died 1455), was a native of Pisa, whence his family were exiled in his
infancy. Although his father died when he was nine years old, and in
spite of great poverty, he contrived to study at the University of
Bologna. Later he served as tutor in the Albizzi and Strozzi families at
Florence, thus earning enough money to return and take his theological
degree at Bologna. He then entered the service of the archbishop of the
latter city, whom he accompanied to Florence, and there became a friend
of Cosimo de' Medici and a member of the literary society of the place.
In 1443 he was made Bishop of Bologna, and four years later was elected
pope, an elevation that he owed solely to his reputation for learning
and to the comparatively small esteem in which the office was then held.
The humanists were delighted at the election of one of their own number.
As pope, he devoted his revenues to maintaining a splendid court, to the
rebuilding of the fortifications and palaces of Rome, and to the
enrichment of scholars. During his pontificate the city became a
work-shop of erudition. He founded the Vatican Library, for which he
collected five thousand volumes, and the list prepared by him for Cosimo
de' Medici to use in beginning the Library of San Marco, was followed
also by Duke Federico of Urbino. He was a small, ugly man.
_Nihil Papa Valet_, ‘the Pope is good for nothing.’
Note 197 page 127. I.e., in the second tale of the Eighth Day.
Note 198 page 127. Calandrino is an unfortunate and very amusing
character appearing in the third and sixth tales of the Eighth Day and
in the fifth tale of the Ninth Day.
Note 199 page 128. Niccolò Campani, called STRASCINO, (born 1478; died
between 1522 and 1533), was an excellent actor of Sienese rustic
comedies and farces, and the author of verses and of a Lament that was
very popular in the 16th century. He frequented the court of Leo X, and
several of Castiglione’s letters (1521) tell of efforts to secure the
actor’s services for the Marquess of Mantua, and of furnishing him with
twenty-five ducats, a horse, and a papal pass, for the purpose.
Note 200 page 128. ‘This place,’ i.e., Urbino.
[Illustration:
POPE NICHOLAS V
TOMMASO PARENTUCELLI
1398-1455
]
Enlarged from a coloured cast of a medal, in the King’s Library at the
British Museum, by Andrea Guazzalotti (1435-1495). See Armand’s _Les
Médailleurs Italiens_, i, 49, no. 6.
Note 201 page 129. The reader will hardly need to be reminded that the
great Roman orator was often spoken of as Tullius or Tully rather than
as Cicero.
Note 202 page 129. When THE COURTIER was expurgated by Antonio
Ciccarelli in 1584 (see LIST OF EDITIONS), Dante’s name was here
substituted for that of St. Paul. The word _becco_ (rendered ‘he-goat’)
has long been used by the Italians as a term of jocose reproach applied
to a man whose wife is unfaithful.
Note 203 page 129. Duke ERCOLE I D'ESTE, (born 1431; died 1505), was the
legitimate son of Duke Niccolò III and Rizzarda di Saluzzo. Bred at the
Neapolitan court, he became Duke of Ferrara on the death of his
half-brother Borso (see note 149) in 1471. In 1473 he married Eleanora
of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand I of Naples. Among the six children of
this union were: Isabella, who became Marchioness of Mantua (see note
397); Beatrice, who became Duchess of Milan (see note 398); Alfonso, who
married Lucrezia Borgia and succeeded his father as duke; and the
Cardinal Ippolito already mentioned (see note 64). Although his reign
was far from peaceful, his court was noted for its luxury and for the
brilliancy of art and letters with which it was adorned. He was an
especial patron of the theatre, no less than five comedies of Plautus
being performed during the wedding festivities of his son Alfonso in
1502. On the other hand, he maintained relations with Savonarola, who
was a native of Ferrara.
Note 204 page 130. Castellina was a small walled town in the Chianti
hills, which was held as a Florentine outpost against Siena. The siege
referred to in the text took place in 1478, when the place capitulated
to the Neapolitan and papal troops after holding out for forty days.
Duke of Calabria was the title regularly borne by the heir of each
Aragonese king of Naples. The personage here meant must have been
Alfonso the Younger (see note 31).
Note 205 page 130. While the meaning is not free from doubt, the point
of the story seems to lie in the absurdity of the Florentine’s supposing
that after being discharged from a cannon, a projectile would retain any
poison previously applied to it.
Note 206 page 130. It will be remembered that Bembo was a Venetian,
while Bibbiena’s birthplace was a Florentine town.
Note 207 page 130. This war lasted from 1494 to 1509, and proved ruinous
to both sides. Castiglione’s use of the past tense in speaking of it
here doubtless arose from the fact that he was writing several years
after the date that he assigns to the dialogues.
Note 208 page 131. Pistoia and Prato were two small cities which lay to
the north-west of Florence and were subject to its rule. Modern issues
of “fiat” money are but a slight modification of the method proposed by
the worthy Florentine.
Note 209 page 131. Bucentaur was the name of the state galley of the
Venetian Republic, used (among other occasions) in the symbolic ceremony
of wedding the Adriatic, which was enjoined upon the Venetians by
Alexander III (pope 1159-1181) to commemorate their victory over the
fleet of Frederick Barbarossa. On each Ascension Day a ring was dropped
from the Bucentaur into the Adriatic, with the words, “we espouse thee,
sea, in token of true and lasting dominion.” The vessel bore the image
of a centaur as figure-head. Of the last of several successive
Bucentaurs (demolished in 1824), a few fragments are preserved in the
Arsenal at Venice. In the 15th and 16th centuries the name was applied
to state vessels of ceremony elsewhere. By some the word is supposed to
be derived from the Greek βοῦς (ox) and κένταυρος (centaur); by others
it is regarded as a corruption of the Latin _ducentorum_ (of two hundred
oars), or of the Italian _buzino d’oro_ (golden bark).
[Illustration:
GIROLAMO DONATO
1457-1511
]
Enlarged from a photograph, courteously furnished by the Director of the
Municipal Art Museum at Milan, of a small anonymous bas-relief
belonging to the Taverna collection. See Armand’s _Les Médailleurs
Italiens_, ii, 226, no. 11.
Note 210 page 133. This tale, not unworthy of Munchausen, may have been
suggested to Castiglione by a passage in one of the minor works of
Plutarch, who relates that Antiphanes (a friend of Plato) said that “he
visited a certain city where words froze as soon as spoken, by reason of
the great cold; and later, sounds uttered in winter melted in the spring
and were heard by the inhabitants.” Although Plutarch represents the
story as told in illustration of the way in which “those who came as
young men to listen to Plato’s talk, understood it only long afterwards,
when they had grown old,” it is worth noting that an Antiphanes, of
Berga in Thrace, is known as a writer on the marvellous and incredible.
Note 211 page 133. Vasco da Gama rounded the southern extremity of
Africa and reached India nine years before the date of the Courtier
dialogues.
Note 212 page 133. This must have been Emanuel I, who was King of
Portugal from 1495 until his death in 1521, and who promoted the
expeditions of da Gama and other Portuguese navigators.
Note 213 page 134. Taffety was a very light soft silk fabric. There is
extant a letter of Bembo’s (1541), in which the aged cardinal orders two
cushions filled with swan’s down and covered with crimson taffety. The
word is said to be derived from the Persian _taftah_ (twisted, woven).
Taft is the name of a town in central Persia.
Note 214 page 134. ANNIBAL PALEOTTO, (died 1516), belonged to an ancient
and honourable Bolognese family (with which Castiglione is known to have
been on friendly terms), and was the son of an eminent jurist, Vincenzo
Paleotto, who died in 1498. Leo X made Annibale a senator of Bologna in
1514, the brief being written by Bembo.
Note 215 page 135. Giacopo di Nino was BISHOP OF POTENZA from 1506 until
1521, and seems to have been a butt for the ridicule of Leo X's court.
Note 216 page 136. An earlier version of this passage reads: “And of
this kind was what Rinaldo in the _Morgante_ said to the Giant: ‘Where
do you hang your spectacles?’” The _Morgante Maggiore_ is a
serio-burlesque romantic poem by Luigi Pulci (1431-1487), introducing,
among other characters of mediæval romance, Rinaldo, his cousin Orlando,
and the giant Morgante.
Note 217 page 136. GALEOTTO MARZI DA NARNI, (born about 1427; died about
1490), a singular example of the adventurer-humanist, studied at the
universities of Padua and Bologna, and taught at the latter place. He
twice visited the court of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, for whom he
wrote a book on jests. He was something of an astrologer and also the
author of a work on chiromancy. Being accused of heresy, he was
imprisoned at Venice in 1477, and condemned to make public recantation
in the Piazzetta with a crown of devils on his head. He is said to have
been learned and witty. The story given in the text became almost
proverbial.
Note 218 page 136. The present form (_bisticcio_) of _bischisso_
(rendered ‘playing on words’) has a meaning somewhat different from that
indicated in the text,—being the term applied to a succession of words
the similarity of whose sound renders them difficult to pronounce, e.g.,
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
Note 219 page 136. At this time the general use of family names was
comparatively recent, and their form was somewhat variable. Thus, such
surnames as Pio and Fregoso were treated as still being, what they
doubtless originally were, merely personal epithets, and so were given
the feminine form (Pia, Fregosa) when applied to women. The adjective
_pia_ means dutiful, pious, kind, while _impia_ or _empia_ of course
means the reverse.
Note 220 page 136. “The greatest of the Furies is my bedfellow.” With a
change of one syllable in the Latin, this becomes _Furiarum maxima juxta
accubat_ (“The greatest of the Furies lies hard by”), Æneid, V, 605-6.
Note 221 page 136. GERONIMO DONATO, (born 1457; died 1511), was a native
of Venice, where he held many public offices, besides being sent abroad
as ambassador of the Republic, especially to the courts of Alexander VI
and Julius II. He also enjoyed no small fame as a cultivator of science,
art and letters (particularly Greek and theology). The incident narrated
in the text occurred during his embassy to Alexander, to whom on another
occasion he made a far wittier retort. Being jestingly asked by the pope
where Venice got its right of lordship over the Adriatic, he answered:
“Let your Holiness show me the title deed to the Patrimony of St. Peter,
and on the back of it will be found inscribed the grant to the Venetians
of their dominion over the Adriatic.”
Note 222 page 136. In the Roman Church a “station” (_stasione_) is a
church where indulgences are granted at certain seasons. In earlier
times such churches were visited in solemn procession, which afterwards
came to be regarded as an opportunity for social recreation. The word is
used also to designate the indulgences earned by visiting, on appointed
days, many churches founded by popes.
Note 223 page 136. “As many stars as heaven, so many girls hath thy
Rome,” Ovid’s _Ars Amandi_, I, 59.
Note 224 page 136. “As many kids as the pasture, so many satyrs hath thy
Rome,” is as close an English rendering as Donato’s Latin will bear.
Note 225 page 136. MARCANTONIO DELLA TORRE belonged to an ancient noble
family of Verona, was a famous anatomist, and is said to have included
Leonardo da Vinci among his pupils. He died at the age of thirty, and
was highly praised for his learning. His father Geronimo lectured on
medicine at Padua.
Pietro Barozzi became ARCHBISHOP OF PADUA in 1487, and died in 1507.
Bandello (who had read THE COURTIER in MS.) relates the same story in
somewhat wittier form, but gives the name of the prelate as Gerardo
Landriano, Bishop of Como.
Note 226 page 137. St. Luke, xvi, 2.
Note 227 page 137. St. Matthew, xxv, 20.
Note 228 page 137. PROTO DA LUCCA was one of the most famous buffoons
who enlivened the pontifical court at the beginning of the 16th century.
If, as seems probable, the incident in question occurred in January 1506
(when Bernardino Lei died and was succeeded by Antonio da Castriani as
Bishop of Cagli, a town near Urbino), the pope in question must have
been Julius II, to whom the epithet ‘very grave’ would be entirely
appropriate.
Note 229 page 138. The play is upon the word ‘office’ in its two
meanings of post or employment, and breviary or prayer-book. In the
latter sense, the ‘full office’ contained the psalms, lessons,
etc.,—while the ‘Madonna’s office’ was much abbreviated.
Note 230 page 138. GIOVANNI CALFURNIO, (born 1443; died 1503), was a
gentle and laborious humanist, born at or near Bergamo, but long
resident at Padua, where he held the chair of rhetoric. His chief work
consisted in correcting and commenting upon the texts of Latin poets.
The ‘another man at Padua’ was probably Raffaele Regio (a fellow
professor with Calfurnio), who publicly ridiculed his colleague as the
son of a charcoal-burner. Calfurnio seems to have published very little;
on his death he bequeathed his library to the church of San Giovanni in
Verdara, from which his tomb and portrait relief have recently been
removed to a cloister of the monastery of St. Antony at Padua.
[Illustration:
GIOVANNI CALFURNIO
Died 1503
]
From a photograph, specially made by Agostini, of the anonymous tomb
relief removed from the Church of San Giovanni di Verdara to a
cloister in the Monastery of Sant'Antonio at Padua.
Note 231 page 138. Tommaso Inghirami, “FEDRA,” (born 1470; died 1516),
was a native patrician of Volterra (a town about midway between Pisa and
Siena), being the son of Paolo Inghirami and Lucrezia Barlettani. Having
passed his early boyhood at Florence, he removed to Rome in 1483, where
he played the part of _Phædra_ in Seneca’s tragedy _Hippolytus_ (upon
which Racine founded his _Phèdre_) with such success that the name clung
to him for life. The play being interrupted by an accident to the
scenery, he filled the interval by improvising Latin verses for the
entertainment of the audience. The performance took place in the
mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, which was afterwards converted into
the fortress known as the Castle of St. Angelo. Tommaso was employed by
Alexander VI in diplomatic affairs, crowned poet by the Emperor
Maximilian I, and made a canon of the Lateran and of the Vatican. He
seems to have been connected with the Vatican Library as early as 1505,
and became its prefect. Although Erasmus called him the Cicero of his
time, his fame now rests rather on his portrait in the Pitti Gallery at
Florence, than on his works.
Note 232 page 138. CAMILLO PALEOTTO was a brother of the Annibal
Paleotto already mentioned (see note 214). On his father’s death in
1498, he went to Rome, where he became the friend of Federico Fregoso,
Bembo and Castiglione. He taught rhetoric at Bologna and was Chancellor
of the Senate there. There also he is said to have died in 1530,
although a letter of Bembo’s speaks of him in 1518 as then already dead.
Note 233 page 138. ANTONIO PORCARO, or PORZIO, belonged to a noble Roman
family, and was a brother of the Camillo Porcaro mentioned in THE
COURTIER (at page 140). He had also a twin brother Valerio, whom he so
closely resembled that the two were often mistaken, one for the other,
as Bibbiena says in the preface to his _Calandra_,—the plot of which is
founded upon a similar resemblance. Little more is known of Antonio than
that he suffered some grievous wrong from Alexander VI.
Note 234 page 138. Regarding GIANTOMMASO GALEOTTO, Cian furnishes no
information. The Spanish annotator, Fabié, adds Marcio (Marzio) to his
name,—thus apparently treating him as identical with the Galeotto da
Narni mentioned above at page 136,—and says that he “died, by reason of
his great corpulence, from a fall from his horse, being in the train of
Charles VIII of France, when the latter entered Milan.” As “My lord
Prefect” was only four years old when Charles entered Milan in 1494,
this identification seems clearly erroneous.
Note 235 page 139. FILIPPO BEROALDO, (born 1472; died 1518), belonged to
a noble Bolognese family. Having been one of his famous uncle Filippo
the elder’s most brilliant pupils in the classics, he was at the age of
twenty-six made professor of literature at Bologna, and afterwards at
Rome. In 1511 he successfully defended Duke Francesco Maria of Urbino
against the charge of murdering Cardinal Alidosi. Instead of seeking to
extenuate the deed, as done in heat and under strong provocation, he
boldly justified it on the ground that his client was the instrument
chosen by the Almighty to rid the world of a monster of wickedness, and
eloquently appealed to the tribunal to spare a hero whose promise of
future usefulness was precious to Italy. Beroaldo was secretary to
Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and on the latter’s election as pope, he
was made Provost of the Roman Academy, while at Inghirami’s death he was
made Librarian of the Vatican, as a reward for editing the recently
discovered first five books of Tacitus’s Annals. He died at Rome, partly
(it is said) from vexation at not being paid the stipend of his office.
Bembo wrote his epitaph. Although he was celebrated for erudition and
eloquence rather than for authorship, he left three books of odes, and
one of epigrams,—in Latin.
Note 236 page 139. The pupil obviously used the phrase in its low Latin
meaning, “Master, God give you good evening.” Beroaldo jocosely accepted
it in its classical meaning, “Master, God give you good, late.”
Note 237 page 139. “Evil to thee, soon.”
Note 238 page 139. DIEGO DE CHIGNONES, (died 1512), was a Spanish
cavalier, of whom Branthôme writes as follows: “This Great Captain had
for lieutenant, with a company of one hundred men-at-arms, Don Diego de
Quignones, who supported him in his combats and victories, and was truly
a good and brave lieutenant to him. After the Great Captain’s death, he
had sole command of his company of an hundred men-at-arms, as he well
deserved to have. He commanded it at the battle of Ravenna, where he
died like a brave and valiant captain. And if all had behaved as he did
(say the old Spaniards), the victory that the French won there would
have cost them dearer than it did, although it cost them dear.”
Note 239 page 139. Don Gonzalvo Hernand y Aguilar, better known as
Consalvo de Cordoba, or THE GREAT CAPTAIN, (born 1443; died 1515), was a
native of Montilla, near Cordova, and belonged to an ancient family of
Spanish grandees. His father’s name was Pietro, and his mother’s was
Elvira Errea. Bred to war in early youth and knighted on the field of
battle at the age of sixteen, he followed the fortunes of Ferdinand the
Catholic, and took an active part in the conquest of Granada. In 1494 he
was sent to Italy to aid Ferdinand II of Naples against Charles VIII,
won a long succession of victories over the French, and was finally made
Constable and Viceroy of Naples. Later, Ferdinand the Catholic,
listening to slanderous reports regarding him, deprived him of office,
and in 1507 recalled him to Spain, where he died in disgrace. His good
qualities were much admired by Castiglione, who had fought against him,
but his fame was not unstained by acts of cruelty and bad faith, which
(it is fair to say) were common at the time and seem to have been
committed only against his master’s foes. Giorgione is said to have
painted his portrait at Venice, and a life of him by Paolo Giovio was
published at Florence in 1552.
[Illustration:
CONSALVO DE CORDOBA
“THE GREAT CAPTAIN”
1443-1515
]
Enlarged from a negative, specially made by Alinari through the courtesy
of Professor I. B. Supino, of Annibal’s medal in the National Museum
at Florence. See Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, i, 176.
Note 240 page 139. The Spanish word _vino_ means not only “wine” but
also “he came.” In pronunciation it would be easily mistaken for _Y-no_.
_Y no lo conocistes_ is the Spanish for “And thou knewest Him not.”
Compare St. John, i, 11.
Note 241 page 139. The word _marano_ (here rendered “heretic”) meant a
renegade Moor, and is said by Symonds to have been generally used in
Italy at this time as a term of reproach against Spaniards.
Note 242 page 139. GIACOMO SADOLETO, (born 1477; died 1547), was a
native of Modena and the son of a noted jurist, Giovanni Sadoleto. He
studied Latin at Ferrara and Greek at Rome, where he settled in the
pontificate of Alexander VI and acquired a great reputation for
learning. Leo X appointed him a secretary at the same time with Bembo,
(who shared with him the name of being the best Latinist of the day),
and soon made him Bishop of Carpentras, a town fifteen miles north-east
of Avignon. He was secretary also to Clement VII, to whom he boldly
declared that the sack of Rome (1527) was inflicted by God as a
punishment for human wickedness. Paul III created him a cardinal in
1536. A sincerely pious man, he was conscious of the evils of the Church
and did not escape suspicion of heresy. He was a close friend of
Vittoria Colonna, and the Roman Academy often met at his house on the
Quirinal. Besides Latin poems (one of which, on the newly discovered
Laocoön group, made him famous), his works include commentaries on the
Psalms and the Epistle to the Romans, and a Latin exhortation to the
princes and people of Germany against Lutheran heresies. Although far
from rich, he was very charitable, especially in providing young men of
his flock with the means of education.
Note 243 page 139. LUDOVICO DA SAN BONIFACIO is identified by Cian as a
Paduan, who held the offices of prothonotary and private chamberlain
under Leo X, successfully disputed with Bembo the possession of a
canonry at Padua in 1514, was sent to different courts by Leo, and died
at Padua in 1545.
ERCOLE RANGONE, (died 1572), belonged to an illustrious family of
Modena, and achieved some note as a soldier and diplomatist, having
commanded the Florentine forces in 1529, and served as Ferrarese
ambassador to France, Spain and Germany. He was esteemed by Castiglione,
of whose wife Ippolita Torello he seems to have been a kinsman.
The COUNT OF PEPOLI probably belonged to a noble Bolognese family of
that name, but has not been identified with certainty.
Note 244 page 140. Of SALLAZA DALLA PEDRADA nothing seems to be known
beyond the mention of him in the text.
Note 245 page 140. PALLA DEGLI STROZZI, (born 1372; died 1462), was a
wealthy and cultivated Florentine patrician. Having honourably filled
high offices of state, he was banished by Cosimo de' Medici in 1434 for
ten years to Padua. Himself an enthusiastic scholar and patron of
classical studies, he caused many Greek MSS. to be brought into Italy
(including works of Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch), and was the first
Italian to collect books for the express purpose of founding a public
library, in the execution of which design he was prevented by his exile
from anticipating Cosimo. He employed learned Greeks to read to him, and
was instrumental in inducing Chrysoloras to teach at Florence,—an
engagement regarded by Symonds as having secured the future of Hellenic
study in Europe. The story narrated of him in the text is elsewhere told
of an exile belonging to the Albizzi family.