that ladies of the period were fond of wearing on a circlet about their
heads. In her portrait the duchess is represented as wearing a narrow
band, from which the image of a scorpion hangs upon her forehead. The S
may have been used on this occasion as the initial letter of the word
scorpion, and seems in any case to have been an instance of the
‘devices’ mentioned in note 40.
A sonnet, purporting to be the work of the Unico Aretino, was inserted
in the edition of THE COURTIER published by Rovillio at Lyons in 1562
and in several later editions, as being the sonnet here mentioned. In
its place, however, Cian prints another sonnet, preserved in the
Marciana Library at Venice and possessing higher claims to authenticity.
Some idea of the baldness of both may be gained from the following crude
but tolerably literal translation of the second sonnet:
Consent, O Sea of beauty and virtue,
That I, thy slave, may of great doubt be freed,
Whether the S thou wearest on thy candid brow
Signifies my Suffering or my Salvation,
Whether it means Succour or Servitude,
Suspicion or Security, Secret or Silliness,
Whether ’Spectation or Shriek, whether Safe or Sepultured!
Whether my bonds be Strait or Severed:
For much I fear lest it give Sign
Of Stateliness, Sighing, Severity,
Scorn, Slash, Sweat, Stress and Spite.
But if for naked truth a place there be,
This S shows with no little art
A Sun single in beauty and in cruelty.
Note 63 page 18. The pains of love were a frequent theme with Bembo, and
are elaborately set forth in his _Gli Asolani_. Quite untranslatable
into English, his play upon the words _amore_ (love) and _amaro_
(bitter) is at least as old as Plautus’s _Trinummus_.
Note 64 page 22. IPPOLITO D'ESTE, (born 1479; died 1520), was the third
son of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara (see note 203) and Eleanora of Aragon
(see note 399). At the instance of his maternal aunt Beatrice’s husband,
King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (see note 395), he was given the rich
archbishopric of Strigonio, to which was attached the primacy of that
country, and made the journey thither as a mere boy. In 1493 Alexander
VI made him a cardinal. Soon after the death of his sister Beatrice, her
husband Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan gave him the vacant archbishopric
of that city, and the same year (1497) he exchanged the Hungarian
primacy, with its burdensome requirement of foreign residence, for the
bishopric of Agria in Crete. In 1502 he was made Archbishop of Capua in
the kingdom of Naples, but bestowed the revenues of the see upon his
widowed and impoverished aunt, the ex-Queen of Hungary, and a little
later was made Bishop of Ferrara,—all before reaching the age of
twenty-four years. He was also Bishop of Modena and Abbot of Pomposa.
During his brother’s reign at Ferrara, the young cardinal took an active
part in public affairs, several times governing in the duke’s absence,
and showing brilliant capacities for military command. After the
accession of Leo X, he resided chiefly at Rome, where he was always a
conspicuous figure and carefully guarded his brother’s interests. He was
a friend and protector of Leonardo da Vinci, and maintained Ariosto in
his service from 1503 to 1517. A prelate only in name, regarding his
many ecclesiastical offices merely as a source of wealth, he united the
faults and vices to the grace and culture of his time.
Note 65 page 26. BERTO was probably one of the many buffoons about the
papal court in the time of Julius II and Leo X. He is again mentioned in
the text (page 128) for his powers of mimicry, etc.
[Illustration:
MATTHIAS CORVINUS OF HUNGARY
1443-1490
]
Much enlarged from a cast, courteously furnished by the Austrian
authorities, of an anonymous medal in the Imperial Museum at Vienna
(Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 82, no. 9). See note 395.
Note 66 page 26. This “brave lady” is by some identified as the famous
Caterina Sforza, a natural daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of
Milan, who by the last of her three husbands became the mother of the
even more famous _condottiere_ Giovanni de' Medici delle Bande Nere. She
was born in 1462, and died in 1509 after a life of singular
vicissitudes. For an extraordinary story of her courage, see
Dennistoun’s “Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino,” i, 292.
The “one whom I will not name at present” is supposed to have been a
certain brave soldier of fortune, Gaspar Sanseverino, who is often
mentioned as “Captain Fracassa,” and was a brother of the Galeazzo
Sanseverino who appears a little later in THE COURTIER (see page 34 and
note 72).
Note 67 page 28. The philosopher in question has been variously
identified as Democritus and Empedocles.
Note 68 page 30. In Charles V's romantic plan for deciding by single
combat his rivalry with Francis I, Castiglione was selected as his
second, but declined to violate diplomatic proprieties by accepting the
offer,—being at the time papal envoy at Charles’s court.
Note 69 page 31. Strictly speaking, the joust was a single contest
between man and man, while the tourney was a sham battle between two
squadrons. Stick-throwing seems to have been an equestrian game
introduced by the Moors into Spain, and by the Spaniards into Italy. In
the carnival of 1519 it was played by two companies in the Piazza of St.
Peter’s before Leo X.
Note 70 page 31. Vaulting on horse seems to have included some of the
feats of agility with which modern circus riders have familiarized us.
Note 71 page 33. “Finds grace,” i.e. favour: literally “is grateful”
(_grato_) in the sense of acceptable or pleasing. Compare the familiar
phrase _persona grata_.
Note 72 page 34. GALEAZZO SANSEVERINO was one of the twelve stalwart
sons of Roberto Sanseverino, a brave _condottiere_ who aided to place
Ludovico Sforza in power at Milan, rebelled against that prince, and was
slain while fighting for the Venetians in 1486. Galeazzo entered the
service of Ludovico, whose favour had been attracted by his personal
charm, literary accomplishments and rare skill in knightly exercises.
When he married his patron’s natural daughter Bianca, in 1489, Leonardo
da Vinci arranged the jousts held in honour of the wedding. Thenceforth
he adopted the names Visconti and Sforza, and was treated as a member of
the ducal family. In 1496, at the head of the Milanese forces, he
besieged the Duke of Orleans (afterwards Louis XII) at Novara, but in
1500 he was captured by the French, and after the final downfall of
Ludovico (to whom he seems to have remained creditably loyal) he entered
the service of Louis XII, who made him Grand Equerry in 1506. The duties
of his office included the superintendence of all the royal stables and
of an academy for the martial education of young men of noble family.
For a further account of his interesting life, and especially of his
friendship with Isabella d'Este, see Mrs. Henry Ady’s recent volume,
“Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan.”
Note 73 page 35. The word _sprezzatura_ (rendered “nonchalance”) could
hardly have been new to Castiglione’s contemporaries, at least in its
primary meaning of disprizement or contempt. He may, however, have been
among the first to use it (as here and elsewhere in THE COURTIER) in its
modified sense of unconcern or nonchalance. Compare Herrick’s ‘wild
civility’ in “Art above Nature” and “Delight in Disorder.”
Note 74 page 37. Naturally Venice could hardly be a place well suited
for horsemanship; its citizens’ awkward riding was a favourite subject
of ridicule in the 16th century.
Note 75 page 37. The incident is supposed to have occurred on the
occasion of a visit paid by Apelles to Rhodes not long after the death
(323 B.C.) of Alexander the Great, whom he had accompanied into Asia
Minor. Apelles was eager to meet Protogenes, and on landing in Rhodes
went at once to the painter’s house. Protogenes was absent, but a large
panel stood ready for painting. Apelles took a pencil and drew an
exceedingly fine coloured line, by which Protogenes on his return
immediately recognized who his visitor had been, and in turn drew a
finer line of another colour upon or within the first line. When Apelles
saw this line, he added a third line still further subdividing the one
drawn by Protogenes. Later the panel was carried to Rome, where it long
excited wondering admiration in the Palace of the Cæsars, with which it
was finally destroyed by fire. Apelles was the first to stimulate
appreciation of the merits of Protogenes by buying several of the
latter’s works at enormous prices: he maintained however that he
excelled Protogenes in knowing when to cease elaborating his paintings.
Note 76 page 37. The play upon words here is untranslatable into
English. The Italian _tavola_ stands equally well for a dining-table and
for the tablet or panel upon which pictures were painted.
Note 77 page 40. ‘As those who speak [are present] before those who
speak’ is a literal translation of the accepted reading of this passage.
It is perhaps worth noting, however, that the earliest translator
(Boscan) ventures to deviate from the letter of the Italian text for the
sake of rendering what surely must have been the author’s meaning: _como
los que hablan á aquellos con quien hablan_, i.e. “as those who speak
[are present] before those _with whom_ they speak.”
Note 78 page 41. Although the dialect of Bergamo was (and still is)
ridiculed as rude and harsh, it possessed a copious popular literature.
Note 79 page 41. FRANCESCO PETRARCA or PETRARCH, (born 1304; died 1374),
belonged to a family that was banished from Florence at the same time
with Dante, whom he remembered seeing in his childhood. He was the first
Italian of his time to appreciate the value of public libraries, to
collect coins and inscriptions as sources of accurate historical
information, and to urge the preservation of ancient monuments. Had he
never written a line of verse, he would still be venerated as the
apostle of scholarship, as the chief originator of humanistic impulses
based upon what Symonds describes as “a new and vital perception of the
dignity of man considered as a rational being apart from theological
determinations, and ... the further perception that classic literature
alone displayed human nature in the plenitude of intellectual and moral
freedom.”
Note 80 page 41. In an age when grammatical and rhetorical treatises, in
the modern sense of the word, hardly existed, it was natural that the
study of classic models should take the form of imitation.
Note 81 page 42. It will be remembered that Giuliano de' Medici was a
native Tuscan.
Note 82 page 43. This Tuscan triumvirate was called “the three
Florentine crowns:” Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio.
Note 83 page 44. EVANDER was a mythical son of Hermes, supposed to have
founded a colony on the Tiber before the Trojan War. TURNUS was a
legendary king of an Italian tribe, who was slain by Æneas.
Note 84 page 44. The Salian priests were attached to the worship of Mars
Gradivus. On the occasion of their annual festival, they went in
procession through Rome, carrying the sacred shields of which they were
custodians and which they beat in accompaniment to dance and song. The
words of their chaunts are said to have become unintelligible even to
themselves, and appear to have set forth a kind of theogony in praise of
all the celestial deities (excepting Venus), and especially of one
Mamurius Veturius, who is by some regarded as identical with Mars.
Note 85 page 44. MARCUS ANTONIUS (143-87 B.C.) and LICINIUS CRASSUS
(140-91 B.C.), the two most famous orators of early Rome, were regarded
by Cicero as having been the first to rival their Greek predecessors.
QUINTUS HORTENSIUS HORTALUS (114-50 B.C.), the great advocate of the
aristocratic party at Rome, yielded the palm of oratory only to CICERO
(106-43 B.C.). MARCUS PORCIUS CATO (234-149 B.C.), a Roman soldier,
author and reforming statesman, sought to restore the ancient purity and
simplicity of the earlier republic. QUINTUS ENNIUS (239-169 B.C.), a
Roman epic poet and annalist, imparted to the language and literature of
his nation much of the impulse that affected their growth for centuries.
VIRGIL was born 70 B.C., and died 19 B.C.
Note 86 page 44. HORACE was born 65 B.C., and died 8 B.C. PLAUTUS died
184 B.C.
Note 87 page 44. SERGIUS SULPICIUS GALBA was Roman Consul 144 B.C.;
Cicero praised his oratory, but found it more old-fashioned than that of
Lælius (_flor._ 200 B.C.) and Scipio Africanus the Younger (died 129
B.C.).
Note 88 page 46. In his _Prose_, Bembo says that courtly Italian,
especially during the pontificate of the Spaniard, Alexander VI
(1492-1503), was full of Spanish expressions,—an assertion amply
confirmed by contemporary letters, which are rich also in Gallicisms.
Note 89 page 46. The Spanish _primor_ has failed to win Italian
citizenship. _Aventurare_ has become naturalized in Italy; as also have
_acertare_ (in the sense, however, of to assure, to make certain, to
verify), _ripassare_ (to repass, to repeat, to rebuff), _rimproccio_ or
_rimprovero_, and _attilato_ or _attillato_, which is recognizable in
the Spanish _atildado_. _Creato_ (Spanish _criado_) is now replaced by
_creatura_ in the sense mentioned in the text; in Sicily _creato_ is
used to mean servant.
Note 90 page 47. The reference here is of course to the Attic, Doric,
Ionic and Æolic dialects.
Note 91 page 47. TITUS LIVIUS was born at Padua 59 B.C., and died there
17 A.D. Of the one hundred and forty-two books of his History (which
covered the period from the founding of Rome in 750 B.C. down to 9 B.C.,
and upon which he spent forty years of his life), only thirty-five have
survived, together with an anonymous summary of the whole.
Note 92 page 48. Of the four forms here condemned by Castiglione as
corrupt, three (_Campidoglio_, _Girolamo_, and _padrone_) have become
firmly established in Italian. _Campidoglio_ had been used by Petrarch
(_Trionfo d'Amore_, i, 14),—an “old” but certainly not an “ignorant”
Tuscan.
Note 93 page 49. Oscan was a pre-Roman language spoken by the Opici, an
Italian tribe inhabiting the Campanian coast. Much of the mist that
shrouded it for centuries has now been dispelled by the epigraphists.
Both Dante and Petrarch were great lovers of Provençal, with which in
Castiglione’s time his friend Federico Fregoso was familiar.
Note 94 page 50. BIDON was a native of Asti, and one of the most famous
choristers in the service of Leo X.
[Illustration:
ANDREA MANTEGNA
1431-1506
]
Enlarged from a part of Alinari’s photograph (no. 18657) of the bronze
relief, surmounting Mantegna’s tomb in the Church of Sant'Andrea at
Mantua, variously attributed to Bartolommeo di Virgilio Melioli
(1448-1514), to Giovanni Marco Cavalli (born 1450), and, with less
reason, to Sperandio di Bartolommeo de' Savelli (1425?-1500?).
Note 95 page 50. MARCHETTO CARA, a native of Verona, entered the service
of the Gonzagas in 1495 and lived nearly thirty years at Mantua, where
he was made a citizen by the Marquess Federico. He frequented also the
court of Urbino, and is known to have been sent by the Marchioness
Isabella to relieve the tedium of her friend and sister-in-law the
Duchess Elisabetta’s exile at Venice in 1503. In his time he was among
the most prolific and successful composers of profane music, especially
of ballads and madrigals, and a number of his popular pieces have been
preserved.
Note 96 page 50. LEONARDO DA VINCI, (born 1452; died 1519), was the
natural son of a notary, Pietro Antonio, of the village of Vinci,
situated about fourteen miles east of Florence. He studied some three
years with Donatello’s pupil Verocchio at Florence. Meeting small
pecuniary success there, he removed to Milan about 1483 and entered the
service of Duke Ludovico Sforza, who is said to have paid him the
equivalent of £4000 a year while painting the “Last Supper,” and for
whom he completed in 1493 the model of a colossal equestrian statue of
Duke Francesco Sforza, never executed in permanent form. He was employed
by Cesare Borgia as military engineer, and in that capacity visited
Urbino in July 1502. His famous portrait known as the “Monna Lisa” or
“La Gioconda,” upon which he worked at times for four years, was
finished about 1504 and afterwards sold by him to Francis I. In 1507, he
had been appointed painter to Louis XII, but did not visit France until
1516. On the election of Leo X in 1513, he journeyed to Rome in the
company and service of Giuliano de' Medici, who paid him a monthly
stipend of £66. Although he was received with favour by the new pope and
lodged in the Vatican, his stay in Rome was artistically unprolific, his
interest at the time being chiefly confined to chemistry and physics,
and nature attracting him more than antiquities, of which he spoke as
“this old rubbish” (_queste anticaglie_). Three years before his death
he was visited at Amboise in France by Cardinal Ludovico of Aragon, who
is mentioned later in THE COURTIER (p. 159), and whose secretary left an
interesting account of an interview with him, describing the painter as
then disabled by paralysis of the hand.
Note 97 page 50. ANDREA MANTEGNA, (born 1431; died 1506), was a native
of Vicenza and probably of humble origin. When a mere child he became
the pupil and adopted son of the noted painter and instructor, Francesco
Squarcione of Padua, and was soon enrolled in the painters’ guild of
that city. In 1449 he began painting for the d'Este at Ferrara, and
between 1453 and 1459 he married Niccolosa, a daughter of Squarcione’s
rival Giacopo Bellini, and sister of the more famous brothers Gentile
and Giovanni Bellini. He painted also at Verona, and about 1460 entered
the service of the Gonzagas at Mantua, where the remainder of his life
was chiefly spent, although he worked for Pope Innocent VIII at Rome
about the year 1488, before which date he was knighted by the Marquess
of Mantua. By one writer he is affirmed to have cast the fine bust which
ornaments his tomb at Mantua, and which is said once to have had diamond
eyes. He is known to have understood bronze casting, and besides the
brush and the engraver’s burin, he handled modelling tools, while a
sonnet of his has been preserved. Although praised by Vasari as kindly
and in every way estimable, he is shown by contemporary letters to have
been rather irritable and litigious in private life. Albert Dürer tells
us that one of the keenest disappointments of his life was occasioned by
the great painter’s death before he was able to make an intended journey
to Mantua for the purpose of visiting Mantegna.
Note 98 page 50. RAFFAELLO SANTI or SANZI,—euphonized by Bembo as
SANZIO,—(born 1483; died 1520), was a native of Urbino and the son of
Giovanni Santi and Magia Ciarla. The father was himself a painter of no
mean skill, and wrote a quaint rhymed chronicle of the Duchy of Urbino,
which is preserved in the Vatican and contains much interesting
information. Having lost both parents when he had reached the age of
eleven years, and probably having first studied at Urbino under Timoteo
della Vite, Raphael was sent by a maternal uncle to the studio of
Perugino at Perugia. The rest of his short life was an unbroken course
of happy labour and brilliant success. In 1499 he seems to have been at
Urbino for the purpose of arranging for the welfare of a sister, and
again in 1504, when, after executing several works (including, it is
believed, portraits of the duke and duchess) for the ducal family, he
went to Florence with a letter of commendation from Guidobaldo’s sister.
From 1504 to 1508 he resided chiefly at Florence, although he again
visited Urbino twice, just before and probably soon after the date of
the Courtier dialogues. His friendship with so many members of the
Urbino court (Giuliano de' Medici, Bibbiena, Bembo, Canossa, and
Castiglione), and even his acquaintance with Julius II, probably began
during these later visits to his native city. In 1508 he was called to
Rome by Julius, and resided there until his death. On succeeding
Bramante as architect of St. Peter’s in 1514, he wrote to Castiglione:
“Sir Count: I have made drawings in several manners according to your
suggestion, and if everyone does not flatter me, I am satisfying
everyone; but I do not satisfy my own judgment, because I dread not
satisfying yours. I am sending them to you. Pray choose any of them, if
you deem any worthy. Our Lord [i.e. Leo X] in honouring me has put a
great burden on my shoulders,—that is, the charge of the fabric of St.
Peter’s. I hope, however, not to fall under it; and the more so, because
the model I have made for it pleases his Holiness and is praised by many
choice spirits; but in thought I soar still higher. I fain would renew
the beautiful forms of ancient buildings, but know not whether my flight
will be that of Icarus. Vitruvius affords me much light on the subject,
but less than I need. As to Galatea, I should hold myself a great master
if she possessed half the fine things you write me; but in your words I
recognize the love you bear me: and I tell you that to paint one
beautiful woman, I should need to see several beautiful women and to
have you with me to choose the best. But as there is dearth of good
judgments and of beautiful women, I am using a certain idea that has
occurred to my mind. Whether this has any artistic excellence in it, I
know not,—but I am striving for it. Command me.” Passavant affirms that
the ‘drawings’ mentioned at the beginning of this letter were designs
for a medal that Castiglione meant to wear. Raphael is said to have
painted two portraits of Castiglione, one of which (1516) is in the
Louvre and appears as the frontispiece to this volume. His epitaph was
written by Bembo, while Castiglione composed a Latin elegy in his
honour.
Note 99 page 50. MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, (born 1475; died 1564), was a
native of Caprese, a village about forty-seven miles south-east of
Florence, and the son of Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca,
daughter of Neri del Sera. His first schoolmaster seems to have come
from Urbino. Apprenticed at the age of thirteen to Ghirlandajo, he soon
came under the protection of Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1496 he removed to
Rome, and remained there five years. From 1501 to 1504 he was working
upon the great statue of David at Florence, and prepared his cartoon for
a vast fresco on the Battle of Cascina, which, although never executed,
was often copied, and is said to have exerted a greater influence on the
art of the Renaissance than any other single work. In 1505 he was called
to Rome to design a colossal mausoleum for Julius II. The anxieties and
disappointments connected with this project became the continual tragedy
of his long life. “Every day,” he wrote, “I am stoned as if I had
crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, bound hand and foot to this
tomb.” The matter was finally ended by the placing of his statue of
Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome. In the spring of
1506 he was present at the unearthing of the Laocoön, and at the date of
the Courtier dialogues he was engaged in casting a great bronze statue
of Julius II at Bologna. Duke Guidobaldo’s collection at Urbino seems to
have included a Cupid made by Buonarroti in imitation of the antique,
originally owned by Cesare Borgia, regained by him when he captured
Urbino in 1502, and soon presented by him to Guidobaldo’s sister-in-law,
the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. The famous tomb statue of
Giuliano de' Medici at Florence is hardly to be regarded as a portrait,
and was of course executed long after the period of THE COURTIER. In
1519 the Marquess of Mantua wrote to Castiglione, who was his ambassador
at Rome, regarding a monument to his father that he hoped to have the
master design. In 1523 Castiglione brought to Mantua a sketch made by
Buonarroti for a villa which the marquess intended to build at
Marmirolo.