The Book of the Courtier
exiled, they never would have enjoyed their present prosperity. Plutarch
tells the story in four slightly varying forms.
Note 458 page 276. MONSEIGNEUR D’ANGOULÊME afterwards became Francis I
(see note 111). Even stronger evidence of the author’s admiration than
this and another passage (see page 57), is afforded by the Proem with
which he originally intended to preface the dialogues, but for which he
seems to have been led by political considerations to substitute the
introduction finally printed.
Note 459 page 276. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards Henry VIII, (born
1491; died 1547), was the younger son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of
York, and was educated for the church. Having succeeded his father in
1509, he married (in accordance with his parents’ wish) his elder
brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine, the youngest child of Ferdinand and
Isabella the Catholic. His accession was hailed with enthusiasm. Left
rich through his father’s avarice, he was generous, frank, handsome,
exceptionally robust, and an accomplished athlete and scholar. Good men
were delighted with the purity of his life, his gaiety pleased the
courtiers, and sober statesmen found in him a singular capacity for
business. Besides being a musician, he spoke Latin, French and Spanish,
and was very devout,—usually attending mass five times daily. Even as
late as 1521 he dedicated to the pope an anti-Lutheran tract on the
Seven Sacraments, and in return received the title of Defender of the
Faith. As an offset to the enormities of his later life, it is only just
to remember that he raised England to the rank of a great European
power, and that for twenty years he did nothing to mar the harmony of
his reign.
Reduced from Walker and Boutall’s photograph of an anonymous portrait
(no. 416) in the National Portrait Gallery at London. Painted on an
oak panel for one Herman Rinck in October 1505, the picture was once
owned by M. Julien at Le Mans, by M. Émile Barre at Paris, and by
Mr. E. J. Muller, from whom it was acquired by the Gallery in 1876.
Note 460 page 276. ‘His great father,’ i.e., Henry VII, (born 1457; died
1509), was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, (a son of Henry
V’s widow Catherine), and Margaret Beaufort, whose paternal grandfather
was an illegitimate half-brother of Henry IV. After the downfall of the
House of Lancaster and the death of the young York princes, Henry
succeeded in gathering a strong party, landed in England and wrested the
crown from Richard III, 1485. Soon afterwards, by his marriage to Edward
IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York, he united the hostile factions that had
so long harassed the kingdom. As a ruler he was avaricious, calculating,
and far from popular. He is said to have left a treasure of £2,000,000
sterling. The marriage of his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland
finally led (on the failure of his son’s issue) to the accession of the
Stuarts in the person of her grandson, James I.
Note 461 page 276. This is consistent with the earlier passage (see page
8) where Castiglione pretends to have been absent in England at the date
of the Courtier dialogues. An earlier MS. version here reads: “as we are
told by our friend Castiglione, who has just returned from England,”
which accords with what we have seen (note 23) to be the fact.
Note 462 page 276. DON CARLOS, afterwards the Emperor Charles V, (born
1500; died 1558), was the son of the Emperor Maximilian’s son Philip of
Austria, and of Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic.
Born and bred in the Low Countries, and educated at least partly under
the care of the future pope Adrian VI, he is said to have shown less
taste for study than for military exercises, and on his accession to the
Spanish throne in 1516, he was ignorant of the Spanish language. By
right of his grandmother Mary of Burgundy, he already held the
Netherlands. As representative of the house of Aragon, he was king of
Naples and Sicily. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519,
he inherited Austria, and (in spite of the rivalry of Francis I and the
intrigues of Leo X) was elected Emperor;—thus achieving, without a blow,
a dominion vaster than any in Europe since the time of Charlemagne.
In an earlier MS. version the text here reads: “Then messer Bernardo
Bibbiena said: ‘I do not think that any of those present, except myself,
have seen the prince Don Carlos, who, having recently lost such a father
as the king Don Philip was, has shown such courage and wisdom in this
great bereavement, that although he has not reached the tenth year of
his age, we may nevertheless regard him as competent to rule over all
his hereditary possessions, vast though they be,—and that the Empire of
Christendom (which men think will be in his hands) must grow not a
little in power and dignity.’”
Note 463 page 279. FEDERICO GONZAGA, the first Duke of Mantua, (born
1500; died 1540), was the son of the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga and
Isabella d’Este. At the age of ten he spent some time as the
hostage-guest of Julius II at Rome, where he seems to have been
generally caressed. Raphael is known to have introduced the boy’s face
into one of the Vatican frescoes, and a little later to have painted his
portrait. Having succeeded his father as marquess in 1519, he waged war
for Leo X against the French. In 1527 he joined the league of Italian
princes against Charles V, but went over to the Emperor’s side two years
later, and was created Duke of Mantua. In 1531 he married Margarita
Paleologus. Both Giulio Romano and Benvenuto Cellini were in his employ.
Note 464 page 280. These lines were written after Ottaviano Fregoso’s
election as Doge of Genoa; see note 11.
Note 465 page 281. In an earlier MS. version, my lady Emilia continues:
“‘And even if it were so, I do not see how he is on that account set
above the Court Lady.’ The Magnifico Giuliano said: ‘We regard the Lady
as the equal of the Courtier, and according to my lord Ottaviano, the
Courtier is superior to the Prince; therefore the Court Lady comes to be
superior to the Prince.’”
Note 466 page 284. Phœnix appears in the Iliad as appointed by Peleus to
superintend the education of the latter’s son Achilles.
Note 467 page 284. ARISTOTLE was summoned (342 B.C.) to undertake the
education of Alexander, who was then thirteen years old, and whom no one
had thus far been able to control. The philosopher’s training continued
uninterruptedly for four years, included instruction in poetry,
rhetoric, philosophy, physics, and medicine,—and is said to have had
beneficial effect upon the future conqueror’s character.
Note 468 page 285. Stagira lay on the easterly side of the Chalcidic
peninsula. Philip had destroyed it in his Olynthian campaign of 348
B.C., but rebuilt it at Aristotle’s request and caused a gymnasium to be
erected there, in a shady grove, for the use of the philosopher and his
pupils, among whom was Alexander.
Note 469 page 285. Plutarch expressly affirms that Alexander’s policy,
of uniting all the nations under his sway into a single people, was not
founded on Aristotle’s advice, as indeed an examination of the latter’s
political theories would seem to prove.
Note 470 page 285. The Bactrians were an Aryan people dwelling on the
upper Oxus, in what is now Afghanistan. They were conquered in 327 B.C.
by Alexander, who married Roxana, the daughter of one of their princes.
In ancient times the inhabitants of northern and eastern Europe and Asia
were called Scythians.
Note 471 page 285. CALLISTHENES was a cousin and fellow pupil of
Alexander’s. On Aristotle’s recommendation, Alexander took Callisthenes
with him on his Asiatic expedition of 334 B.C., but, exasperated by his
young kinsman’s plain-spoken disapproval of his conduct, had
Callisthenes put to death.
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 43.099) of the portrait, in the
Borghese collection at Rome, attributed to Bernhard Strigel
(1460?-1528).
Note 472 page 285. DIO, (born about 408; died about 354 B.C.), was an
austere Syracusan philosopher who became an ardent disciple of Plato on
the occasion of the latter’s short residence at the court of Dionysius
the Elder, and later induced the younger DIONYSIUS also to invite Plato
to Syracuse, where, however, the philosopher was unable long to check
the tyrant’s profligacy.
Note 473 page 287. Bembo was thirty-six years old at the date of the
Courtier dialogues.
Note 474 page 288. In Book III of Bembo’s _Gli Asolani_ (1505), a hermit
discourses to Lavinello on the beauty of mystical Christian love. Bembo
had a villa called Lavinello, near Padua.
Note 475 page 288. Much of the following disquisition seems to be drawn
from Plato and from Bembo’s _Gli Asolani_. As Bembo is known to have
revised THE COURTIER before publication, we may assume that he was
content with the form and substance of the discourse here attributed to
him.
Note 476 page 294. STESICHORUS was a Greek lyric poet who lived about
630-550 B.C., and was supposed to have been miraculously stricken blind
after writing an attack upon Helen of Troy. His true name is said to
have been Tisias, and to have been changed to Stesichorus because he was
the first to establish a chorus for singing to the harp. Fragments of
his verse have survived.
Note 477 page 294. These ‘five other stars’ are of course the five
planets then known (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), in
addition to the Sun and Moon, which were until long afterwards regarded
as planets. “The sun, the moon and the five planets were always to be
found within a region of the sky extending about 8° on each side of the
ecliptic. This strip of the celestial sphere was called the Zodiac,
because the constellations in it were (with one exception) named after
living things (Greek ζῷον, an animal); it was divided into twelve equal
parts, the Signs of the Zodiac, through one of which the sun passed
every month, so that the position of the sun at any time could be
roughly described by stating in what ‘sign’ it was.” Arthur Berry’s
“Short History of Astronomy” (London, 1898), p. 13.
Note 478 page 305. Castiglione here follows that version of the Hercules
myth which represents the hero, tormented by the poisoned shirt sent him
by the jealous Deianeira, as throwing himself upon a burning pyre on
Mount Œta, whence he was caught up to heaven in a cloud.
Note 479 page 305. Compare: Exodus, iii, 2; Acts, ii, 1-4; and II Kings,
ii, 11-2.
Note 480 page 307. This dialogue is by some represented as having
actually taken place in the presence of Raphael.
Note 481 page 308. PLOTINUS was born in Egypt about 204 A.D., and taught
philosophy at Rome. He lived so exclusively the life of speculation that
he seemed ashamed of bodily existence, and concealed his parentage,
birthplace and age.
Note 482 page 308. ST. FRANCIS, (Gianfrancesco Bernardone, 1182-1226),
was born and died at Assisi near Perugia, and was canonized in 1288.
Note 483 page 308. II Corinthians, xii, 2-4.
Note 484 page 308. Acts, vii, 54-60.
Note 485 page 308. St. Luke, vii, 37.
Note 486 page 309. Mount Catria lies less than twenty miles to the
southward of Urbino, between Pergola and Gubbio, and rises a little more
than a mile above the sea level. It is mentioned by Dante in the
_Paradiso_ (xxi, 109).
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The stamp imprinted on the cover of this volume was engraved from an
enlarged outline drawing made by Mr. Kenyon Cox from a photograph of one
of the many examples of Castiglione’s seal preserved in the Royal State
Archives at Mantua.
LIST OF EDITIONS OF THE BOOK OF THE COURTIER