The Book of the Courtier
Taft is the name of a town in central Persia.
Note 214 page 134. ANNIBAL PALEOTTO, (died 1516), belonged to an ancient
and honourable Bolognese family (with which Castiglione is known to have
been on friendly terms), and was the son of an eminent jurist, Vincenzo
Paleotto, who died in 1498. Leo X made Annibale a senator of Bologna in
1514, the brief being written by Bembo.
Note 215 page 135. Giacopo di Nino was BISHOP OF POTENZA from 1506 until
1521, and seems to have been a butt for the ridicule of Leo X's court.
Note 216 page 136. An earlier version of this passage reads: “And of
this kind was what Rinaldo in the _Morgante_ said to the Giant: ‘Where
do you hang your spectacles?’” The _Morgante Maggiore_ is a
serio-burlesque romantic poem by Luigi Pulci (1431-1487), introducing,
among other characters of mediæval romance, Rinaldo, his cousin Orlando,
and the giant Morgante.
Note 217 page 136. GALEOTTO MARZI DA NARNI, (born about 1427; died about
1490), a singular example of the adventurer-humanist, studied at the
universities of Padua and Bologna, and taught at the latter place. He
twice visited the court of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, for whom he
wrote a book on jests. He was something of an astrologer and also the
author of a work on chiromancy. Being accused of heresy, he was
imprisoned at Venice in 1477, and condemned to make public recantation
in the Piazzetta with a crown of devils on his head. He is said to have
been learned and witty. The story given in the text became almost
proverbial.
Note 218 page 136. The present form (_bisticcio_) of _bischisso_
(rendered ‘playing on words’) has a meaning somewhat different from that
indicated in the text,—being the term applied to a succession of words
the similarity of whose sound renders them difficult to pronounce, e.g.,
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Note 219 page 136. At this time the general use of family names was
comparatively recent, and their form was somewhat variable. Thus, such
surnames as Pio and Fregoso were treated as still being, what they
doubtless originally were, merely personal epithets, and so were given
the feminine form (Pia, Fregosa) when applied to women. The adjective
_pia_ means dutiful, pious, kind, while _impia_ or _empia_ of course
means the reverse.
Note 220 page 136. “The greatest of the Furies is my bedfellow.” With a
change of one syllable in the Latin, this becomes _Furiarum maxima juxta
accubat_ (“The greatest of the Furies lies hard by”), Æneid, V, 605-6.
Note 221 page 136. GERONIMO DONATO, (born 1457; died 1511), was a native
of Venice, where he held many public offices, besides being sent abroad
as ambassador of the Republic, especially to the courts of Alexander VI
and Julius II. He also enjoyed no small fame as a cultivator of science,
art and letters (particularly Greek and theology). The incident narrated
in the text occurred during his embassy to Alexander, to whom on another
occasion he made a far wittier retort. Being jestingly asked by the pope
where Venice got its right of lordship over the Adriatic, he answered:
“Let your Holiness show me the title deed to the Patrimony of St. Peter,
and on the back of it will be found inscribed the grant to the Venetians
of their dominion over the Adriatic.”
Note 222 page 136. In the Roman Church a “station” (_stasione_) is a
church where indulgences are granted at certain seasons. In earlier
times such churches were visited in solemn procession, which afterwards
came to be regarded as an opportunity for social recreation. The word is
used also to designate the indulgences earned by visiting, on appointed
days, many churches founded by popes.
Note 223 page 136. “As many stars as heaven, so many girls hath thy
Rome,” Ovid’s _Ars Amandi_, I, 59.
Note 224 page 136. “As many kids as the pasture, so many satyrs hath thy
Rome,” is as close an English rendering as Donato’s Latin will bear.
Note 225 page 136. MARCANTONIO DELLA TORRE belonged to an ancient noble
family of Verona, was a famous anatomist, and is said to have included
Leonardo da Vinci among his pupils. He died at the age of thirty, and
was highly praised for his learning. His father Geronimo lectured on
medicine at Padua.
Pietro Barozzi became ARCHBISHOP OF PADUA in 1487, and died in 1507.
Bandello (who had read THE COURTIER in MS.) relates the same story in
somewhat wittier form, but gives the name of the prelate as Gerardo
Landriano, Bishop of Como.
Note 226 page 137. St. Luke, xvi, 2.
Note 227 page 137. St. Matthew, xxv, 20.
Note 228 page 137. PROTO DA LUCCA was one of the most famous buffoons
who enlivened the pontifical court at the beginning of the 16th century.
If, as seems probable, the incident in question occurred in January 1506
(when Bernardino Lei died and was succeeded by Antonio da Castriani as
Bishop of Cagli, a town near Urbino), the pope in question must have
been Julius II, to whom the epithet ‘very grave’ would be entirely
appropriate.
Note 229 page 138. The play is upon the word ‘office’ in its two
meanings of post or employment, and breviary or prayer-book. In the
latter sense, the ‘full office’ contained the psalms, lessons,
etc.,—while the ‘Madonna’s office’ was much abbreviated.
Note 230 page 138. GIOVANNI CALFURNIO, (born 1443; died 1503), was a
gentle and laborious humanist, born at or near Bergamo, but long
resident at Padua, where he held the chair of rhetoric. His chief work
consisted in correcting and commenting upon the texts of Latin poets.
The ‘another man at Padua’ was probably Raffaele Regio (a fellow
professor with Calfurnio), who publicly ridiculed his colleague as the
son of a charcoal-burner. Calfurnio seems to have published very little;
on his death he bequeathed his library to the church of San Giovanni in
Verdara, from which his tomb and portrait relief have recently been
removed to a cloister of the monastery of St. Antony at Padua.
From a photograph, specially made by Agostini, of the anonymous tomb
relief removed from the Church of San Giovanni di Verdara to a
cloister in the Monastery of Sant'Antonio at Padua.
Note 231 page 138. Tommaso Inghirami, “FEDRA,” (born 1470; died 1516),
was a native patrician of Volterra (a town about midway between Pisa and
Siena), being the son of Paolo Inghirami and Lucrezia Barlettani. Having
passed his early boyhood at Florence, he removed to Rome in 1483, where
he played the part of _Phædra_ in Seneca’s tragedy _Hippolytus_ (upon
which Racine founded his _Phèdre_) with such success that the name clung
to him for life. The play being interrupted by an accident to the
scenery, he filled the interval by improvising Latin verses for the
entertainment of the audience. The performance took place in the
mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, which was afterwards converted into
the fortress known as the Castle of St. Angelo. Tommaso was employed by
Alexander VI in diplomatic affairs, crowned poet by the Emperor
Maximilian I, and made a canon of the Lateran and of the Vatican. He
seems to have been connected with the Vatican Library as early as 1505,
and became its prefect. Although Erasmus called him the Cicero of his
time, his fame now rests rather on his portrait in the Pitti Gallery at
Florence, than on his works.
Note 232 page 138. CAMILLO PALEOTTO was a brother of the Annibal
Paleotto already mentioned (see note 214). On his father’s death in
1498, he went to Rome, where he became the friend of Federico Fregoso,
Bembo and Castiglione. He taught rhetoric at Bologna and was Chancellor
of the Senate there. There also he is said to have died in 1530,
although a letter of Bembo’s speaks of him in 1518 as then already dead.
Note 233 page 138. ANTONIO PORCARO, or PORZIO, belonged to a noble Roman
family, and was a brother of the Camillo Porcaro mentioned in THE
COURTIER (at page 140). He had also a twin brother Valerio, whom he so
closely resembled that the two were often mistaken, one for the other,
as Bibbiena says in the preface to his _Calandra_,—the plot of which is
founded upon a similar resemblance. Little more is known of Antonio than
that he suffered some grievous wrong from Alexander VI.
Note 234 page 138. Regarding GIANTOMMASO GALEOTTO, Cian furnishes no
information. The Spanish annotator, Fabié, adds Marcio (Marzio) to his
name,—thus apparently treating him as identical with the Galeotto da
Narni mentioned above at page 136,—and says that he “died, by reason of
his great corpulence, from a fall from his horse, being in the train of
Charles VIII of France, when the latter entered Milan.” As “My lord
Prefect” was only four years old when Charles entered Milan in 1494,
this identification seems clearly erroneous.
Note 235 page 139. FILIPPO BEROALDO, (born 1472; died 1518), belonged to
a noble Bolognese family. Having been one of his famous uncle Filippo
the elder’s most brilliant pupils in the classics, he was at the age of
twenty-six made professor of literature at Bologna, and afterwards at
Rome. In 1511 he successfully defended Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino
against the charge of murdering Cardinal Alidosi. Instead of seeking to
extenuate the deed, as done in heat and under strong provocation, he
boldly justified it on the ground that his client was the instrument
chosen by the Almighty to rid the world of a monster of wickedness, and
eloquently appealed to the tribunal to spare a hero whose promise of
future usefulness was precious to Italy. Beroaldo was secretary to
Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and on the latter’s election as pope, he
was made Provost of the Roman Academy, while at Inghirami’s death he was
made Librarian of the Vatican, as a reward for editing the recently
discovered first five books of Tacitus’s Annals. He died at Rome, partly
(it is said) from vexation at not being paid the stipend of his office.
Bembo wrote his epitaph. Although he was celebrated for erudition and
eloquence rather than for authorship, he left three books of odes, and
one of epigrams,—in Latin.
Note 236 page 139. The pupil obviously used the phrase in its low Latin
meaning, “Master, God give you good evening.” Beroaldo jocosely accepted
it in its classical meaning, “Master, God give you good, late.”
Note 237 page 139. “Evil to thee, soon.”
Note 238 page 139. DIEGO DE CHIGNONES, (died 1512), was a Spanish
cavalier, of whom Branthôme writes as follows: “This Great Captain had
for lieutenant, with a company of one hundred men-at-arms, Don Diego de
Quignones, who supported him in his combats and victories, and was truly
a good and brave lieutenant to him. After the Great Captain’s death, he
had sole command of his company of an hundred men-at-arms, as he well
deserved to have. He commanded it at the battle of Ravenna, where he
died like a brave and valiant captain. And if all had behaved as he did
(say the old Spaniards), the victory that the French won there would
have cost them dearer than it did, although it cost them dear.”
Note 239 page 139. Don Gonzalvo Hernand y Aguilar, better known as
Consalvo de Cordoba, or THE GREAT CAPTAIN, (born 1443; died 1515), was a
native of Montilla, near Cordova, and belonged to an ancient family of
Spanish grandees. His father’s name was Pietro, and his mother’s was
Elvira Errea. Bred to war in early youth and knighted on the field of
battle at the age of sixteen, he followed the fortunes of Ferdinand the
Catholic, and took an active part in the conquest of Granada. In 1494 he
was sent to Italy to aid Ferdinand II of Naples against Charles VIII,
won a long succession of victories over the French, and was finally made
Constable and Viceroy of Naples. Later, Ferdinand the Catholic,
listening to slanderous reports regarding him, deprived him of office,