The Book of the Courtier
ne mostrando segno di potere, s’astenne da una femina publica: laquale
per questo nome solo potea uenirgli à fastidio: piu crederei che fosse sta
to continente, se qualche segno de risentirsi hauesse dimostrato, & in tal
termine usato la continentia: ouero astenutosi da quello, che i uecchi
piu desiderano che —le battaglie di Venere, cioè dal uino: ma per comprobar
ben la continentia senile, scriuesi che di questo era pieno, & gra
ue: & qual cosa dir si po piu aliena della continentia d’un uecchio: che
la ebrietà? & se lo astenerse dalle cose ueneree in quella pigra, & fredda
età merita tanta laude, quanta ne deue meritar in una tenera giouane,
come quelle due di chi dianzi u’ho detto? dellequali l’una imponēdo
durissime leggi à tutti i sensi suoi, non solamente à gliocchi negaua la
sua luce, ma toglieua al core quei pensieri, che soli lungamēti erano sta
ti dulcissimo cibo per tenerlo in uita. l’altra ardente innamorata ritrouādosi
tante volte sola nelle braccia di quello, che piu assai, che tutto’l
resto del mondo amaua, contra se stessa, & contra colui, che piu, che se
stessa le era caro, combattendo uincea quello ardente desiderio che spes
so ha uinto, & uince tanti sauii homini. Nō ui pare hora S. Gasp. che
douessino i scrittori uergognarsi di far memoria di Xenocrate in questo
caso? & chiamarlo per continente? che chi potesse sapere, io metterei
pegno che esso tutta quella notte sino al giorno sequēte ad hora di desinare
dormi come morto sepulto nel uino: ne mai per stropicciar che
gli facesse quella femina, potè aprir gliocchi, come se fusse stato all’opia
to. Quiui risero tutti glihomini & donne: & la S. Emil. pur ridēdo Ve
ramente disse S. Gasp. se ui pensate un poco meglio credo che trouarete
anchor qualche altro bello exempio di continentia simile à questo.
Rispose M. Ces. Nō ui par Signora, che bello exempio di continentia
sia quell’altro che egli ha allegato di Pericle? Marauigliomi ben chel
non habbia anchor ricordato la continētia, & quel bel detto, che si scri
ue di colui, à chi una donna domādò troppo gran prezzo per una not
te, & esso le rispose, che non compraua cosi caro il pentirsi. Rideasi tut
ta uia & M. Ces. hauendo alquanto tacciuto ... disse:
The only other instance in which the translator has suppressed any part
of the text is in line 10 of page 212, where the Italian word _ignuda_
is not rendered.
Reduced from a photograph, kindly furnished by M. Gustave Dreyfus, of an
anonymous bas-relief in his collection at Paris. The sculptor may
possibly have been Sperandio di Bartolommeo de’ Savelli
(1425?-1500?). See note 399.
Note 412 page 214. The event occurred in 1501, six years before the date
of the Courtier dialogues.
Note 413 page 214. The Volturno flows through Capua.
Note 414 page 214. Gazuolo or Gazzuolo is now the name of an Italian
commune, containing less than 5,000 inhabitants, and situated eleven
miles west of Mantua.
Note 415 page 214. The Oglio is a river of Lombardy about 135 miles
long; it traverses the Lake of Iseo, and joins the Po some ten miles
south-west of Mantua.
Note 416 page 214. In two earlier MS. versions of THE COURTIER, the
passage ‘Now from this ... even her name is unknown’ reads: “Then messer
Pietro Bembo said: ‘In truth, if I knew this noble peasant girl’s name,
I would compose an epitaph for her.’ ‘Do not stop for that,’ said messer
Cesare; ‘her name is Maddalena Biga, and if the Bishop’s death had not
occurred, that bank of the Oglio’” etc.
With slight variations this story is narrated as fact in a letter of
Matteo Bandello (1480-1562), from whose tales Shakspere took plots for
his plays. The letter gives the poor girl’s name as Giulia and that of
the Bishop of Mantua as Ludovico Gonzaga, and relates that, as it was
unlawful to bury her remains in consecrated soil, he caused them to be
deposited in the piazza, intending to place them in a bronze sarcophagus
mounted on a marble column. The letter also affirms that the ravisher
was one of the bishop’s valets.
Note 417 page 215. This was Ludovico Gonzaga, (born 1458; died 1511), a
son of the Marquess Ludovico of Mantua and Barbara of Brandenburg, and a
younger brother of “my lady Duchess’s” father. Made BISHOP OF MANTUA in
1483, he continued to hold that office until his death, and appears from
various contemporary documents to have been a liberal and wise prince.
The last years of his life were spent at Gazzuolo, which he made a
centre of culture, art and learning. His brother Gianfrancesco was
husband of the Antonia del Balzo mentioned above, note 400. For
particulars regarding him, see an article by Rossi in the _Giornale
Storico della Letteratura Italiana_, xiii, 305.
Note 418 page 215. The basilica of St. Sebastian, on the Appian Way,
dates from the 4th century, was built over the most famous of the
catacombs, and enjoyed an exceptional veneration during the Middle Ages.
The saint was a young military tribune born in Gaul, suffered martyrdom
under Diocletian about the year 288, and was buried in the catacombs of
Callistus. St. George and he were the favourite saints of chivalry, and
may be regarded as the martial Castor and Pollux of Christian myth.
Note 419 page 216. FELICE DELLA ROVERE, (died about 1536), was a natural
daughter of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (afterwards Julius II) and a
certain Lucrezia, the wife of Bernardo de Cuppis (or Coppi) da
Montefolco; thus “my lord Prefect” of THE COURTIER was her own cousin.
In 1506 she became the second wife of the elderly and eccentric
Giangiordano Orsini, and the ancestress of the Dukes of Bracciano. Her
name often occurs in contemporary documents, not only on account of her
lofty position but because of her love of art and letters. Both
Castiglione and Giancristoforo Romano were her friends. The incident
mentioned in the text seems not to be referred to elsewhere. Savona, a
seaport on the western Riviera, is near the birthplace of Felice’s
great-uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, who was the founder of the della Rovere
family.
Note 420 page 216. Duke Guidobaldo’s impotence is said to have given
rise to the project of a divorce for his duchess.
Note 421 page 218. The reference here is to Ovid’s _Ars Amandi_, which
enjoyed an extraordinary reputation during the Renaissance, and from
which this passage is largely derived.
Note 422 page 220. The LAURA to whom Petrarch consecrated no less than
three hundred and eighteen sonnets, is usually regarded as identical
with Laure, the daughter of a certain knight of Avignon, Audibert de
Noves. If this identification be correct, she was born in 1308, married
Hughes de Sade in 1325, became the mother of eleven children, and died
in 1348. In 1533 Francis I caused her reputed tomb to be opened, and
found in it a small box which contained a medal bearing a woman’s
profile, and a parchment on which was a sonnet signed by Petrarch.
Note 423 page 220. The so-called “Song of Solomon” is now thought to be
the work of a period later than Solomon’s and to contain no mystic
meaning.
Note 424 page 222. In the old romance, “Amadis of Gaul,” Isola Ferma is
an enchanted island, with a garden at the entrance to which stands an
arch surmounted by the statue of a man holding a trumpet to his mouth.
Whenever an unfaithful lover attempts to pass, the trumpet emits a
dreadful sound with fire and smoke, and drives the culprit back; while
it welcomes all true lovers with sweetest music.
Note 425 page 228. Here again the reference is of course to “my lady
Duchess.”
Note 426 page 235. The _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, first published by
Aldus in 1499, was written by Francesco Colonna, a Dominican friar of
Venice, who died an old man in 1527. The book is rare, and is said to be
an allegorical romance full of lascivious erudition, and written in a
pedantically affected mixture of Italian, Latin, and Venetian _patois_.
Note 427 page 237. _Ars Amandi_, i, 597-602.
Note 428 page 237. _Ars Amandi_, i, 569-72.
NOTES TO THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER
Note 429 page 243. Gaspar Pallavicino died in 1511, at the age of
twenty-five.
Note 430 page 243. Cesare Gonzaga died in 1512, at about the age of
thirty-seven. See note 43.
Note 431 page 244. Federico Fregoso was named Archbishop of Salerno in
1507, very soon after the date of the Courtier dialogues; see note 41.
Ludovico da Canossa became Bishop of Bayeux in 1520; see note 44.
Ottaviano Fregoso became Doge of Genoa in 1513; see note 11.
Bibbiena was made cardinal, and Bembo was appointed papal secretary, in
1513; see notes 10 and 42.
Giuliano de’ Medici was created Duke of Nemours in 1515. As he died in
1516, Castiglione’s use of the present tense (‘that greatness where now
he is’) is inconsistent with the mention of Canossa as Bishop of Bayeux.
See note 9.
Francesco Maria della Rovere succeeded to the dukedom in 1508; see note
3.
Note 432 page 244. ELEANORA GONZAGA, (born about 1492; died 1543), was
the eldest daughter of the Marquess Gianfrancesco of Mantua and Isabella
d’Este. In 1505 Castiglione negotiated her union with Francesco Maria
della Rovere, but the marriage did not take place until Christmas Eve
1509, upon which occasion Bembo wrote to Federico Fregoso that he had
never seen a comelier, merrier or sweeter girl, and that her amiable
disposition and surprisingly precocious judgment won general admiration.
She seems to have maintained affectionate relations with her aunt and
predecessor (“my lady Duchess” of THE COURTIER), whose fame quite
outshone her own, and to have exhibited in after life no little strength
of character. She is said to have excluded, and even to have expelled,
great ladies of questionable morality from her court. Titian’s portrait
(1537) represents her in middle age, but his pictures, _La Bella_ and
_Das Mädchen im Pelz_, as well as several of his Venus heads, are
generally regarded as idealized presentations of her more youthful face.
Note 433 page 249. The Piazza d’Agone occupied the site of the ancient
_Circus Agonalis_, which derived its name from the _Agonalia_, a
festival held twice a year in honour of Janus. Before, during and long
after Castiglione’s time, it was a centre of festivals, amusements and
spectacles at the carnival season. It is now called the Piazza Navona.
Note 434 page 250. The famous Athenian commander CIMON, (died 449 B.C.),
was the son of the still more famous Miltiades. His victories repulsed
the last Persian aggressions and consolidated the Athenian supremacy.
Although an admirer of Spartan institutions, he seems to have been of a
somewhat indulgent disposition. The SCIPIO here referred to, is probably
Publius Cornelius Scipio the Elder, who was the victor over Hannibal and
died 183 B.C. LUCULLUS is cited earlier in THE COURTIER as an instance
of a soldier with studious tastes; see note 113.
Note 435 page 250. The Theban general and statesman EPAMINONDAS, (died
362 B.C.), is said by Plutarch to have enjoyed the instruction of the
Pythagorean philosopher LYSIS of Tarentum, who was driven out of Italy
in the persecution of his sect, and found refuge at Thebes.
Note 436 page 250. AGESILAUS was King of Sparta 398-361 B.C. Although
small and lame, he was the greatest Spartan commander, and became famous
for his victories against the Persian and Greek enemies of his country.
XENOPHON, historian, essayist and disciple of Socrates, was banished
from Athens about the time of Socrates’s death (399 B.C.), accompanied
Agesilaus into Asia, and wrote a panegyric upon him, regarded by Cicero
as more glorious than all the statues erected to kings.
The reverence and love of SCIPIO THE YOUNGER (about 185-129 B.C.) for