The Book of the Courtier
Then messer Cesare replied:
“In that case, my Lady, I shall be exempt from penalty, since messer
Bernardo is to be punished for his own fault as well as mine.”
“Nay,” said my lady Duchess, “you both ought to have double punishment:
he for his own transgression and for leading you to transgress; you for
your own transgression and for imitating him.”
“My Lady,” replied messer Cesare, “as yet I have not transgressed; so,
to leave all this punishment to messer Bernardo alone, I will keep
silence.”
And indeed he remained silent; when my lady Emilia laughed and said:
“Say whatever you like, for under leave of my lady Duchess I pardon him
that has transgressed and him that shall transgress, in so small a
degree.”
“I consent,” continued my lady Duchess. “But take care lest perchance
you fall into the mistake of thinking to gain more by being merciful
than by being just; for to pardon him too easily that has transgressed
is to wrong him that transgresses not. Yet I would not have my severity
reproach your indulgence, and thus be the cause of our not hearing this
question of messer Cesare.”
And so, being given the signal by my lady Duchess and by my lady Emilia,
he at once said:
24.—“If I remember rightly, Sir Count, I think you have repeated several
times this evening that the Courtier must accompany his actions,
gestures, habits, in short his every movement, with grace; and this you
seem to regard as an universal seasoning, without which all other
properties and good qualities are of little worth. And indeed I think
that in this everyone would allow himself to be persuaded easily, since
from the very force of the word, it may be said that he who has grace
finds grace.[71] But since you said that this is oftentimes the gift of
nature and of heaven and, even when not thus perfect, can with care and
pains be made much greater,—those men who are born so fortunate and so
rich in this treasure as are some we see, seem to me in this to have
little need of other master; because that benign favour of heaven almost
in despite of themselves leads them higher than they will, and makes
them not only pleasing but admirable to all the world. Therefore I do
not discuss this, it not being in our power to acquire it of ourselves.
But they who have received from nature only so much, that they are
capable of becoming graceful by pains, industry and care,—I long to know
by what art, by what training, by what method, they can acquire this
grace, as well in bodily exercises (in which you esteem it to be so
necessary) as also in everything else that they may do or say.
Therefore, since by much praise of this quality you have aroused in all
of us, I think, an ardent thirst to pursue it, you are further bound, by
the charge that my lady Emilia laid upon you, to satisfy that thirst by
teaching us how to attain it.”
25.—“I am not bound,” said the Count, “to teach you how to become
graceful, or anything else; but only to show you what manner of man a
perfect Courtier ought to be. Nor would I in any case undertake the task
of teaching you this perfection; especially having said a little while
ago that the Courtier must know how to wrestle, vault, and do many other
things, which I am sure you all know quite as well as if I, who have
never learned them, were to teach you. For just as a good soldier knows
how to tell the smith what fashion, shape and quality his armour ought
to have, but cannot show how it is to be made or forged or tempered; so
I perhaps may be able to tell you what manner of man a perfect Courtier
ought to be, but cannot teach you what you must do to become one.
“Yet to comply with your request as far as is within my power,—although
it is almost a proverb that grace is not to be learned,—I say that
whoever would acquire grace in bodily exercises (assuming first that he
be by nature not incapable), ought to begin early and learn the
rudiments from the best masters. And how important this seemed to King
Philip of Macedon, may be seen from the fact that he chose Aristotle,
the famous philosopher and perhaps the greatest that has ever been in
the world, to teach his son Alexander the first elements of letters. And
of the men whom we know at the present day, consider how well and how
gracefully my lord Galeazzo Sanseverino,[72] Grand Equerry of France,
performs all bodily exercises; and this because in addition to the
natural aptitude of person that he possesses, he has taken the utmost
pains to study with good masters, and always to have about him men who
excel and to select from each the best of what they know: for just as in
wrestling, vaulting and in the use of many sorts of weapons, he has
taken for his guide our friend messer Pietro Monte, who (as you know) is
the true and only master of every form of trained strength and
agility,—so in riding, jousting and all else, he has ever had before his
eyes the most proficient men that were known in those matters.
Reduced from Anderson’s photograph (no. 11129) of an anonymous and
unfinished portrait in the Ambrosiana Gallery at Milan. By some
critics attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and by others to his pupil
Ambrogio da Predis, the picture was by Morelli regarded as having
nothing to do with either painter. It was formerly supposed to be a
portrait of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan; for iconographical
identification, see Paul Müller-Walde’s article in the _Jahrbuch der
Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_ for 1897, p. 110.
26.—“Therefore he who wishes to be a good pupil, besides performing his
tasks well, must put forth every effort to resemble his master, and, if
it were possible, to transform himself into his master. And when he
feels that he has made some progress, it will be very profitable to
observe different men of the same calling, and governing himself with
that good judgment which must ever be his guide, to go about selecting
now this thing from one and that thing from another. And as the bee in
the green meadows is ever wont to rob the flowers among the grass, so
our Courtier must steal this grace from all who seem to possess it,
taking from each that part which shall most be worthy praise; and not
act like a friend of ours whom you all know, who thought he greatly
resembled King Ferdinand the Younger[32] of Aragon, and made it his care
to imitate the latter in nothing but a certain trick of continually
raising the head and twisting one side of the mouth, which the king had
contracted from some infirmity. And there are many such, who think they
gain a point if only they be like a great man in some thing; and
frequently they devote themselves to that which is his only fault.
“But having before now often considered whence this grace springs,
laying aside those men who have it by nature, I find one universal rule
concerning it, which seems to me worth more in this matter than any
other in all things human that are done or said: and that is to avoid
affectation to the uttermost and as it were a very sharp and dangerous
rock; and, to use possibly a new word, to practise in everything a
certain nonchalance[73] that shall conceal design and show that what is
done and said is done without effort and almost without thought. From
this I believe grace is in large measure derived, because everyone knows
the difficulty of those things that are rare and well done, and
therefore facility in them excites the highest admiration; while on the
other hand, to strive and as the saying is to drag by the hair, is
extremely ungraceful, and makes us esteem everything slightly, however
great it be.
“Accordingly we may affirm that to be true art which does not appear to
be art; nor to anything must we give greater care than to conceal art,
for if it is discovered, it quite destroys our credit and brings us into
small esteem. And I remember having once read that there were several
very excellent orators of antiquity, who among their other devices
strove to make everyone believe that they had no knowledge of letters;
and hiding their knowledge they pretended that their orations were
composed very simply and as if springing rather from nature and truth
than from study and art; the which, if it had been detected, would have
made men wary of being duped by it.
“Thus you see how the exhibition of art and study so intense destroys
the grace in everything. Which of you is there who does not laugh when
our friend messer Pierpaolo dances in his peculiar way, with those
capers of his,—legs stiff to the toe and head motionless, as if he were
a stick, and with such intentness that he actually seems to be counting
the steps? What eye so blind as not to see in this the ungracefulness of
affectation,—and in many men and women who are here present, the grace
of that nonchalant ease (for in the case of bodily movements many call
it thus), showing by word or laugh or gesture that they have no care and
are thinking more of everything else than of that, to make the onlooker
think they can hardly go amiss?”
27.—Messer Bernardo Bibbiena here said, without waiting:
“Now at last our friend messer Roberto[48] has found someone to praise
the manner of his dancing, as all the rest of you seem to value it
lightly; because if this merit consists in nonchalance, and in appearing
to take no heed and to be thinking more of everything else than of what
you are doing, messer Roberto in dancing has no peer on earth; for to
show plainly that he is not thinking about it, he often lets the cloak
drop from his shoulders and the slippers from his feet, and still goes
on dancing without picking up either the one or the other.”
Then the Count replied:
“Since you insist on my talking, I will speak further of our faults. Do
you not perceive that what you call nonchalance in messer Roberto, is
really affectation? For it is clearly seen that he is striving with all
his might to seem to be taking no thought, and this is taking too much
thought; and since it passes the true limits of moderation, his
nonchalance is affected and unbecoming; and it is a thing that works
precisely the reverse of the effect intended, that is the concealment of
art. Thus in nonchalance (which is praiseworthy in itself), I do not
think that it is less a vice of affectation to let the clothes fall from
one’s back, than in care of dress (which also is praiseworthy in itself)
to hold the head stiff for fear of disarranging one’s locks, or to carry
a mirrour in the peak of one’s cap and a comb in one’s sleeve, and to
have a valet follow one about the streets with sponge and brush: for
such care in dress and such nonchalance both touch upon excess, which is
always offensive and contrary to that pure and charming simplicity which
is so pleasing to the human mind.
“You see how ungraceful a rider is who strives to sit bolt upright in
the saddle after the manner we are wont to call Venetian,[74]—as
compared with another who seems not to be thinking about it, and sits
his horse as free and steady as if he were afoot. How much more pleasing
and how much more praised is a gentleman who carries arms, if he be
modest, speak little and boast little, than another who is forever
sounding his own praises, and with blasphemy and bluster seems to be
hurling defiance at the world! This too is naught but affectation of
wishing to appear bold. And so it is with every exercise, nay with
everything that can be done or said in the world.”
28.—Then my lord Magnifico[9] said:
“This is true also with music, wherein it is a very great fault to place
two perfect consonances one after the other, so that our very sense of
hearing abhors it and often enjoys a second or seventh, which in itself