natural lord, the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga; he accompanied
this prince to Milan to witness the entry of Louis XII of France, and
afterwards on an expedition to aid the French in their vain effort to
hold the kingdom of Naples against the Aragonese. When Gonzaga abandoned
the French cause (after being defeated by Ferdinand the Catholic’s
“Great Captain,” Consalvo de Cordova, near the Garigliano in 1503),
Castiglione obtained leave to go to Rome, and there met Duke Guidobaldo
di Montefeltro, who had come to pay homage to the newly elected Pope
Julius II. He entered the duke’s service, and soon became one of the
brightest ornaments of that brilliant company of statesmen, prelates,
scholars, poets, wits and ladies, known as the Court of Urbino.
In 1504 he took part, under Duke Guidobaldo, in the papal siege of
Cesena against the Venetians. The next year he attended the duke on a
diplomatic visit to Rome. In 1506 he was sent to the court of Henry VII
of England to receive the insignia of the Order of the Garter on the
duke’s behalf. As appears from a letter to his mother, he returned to
Urbino as early as 5 March 1507, notwithstanding his mention of himself
in The Courtier as still absent in England at the date (8-11 March) of
the dialogues he professes to report at second hand. In the same year he
was sent on a mission to Louis XII at Milan.
On Guidobaldo’s death in 1508, Castiglione continued in the service of
the new duke, Francesco Maria della Rovere (“my lord Prefect” of THE
COURTIER), who appointed him governor of Gubbio. In the following year
he served in his master’s campaign against the Venetians, and contracted
a dangerous illness, during which he was tenderly nursed by the dowager
duchess, Elisabetta Gonzaga. In 1511 he accompanied the duke to Rome on
the occasion of the latter’s trial for the murder of Cardinal Alidosi,
and was active in Francesco Maria’s successful defence. In 1513 the duke
created him Count of Novillara and gave him an estate of that name,
which however he soon lost through the Medici usurpation of the duchy,
and never regained. At the death of Julius II, Castiglione was
ambassador to the sacred college, and continued in that office during
nearly the whole of Leo X's pontificate. His numerous letters show the
variety and importance of the diplomatic business in which he was
engaged.
Several plans for his marriage came to nothing, and on one occasion,
when the lady’s father hesitated, the suitor broke off negotiations,
saying: “The wife that I am to take, be she who she may, I desire that
she should be given to me with as good will as I take her withal,—yea,
if she were the daughter of a king.”
Pope Leo having in 1516 basely deprived Francesco Maria of the Duchy of
Urbino, Castiglione accepted an invitation to Mantua and there married
Ippolita, daughter of Count Guido Torello di Montechiarugolo and
Francesca Bentivoglio, a daughter of the former ruler of Bologna. This
union proved exceptionally happy and was blessed by three children: a
son Camillo, a daughter Anna, and a second daughter Ippolita, at whose
birth the young mother lost her life in 1520. His son attained the age
of eighty years, and is said to have been the true embodiment of the
qualities described in THE COURTIER.
Castiglione resided alternately at Mantua and at Rome, where he served
as Mantuan ambassador, and where his learning, wit, taste, gentle
disposition and integrity earned for him an almost unique eminence at
the papal court.
In 1524 he was sent by Pope Clement VII as ambassador to the Emperor
Charles V (who was waging war against the French in Italy), but while
his counsel and high qualities were appreciated, he was too honest a man
to cope with the tortuous politics of the time, and proved unable to
avert the capture and sack of Rome (1527) or the imprisonment of the
pope. These catastrophes, together with a malicious and easily disproved
charge of treason brought against him, preyed upon his health, and
despite the many honours conferred upon him by Charles, he failed to
rally, and finally died at Toledo, 7 February 1529, without again seeing
his native land. His body was afterwards brought to Italy and buried in
the church of the Madonna delle Grazie near Mantua, where his tomb was
erected from designs by his young friend Giulio Romano.
Besides THE COURTIER, his writings comprise: _Tirsi_, an eclogue of
fifty-five stanzas in _ottava rima_, written and recited at the court of
Urbino for the carnival of 1506; a prologue and epilogue for his friend
Bibbiena’s _Calandra_; a few Italian lyrics of moderate merit; and some
better Latin elegies and epigrams; nearly all composed during his
embassy at Rome. A large number of his letters also have been preserved.
Reduced from a water-colour drawing made by the architect Patricolo and
the painter Zanetti from the monument designed by Giulio Pippi,
better known as Giulio Romano, (1492-1546). The water-mark of the
paper on which this volume is printed is copied from a drawing, by
Zanetti, of Castiglione’s arms as they appear in the upper left-hand
panel of the monument.
His fine character is reflected in that of his Courtier, who (as Symonds
says) “is, with one or two points of immaterial difference, a modern
gentleman, such as all men of education at the present day would wish to
be.” It may perhaps aid the reader to realize the time in which the
author lived, to recall that when Castiglione was born, printing had
been practised in Italy for thirteen years, that the earliest Greek
grammar had been printed two years, that America was discovered when he
was a boy, that the Reformation began when he was in the prime of life,
and that the Lutherans were first called Protestants in the year of his
death.
The first (Aldine) edition of THE COURTIER was issued thirteen years
after the death of Teob_aldo_ Manucci, the illustrious founder of the
press that continued to bear his name, and consisted of one thousand and
thirty-one copies, of which thirty were on large paper and one on
vellum. It is a small folio of one hundred and twenty-two leaves, the
type-page measuring almost precisely nine and one-quarter inches by five
and one-eighth inches. In its ordinary form the book can hardly be
called rare, as in 1895 the present translator secured a good copy from
Leipsic for forty-five francs.
The earliest Spanish translator, BOSCAN, (born at Barcelona about 1493;
died in France about 1542), was of gentle birth. Early becoming a
soldier, he served with credit in Charles V's Italian campaigns, and
thus acquired familiarity with the language and literature of Italy. He
is said to have known Castiglione personally. Having been for some time
tutor to the young prince who was later known as the Duke of Alva, he
married and devoted the rest of his short life to letters. As a writer
he is best known as the founder of the Italian poetical school in Spain.
Ticknor says that Boscan’s version of THE COURTIER hardly professes to
be literal, but that perhaps nothing in Castilian prose of an earlier
date is written in so classical and finished a style. It has been often
reprinted (as recently as 1873), and was found useful by the present
translator in doubtful passages.
The earliest French translator, COLIN, (died 1547), was a native of
Auxerre and enjoyed the favour of Francis I, whom he served as reader
and almoner, and who bestowed upon him the abbotship of St. Ambrose at
Tours, as well as other ecclesiastical offices. In his prosperity he
showed much kindness to his less fortunate brother authors, but he was
too free of speech to be permanently successful as a courtier, and lost
his preferments. His translation of THE COURTIER, which some writers
erroneously ascribe to Jean Chaperon, is little esteemed, was soon
issued with corrections by another hand, and then followed by another
French version. He translated also parts of Homer and Ovid, and composed
original verse in Latin and French. For an account of Castiglione’s
influence upon French literature and of his many French imitators,