The Book of the Courtier
and in 1507 recalled him to Spain, where he died in disgrace. His good
qualities were much admired by Castiglione, who had fought against him,
but his fame was not unstained by acts of cruelty and bad faith, which
(it is fair to say) were common at the time and seem to have been
committed only against his master’s foes. Giorgione is said to have
painted his portrait at Venice, and a life of him by Paolo Giovio was
published at Florence in 1552.
Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy
of Professor I. B. Supino, of Annibal’s medal in the National Museum
at Florence. See Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, i, 176.
Note 240 page 139. The Spanish word _vino_ means not only “wine” but
also “he came.” In pronunciation it would be easily mistaken for _Y-no_.
_Y no lo conocistes_ is the Spanish for “And thou knewest Him not.”
Compare St. John, i, 11.
Note 241 page 139. The word _marano_ (here rendered “heretic”) meant a
renegade Moor, and is said by Symonds to have been generally used in
Italy at this time as a term of reproach against Spaniards.
Note 242 page 139. GIACOMO SADOLETO, (born 1477; died 1547), was a
native of Modena and the son of a noted jurist, Giovanni Sadoleto. He
studied Latin at Ferrara and Greek at Rome, where he settled in the
pontificate of Alexander VI and acquired a great reputation for
learning. Leo X appointed him a secretary at the same time with Bembo,
(who shared with him the name of being the best Latinist of the day),
and soon made him Bishop of Carpentras, a town fifteen miles north-east
of Avignon. He was secretary also to Clement VII, to whom he boldly
declared that the sack of Rome (1527) was inflicted by God as a
punishment for human wickedness. Paul III created him a cardinal in
1536. A sincerely pious man, he was conscious of the evils of the Church
and did not escape suspicion of heresy. He was a close friend of
Vittoria Colonna, and the Roman Academy often met at his house on the
Quirinal. Besides Latin poems (one of which, on the newly discovered
Laocoön group, made him famous), his works include commentaries on the
Psalms and the Epistle to the Romans, and a Latin exhortation to the
princes and people of Germany against Lutheran heresies. Although far
from rich, he was very charitable, especially in providing young men of
his flock with the means of education.
Note 243 page 139. LUDOVICO DA SAN BONIFACIO is identified by Cian as a
Paduan, who held the offices of prothonotary and private chamberlain
under Leo X, successfully disputed with Bembo the possession of a
canonry at Padua in 1514, was sent to different courts by Leo, and died
at Padua in 1545.
ERCOLE RANGONE, (died 1572), belonged to an illustrious family of
Modena, and achieved some note as a soldier and diplomatist, having
commanded the Florentine forces in 1529, and served as Ferrarese
ambassador to France, Spain and Germany. He was esteemed by Castiglione,
of whose wife Ippolita Torello he seems to have been a kinsman.
The COUNT OF PEPOLI probably belonged to a noble Bolognese family of
that name, but has not been identified with certainty.
Note 244 page 140. Of SALLAZA DALLA PEDRADA nothing seems to be known
beyond the mention of him in the text.
Note 245 page 140. PALLA DEGLI STROZZI, (born 1372; died 1462), was a
wealthy and cultivated Florentine patrician. Having honourably filled
high offices of state, he was banished by Cosimo de' Medici in 1434 for
ten years to Padua. Himself an enthusiastic scholar and patron of
classical studies, he caused many Greek MSS. to be brought into Italy
(including works of Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch), and was the first
Italian to collect books for the express purpose of founding a public
library, in the execution of which design he was prevented by his exile
from anticipating Cosimo. He employed learned Greeks to read to him, and
was instrumental in inducing Chrysoloras to teach at Florence,—an
engagement regarded by Symonds as having secured the future of Hellenic
study in Europe. The story narrated of him in the text is elsewhere told
of an exile belonging to the Albizzi family.
Note 246 page 140. COSIMO DE' MEDICI, _Pater Patriæ_, (born 1389; died
1464), was a Florentine banker, statesman and patron of literature and
art. In his father Giovanni’s house of business he cultivated the rare
faculty for finance that he afterwards employed in public administration
and private commerce. He inherited his father’s vast fortune in 1429,
and made it a practice to lend money to needy citizens and at the same
time to involve the affairs of Florence with his own,—thus not only
attaching individuals to his interests, but rendering it difficult to
control state expenditures apart from his own bank. He understood also
how to use his money without exciting jealousy, and while he spent large
sums on public works, he declined the architect Brunelleschi’s plans for
a residence more befitting a prince than a citizen. He was an early
riser, and temperate and simple in his life. While ruling Florence with
despotic power, he seemed intent on the routine of his counting-house,
and put forward other men to execute his political schemes. Despite
occasional checks, he so firmly established the influence of his family
as the real rulers of Florence that they were not permanently expelled
until the nineteenth century. Much of his power was due to sympathy with
the intellectual movement of the age, and although he was not a Greek
scholar, he had a solid education, and collected MSS., gems, coins and
inscriptions, employing his commercial agents in the work. During a year
of exile, he built a library at Venice, and later he built one at
Florence and another at Fiesole. His house was the centre of a literary
and philosophical society, which included all the wits of Florence and
the strangers who flocked to that capital of culture.
Note 247 page 140. CAMILLO PORCARO, or PORZIO, (died 1517), was a
brother of the Antonio Porcaro already mentioned in THE COURTIER (at
page 138; see note 233). He was a professor of rhetoric at Rome, and a
canon of St. Peter’s. Leo X made him Bishop of Teramo, a town near the
Adriatic north-east of Rome. He was a member of the Roman Academy, and
some of his Latin verse has survived.
Enlarged from a coloured cast of a medal (no. 31), in the King’s Library
at the British Museum, attributed to Niccolò Fiorentino.
Note 248 page 140. MARCANTONIO COLONNA, (died 1522), the son of
Pierantonio Colonna and Bernardina Conti, was a second cousin of
Vittoria Colonna. His wife Lucrezia Gara della Rovere was a niece of
Julius II and sister of the Cardinal Galeotto della Rovere already
mentioned (at page 122; see note 189). In 1502 he fled from Rome to
escape the persecution of the Borgias, repaired to the kingdom of
Naples, and took service under the “Great Captain.” He served also in
the armies of Julius II, Maximilian I, and Francis I, and took part in
nearly all the wars of his time. He was cited as a model of physical
beauty and martial prowess.
Note 249 page 141. DIEGO GARZIA is regarded by the Spanish annotator,
Fabié, as identical with the famous warrior Diego Garcia de Paredes,
(born 1466; died 1530), who began the life of a soldier at the age of
twelve, and had a brilliant share, with the “Great Captain,” in the
expulsion of the Moors from Spain and later in the Italian campaigns. He
was a man of great height and strength, and is said on one occasion to
have stopped the wheel of a rapidly moving wind-mill with his single
hand. Charles V made him a Knight of the Golden Spur, and he is often
called the Chevalier Bayard of Spain.
Note 250 page 141. LOUIS XII, (born 1462; died 1515), was the son of
Duke Charles d'Orléans and Anne of Cleves. He accompanied Charles VIII
into Italy in 1494, became king on his cousin’s death in 1498, and the
following year married Charles’s widow Anne of Brittany. In 1500 he
expelled Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, to whose duchy he laid claim as
the grandson of Valentina Visconti. The following year he conquered
Naples in alliance with Ferdinand the Catholic, but quarrelled with his
ally over the division of the country, with the result that his force
was defeated by the “Great Captain” at Garigliano in 1503, and withdrew
from Naples in 1504. He joined the League of Cambray against Venice in
1508, but in 1511 the Holy League was formed against him, and in 1513
the French were again compelled to leave Italy. On the death of Anne of
Brittany in 1514, he married Mary, the youthful sister of Henry VIII of
England, to whom in dying (1 January 1515) he is reported to have said:
“Dear, I leave thee my death as a New Year’s gift.” He was sincerely
regretted by his subjects, and was known as “The Father of His People.”
Michelet says of him: “He was a good man, honest by nature, sometimes
absurd, indiscreet, talkative, testy; but he had a heart, and the only
way for men to flatter him was to persuade him that they desired the
good of his subjects.” Among his sayings was “Good king, stingy king; I
prefer to be ridiculous to my courtiers, than deaf to my people.”
Note 251 page 141. DJEM or ZIZIM, (born 1459; died 1495), was a son of
Mahomet II, the conqueror of Constantinople. On the death of his father
in 1481, he tried to dispossess his brother as sultan, but being
defeated, he sought refuge at Rhodes, where the Knights of the Order of
St. John received him for a while, and then sent him to France. In 1489
he was surrendered to the custody of Innocent VIII, from whom he passed
into the hands of Alexander VI. Both these pontiffs received a subsidy
for his maintenance from his brother the sultan. In 1495 Charles VIII
took him to Naples, where he was imprisoned and soon died from the
effect (it is supposed) of poison administered at Rome by order of
Alexander VI. Of his life at the papal court, we get the following
glimpse in a letter from Mantegna to the Marquess of Mantua: “The Turk’s
brother is here, strictly guarded in the palace of his Holiness, who
allows him all sorts of diversion, such as hunting, music, and the like.
He often comes to eat in this new palace where I paint [i.e., the
Belvedere], and, for a barbarian, his manners are not amiss. There is a
sort of majestic bearing about him, and he never doffs his cap to the
Pope, having in fact none;... He eats five times a day, and sleeps as
often; before meals he drinks sugared water like a monkey. He has the
gait of an elephant, but his people praise him much, especially for his
horsemanship: it may be so, but I have never seen him take his feet out
of the stirrups, or give any other proof of skill. He is a most savage
man, and has stabbed at least four persons, who are said not to have
survived four hours. A few days ago, he gave such a cuffing to one of
his interpreters that they had to carry him to the river, in order to
bring him round. It is believed that Bacchus pays him many a visit. On
the whole he is dreaded by those about him. He takes little heed of
anything, like one who does not understand or has no reason. His way of
life is quite peculiar; he sleeps without undressing, and gives audience
sitting cross-legged, in the Parthian fashion. He carries on his head
sixty thousand yards of linen, and wears so long a pair of trousers that
he is lost in them, and astonishes all beholders.”
Note 252 page 141. The GRAND TURK in question was Bajazet II, (born
1447; died 1512), who succeeded his father (Mahomet II, the conqueror of
Constantinople) in 1481, was almost uninterruptedly engaged in war with
Hungary, Venice, Egypt and Persia, was deposed by his son Selim, and