1516, Castiglione’s use of the present tense (‘that greatness where now
he is’) is inconsistent with the mention of Canossa as Bishop of Bayeux.
See note 9.
Francesco Maria della Rovere succeeded to the dukedom in 1508; see note
3.
Note 432 page 244. ELEANORA GONZAGA, (born about 1492; died 1543), was
the eldest daughter of the Marquess Gianfrancesco of Mantua and Isabella
d’Este. In 1505 Castiglione negotiated her union with Francesco Maria
della Rovere, but the marriage did not take place until Christmas Eve
1509, upon which occasion Bembo wrote to Federico Fregoso that he had
never seen a comelier, merrier or sweeter girl, and that her amiable
disposition and surprisingly precocious judgment won general admiration.
She seems to have maintained affectionate relations with her aunt and
predecessor (“my lady Duchess” of THE COURTIER), whose fame quite
outshone her own, and to have exhibited in after life no little strength
of character. She is said to have excluded, and even to have expelled,
great ladies of questionable morality from her court. Titian’s portrait
(1537) represents her in middle age, but his pictures, _La Bella_ and
_Das Mädchen im Pelz_, as well as several of his Venus heads, are
generally regarded as idealized presentations of her more youthful face.
Note 433 page 249. The Piazza d’Agone occupied the site of the ancient
_Circus Agonalis_, which derived its name from the _Agonalia_, a
festival held twice a year in honour of Janus. Before, during and long
after Castiglione’s time, it was a centre of festivals, amusements and
spectacles at the carnival season. It is now called the Piazza Navona.
Note 434 page 250. The famous Athenian commander CIMON, (died 449 B.C.),
was the son of the still more famous Miltiades. His victories repulsed
the last Persian aggressions and consolidated the Athenian supremacy.
Although an admirer of Spartan institutions, he seems to have been of a
somewhat indulgent disposition. The SCIPIO here referred to, is probably
Publius Cornelius Scipio the Elder, who was the victor over Hannibal and
died 183 B.C. LUCULLUS is cited earlier in THE COURTIER as an instance
of a soldier with studious tastes; see note 113.
Note 435 page 250. The Theban general and statesman EPAMINONDAS, (died
362 B.C.), is said by Plutarch to have enjoyed the instruction of the
Pythagorean philosopher LYSIS of Tarentum, who was driven out of Italy
in the persecution of his sect, and found refuge at Thebes.
Note 436 page 250. AGESILAUS was King of Sparta 398-361 B.C. Although
small and lame, he was the greatest Spartan commander, and became famous
for his victories against the Persian and Greek enemies of his country.
XENOPHON, historian, essayist and disciple of Socrates, was banished
from Athens about the time of Socrates’s death (399 B.C.), accompanied
Agesilaus into Asia, and wrote a panegyric upon him, regarded by Cicero
as more glorious than all the statues erected to kings.
The reverence and love of SCIPIO THE YOUNGER (about 185-129 B.C.) for
the Rhodian Stoic philosopher PANAÆTIUS (about 180-111 B.C.) is
frequently mentioned by Cicero, from whose _De Oratore_ Castiglione
seems to have taken this whole passage.
Note 437 page 252. In Greek mythology Epimetheus (Afterthought) and
Prometheus (Forethought) were sons of the Titan Iapetus and the ocean
nymph Clymene. Angered by a deceit practised upon him by Prometheus,
Zeus withheld from men the use of fire; but Prometheus stole fire from
heaven and brought it to earth in a hollow reed. For this offence he was
chained to a rock where an eagle preyed daily upon his liver (which grew
again in the night), until he was finally liberated by Hercules. As
compensation for the boon of fire, Zeus sent Pandora (the first woman,
endowed with beauty, cunning and other attributes designed to bring woe
to man) to be the wife of Epimetheus. Although warned by his brother,
Epimetheus accepted her, with the result that she set free the evils
which Prometheus had concealed in a box. In a later form of the legend,
she received from the gods a box containing the blessings of life, and
on her being moved by curiosity to open the box, all of them (save hope)
escaped and were lost.
Note 438 page 263. BIAS was born at Priene in Asia Minor, and lived in
the 6th century B.C. He was celebrated for his apothegms and reckoned
among the Seven Sages of Greece,—the other six being: Thales of Miletus,
Solon of Athens, Chilon of Sparta, Cleobulus of Rhodes, Periander of
Corinth, and Pittacus of Mitylene,—all of whom flourished about 600 B.C.
The fame of these seven men rested not upon their philosophy, as we use
the word, but upon their practical wisdom—the fruit of experience.
[Illustration:
GIANFRANCESCO GONZAGA
MARQUESS OF MANTUA
BROTHER OF “MY LADY DUCHESS”
1466-1519
]
Enlarged from a photograph, kindly furnished by Signer Alessandro Luzio
and made by his friend Signor Lanzoni, of a portrait attributed to
Francesco Bonsignori (1455-1519) and owned by the antiquary
Bressanelli of Mantua.
Note 439 page 264. CLEARCHUS, (died 353 B.C.), was for twelve years a
cruel tyrant, not of Pontus, but of Heraclea (the modern Eregli), a city
on the Black Sea about 140 miles east of Constantinople. He is said to
have been a pupil of both Plato and Isocrates, the latter of whom
represents him as a gentle youth.
Note 440 page 264. Of the dozen or more ancients known to have borne the
name ARISTODEMUS, none seem to fit precisely the description given in
the text, which is taken from a passage in Plutarch’s “On the Ignorant
Prince.” Plutarch may have had in mind a certain tyrant of Megalopolis
in the 3d century B.C.
Note 441 page 269. The reference here is to Book V of “The Republic.”
Note 442 page 270. Fregoso here declares for what has been called “that
Utopia of the 16th Century—the _Governo Misto_—a political invention
which fascinated the imagination of Italian statesmen much in the same
way as the theory of perpetual motion attracted scientific minds in the
last century.” (Symonds’s “Renaissance in Italy,” i, 306.) In this
regard the men of Castiglione’s time, men like Machiavelli and
Guicciardini, were only following Plato and Aristotle.
Note 443 page 270. The reference here is to the _Cyropædia_, i, 6.
Note 444 page 270. Castiglione seems to have in mind the game of _tavola
reale_, which is similar to our backgammon.
Note 445 page 273. Circe’s transformation of some of Ulysses’s
companions into swine is narrated in the tenth book of the Odyssey. In
Castiglione’s day the term “King of France” was used to signify the acme
of royal power.
Note 446 page 274. GIANFRANCESCO—more commonly called FRANCESCO—GONZAGA,
(born 1466; died 1519), was the eldest son of the Marquess Federico of
Mantua and Margarita of Bavaria, and a brother of “my lady Duchess.”
Having succeeded his father in 1484, he married (1490) Isabella d’Este,
to whom he had been betrothed at the age of sixteen. Like his ancestors
and most other petty Italian rulers of his time, he was at once
_condottiere_ and sovereign prince. He commanded the Italian troops
against Charles VIII, and although with an overwhelmingly superior force
he failed to block the retreat of the French at Fornovo, he treated that
disgraceful affair as a glorious victory, and even caused it to be
commemorated by Mantegna in a votive picture now in the Louvre. He
served successively as captain of the imperial troops in Italy, as
commander of Duke Ludovico Sforza’s army, as viceroy of Naples under
Louis XII, etc. He joined the League of Cambray and was taken prisoner
by the Venetians. In the general disorders that filled the period of his
reign, he and his more brilliant wife had the address to protect his
dominions from the ravages of war. Although, as Castiglione’s natural
lord, he was asked and gave his consent to the latter’s entry into the
Duke of Urbino’s court (1504), he seems to have continued to resent the
affair until Castiglione’s return (1516) to his service,—in which the
author remained when this part of the text was written. Castiglione’s
eulogy was far from undeserved, for to the Marquess’s munificence, no
less than to his consort’s taste and enthusiasm, must be ascribed the
lustre of their provincial court. Besides being a patron of art and
letters, he was also a successful breeder of horses for use both in war
and in racing.
Note 447 page 274. The duke is said to have had no small share in
planning the palace; his chief architect was one Luciano, a native of
Laurana in Dalmatia on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. The cost of
the structure was about £400,000 sterling. See, besides the authorities
cited in note 28, Luzio and Renier’s _Mantova e Urbino_, (Roux: Turin:
1893), p. 10, note 1.
Note 448 page 274. The ancient basilica of St. Peter’s had become
ruinous by 1450, but little was done towards rebuilding it until 1506,
when the execution of Bramante’s plan was begun with the solemn laying
of the first stone by Julius II on Sunday, 18 April. On the death of
Bramante, Raphael was put in charge of the work in 1514, as we have seen
(note 98), but, apparently owing to lack of funds, progress was slow
until 1534 when Michelangelo’s designs were substituted. The dome was
completed in 1590, and the church dedicated in 1626.
Note 449 page 274. This ‘street’ was designed by Bramante to be a kind
of triumphal way connecting the Vatican with the Belvedere pavilion. It
was to be bordered by palaces, courts, gardens, porticoes, terraces,
etc., but the death of Julius II led to the abandonment of the plan.
Note 450 page 274. Pozzuoli (the ancient Puteoli), situated seven miles
west of Naples, was originally a Greek city, but became one of the chief
commercial ports of the Roman Empire, and a resort of the patrician
class. It is noted for its ruins, especially those of a large
amphitheatre.
Baja (the ancient Baiæ), on the Gulf of Pozzuoli, was the chief Roman
watering place, famous for its luxury, and containing the villas of many
celebrated Romans. Its principal antiquities are ruins of baths.
Civita Vecchia lies on the coast about thirty-eight miles north-west of
Rome, and was anciently known as Centum Cellæ. The Emperor Trajan
(reigned 98-117 A.D.) converted it from a poor village into a great
seaport, and of his monuments some remains are still extant.
Porto was a Roman city near the mouths of the Tiber. In Castiglione’s
time it had become a marshy island. One of the earliest Italian
archæologists, Flavio Biondo, visited the site in 1451, and found there
many huge marble blocks ready for building and bearing quarry marks of
the imperial period. The Apollo Belvedere was discovered here in 1503.
Note 451 page 274. Almost the same phrase occurs in the well known
letter which Raphael (who had been appointed guardian of antiquities)
wrote to Leo X, urging the pontiff to avert the complete destruction of
“that little which remains of Italian glory and greatness in proof of
the worth and power of those divine minds.” Castiglione was long
supposed to be the author of the letter, but is now believed only to
have aided Raphael in its composition.
Note 452 page 274. Alexandria was founded by the conqueror in 332 B.C.
Bucephalia (founded 327 B.C.) was situated on the river Hydaspes (the
modern Jhelum), a branch of the Indus, about 120 miles north-west of
Lahore, and was named in honour of Alexander’s favourite horse, which
died there. Bucephalus (ox-headed) is supposed to have been a name given
to Thessalian horses, which were branded with a bull’s head.
Note 453 page 274. Mount Athos (6780 feet high) forms the extremity of
the easternmost peninsula of Chalcidice in Macedonia. During the Persian
invasion of Xerxes (480 B.C.) it was temporarily converted into an
island, and since the Middle Ages has been noted for its monasteries.
Both Vitruvius and Plutarch give an account of the project mentioned in
the text, and ascribe it to a Macedonian architect who appears under the
names, Dinocrates, Cheirocrates, and Stasicrates,—and who also planned
the city of Alexandria and was chosen to rebuild the great temple of
Artemis at Ephesus. The statue was to represent Alexander, who is said
to have abandoned the idea when he learned that the city to be placed in
the hand of the statue would be without territory and could be
provisioned only by sea,—saying that such a city would be like a child
that cannot grow for failure of its nurse’s milk.
Note 454 page 275. In Athenian legend PROCRUSTES was a cruel robber, who
had a bed upon which he tortured his captives by stretching those who
were too short and by cutting off the legs of those who were too long.
He was finally slain by the hero Theseus.
SCIRON was another legendary Attic robber, who compelled his victims to
wash his feet on the Scironian rocks near Athens, and then kicked them
into the sea where they served to fatten the turtles upon which he fed.
He also was slain by Theseus, and in the same manner in which he had
slain others.
In Roman myth CACUS was a gigantic son of Vulcan, living near the site
of Rome. He robbed Hercules of some of the cattle stolen from the
monster Geryon, and dragged them into his cave backwards, so that they
could not be tracked; but Hercules discovered them by their lowing, and
slew the thief.
DIOMED (not the Argive prince of the Iliad, but Ares’s mythical son, who
was king over the Bistones in Thrace) was slain by Hercules because he
was accustomed to feed his mares on human flesh.
ANTÆUS was a fabulous and gigantic wrestler of Libya, reputed to be the
son of Poseidon and Gæa, the Earth goddess. Being held aloft and thus
deprived of the miraculous strength derived from contact with his mother
earth, he was crushed to death by Hercules. GERYON was the mythical
three-headed king of Hesperia, the theft of whose cattle constituted the
tenth of the Twelve Labours of Hercules.
Note 455 page 275. “The crimes of the tyrants against their subjects and
the members of their own families had produced a correlative order of
crime in the people over whom they tyrannized. Cruelty was met by
conspiracy. Tyrannicide became honourable; and the proverb, ‘He who
gives his own life can take a tyrant’s,’ had worked itself into the
popular language.” (Symonds’s “Renaissance in Italy,” i, 154.) “The
study of the classics, especially of Plutarch, at this time as also
during the French Revolution, fired the imagination of patriots.” (Id.,
151, note 2.)
Note 456 page 275. Similar exhortations to a fresh crusade are of
frequent occurrence in Italian literature of this period, and were often
used by popes and princes as a cover for their selfish designs.
Note 457 page 275. The meaning obviously is that if they had not been
exiled, they never would have enjoyed their present prosperity. Plutarch
tells the story in four slightly varying forms.
Note 458 page 276. MONSEIGNEUR D’ANGOULÊME afterwards became Francis I
(see note 111). Even stronger evidence of the author’s admiration than
this and another passage (see page 57), is afforded by the Proem with
which he originally intended to preface the dialogues, but for which he
seems to have been led by political considerations to substitute the
introduction finally printed.
Note 459 page 276. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards Henry VIII, (born
1491; died 1547), was the younger son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of
York, and was educated for the church. Having succeeded his father in
1509, he married (in accordance with his parents’ wish) his elder
brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine, the youngest child of Ferdinand and
Isabella the Catholic. His accession was hailed with enthusiasm. Left
rich through his father’s avarice, he was generous, frank, handsome,
exceptionally robust, and an accomplished athlete and scholar. Good men
were delighted with the purity of his life, his gaiety pleased the
courtiers, and sober statesmen found in him a singular capacity for
business. Besides being a musician, he spoke Latin, French and Spanish,
and was very devout,—usually attending mass five times daily. Even as
late as 1521 he dedicated to the pope an anti-Lutheran tract on the
Seven Sacraments, and in return received the title of Defender of the
Faith. As an offset to the enormities of his later life, it is only just
to remember that he raised England to the rank of a great European
power, and that for twenty years he did nothing to mar the harmony of
his reign.
[Illustration:
HENRY VII OF ENGLAND
1457-1509
]
Reduced from Walker and Boutall’s photograph of an anonymous portrait
(no. 416) in the National Portrait Gallery at London. Painted on an
oak panel for one Herman Rinck in October 1505, the picture was once
owned by M. Julien at Le Mans, by M. Émile Barre at Paris, and by
Mr. E. J. Muller, from whom it was acquired by the Gallery in 1876.
Note 460 page 276. ‘His great father,’ i.e., Henry VII, (born 1457; died
1509), was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, (a son of Henry
V’s widow Catherine), and Margaret Beaufort, whose paternal grandfather
was an illegitimate half-brother of Henry IV. After the downfall of the
House of Lancaster and the death of the young York princes, Henry
succeeded in gathering a strong party, landed in England and wrested the
crown from Richard III, 1485. Soon afterwards, by his marriage to Edward
IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York, he united the hostile factions that had
so long harassed the kingdom. As a ruler he was avaricious, calculating,
and far from popular. He is said to have left a treasure of £2,000,000
sterling. The marriage of his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland
finally led (on the failure of his son’s issue) to the accession of the
Stuarts in the person of her grandson, James I.
Note 461 page 276. This is consistent with the earlier passage (see page
8) where Castiglione pretends to have been absent in England at the date
of the Courtier dialogues. An earlier MS. version here reads: “as we are
told by our friend Castiglione, who has just returned from England,”
which accords with what we have seen (note 23) to be the fact.
Note 462 page 276. DON CARLOS, afterwards the Emperor Charles V, (born
1500; died 1558), was the son of the Emperor Maximilian’s son Philip of
Austria, and of Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic.
Born and bred in the Low Countries, and educated at least partly under
the care of the future pope Adrian VI, he is said to have shown less
taste for study than for military exercises, and on his accession to the
Spanish throne in 1516, he was ignorant of the Spanish language. By
right of his grandmother Mary of Burgundy, he already held the
Netherlands. As representative of the house of Aragon, he was king of
Naples and Sicily. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519,
he inherited Austria, and (in spite of the rivalry of Francis I and the
intrigues of Leo X) was elected Emperor;—thus achieving, without a blow,
a dominion vaster than any in Europe since the time of Charlemagne.
In an earlier MS. version the text here reads: “Then messer Bernardo
Bibbiena said: ‘I do not think that any of those present, except myself,
have seen the prince Don Carlos, who, having recently lost such a father
as the king Don Philip was, has shown such courage and wisdom in this
great bereavement, that although he has not reached the tenth year of
his age, we may nevertheless regard him as competent to rule over all
his hereditary possessions, vast though they be,—and that the Empire of
Christendom (which men think will be in his hands) must grow not a
little in power and dignity.’”
Note 463 page 279. FEDERICO GONZAGA, the first Duke of Mantua, (born
1500; died 1540), was the son of the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga and
Isabella d’Este. At the age of ten he spent some time as the
hostage-guest of Julius II at Rome, where he seems to have been
generally caressed. Raphael is known to have introduced the boy’s face
into one of the Vatican frescoes, and a little later to have painted his
portrait. Having succeeded his father as marquess in 1519, he waged war
for Leo X against the French. In 1527 he joined the league of Italian
princes against Charles V, but went over to the Emperor’s side two years
later, and was created Duke of Mantua. In 1531 he married Margarita
Paleologus. Both Giulio Romano and Benvenuto Cellini were in his employ.
Note 464 page 280. These lines were written after Ottaviano Fregoso’s
election as Doge of Genoa; see note 11.
Note 465 page 281. In an earlier MS. version, my lady Emilia continues:
“‘And even if it were so, I do not see how he is on that account set
above the Court Lady.’ The Magnifico Giuliano said: ‘We regard the Lady
as the equal of the Courtier, and according to my lord Ottaviano, the
Courtier is superior to the Prince; therefore the Court Lady comes to be
superior to the Prince.’”
Note 466 page 284. Phœnix appears in the Iliad as appointed by Peleus to
superintend the education of the latter’s son Achilles.
Note 467 page 284. ARISTOTLE was summoned (342 B.C.) to undertake the
education of Alexander, who was then thirteen years old, and whom no one
had thus far been able to control. The philosopher’s training continued
uninterruptedly for four years, included instruction in poetry,
rhetoric, philosophy, physics, and medicine,—and is said to have had
beneficial effect upon the future conqueror’s character.
Note 468 page 285. Stagira lay on the easterly side of the Chalcidic
peninsula. Philip had destroyed it in his Olynthian campaign of 348
B.C., but rebuilt it at Aristotle’s request and caused a gymnasium to be
erected there, in a shady grove, for the use of the philosopher and his
pupils, among whom was Alexander.
Note 469 page 285. Plutarch expressly affirms that Alexander’s policy,
of uniting all the nations under his sway into a single people, was not
founded on Aristotle’s advice, as indeed an examination of the latter’s
political theories would seem to prove.
Note 470 page 285. The Bactrians were an Aryan people dwelling on the
upper Oxus, in what is now Afghanistan. They were conquered in 327 B.C.
by Alexander, who married Roxana, the daughter of one of their princes.
In ancient times the inhabitants of northern and eastern Europe and Asia
were called Scythians.
Note 471 page 285. CALLISTHENES was a cousin and fellow pupil of
Alexander’s. On Aristotle’s recommendation, Alexander took Callisthenes
with him on his Asiatic expedition of 334 B.C., but, exasperated by his
young kinsman’s plain-spoken disapproval of his conduct, had
Callisthenes put to death.
[Illustration:
DON CARLOS
PRINCE OF SPAIN
1500-1558
]
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 43.099) of the portrait, in the
Borghese collection at Rome, attributed to Bernhard Strigel
(1460?-1528).
Note 472 page 285. DIO, (born about 408; died about 354 B.C.), was an
austere Syracusan philosopher who became an ardent disciple of Plato on
the occasion of the latter’s short residence at the court of Dionysius
the Elder, and later induced the younger DIONYSIUS also to invite Plato
to Syracuse, where, however, the philosopher was unable long to check
the tyrant’s profligacy.
Note 473 page 287. Bembo was thirty-six years old at the date of the
Courtier dialogues.
Note 474 page 288. In Book III of Bembo’s _Gli Asolani_ (1505), a hermit
discourses to Lavinello on the beauty of mystical Christian love. Bembo
had a villa called Lavinello, near Padua.
Note 475 page 288. Much of the following disquisition seems to be drawn
from Plato and from Bembo’s _Gli Asolani_. As Bembo is known to have
revised THE COURTIER before publication, we may assume that he was
content with the form and substance of the discourse here attributed to
him.
Note 476 page 294. STESICHORUS was a Greek lyric poet who lived about
630-550 B.C., and was supposed to have been miraculously stricken blind
after writing an attack upon Helen of Troy. His true name is said to
have been Tisias, and to have been changed to Stesichorus because he was
the first to establish a chorus for singing to the harp. Fragments of
his verse have survived.