The Book of the Courtier
interlude between the acts of a comedy. In a letter quoted by Dennistoun
(“Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino,” ii, 141), Castiglione describes a
_moresca_ on the story of Jason, which was thus performed at the first
presentation of Bibbiena’s _Calandra_ before the court of Urbino, 6
February 1513.
Note 60 page 16. FRA MARIANO FETTI, (born 1460; died 1531), was a native
of Florence, and beginning life as a barber to Lorenzo de' Medici,
always remained faithful to that family. At Rome, during the pontificate
of Julius II, he won the reputation and enjoyed the privileges of “the
prince of jesters,” and became even more famous under Leo X, upon whom
as a child he had bestowed affectionate care, and who as pope did not
forget his kindness. Thus in 1514 he was made _Frate piombatore_, or
affixer of lead seals to papal bulls, in which office he followed the
architect Bramante, was succeeded by the painter Sebastiano Luciani
(better known as “del Piombo”), and admitted earning yearly what would
now be the equivalent of about £1600, by turning lead into gold. While
it remains uncertain whether he was more buffoon or friar, he had a
great love for artists, and even composed verse. He seems to have
continued in the enjoyment of fame and favour during the reign of the
second Medicean pope, Clement VII.
Note 61 page 16. FRA SERAFINO was probably a Mantuan, and had a brother
Sebastiano. He lived long at the Gonzaga court, where he was employed in
organizing festivals, and at Urbino, where the few of his letters that
have survived show him in familiar relations with other interlocutors in
THE COURTIER. While at Rome in 1507, with the suite of the Duchess of
Urbino, he was seriously wounded in the head by an unknown assailant,
probably in return for some lampoon or scandal of his against the papal
court.
Note 62 page 17. This letter S was evidently one of the golden ciphers
that ladies of the period were fond of wearing on a circlet about their
heads. In her portrait the duchess is represented as wearing a narrow
band, from which the image of a scorpion hangs upon her forehead. The S
may have been used on this occasion as the initial letter of the word
scorpion, and seems in any case to have been an instance of the
‘devices’ mentioned in note 40.
A sonnet, purporting to be the work of the Unico Aretino, was inserted
in the edition of THE COURTIER published by Rovillio at Lyons in 1562
and in several later editions, as being the sonnet here mentioned. In
its place, however, Cian prints another sonnet, preserved in the
Marciana Library at Venice and possessing higher claims to authenticity.
Some idea of the baldness of both may be gained from the following crude
but tolerably literal translation of the second sonnet:
Consent, O Sea of beauty and virtue,
That I, thy slave, may of great doubt be freed,
Whether the S thou wearest on thy candid brow
Signifies my Suffering or my Salvation,
Whether it means Succour or Servitude,
Suspicion or Security, Secret or Silliness,
Whether ’Spectation or Shriek, whether Safe or Sepultured!
Whether my bonds be Strait or Severed:
For much I fear lest it give Sign
Of Stateliness, Sighing, Severity,
Scorn, Slash, Sweat, Stress and Spite.
But if for naked truth a place there be,
This S shows with no little art
A Sun single in beauty and in cruelty.
Note 63 page 18. The pains of love were a frequent theme with Bembo, and
are elaborately set forth in his _Gli Asolani_. Quite untranslatable
into English, his play upon the words _amore_ (love) and _amaro_
(bitter) is at least as old as Plautus’s _Trinummus_.
Note 64 page 22. IPPOLITO D'ESTE, (born 1479; died 1520), was the third
son of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara (see note 203) and Eleanora of Aragon
(see note 399). At the instance of his maternal aunt Beatrice’s husband,
King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (see note 395), he was given the rich
archbishopric of Strigonio, to which was attached the primacy of that
country, and made the journey thither as a mere boy. In 1493 Alexander
VI made him a cardinal. Soon after the death of his sister Beatrice, her
husband Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan gave him the vacant archbishopric
of that city, and the same year (1497) he exchanged the Hungarian
primacy, with its burdensome requirement of foreign residence, for the
bishopric of Agria in Crete. In 1502 he was made Archbishop of Capua in
the kingdom of Naples, but bestowed the revenues of the see upon his
widowed and impoverished aunt, the ex-Queen of Hungary, and a little
later was made Bishop of Ferrara,—all before reaching the age of
twenty-four years. He was also Bishop of Modena and Abbot of Pomposa.
During his brother’s reign at Ferrara, the young cardinal took an active
part in public affairs, several times governing in the duke’s absence,
and showing brilliant capacities for military command. After the
accession of Leo X, he resided chiefly at Rome, where he was always a
conspicuous figure and carefully guarded his brother’s interests. He was
a friend and protector of Leonardo da Vinci, and maintained Ariosto in
his service from 1503 to 1517. A prelate only in name, regarding his
many ecclesiastical offices merely as a source of wealth, he united the
faults and vices to the grace and culture of his time.
Note 65 page 26. BERTO was probably one of the many buffoons about the
papal court in the time of Julius II and Leo X. He is again mentioned in
the text (page 128) for his powers of mimicry, etc.
Much enlarged from a cast, courteously furnished by the Austrian
authorities, of an anonymous medal in the Imperial Museum at Vienna
(Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 82, no. 9). See note 395.
Note 66 page 26. This “brave lady” is by some identified as the famous
Caterina Sforza, a natural daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of
Milan, who by the last of her three husbands became the mother of the
even more famous _condottiere_ Giovanni de' Medici delle Bande Nere. She
was born in 1462, and died in 1509 after a life of singular
vicissitudes. For an extraordinary story of her courage, see
Dennistoun’s “Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino,” i, 292.
The “one whom I will not name at present” is supposed to have been a
certain brave soldier of fortune, Gaspar Sanseverino, who is often
mentioned as “Captain Fracassa,” and was a brother of the Galeazzo
Sanseverino who appears a little later in THE COURTIER (see page 34 and
note 72).
Note 67 page 28. The philosopher in question has been variously
identified as Democritus and Empedocles.
Note 68 page 30. In Charles V's romantic plan for deciding by single
combat his rivalry with Francis I, Castiglione was selected as his
second, but declined to violate diplomatic proprieties by accepting the
offer,—being at the time papal envoy at Charles’s court.
Note 69 page 31. Strictly speaking, the joust was a single contest
between man and man, while the tourney was a sham battle between two
squadrons. Stick-throwing seems to have been an equestrian game
introduced by the Moors into Spain, and by the Spaniards into Italy. In
the carnival of 1519 it was played by two companies in the Piazza of St.
Peter’s before Leo X.
Note 70 page 31. Vaulting on horse seems to have included some of the
feats of agility with which modern circus riders have familiarized us.
Note 71 page 33. “Finds grace,” i.e. favour: literally “is grateful”
(_grato_) in the sense of acceptable or pleasing. Compare the familiar
phrase _persona grata_.
Note 72 page 34. GALEAZZO SANSEVERINO was one of the twelve stalwart
sons of Roberto Sanseverino, a brave _condottiere_ who aided to place
Ludovico Sforza in power at Milan, rebelled against that prince, and was
slain while fighting for the Venetians in 1486. Galeazzo entered the
service of Ludovico, whose favour had been attracted by his personal
charm, literary accomplishments and rare skill in knightly exercises.
When he married his patron’s natural daughter Bianca, in 1489, Leonardo
da Vinci arranged the jousts held in honour of the wedding. Thenceforth
he adopted the names Visconti and Sforza, and was treated as a member of
the ducal family. In 1496, at the head of the Milanese forces, he
besieged the Duke of Orleans (afterwards Louis XII) at Novara, but in
1500 he was captured by the French, and after the final downfall of
Ludovico (to whom he seems to have remained creditably loyal) he entered
the service of Louis XII, who made him Grand Equerry in 1506. The duties
of his office included the superintendence of all the royal stables and
of an academy for the martial education of young men of noble family.
For a further account of his interesting life, and especially of his
friendship with Isabella d'Este, see Mrs. Henry Ady’s recent volume,
“Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan.”
Note 73 page 35. The word _sprezzatura_ (rendered “nonchalance”) could
hardly have been new to Castiglione’s contemporaries, at least in its
primary meaning of disprizement or contempt. He may, however, have been
among the first to use it (as here and elsewhere in THE COURTIER) in its
modified sense of unconcern or nonchalance. Compare Herrick’s ‘wild
civility’ in “Art above Nature” and “Delight in Disorder.”
Note 74 page 37. Naturally Venice could hardly be a place well suited
for horsemanship; its citizens’ awkward riding was a favourite subject
of ridicule in the 16th century.
Note 75 page 37. The incident is supposed to have occurred on the
occasion of a visit paid by Apelles to Rhodes not long after the death
(323 B.C.) of Alexander the Great, whom he had accompanied into Asia
Minor. Apelles was eager to meet Protogenes, and on landing in Rhodes
went at once to the painter’s house. Protogenes was absent, but a large
panel stood ready for painting. Apelles took a pencil and drew an
exceedingly fine coloured line, by which Protogenes on his return
immediately recognized who his visitor had been, and in turn drew a
finer line of another colour upon or within the first line. When Apelles
saw this line, he added a third line still further subdividing the one
drawn by Protogenes. Later the panel was carried to Rome, where it long
excited wondering admiration in the Palace of the Cæsars, with which it
was finally destroyed by fire. Apelles was the first to stimulate
appreciation of the merits of Protogenes by buying several of the
latter’s works at enormous prices: he maintained however that he
excelled Protogenes in knowing when to cease elaborating his paintings.
Note 76 page 37. The play upon words here is untranslatable into
English. The Italian _tavola_ stands equally well for a dining-table and
for the tablet or panel upon which pictures were painted.
Note 77 page 40. ‘As those who speak [are present] before those who
speak’ is a literal translation of the accepted reading of this passage.
It is perhaps worth noting, however, that the earliest translator
(Boscan) ventures to deviate from the letter of the Italian text for the
sake of rendering what surely must have been the author’s meaning: _como
los que hablan á aquellos con quien hablan_, i.e. “as those who speak
[are present] before those _with whom_ they speak.”
Note 78 page 41. Although the dialect of Bergamo was (and still is)
ridiculed as rude and harsh, it possessed a copious popular literature.
Note 79 page 41. FRANCESCO PETRARCA or PETRARCH, (born 1304; died 1374),
belonged to a family that was banished from Florence at the same time
with Dante, whom he remembered seeing in his childhood. He was the first
Italian of his time to appreciate the value of public libraries, to