was a courtly poet and prose writer, who had been secretary to the
Duchess Beatrice d'Este of Milan. Later he enjoyed the especial favour
of this lady’s sister, the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua, and
also of the Duchess of Urbino, who protected him from the displeasure of
her brother the Marquess of Mantua, and at whose court he improvised
verse somewhat after the manner of the Unico Aretino. In a letter (1504)
from Urbino to Isabella d'Este, Emilia Pia wrote: “Of news here there is
none that is not known to you, except that Calmeta is continually
composing songs and divers other things, and this carnival has written a
new comedy, which he would have sent you if he had thought it would give
you pleasure.” Among Calmeta’s works were a verse compendium of Ovid’s
_Ars Amandi_, and a biography of his friend and fellow improvisatore,
Serafino Ciminelli d'Aquila (see note 255). As known to us, his poetical
writings do not rise above mediocrity, and wholly fail to explain the
esteem in which they were held.
Note 144 page 71. ORAZIO FLORIDO was a native of Fano, one of the
Adriatic coast towns nearest to Urbino. Having been chancellor to Duke
Guidobaldo, he became secretary to Duke Francesco Maria. When Francesco
was combating the usurper Lorenzo de' Medici in 1517, he sent one of his
officers with Florido under protection of a safe-conduct to challenge
Lorenzo to personal combat. In spite of the safe-conduct, Florido was
detained and sent to Leo X at Rome, where he was basely tortured in the
hope of extorting political secrets from him. He remained steadfastly
faithful to his master, and afterwards made a tour of the courts of
Europe seeking aid for his lord.
Note 145 page 73. MARGARITA GONZAGA was a niece of the Duchess of
Urbino, being a natural daughter of the Marquess Gianfrancesco of
Mantua. She was for many years one of the ornaments of the Urbino court.
Various mentions of her in contemporary letters show her as a woman of
unusual beauty, sprightly wit and gay disposition. She had several
suitors, apparently including Filippo Beroaldo, who is mentioned later
in THE COURTIER (page 139).
Note 146 page 73. Of BARLETTA nothing more is known than what is
contained in this and another shorter mention of him in THE COURTIER
(page 87).
[Illustration:
BEATRICE D'ESTE
DUCHESS OF MILAN
1475-1497
]
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 42.371) of the portrait, in the
Pitti Gallery at Florence, attributed to Piero della Francesca
(1420-1492). For an account of this and other portraits, see
_l'Archivio Storico dell'Arte_ for 1889, p. 264. Some of the events
of her short life are mentioned in note 398 at page 399 of this
volume.
Note 147 page 73. The original reads: _havendo prima danzato una bassa,
ballarono una Roegarze_. The _danza bassa_ was of Spanish origin and is
believed to have consisted of sliding steps and of posturing, in which
the feet were not lifted. The verb _ballare_ seems to be derived from
the low Latin _balla_, a ball. In the Middle Ages the game of ball was
accompanied with dance and song, and we may well believe that a class of
dances, thus originating and denominated generally _balli_, were more
animated than the _danza bassa_. Although a Greek derivation has been
ascribed to the word _roegarze_, Cian affirms that the dance thus named
was of French origin. The earliest French translator of THE COURTIER
renders the word by _rouergoise_, which is apparently derived from
_Rouergue_, the name of an ancient French province to the south-west of
Lyons.
[Illustration:
FILIPPO MARIA VISCONTI
DUKE OF MILAN
1391-1447
]
Reduced from Giraudon’s photograph (no. 254) of a drawing, in the
Louvre, by Vittore Pisano, better known as Pisanello, (1380?-1451?).
NOTES TO THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER
Note 148 page 75. This passage reflects the medico-philosophical
theories which the Renaissance inherited from antiquity, and which
regarded “the vital spirits” as something far more tangible and material
than what we call the principle of life or vital spark. Compare the
early conception of electricity as a fluid substance. “Complexion” is of
course here used to mean temperament or constitution, and not the mere
colour and texture of the skin.
Note 149 page 77. Duke FILIPPO MARIA VISCONTI, (born 1391; died 1447),
was the son of Giangaleotto and Caterina Visconti, and brother of
Giovanni Maria Visconti, whom he succeeded as Duke of Milan in 1412. He
married Beatrice di Tenda (widow of Facino Cane), who brought him nearly
a half million of florins dowry, besides her husband’s soldiers and
cities, and thus enabled him gradually to win back the Lombard part of
his father’s duchy, which his brother had lost. He was very ugly in
person, and so sensitive that he rarely appeared in public. Wily but
unstable, he was continually plotting schemes that seemed to have no
object, and he mistrusted his own generals, even Francesco Sforza, who
turned against him, forced him to a ruinous peace, and after his death
was soon able to seize his duchy. In him the cruel selfishness of the
Renaissance tyrant did not degenerate into mad thirst for blood, as in
the case of his terrible brother. He read Dante, Petrarch and French
romances of chivalry, and even dallied with the Latin classics, but
genuine learning was neglected and despised at his court.
Duke BORSO D'ESTE, (born 1413; died 1471), like his brother and
predecessor, was a natural son of Duke Niccolò III. Kindly and just, he
was idolized by the Ferrarese and especially by the women. He patronized
letters and art and was fond of splendid living, yet in spite of the
luxury of his court, he left a treasure of about a million pounds
sterling. The art of printing was established at Ferrara shortly before
his death. He appears to have been himself ignorant of Latin, and
encouraged the literary use of Italian and the study of French romance.
Histories of Ferrara, as well as the writings of contemporary humanists,
are full of his generous deeds. His mild sway passed into a proverb, and
the time of “the good Duke Borso” was long remembered as a kind of
golden age.
Note 150 page 77. NICCOLῸ PICCININO, (born 1380; died 1444), was so
humbly born as to possess no other surname than that conferred on him in
ridicule of his small stature. Having served under the famous Braccio da
Montone, he married the latter’s niece, and achieved such distinction as
a soldier as to share with Francesco Sforza the fame of being the first
_condottiere_ of his day. He became the friend and general of Duke
Federico of Urbino. His rough wit was highly esteemed.
Note 151 page 77. This consciousness of the corruption then prevailing
in Italy is even more frankly expressed by Machiavelli: “It is but too
true that we Italians are in a special degree irreligious and corrupt.”
(_Discorsi_, I, 12.)
Note 152 page 78. The reference here is to Plato’s _Phædo_, c. 3.
Socrates is said to have turned Æsop’s fables into verse.
Note 153 page 83. The Italian noun _fierezza_ (rendered “boldness”) and
the adjective _fiero_ (more anciently _fero_, the epithet applied by
Petrarch to Achilles, see note 120) are derived from the Latin _ferus_
(wild, untamed, impetuous), the root of which we see in our English word
_fer_ocious. While retaining its etymological signification, _fiero_ was
used to mean also: haughty, intrepid, strong, sturdy.
Note 154 page 87. “Brawls” (Italian, _brandi_; French, _branles_) were a
kind of animated figured dance, said to be of Spanish origin and to have
resembled the modern _cotillon_. A letter by Castiglione mentions this
dance as having been performed by figures dressed as birds in one of the
interludes when Bibbiena’s _Calandra_ was first presented at Urbino.
This and other passages suggest that the use of masks was even more
common in Italian society of the author’s time, than at the present day.
Note 155 page 88. Castiglione’s letters show that he possessed and
played upon a variety of musical instruments, and it is known that in
Duke Federico’s time, the palace of Urbino was well supplied with
instruments and musicians.
Note 156 page 88. Viol is the generic name for the family of bowed
instruments that succeeded the mediæval fiddle and preceded the violin.
Invented in the 15th century, it differed from a violin in having deeper
ribs, a flat back, and a broad centre-piece on which the sound post
rested. Its neck was broad and thin; it had from five to seven strings,
and was made in four sizes, of which the lowest pitched (the _violone_
or double bass) is still in use. The tone of the instrument is said to
have been penetrating rather than powerful.
Note 157 page 89. Wind instruments, and especially the flute, are here
referred to. According to Plutarch, Alcibiades maintained that they were
regarded with disfavour by Pallas and Apollo because the face is
distorted in playing upon them.
[Illustration:
NICCOLÒ PICCININO
1380-1444
]
Reduced from Giraudon’s photograph (no. 252) of a drawing, in the
Louvre, by Vittore Pisano, better known as Pisanello, (1380?-1451?).
Note 158 page 90. The Pythagoreans supposed the intervals between the
heavenly bodies to be determined by the laws of musical harmony. Hence
arose the celebrated doctrine of “the music of the spheres” (already
referred to by Castiglione in the text, page 63); for in their motion
the heavenly bodies must each occasion a certain sound or note depending
on their distances and velocities, which notes together formed a musical
harmony, inaudible to man because he has been accustomed to it from the
first and has never had an opportunity to contrast it with silence, or
because it exceeds his powers of hearing. Pythagoras himself (died about
500 B.C.) taught his disciples to sing to the accompaniment of the lyre,
and to chaunt hymns to the gods and to virtuous men.
Note 159 page 90. As the Italian commentator, Count Vesme, suggests, the
author may have meant to say, “shave twice a day.” A weekly visit to the
barber may, however, have been usually regarded as sufficient at this
time.
Note 160 page 93. In the beginning of his Encomium on Folly (which was
well known in Italy when Castiglione wrote THE COURTIER), Erasmus
pretends that, “although there has been no lack of those who, at great
cost of oil and sleep, have exalted ... the fourth-day ague, the fly,
and baldness, with most tedious praise,” Folly is languishing without a
eulogist. Among the works of Lucian (_flor._ 160 A.D.) there is a brief
humourous book in praise of the fly; the philosopher Favorinus (_flor._
120 A.D.) is said to have written a eulogy on the fourth-day ague; and
there is another on baldness by the early Christian writer, Synesius
(_flor._ 400 A.D.). The men of the Renaissance delighted in similar
displays of wit.
Note 161 page 94. The Italian _procella_ (rendered ‘fury’) primarily
means a tempest, and is so translated in the earliest French and English
versions of THE COURTIER (_estourbillon_, storm). The still earlier
Spanish version has _pestilencia_.
Note 162 page 95. The Italian _impedito_ (rendered ‘palsied’) literally
means entangled as to the feet.
Note 163 page 96. St. Luke, iv, 8 and 10.
Note 164 page 97. In Æsop’s fable, _Asinus Domino Blandiens_, an ass
receives a sound cudgelling for his efforts to win his master’s favour
by caresses that he was ill fitted to bestow.
Note 165 page 100. TITUS MANLIUS,—called TORQUATUS from the chain
(_torques_) that he took from the body of a gigantic Gaul whom he had
slain in single combat,—was a favourite hero of Roman story. The
incident referred to here occurred shortly before a Roman victory over
the Latins at the foot of Vesuvius. Manlius and his colleague in command
had proclaimed that no Roman might engage a Latin singly on pain of
death, but a son of Manlius accepted a challenge from one of the enemy,
slew his adversary, and bore the bloody spoils in triumph to his father,
who thereupon caused the young man to be put to death before the
assembled army. Manlius was Consul in 340 B.C.
Note 166 page 101. PUBLIUS LICINIUS CRASSUS MUCIANUS was Roman Consul in
131 B.C. According to Livy, the incident narrated in the text occurred
during an unsuccessful campaign against Pergamus, which ended in
Crassus’s voluntary death.
Note 167 page 103. Rome was sacked only the year before THE COURTIER was
first published. Italy had become the plaything of foreign conquest.
Note 168 page 103. DARIUS III was King of Persia 336-330 B.C. This story
about his sword seems to be founded on the following passage in Quintus
Curtius Rufus’s History of Alexander the Great: “At the beginning of his
reign, Darius ordered his Persian scabbard to be altered to the form
which the Greeks used; whereupon the Chaldeans prophesied that the
empire of the Persians would pass to those whose arms he had imitated.”
Note 169 page 104. It will be remembered that Bembo was a Venetian.
Note 170 page 104. The coif (_cuffia_) here mentioned seems to have been
a kind of turban made of cloth wound about the head, with the two ends
hanging at the ears.
Note 171 page 105. These unfortunate creatures still abound near
Bergamo.
Note 172 page 106. Pylades and Orestes, like Pirithous and Theseus, are
the famous friends of Greek legend. The historical and no less tender
love between Scipio and Lælius forms the subject of Cicero’s _De
Amicitia_. See note 102.
Note 173 page 109. The fellow’s reward is said to have been a measure of
the peas.
Note 174 page 109. The Italian phrase here rendered ‘goes against the
grain’ is _non gli avrà sangue_ (more usually _non ci avrà il suo
sangue_), and might be more precisely translated ‘will not suit his
humour.’ The ‘as we say’ suggests that the idiom was of recent origin in
Castiglione’s time.
[Illustration:
MAXIMILIAN I
EMPEROR OF GERMANY
1459-1519
]
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 34.074) of the portrait, in the
Imperial Museum at Vienna, by Ambrogio da Predis (_flor._ 1500). In
Morelli’s “Italian Painters” (London: 1892), pp. 180-9, the picture
is described as injured by restoration. See note 390.
Note 175 page 113. GIACOPO SANNAZARO, (born 1458; died 1530), was a
native of Naples, and the son of Giacopo Niccolò and Masella di San
Magno. His boyhood was spent with his mother at San Cipriano, near her
birthplace Salerno. He soon made such progress in Latin and Greek that
he was admitted to the academy of the famous Pontormo, of whom he became
the close friend. Their effigies may be seen together in the Neapolitan
church of Monte Oliveto. He received a villa and a pension from the
scholarly Aragonese dynasty, to which he remained faithful with pen and
sword, following Federico III into exile (see note 401) in 1501, and
returning to Naples only after his king’s death in 1504. He seems to
have had a peaceful and honourable old age, active in works of piety and
charity, and employing his leisure in study and in the society of a
certain noble lady for whom he had formed a lasting Platonic friendship.
His writings include marine eclogues, elegies, etc., in Latin, but his
best known work is _L'Arcadia_, an Italian prose romance interspersed
with verse, of which sixty editions are said to have appeared before
1600. It is regarded by Mahaffy as having originated the idea that the
Greek Arcadia was the especial home of pastoral poetry, and probably
served Sidney as a model for his poem of the same name. Hardly less
famous were Sannazaro’s anti-Borgian epigrams, to which Symonds ascribes
no small part of the gruesome legend of Lucrezia’s crimes. He was buried
in a church built by him near the so-called tomb of Virgil, and his
monument behind the high altar bears the Latin inscription by Bembo, in
which he is described as “near alike to Virgil’s muse and sepulchre.”
Note 176 page 113. Motet is “a term which for the last three hundred
years has been almost exclusively applied to certain pieces of church
music, of moderate length, adapted to Latin words (selected, for the
most part, either from Holy Scripture, or the Roman office-books), and
intended to be sung at high mass, either in place of, or immediately
after, the Plain Chaunt _Offertorium_ of the Day.“ (Grove.) The motet
was sometimes founded on the air of some non-sacred song, as in the case
of Josquin’s _Stabat Mater_, which was based upon the ballad _Comme
Femme_. (Ambros.)
Note 177 page 113. JOSQUIN (more properly JOSSE) DE PRÈS, (born about
1450; died 1521), seems to have been a native of St. Quentin, Hainault,
Belgium, and was one of the celebrated musicians of the Renaissance.
Having been the pupil of Ockenheim, the greatest composer of the day, he
was at the papal court of Sixtus IV, and successively in the service of
Lorenzo de' Medici, Louis XII of France, and the Emperor Maximilian I.
He returned to Italy about 1503 and lived at the court of Ferrara. He is
the earliest composer whose works are preserved in such quantity as
adequately to present his power, and was called “the father of harmony”
by Dr. Burney. Music began to be printed (1498) when Josquin was in his
prime.
Note 178 page 114. Other contemporary evidence amply confirms this
account of the occasional grossness that marked the table manners of the
period.
Note 179 page 115. The two princes here referred to are Ferdinand the
Catholic of Spain (see note 392) and Louis XII of France (see note 250).
Note 180 page 116. PAOLO NICCOLÒ VERNIA, called NICOLETTO (little Nick)
from his shortness of stature, (died 1499), was a native of Chieti, near
the Adriatic. He probably studied at Padua, and remained there teaching
physics, although in 1444 he took his degree in philosophy, and fourteen
years later in medicine. He wrote chiefly on philosophy, but was noted
also as a wit.
Note 181 page 116. “When Frederick Barbarossa attempted to govern the
rebellious Lombard cities in the common interest of the Empire, he
established in their midst a foreign judge, called ‘Podestà,’ _quasi
habens potestatem Imperatoris in hac parte_.... The title of ‘Podestà’
was subsequently conferred upon the official summoned to maintain an
equal balance between the burghers and the nobles.” Symonds’s
“Renaissance in Italy,” ed. 1883, i, 61.
Note 182 page 117. This was the battle of Fornovo (6 July 1495), in
which the Italian forces under the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga of
Mantua failed to prevent the retreat of Charles VIII towards France.
Both sides claimed a victory, and the marquess even went so far as to
have it commemorated by Mantegna in a picture, “The Madonna of Victory”
(Louvre), which contains his portrait. Castiglione’s father died from
the effect of wounds received in this battle.
Note 183 page 117. The reference here is plainly to Leonardo da Vinci
(see note 96). His contemporaries would naturally regard as chimerical
such devices as steam cannon, paddle wheels for boats, and flying
machines, or such hints as that contained in his _Codex Atlanticus_,
where he suggests the possibility of steam navigation. “He was the first
to explain correctly the dim illumination seen over the rest of the
surface of the moon when the bright part is only a thin crescent. He
pointed out that when the moon was nearly new, the half of the earth
which was then illuminated by the sun was turned nearly directly towards
the moon, and that the moon was in consequence illuminated slightly by
this ‘earthshine,’ just as we are by moonshine. This explanation ...
tended to break down the supposed barrier between terrestrial and
celestial bodies.” Arthur Berry’s “Short History of Astronomy” (London,
1898), p. 91.
Note 184 page 118. Suetonius mentions this characteristic of Cæsar.
Note 185 page 119. This is one of the few passages in The Courtier that
are plainly reminiscent of Dante, who says: “To that truth which hath
the face of falsehood, man must ever close his lips” (_Sempre a quel ver
che ha faccia di menzogna, De' l’uom chiuder la labbra_). _Inferno_,
xvi, 124-5.
Note 186 page 121. The translator admits being at a loss to find an
adequate equivalent for the Italian _argusie_. Our unfamiliar English
adjective ‘argute’ suggests that kind of pungent and witty conceits
which Castiglione is describing.
[Illustration:
CHARLES VIII OF FRANCE
1470-1498
]
Reduced from Alinari’s photograph (no. 2749) of the anonymous bronze
bust in the National Museum at Florence. See note 388.
Note 187 page 121. Bibbiena’s reputation as a wit was well established,
while Canossa seems also to have deserved the same epithet, if we may
judge from a story that has been preserved of him. The count had at Rome
a fine collection of silver plate, including a flagon with a lid in the
form of a tiger. A friend having borrowed this flagon and kept it for
two months, returned it only on demand and with the request that the
count lend him a certain salt-cellar, which had a crab for a cover.
Ludovico sent word that if the tiger, which is the swiftest of beasts,
had been two months coming home, the crab, being slower than all others,
would by the same rule be absent for years, and that on this account he
was unwilling to let it go.
Note 188 page 122. The allusion is of course to Bibbiena’s early
baldness.
Note 189 page 122. Cardinal GALEOTTO DELLA ROVERE, (born about 1477;
died 1508), was the favourite nephew of Julius II, being a son of the
pope’s sister Luchina by her first husband Gianfrancesco Franciotti, a
patrician of Lucca. Like all his mother’s other children, he was adopted
as of the della Rovere name. Having been made Bishop of Lucca, he was
created a cardinal on his uncle’s election as pope, appointed pontifical
vice-chancellor, and soon given a great number of benefices. Generous
and amiable, and a patron of artists and authors, he was much beloved at
the court of Urbino, as is shown by several documents, among which is a
letter by Emilia Pia mentioning two sonnets of his, in one of which
(written the day before his last illness) he foretold his early death.
Note 190 page 123. GIACOMO SANSECONDO, a noted musician who flourished
between the years 1493 and 1522 at the courts of Milan, Mantua, Ferrara,
Urbino and Rome, where he attained a wide celebrity in the pontificate
of Leo X. He seems to have ended his days in adversity, in some degree
relieved by his friend Castiglione, whose letters contain several
affectionate mentions of him.
Note 191 page 124. DEMOCRITUS, (_flor._ 400 B.C.), was the atomistic
philosopher of Abdera in Thrace. He possessed an ample fortune, and his
cheerful disposition led him to look on the bright and humourous side of
things, a fact taken by later writers to mean that he laughed at the
follies of mankind.
Note 192 page 125. The phrase ‘served her in love’ and the conventional
relation that it denoted, were drawn from mediæval life and literature
north of the Alps, and with some changes survived in Italy during the
Renaissance, until the _cavalier servente_ became in the 18th century a
recognized institution. Attendance upon the lady at church was a
characteristic feature of the cavalier’s service.
Note 193 page 126. PIUS III, Francesco Todeschini, (born 1439; died
1503), was a native of Siena and a nephew of the illustrious Æneas
Silvius Piccolomini (Pius II). The suddenness of his predecessor
Alexander VI's death took the sacred college by surprise, and they
unanimously elected their weakest member as pope. His short pontificate
of twenty-six days was filled with disturbances, and he was believed to
have died from poison.
Note 194 page 126. ANTONIO AGNELLO, (died after 1527), belonged to one
of the most noted families of Mantua, and seems to have been the son of
Giulio Agnello and Margarita Crema. Besides being an able man of affairs
(employed by the Palæologus rulers of Montferrat), he was a graceful
poet, and became the friend of Bembo and Castiglione.
Note 195 page 126. The poet CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS, (born about 87
B.C.), was a native of Verona and a friend of Cæsar and Cicero. His
extant works include one hundred and sixteen poems, lyric, epigrammatic,
elegiac, etc. His 69th Ode is a dialogue between the author and a door.