The Book of the Courtier
and was made in four sizes, of which the lowest pitched (the _violone_
or double bass) is still in use. The tone of the instrument is said to
have been penetrating rather than powerful.
Note 157 page 89. Wind instruments, and especially the flute, are here
referred to. According to Plutarch, Alcibiades maintained that they were
regarded with disfavour by Pallas and Apollo because the face is
distorted in playing upon them.
Reduced from Giraudon’s photograph (no. 252) of a drawing, in the
Louvre, by Vittore Pisano, better known as Pisanello, (1380?-1451?).
Note 158 page 90. The Pythagoreans supposed the intervals between the
heavenly bodies to be determined by the laws of musical harmony. Hence
arose the celebrated doctrine of “the music of the spheres” (already
referred to by Castiglione in the text, page 63); for in their motion
the heavenly bodies must each occasion a certain sound or note depending
on their distances and velocities, which notes together formed a musical
harmony, inaudible to man because he has been accustomed to it from the
first and has never had an opportunity to contrast it with silence, or
because it exceeds his powers of hearing. Pythagoras himself (died about
500 B.C.) taught his disciples to sing to the accompaniment of the lyre,
and to chaunt hymns to the gods and to virtuous men.
Note 159 page 90. As the Italian commentator, Count Vesme, suggests, the
author may have meant to say, “shave twice a day.” A weekly visit to the
barber may, however, have been usually regarded as sufficient at this
time.
Note 160 page 93. In the beginning of his Encomium on Folly (which was
well known in Italy when Castiglione wrote THE COURTIER), Erasmus
pretends that, “although there has been no lack of those who, at great
cost of oil and sleep, have exalted ... the fourth-day ague, the fly,
and baldness, with most tedious praise,” Folly is languishing without a
eulogist. Among the works of Lucian (_flor._ 160 A.D.) there is a brief
humourous book in praise of the fly; the philosopher Favorinus (_flor._
120 A.D.) is said to have written a eulogy on the fourth-day ague; and
there is another on baldness by the early Christian writer, Synesius
(_flor._ 400 A.D.). The men of the Renaissance delighted in similar
displays of wit.
Note 161 page 94. The Italian _procella_ (rendered ‘fury’) primarily
means a tempest, and is so translated in the earliest French and English
versions of THE COURTIER (_estourbillon_, storm). The still earlier
Spanish version has _pestilencia_.
Note 162 page 95. The Italian _impedito_ (rendered ‘palsied’) literally
means entangled as to the feet.
Note 163 page 96. St. Luke, iv, 8 and 10.
Note 164 page 97. In Æsop’s fable, _Asinus Domino Blandiens_, an ass
receives a sound cudgelling for his efforts to win his master’s favour
by caresses that he was ill fitted to bestow.
Note 165 page 100. TITUS MANLIUS,—called TORQUATUS from the chain
(_torques_) that he took from the body of a gigantic Gaul whom he had
slain in single combat,—was a favourite hero of Roman story. The
incident referred to here occurred shortly before a Roman victory over
the Latins at the foot of Vesuvius. Manlius and his colleague in command
had proclaimed that no Roman might engage a Latin singly on pain of
death, but a son of Manlius accepted a challenge from one of the enemy,
slew his adversary, and bore the bloody spoils in triumph to his father,
who thereupon caused the young man to be put to death before the
assembled army. Manlius was Consul in 340 B.C.
Note 166 page 101. PUBLIUS LICINIUS CRASSUS MUCIANUS was Roman Consul in
131 B.C. According to Livy, the incident narrated in the text occurred
during an unsuccessful campaign against Pergamus, which ended in
Crassus’s voluntary death.
Note 167 page 103. Rome was sacked only the year before THE COURTIER was
first published. Italy had become the plaything of foreign conquest.
Note 168 page 103. DARIUS III was King of Persia 336-330 B.C. This story
about his sword seems to be founded on the following passage in Quintus
Curtius Rufus’s History of Alexander the Great: “At the beginning of his
reign, Darius ordered his Persian scabbard to be altered to the form
which the Greeks used; whereupon the Chaldeans prophesied that the
empire of the Persians would pass to those whose arms he had imitated.”
Note 169 page 104. It will be remembered that Bembo was a Venetian.
Note 170 page 104. The coif (_cuffia_) here mentioned seems to have been
a kind of turban made of cloth wound about the head, with the two ends
hanging at the ears.
Note 171 page 105. These unfortunate creatures still abound near
Bergamo.
Note 172 page 106. Pylades and Orestes, like Pirithous and Theseus, are
the famous friends of Greek legend. The historical and no less tender
love between Scipio and Lælius forms the subject of Cicero’s _De
Amicitia_. See note 102.
Note 173 page 109. The fellow’s reward is said to have been a measure of
the peas.
Note 174 page 109. The Italian phrase here rendered ‘goes against the
grain’ is _non gli avrà sangue_ (more usually _non ci avrà il suo
sangue_), and might be more precisely translated ‘will not suit his
humour.’ The ‘as we say’ suggests that the idiom was of recent origin in
Castiglione’s time.
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 34.074) of the portrait, in the
Imperial Museum at Vienna, by Ambrogio da Predis (_flor._ 1500). In
Morelli’s “Italian Painters” (London: 1892), pp. 180-9, the picture
is described as injured by restoration. See note 390.
Note 175 page 113. GIACOPO SANNAZARO, (born 1458; died 1530), was a
native of Naples, and the son of Giacopo Niccolò and Masella di San
Magno. His boyhood was spent with his mother at San Cipriano, near her
birthplace Salerno. He soon made such progress in Latin and Greek that
he was admitted to the academy of the famous Pontormo, of whom he became
the close friend. Their effigies may be seen together in the Neapolitan
church of Monte Oliveto. He received a villa and a pension from the
scholarly Aragonese dynasty, to which he remained faithful with pen and
sword, following Federico III into exile (see note 401) in 1501, and
returning to Naples only after his king’s death in 1504. He seems to
have had a peaceful and honourable old age, active in works of piety and
charity, and employing his leisure in study and in the society of a
certain noble lady for whom he had formed a lasting Platonic friendship.
His writings include marine eclogues, elegies, etc., in Latin, but his
best known work is _L'Arcadia_, an Italian prose romance interspersed
with verse, of which sixty editions are said to have appeared before
1600. It is regarded by Mahaffy as having originated the idea that the
Greek Arcadia was the especial home of pastoral poetry, and probably
served Sidney as a model for his poem of the same name. Hardly less
famous were Sannazaro’s anti-Borgian epigrams, to which Symonds ascribes
no small part of the gruesome legend of Lucrezia’s crimes. He was buried
in a church built by him near the so-called tomb of Virgil, and his
monument behind the high altar bears the Latin inscription by Bembo, in
which he is described as “near alike to Virgil’s muse and sepulchre.”
Note 176 page 113. Motet is “a term which for the last three hundred
years has been almost exclusively applied to certain pieces of church
music, of moderate length, adapted to Latin words (selected, for the
most part, either from Holy Scripture, or the Roman office-books), and
intended to be sung at high mass, either in place of, or immediately
after, the Plain Chaunt _Offertorium_ of the Day.“ (Grove.) The motet
was sometimes founded on the air of some non-sacred song, as in the case
of Josquin’s _Stabat Mater_, which was based upon the ballad _Comme
Femme_. (Ambros.)
Note 177 page 113. JOSQUIN (more properly JOSSE) DE PRÈS, (born about
1450; died 1521), seems to have been a native of St. Quentin, Hainault,
Belgium, and was one of the celebrated musicians of the Renaissance.
Having been the pupil of Ockenheim, the greatest composer of the day, he
was at the papal court of Sixtus IV, and successively in the service of
Lorenzo de' Medici, Louis XII of France, and the Emperor Maximilian I.
He returned to Italy about 1503 and lived at the court of Ferrara. He is
the earliest composer whose works are preserved in such quantity as
adequately to present his power, and was called “the father of harmony”
by Dr. Burney. Music began to be printed (1498) when Josquin was in his
prime.
Note 178 page 114. Other contemporary evidence amply confirms this
account of the occasional grossness that marked the table manners of the
period.
Note 179 page 115. The two princes here referred to are Ferdinand the
Catholic of Spain (see note 392) and Louis XII of France (see note 250).
Note 180 page 116. PAOLO NICCOLÒ VERNIA, called NICOLETTO (little Nick)
from his shortness of stature, (died 1499), was a native of Chieti, near
the Adriatic. He probably studied at Padua, and remained there teaching
physics, although in 1444 he took his degree in philosophy, and fourteen
years later in medicine. He wrote chiefly on philosophy, but was noted
also as a wit.
Note 181 page 116. “When Frederick Barbarossa attempted to govern the
rebellious Lombard cities in the common interest of the Empire, he
established in their midst a foreign judge, called ‘Podestà,’ _quasi
habens potestatem Imperatoris in hac parte_.... The title of ‘Podestà’
was subsequently conferred upon the official summoned to maintain an
equal balance between the burghers and the nobles.” Symonds’s
“Renaissance in Italy,” ed. 1883, i, 61.
Note 182 page 117. This was the battle of Fornovo (6 July 1495), in
which the Italian forces under the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga of
Mantua failed to prevent the retreat of Charles VIII towards France.
Both sides claimed a victory, and the marquess even went so far as to
have it commemorated by Mantegna in a picture, “The Madonna of Victory”
(Louvre), which contains his portrait. Castiglione’s father died from
the effect of wounds received in this battle.
Note 183 page 117. The reference here is plainly to Leonardo da Vinci
(see note 96). His contemporaries would naturally regard as chimerical
such devices as steam cannon, paddle wheels for boats, and flying
machines, or such hints as that contained in his _Codex Atlanticus_,
where he suggests the possibility of steam navigation. “He was the first
to explain correctly the dim illumination seen over the rest of the
surface of the moon when the bright part is only a thin crescent. He
pointed out that when the moon was nearly new, the half of the earth
which was then illuminated by the sun was turned nearly directly towards
the moon, and that the moon was in consequence illuminated slightly by
this ‘earthshine,’ just as we are by moonshine. This explanation ...
tended to break down the supposed barrier between terrestrial and
celestial bodies.” Arthur Berry’s “Short History of Astronomy” (London,
1898), p. 91.
Note 184 page 118. Suetonius mentions this characteristic of Cæsar.
Note 185 page 119. This is one of the few passages in The Courtier that
are plainly reminiscent of Dante, who says: “To that truth which hath
the face of falsehood, man must ever close his lips” (_Sempre a quel ver
che ha faccia di menzogna, De' l’uom chiuder la labbra_). _Inferno_,
xvi, 124-5.
Note 186 page 121. The translator admits being at a loss to find an
adequate equivalent for the Italian _argusie_. Our unfamiliar English
adjective ‘argute’ suggests that kind of pungent and witty conceits
which Castiglione is describing.
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