The Book of the Courtier
the presence, at its head, of an avowed mistress (Morosina), who bore
him several children. After her death, he devoted himself to theology,
entered holy orders, reluctantly accepted a cardinal’s hat in 1539, and
in 1541 succeeded his friend Fregoso in the bishopric of Gubbio, to
which was added that of Bergamo. His death was occasioned by a fall from
his horse, and he was buried at Rome in the Minerva church, between his
patrons Leo X and Clement VII. His works are noteworthy less for their
substance than for the refining influence exerted by their form. He is
said to have subjected all his writings to sixteen (some say forty)
separate revisions, and a legend survives to the effect that he advised
a young cleric (Sadoleto) to avoid reading the Epistles of St. Paul,
lest they might mar the youth’s style. His numerous private and official
letters have preserved many valuable facts and furnish interesting
illustration of contemporary manners and character. Humboldt praises him
as the first Italian author to write attractive descriptions of natural
scenery, and cites especially his dialogue on Mt. Ætna.
Head enlarged from a photograph, specially made by Alinari, of a part of
the fresco, “Leo X's Entry into Florence,” in the Palazzo Vecchio at
Florence, by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). See Milanesi’s edition of
Vasari’s _Opere_, viii, 142. The chief facts of his life are given
in note 242, at page 369 of this volume.
Note 43 page 12. CESARE GONZAGA, (born about 1475; died 1512), was a
native of Mantua, being descended from a younger branch of the ruling
family of that city, and a cousin of Castiglione, with whom he
maintained a close friendship. His father’s name was Giampietro, and he
had a brother Luigi. Having received a courtly and martial education at
Milan, and after spending some time with his relatives at Mantua, he
entered the service of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. In 1504 he shared
Castiglione’s lodgings after their return from a campaign against Cesare
Borgia’s strongholds in Romagna, and in the carnival of 1506 they
together recited Castiglione’s eclogue _Tirsi_, in the authorship of
which he is by some credited with a part. A graceful canzonet, preserved
in Atanagi’s _Rime Scelte_, attests his skill in versification. On
Guidobaldo’s death in 1508, the two friends remained in the service of
the new duke, Francesco Maria. In 1511 Cesare fought bravely against the
French at Mirandola, and the next year took part in the reduction of
Bologna, where he soon died of an acute fever. Little more is known of
him, beyond the fact that he was a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, that
Leo X sent him on a mission to Charles V of Spain, and that he was among
the many friends of the famous Isabella d'Este (see note 397).
Note 44 page 12. Count LUDOVICO DA CANOSSA, (born 1476; died 1532),
belonged to a noble Veronese family (still honourably extant), and was a
close friend of Castiglione and a cousin of the latter’s mother. His
boyhood was passed at Mantua, and his happiest years at Urbino, where he
was received in 1496. In the pontificate of Julius II he went to Rome,
and was made Bishop of Tricarico, in southern Italy, 1511. Under Leo X
he was entrusted with several embassies, one of which (1514) was to
England to reconcile Henry VIII with Louis XII, and another (1515) was
to the new French king, Francis I, at whose court he continued to
reside, and through whose influence he was made Bishop of Bayeux in
1516. In 1526 and 1527 he served as French ambassador to Venice. His
ability and zeal as a diplomatist are shown not only by the importance
of the posts that he held, but by his numerous letters that have been
preserved. At the time of his friend Bibbiena’s death in 1520, Canossa
remarked that it was a fixed belief among the French that every man of
rank who died in Italy was poisoned.
Note 45 page 12. GASPAR PALLAVICINO, (born 1486; died 1511), was a
descendant of the marquesses of Cortemaggiore, near Piacenza. He appears
in THE COURTIER as the youthful woman-hater of the company, and was a
friend of Castiglione and Bembo. For an interesting discussion of his
rôle in the dialogues, see Miss Scott’s paper, cited above (page 316).
Note 46 page 12. LUDOVICO PIO belonged to the famous family of the lords
of Carpi (a few miles north of Modena), and was a brave captain in the
service of the Aragonese princes, of Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, and
of Pope Julius II. His father Leonello and more celebrated uncle Alberto
had been pupils of Aldus, and were second cousins of Emilia Pia. His
wife was the beautiful Graziosa Maggi of Milan, who is immortalized in
the paintings of Francia and the writings of Bembo.
Note 47 page 12. SIGISMONDO MORELLO DA ORTONA is presented in THE
COURTIER as the only elderly member of the company, and the object of
many youthful jests. He is known to have taken part in the ceremony of
the formal adoption of Francesco Maria della Rovere as heir to the duchy
in 1504, is referred to in Castiglione’s _Tirsi_, and seems to have been
something of a musician.
Much enlarged from a negative, specially made by Berthaud, of a part of
a pen-drawing in the National Library at Paris. The drawing is
touched with gold, and forms part of a series illustrating a MS.
chronicle (nos. 20360-2) engrossed at Genoa in 1510 by Anthoine
Bardin. See note 250.
Note 48 page 12. Of ROBERTO DA BARI little more is known than that his
surname was MASSIMO, and that he was taken ill in the campaign of 1510
against the Venetians and retired to Mantua. Thither Castiglione sent a
letter to his mother, warmly recommending Roberto to her hospitality,
and saying that he loved the man like a brother.
Note 49 page 12. BERNARDO ACCOLTI, (born about 1465; died 1535), was
generally known as the UNICO ARETINO, from the name of his birthplace
(Arezzo) and in compliment to his ‘unique’ faculty for extemporising
verse. His father Benedetto was a jurist, and the author of a dull Latin
history of the First Crusade, from which Tasso is believed to have drawn
material for the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. His poetical celebrity
commended him to the court of Urbino, where (as at Rome and in other
places) he was in the habit of reciting his verses to vast audiences of
rich and poor alike. When an exhibition by him was announced, guards had
to be set to restrain the crowds that rushed to secure places, the shops
were closed, and the streets emptied. His life was a kind of lucrative
poetic vagabondage: thus we find him flourishing, caressed and
applauded, at the courts of Urbino, Mantua, Naples, and especially at
that of Leo X, who bestowed many offices upon him, of which, however,
his wealth (acquired by his recitations) rendered him independent,
enabling him to indulge in a life of literary ease. His elder brother
Pietro became a cardinal, bought Raphael’s house, and is said to have
had a hand in drafting the papal bull against Luther in 1520. He was an
early patron of his notorious fellow-townsman Pietro Aretino. Such of
his verse as has survived is so bald and stilted as to excite no little
wonderment at the esteem which he enjoyed among his contemporaries. In
THE COURTIER he poses as the sentimental and afflicted lover, the
“slayer” of duchesses and other noble ladies, who (according to his own
account) kept flocking in his train, but who more probably were often
making sport of him.
Note 50 page 12. GIANCRISTOFORO ROMANO, (born about 1465; died 1512),
was the son of Isaia di Pippo of Pisa and the pupil of Paolo Romano.
Perhaps best known as a sculptor, he possessed skill also as a
goldsmith, medallist, architect and crystal carver, cultivated music and
wrote verse. During the last years of the Sforza power at Milan, he
accompanied the duke’s wife, Beatrice d'Este, from place to place, and
is now identified as the author of her portrait bust in the Louvre. He
executed also at least two portrait medals of her sister Isabella
d'Este, acted as adviser and agent of the Gonzagas in the purchase of
art objects, worked at Venice, Cremona, Rome and Naples, and is known to
have been at Urbino about the time of the Courtier dialogues. In a long
letter written by him to Bembo in 1510, he describes the court of Urbino
as “a true temple of chastity, decorum and pudicity.” In 1512 he was
directing architect at Loreto (see note 311), where he died in May,
bequeathing his collection of medals and antiques to a hospital, for the
purpose of having three masses said weekly for the repose of his soul.
Note 51 page 12. Of PIETRO MONTE little more is known than that he was a
master of military exercises at the Urbino court, and perhaps a captain
in the duke’s army. He may have been identical with one Pietro dal
Monte, who is mentioned as a soldier in the pay of Venice (1509), and
described as “blind in one eye, but of great valour, gentle speech, and
not unlearned in letters,” and as “commanding 1500 infantry, and a man
of great experience not only in war but in affairs of the world.”
Note 52 page 12. ANTONIO MARIA TERPANDRO, one of the most jovial and
welcome visitors at Urbino, is said by Dennistoun to have been a musical
ornament of the court. He enjoyed the heartiest friendship of Bembo and
Bibbiena.
Note 53 page 12. NICCOLῸ FRISIO or FRIGIO is mentioned in a letter by
Bembo as a German, but seems more probably to have been an Italian.
Dennistoun speaks of him as a musician. In a letter from Castiglione to
his mother (1506), the writer warmly commends to her “one messer Niccolò
Frisio, who I hear is there [i.e., in Mantua], and I earnestly hope that
you will treat him kindly, for I am under the greatest obligation to him
with respect to my Roman illness.... I am sure he loves me well.” In
another letter by a friend of Bembo, Frisio is described (1509) as an
Italian long resident in courts, sure of heart, gentle, a good linguist,
faithful to his employers, and as having been used by Julius II in
negotiating the League of Cambray against Venice. He had relations also
with the marchioness Isabella of Mantua (see note 397), whom he aided in
the collection of antiquities. Growing weary of worldly life, he became
a monk in 1510, and retired to the Certosa of Naples.
Note 54 page 12. According to Cian, _omini piacevoli_ (rendered
‘agreeable men’) here means ‘buffoons.’
Note 55 page 13. This passage establishes the date of the first dialogue
as 8 March 1507.
Note 56 page 13. My lady Emilia contends that she has already told her
choice of a game, in proposing that the rest of the company should tell
theirs.
Note 57 page 14. COSTANZA FREGOSA was a sister of the two Fregoso
brothers already mentioned, and a faithful companion of the Duchess of
Urbino. She married Count Marcantonio Landi of Piacenza, and bore him
two worthy children, Agostino and Caterina, to the former of whom Bembo
stood sponsor and became a kind of second father. Three letters by the
lady have been preserved.
Note 58 page 15. Belief in the efficacy of music as a cure for the bite
of the tarantula still survives in Andalusia, Sardinia and parts of
southern Italy. In a note on the tarantella dance, Goethe wrote: “It has
been remarked that in the case of mental ailments, and of a tarantula
bite, which is probably cured by perspiration, the movements of this
dance have a very salutary effect on the softer sex.” “Travels in Italy”
(Ed. Bohn, 1883), page 564.
Note 59 page 15. The _moresca_ (mime or morris-dance) seems to have been
a kind of ballet or story in dance, often very intricate and fanciful.
At the courts of this period, it was generally introduced as an