George,” (born about 1478; died 1511), was a native of Castelfranco, a
town about forty miles north-west of Venice, and was reputed to be a
natural son of one Giacopo Barbarelli, a Venetian, and a peasant girl.
Lack of data renders a consecutive account of his life and work
impossible. He was brought up in Venice, and bred as a painter in the
school of the Bellini. Vasari says that he played upon the lute and sang
well, and was of a gentle disposition. Although he seems to have been
exceptionally independent of great people, he enjoyed the especial
favour of the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. In a letter written
from Venice in the year before that of the Courtier dialogues, Albert
Dürer declared Giorgione to be the greatest painter in the city, which
could then boast of the Bellini, Palma Vecchio, Carpaccio and Titian.
One of the most acute of recent critics, Mr. Bernhard Berenson, ascribes
to him only seventeen existing pictures, of which the best known is the
_Fête Champêtre_ in the Louvre, while the only one whose authenticity is
entirely free from doubt is the “Madonna and Saints” in the Duomo at
Castelfranco. The Urbino collection comprised two portraits by
Giorgione, one of which is supposed to have represented Duke Guidobaldo,
but unfortunately is lost.
Note 101 page 51. ISOCRATES, (born 436; died 338 B.C.), an Athenian
orator, was a pupil of Socrates, and became the instructor of many
famous orators. His diction was of the purest Attic, and his writings
were highly prized by the Alexandrian grammarians. The first printed
edition of his works (1493) was edited by Castiglione’s Greek master,
Chalcondylas. LYSIAS, (died about 380 B.C.), an Athenian orator,
abandoned the stilted monotony of the older speakers, and employed the
simple language of every-day life, but with purity and grace. ÆSCHINES,
(born 389; died 314 B.C.), was the rival and finally unsuccessful
antagonist of Demosthenes.
Note 102 page 51. CAIUS PAPIRIUS CARBO, (Consul in 120 B.C.), was an
adherent of the Gracchi, but became a renegade and finally committed
suicide. He was generally suspected of murdering Scipio Africanus the
Younger. While abominating the man’s character, Cicero praises his
oratory. CAIUS LÆLIUS SAPIENS was Consul in 140 B.C. His friendship with
Scipio is commemorated in Cicero’s _De Amicitia_. While he was in his
own time regarded as the model orator, later grammarians resorted to his
works for archaisms. SCIPIO AFRICANUS THE YOUNGER, (died 129 B.C.),
captured Carthage in the Third Punic War, and was leader of the
aristocratic party at Rome against the popular reforms of the Gracchi.
His works, of which only a few fragments survive, are praised by Cicero
and were long held in esteem. GALBA, see note 87. PUBLIUS SULPICIUS
RUFUS, (born 124; died 88 B.C.), was a tribune of the plebs. Cicero
says: “Of all the orators I ever heard, Sulpicius was the most
dignified, and, so to speak, the most tragic.” CAIUS AURELIUS COTTA,
(Consul 75 B.C.), is characterized by Cicero, who had argued a cause
against him, as a most acute and subtle orator, but his style seems to
have been dry and unimpassioned. CAIUS SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS, (died 121
B.C.), a son of the famous Cornelia, and brother-in-law of Scipio
Africanus the Younger, is noted chiefly for his vain struggle in behalf
of popular rights. Only fragments of his oratory have survived. MARCUS
ANTONIUS and CRASSUS, see note 85.
Note 103 page 51. “In a certain place,” i.e., _De Oratore_, II, xxiii,
97.
Note 104 page 51. The Italian _virtù_ has here its Latin meaning of
natural vigour. See also note 330.
[Illustration:
LORENZO DE' MEDICI
1448-1492
]
Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy
of Professor I. B. Supino, of a medal, in the National Museum at
Florence, by Antonio del Pollaiuolo (1429-1498).
Note 105 page 51. ANGELO POLIZIANO, (born 1454; died 1494), was a native
of Montepulciano (about twenty-seven miles south-east of Siena), of
which his name is a Latinized form. To English students he is better
known as POLITIAN, and as the author of the oft-cited line, “Tempora
mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.” His father Benedetto Ambrogini died
poor, leaving a widow and five young children almost destitute. At the
age of ten, Angelo studied at Florence, and composed Latin poems and
Greek epigrams while yet a boy. At thirteen, he published Latin
epistles; at sixteen, he began his Latin translation of the Iliad; at
seventeen, he distributed Greek poems among the learned men of Florence;
and at eighteen, he edited Catullus. He was received into Lorenzo de'
Medici’s household, and before he was thirty years old, he was professor
of Latin and Greek at the University of Florence and was entrusted with
the care of Lorenzo’s children. His pupils included the chief students
of Europe. A born poet, entitled to the middle place of honour between
Petrarch and Ariosto, he was the first Italian to combine perfect
mastery of Latin and a correct sense of Greek with genius for his own
native literature. Towards the close of his life, he entered holy orders
and became a canon of the Cathedral at Florence. He was ill formed, and
had squinting eyes and an enormous nose. His morals were lax. He was
succeeded by Bembo as dictator of Italian letters.
Note 106 page 51. LORENZO DE' MEDICI, (born 1448; died 1492), was the
grandson of Cosimo, _Pater Patriæ_, and father of Giuliano of THE
COURTIER. On the death of his father Pietro in 1469, he succeeded
jointly with his brother Giuliano to the family wealth and political
predominance. Giuliano’s assassination in the Piazzi conspiracy of 1478
(which Poliziano witnessed and narrated in Latin) left Lorenzo sole
ruler, but like his predecessors, he governed the republic without any
title, by free use of money and great adroitness in securing the
elevation of his adherents to the chief offices of state. He was a man
of marvellous range of mental power,—an epitome of Renaissance
versatility. Never relaxing his hold on public affairs, among
philosophers he passed for a sage; among men of letters, for an original
and graceful poet; among scholars, for a Hellenist sensitive to every
nicety of Attic idiom; among artists, for a connoisseur of consummate
taste; among libertines, for a merry and untiring roysterer; among the
pious, for an accomplished theologian. “He was no less famous for his
jokes and repartees than for his pithy apothegms and maxims, as good a
judge of cattle as of statues, as much at home in the bosom of his
family as in the riot of an orgy, as ready to discourse on Plato as to
plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen.” (Symonds.)
Note 107 page 51. FRANCESCO CATTANI DA DIACCETO, (born 1466; died 1522),
was a native of Florence, studied at Pisa, and returning to his native
city became intimate with Ficino, of whose philosophy he may be said to
have been the heir. For many years he lectured at Florence with such
success that the Venetians tried to entice him to the University of
Padua, in vain. A partisan of the Medici, he enjoyed the favour of Leo X
and of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Clement VII. All his works (written
in Latin) are of a philosophical character. His style is said to be
sprightly and correct, and despite the ridicule then cast upon the
vulgar tongue, he himself translated several of his books into Italian,
notably the _Tre Libri d'Amore_, with which Castiglione shows
familiarity in the Fourth Book of THE COURTIER.
Note 108 page 52. CAIUS SILIUS ITALICUS, (died 100 A.D.), was Consul
under Nero and a follower of Cicero in the art of oratory. After a
prosperous public career, he retired to a life of literary ease. His
most important work was a long epic poem on the Second Punic War, and
soon sank into oblivion. CORNELIUS TACITUS, (died probably after 117
A.D.), was Consul and orator as well as historian.
Note 109 page 54. MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO, (born 116; died about 27
B.C.), was somewhat older than Cæsar, Cicero and Sallust, but outlived
them all. He was regarded as the most learned of the Romans, and was
made director of the public library by Cæsar, although he had been a
partisan of Pompey. Of his seventy-four works, which embraced nearly all
branches of knowledge, only two survive. They were much esteemed by the
Christian Fathers.
Note 110 page 55. CATULLUS was born about 87 B.C. His 39th ode begins:
“Because Egnatius has white teeth, he smiles wherever he goes”
(_Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, renidet usque quaque_). Later in
the same ode, he says: “Nothing is more pointless than a pointless
laugh” (_Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est_).
Note 111 page 57. MONSEIGNEUR D'ANGOULÊME, afterwards FRANCIS I, (born
1494; died 1547), was the son of Count Charles d'Angoulême and Louise of
Savoy. His governor, Sieur de Boisy, strove to inspire him with a taste
for arms and a love of letters and art, and it was from romances of
chivalry that he derived much of his education and many of his ideas of
government. He succeeded his cousin Louis XII in January 1515, and one
of the earliest functions at his court was the marriage of his aunt
Filiberta of Savoy to Giuliano de' Medici, who is here represented by
Castiglione (with what truth remains uncertain) as having visited the
French court shortly before the date of the Courtier dialogues. Writing
in 1515, the Venetian ambassador describes the young king as being
really handsome (the evidence of our nearly contemporaneous medal
illustration to the contrary), courageous, an excellent musician, and
very learned for one of his age and rank. Under his rule, relations
between France and Italy became closer and more active, and there began
to penetrate beyond the Alps that Italian influence which he later
greatly increased by marrying his son to Giuliano de' Medici’s
great-niece Caterina. His education had included a study of Italian
literature and customs, and besides Federico Fregoso and Ludovico da
Canossa he received and honoured many other illustrious Italians, among
whom were Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini. He caused search to
be made in Italy for rare MSS., and had them copied for his library. His
reign, although clouded by defeats and humiliations, began a true
literary and artistic Renaissance in France.
Note 112 page 57. The reference here is to the famous Sorbonne (founded
by Robert Sorbon in 1253) towards which Francis was for religious
reasons hostile during the early years of his reign, and to which he
raised up a rival by founding the Collège de France in 1530.
Note 113 page 58. LUCIUS LICINIUS LUCULLUS, a Roman general and Consul
(74 B.C.), noted chiefly for his wealth, luxury, and patronage of art
and letters. LUCIUS CORNELIUS SULLA, a Roman general, Consul (88 B.C.),
and dictator, was the first Roman to lead an army against the city, and
the first to publish lists of his enemies, proscribing them and offering
a reward for their death. CNEIUS POMPEIUS, or POMPEY, (born 106; died 48
B.C.), a member of the Triumvirate with Cæsar and Crassus, and the
finally unsuccessful champion of the conservative party against the
power of Cæsar. MARCUS JUNIUS BRUTUS, (born 85; died 42 B.C.), a
statesman and scholar, who adhered to Pompey, joined Cassius in the
assassination of Cæsar, and was finally defeated by Mark Antony.
HANNIBAL, (born 247 B.C.), the famous Carthaginian general who conquered
Spain, crossed the Alps, overran Italy, was defeated by Scipio the
Elder, became chief magistrate of Carthage, and committed suicide in
exile about 183 B.C.
Note 114 page 59. In the last chapter of his “Prince,” Machiavelli (who
was Castiglione’s contemporary) says: “Although military excellence
seems to be extinct in Italy, this arises from the fact that the old
methods were not good and there has been no one who knew how to devise
new ones. We have great excellence in the members, if only it were not
lacking in the heads. In duels and engagements between small numbers,
see how superior the Italians are in strength, in dexterity, in
resource. But when it comes to armies, they make no showing; and it all
proceeds from the weakness of the heads. Whence it arises that in so
much time, in so many battles fought in the last twenty years, when an
army has been purely Italian, it has always succeeded ill.” Compare this
opinion with Montaigne’s remark (_Essais_, II, c. 24) that the officers
of Charles VIII ascribed their easy Italian conquests to the fact that
“the princes and nobility of Italy took more pleasure in becoming
ingenious and learned than in becoming vigorous and warlike.”
Note 115 page 59. In 1524 Castiglione wrote to his mother at Mantua
regarding the education of his son, who had just begun to study the
Greek alphabet, as follows: “As to Camillo’s learning Greek, I have had
a letter also from Michael, who says so many things that he seems to me
a flatterer. It is enough that the boy shows good capacity and
inclination, and good pronunciation. As for Latin, I should be glad to
have him attend more to Greek at present, for those who know are of
opinion that one ought to begin with Greek; because Latin is natural to
us, and we almost acquire it even though we spend little labour upon it;
but Greek is not so.”
Note 116 page 59. The reader will hardly need to be reminded that the
habit of versification was very prevalent in all ranks of Italian
society in Castiglione’s day. Varchi (1502-1565) informs us that the
vernacular was generally despised in the Florence of that time, and
adds: “And I remember, when I was a lad, that the first and most
important command which fathers usually gave to their children, and
masters to their pupils, was that they must on no account whatever read
anything in the vulgar tongue.”
Note 117 page 59. In the _Vita Nuova_ (c. 25), Dante says: “And the
first who began to speak like a native poet was moved thereto because he
would have his words understood of woman.”
Note 118 page 59. ARISTIPPUS, (_flor._ 400 B.C.), was a Greek
philosopher, whose school took its name from his birthplace, Cyrene in
Africa. He was for some time a follower of Socrates, and afterwards
lived at the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. Diogenes Laertius
relates that when Aristippus was asked what was the greatest thing he
had gained from philosophy, he replied: “The power to meet all men with
confidence.”
Note 119 page 60. Among Plutarch’s works is a tract entitled “How to
Tell Friend from Flatterer.” In 1532 Erasmus published a Latin version
of it dedicated to Henry VIII of England.
Note 120 page 61. The first quatrain of a well-known sonnet by Petrarch:
_Giunto Alessandro alla famosa tomba
Del fero Achille, sospirando disse:
O fortunato, cite sì chiara tromba
Trovasti, e chi di te sì alto scrisse!_
of which Mr. John Jay Chapman has kindly furnished the following
translation:
When Alexander reached the sacred mound
Where dread Achilles sleeps, “O child of Fame,”
He sighed. “Thy deeds are happy that they found
Old Homer’s tongue to clarion thy name.”
In his oration _Pro Archia_, Cicero describes Alexander as exclaiming:
“O fortunate youth, who found Homer as herald of thy valour!” (_O
fortunate, inquit, adulescens qui tuæ virtutis Homerum præconem
inveneris!_).
Note 121 page 62. In an earlier version, this passage reads: “Grasso de'
Medici will in this matter have the same advantage over Messer Pietro
Bembo that a hogshead has over a barrel.” Bembo was slender, while
_Grasso_ (fat man) was probably the nickname of a corpulent soldier in
the service of the Medici, possibly identical with a certain Grasso to
whom Bembo desired to be commended in a letter to Bibbiena, 5 February
1506.
Note 122 page 63. The instrument used in Socrates’s time κιθάρα was
certainly not the modern cithern, but more probably a kind of large
lyre, supported by a ribbon and played with a plectrum of metal, wood or
ivory.
Note 123 page 63. In a note to this passage, Cian says: “_Abito_
[rendered ‘habit of mind’] is a special condition or habitual quality of
the mind, which manifests itself outwardly in a special _costume_
[rendered ‘habitual tendency’], or equally habitual behaviour, which in
turn reacts upon the disposition and moral attitude of the individual.”
Note 124 page 64. LYCURGUS probably lived in the 9th century B.C., and
was the reputed author of the Spartan laws and institutions.
Note 125 page 64. EPAMINONDAS, a Theban general, defeated the Spartans
at Leuctra in 371 B.C. and at Mantinea in 362 B.C., and lost his life in
the latter battle.
Note 126 page 64. THEMISTOCLES, the Athenian statesman and general,
persuaded the Greeks to resist the second Persian invasion by naval
force at Salamis in 480 B.C.
Note 127 page 64. One of the finest of the Pompeian frescoes represents
the centaur Chiron teaching Achilles to play upon the lyre.
Note 128 page 64. The reference here is of course to the familiar story
of Orpheus and the beasts.
Note 129 page 64. Castiglione doubtless had in mind the legend of Arion,
a Greek poet of Lesbos, who probably flourished about 700 B.C. We have a
fragment of his verse addressed to Poseidon and telling of the dolphins,
who had wafted the poet safely to land when he had lost his course.
Note 130 page 65. As we shall see, the Magnifico’s request was not
complied with until the second evening (page 81).
Note 131 page 65. QUINTUS FABIUS PICTOR was a Roman general who served
in the Second Punic War, and wrote a Greek history of Rome, much
esteemed by the ancients, but now lost. Pliny affirms that Fabius
painted the temple in the 450th year after the founding of Rome (i.e.
300 B.C.), and that the painting was still extant about the beginning of
our era.
Note 132 page 66. The Apollo Belvedere was discovered in 1503, the
Laocoön group in 1506, and other famous antique statues only a few years
earlier.
Note 133 page 66. The comparative merits of painting and sculpture were
a frequent subject of discussion during this period. The Renaissance
writers had inherited from antiquity a fondness for seeking superiority
or inferiority in matters between which there exists such a diversity of
character as to render comparison unprofitable. According to Vasari,
Giorgione maintained “that in one picture the painter could display
various aspects without the necessity of walking round his work, and
could even display, at one glance, all the different aspects that could
be presented by the figure of a man, even though the latter should
assume several attitudes,—a thing which could not be accomplished by
sculpture without compelling the observer to change his place, so that
the work is not presented at one view, but at different views. He
declared, further, that he could execute a single figure in painting, in
such a manner as to show the front, back, and profiles of both sides at
one and the same time.... He painted a nude figure, with its back turned
to the spectator, and at the feet of the figure was a limpid stream,
wherein the reflection of the front was painted with the utmost
exactitude: on one side was a highly burnished corselet, of which the
figure had divested itself, and wherein the left side was reflected
perfectly, every part of the figure being clearly apparent: and on the
other side was a mirror, in which the right profile of the nude form was
also exhibited. By this beautiful and admirable fancy, Giorgione desired
to prove that painting is, in effect, the superior art, requiring more
talent and demanding higher effort.”
In one of his letters, Michelangelo wrote: “My opinion is that all
painting is the better the nearer it approaches to relief, and relief is
worse in proportion as it inclines to painting. And so I have been wont
to think that sculpture is the lamp of painting, and that the difference
between them might be likened to the difference between the sun and
moon.... By sculpture I understand an art which operates by taking away
superfluous material; by painting, one that attains its result by laying
material on. It is enough that both emanate from the same human
intelligence, and consequently sculpture and painting ought to live in
amity together, without these lengthy disputations. More time is wasted
in talking about the problem than would go to the making of figures in
both species.”
Note 134 page 68. In his “Treatise on Painting,” Leonardo da Vinci says:
“The first marvel we find in painting is the apparent detachment from
the wall or other plane, and the cheating of keen perceptions by
something that is not separate from the surface.”
Note 135 page 68. “Grottoes,” i.e. the Catacombs. Speaking in his
autobiography of the remains of ancient art found in the Catacombs,
Benvenuto Cellini says: “These grotesques have received this name from
the moderns because they were found by scholars at Rome in certain
subterranean caverns, which had anciently been rooms, chambers, studios,
halls and the like. Since these scholars found them in these cavernous
places (which had been built by the ancients on the surface and had
become low), and since such low places are known at Rome by the name
Grottoes, for that reason they received the name grotesques.” Cellini
here tries to explain the origin of the name applied to ornaments (such
as the arabesques of the Renaissance) in which figures, human to the
waist, terminate in scrolls, leafage, etc., and are combined with animal
forms and impossible flowers. In this sense the word was used as early
as 1502 in a contract between the Cardinal of Siena and the painter
Pinturicchio. It had of course not yet reached its modern signification,
so fully discussed in the appendix to Volume IV of Ruskin’s “Modern
Painters.” In Castiglione’s time it was not known that the catacomb
decorations were Christian, and in any case they were founded on pagan
models.
Note 136 page 69. DEMETRIUS I of Macedon, (died 283 B.C.), was the son
of Antigonus, who was one of Alexander’s most illustrious generals and
succeeded to the Macedonian throne.
Note 137 page 69. Of METRODORUS, nothing more is known than Pliny’s
account of the incident recorded in our text.
Note 138 page 69. LUCIUS ÆMILIUS PAULUS, (died 160 B.C.), was a Roman
general, Consul, and statesman of the aristocratic party. The incident
mentioned in the text occurred after his victory over King Perseus of
Macedon in 168 B.C.
Note 139 page 70. CAMPASPE, according to Pliny, was the name of the
beautiful slave given by Alexander to Apelles, as narrated at page 68.
Note 140 page 70. ZEUXIS, (_flor._ 400 B.C.), belonged to the Ionian
school of Greek painting, which was characterized by sensuous beauty and
accurate imitation of nature. He lived at Athens, and his idealism is
said to have been rather of form than of character. The picture referred
to in the text represented Helen of Troy, was regarded as his
masterpiece, and was probably identical with a picture mentioned as
being at Rome. The story of the five maidens is said to have been cited
by Tintoretto in support of his maxim, “Art must perfect Nature.”
Note 141 page 71. The Marquesses FEBUS and GERARDINO DI CEVA were sons
of the Marquess Giovanni (who was living as late as 1491), and belonged
to one of the most illustrious families of Piedmont and indeed of all
Italy. They were born towards the close of the 15th century and died
about the third decade of the 16th, having obtained the investiture of
their fief in 1521. They sided sometimes with the Emperor and sometimes
with France, as best suited them, and left rather a bad name. To escape
punishment for killing a cousin, Gerardino stabbed himself, and Febus
also died “_disperato_,” leaving two daughters in grief and shame.
Note 142 page 71. ETTORE ROMANO GIOVENALE was a cavalier of whom little
more is known than that he was in Francesco Maria’s service, fought
successfully as one of the thirteen Italian champions at Barletta, was
afterwards in the service of the Duke of Ferrara, who dismissed him for
an act of treachery.