Chapter XX: Part 20

Note 396 page 204. ISABELLA OF ARAGON, (born 1470; died 1524), was the daughter of Alfonso II of Naples and Ippolita Maria, daughter of the first Sforza duke of Milan. In 1489 she made a splendid entry into Milan as the bride of her own cousin Giangaleazzo Sforza, whose rights as duke were gradually usurped by his uncle Ludovico il Moro. This usurpation has been regarded as partly due to the ambition of Ludovico’s young wife, Beatrice d’Este (see note 398), who could not endure the precedence rightfully belonging to Isabella. As has been seen, it was to protect himself against the wrath of Isabella’s father and grandfather, that Ludovico invited Charles VIII into Italy as his ally. When Charles reached Pavia, he had to endure the pathetic spectacle of his forlorn cousin Giangaleazzo (they were sisters’ sons) in prison, and to hear the piteous pleadings of the beautiful Isabella, who fell at his feet and besought him to have mercy on her husband. Her appeal was withstood, and Ludovico of course had no scruple in setting aside the rights of her infant children. Fresh trials awaited her in her native country, to which she returned in 1500, and from which her family had been expelled.

Note 397 page 204. ISABELLA D’ESTE, (born 1474; died 1539), was the oldest child of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara and Eleanora of Aragon. Having had Mario Equicola as preceptor, she married the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga (see note 446) in 1490, her early betrothal to whom prevented her from becoming the wife of Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan, who soon afterwards married her sister Beatrice. At Mantua she continued her literary and artistic training, and her court became one of the brightest and most active centres of Italian culture. The chief poets and painters of the time laboured for her or were her friends. Being for years in her husband’s service, Castiglione knew her closely, maintained a frequent exchange of letters with her, and is only one of many who praise her beauty, her intellect, and her moral qualities; she may be regarded as the most splendid incarnation of the Renaissance ideal of woman. Her long friendship with her sister-in-law, “My lady Duchess,” has been already mentioned. Some interesting details have survived as to her manner of ordering a picture. Having chosen a subject, she had it set forth in writing by some humanist of her court. These specifications were then given to the painter chosen for the purpose, and he was furnished with minute directions as to the placing of the figures and the distribution of light, and required to make a preliminary sketch. As the painting was often intended for a specific space, she took great care to secure the exact dimensions desired, by providing two pieces of ribbon to show the precise height and breadth of the picture. Isabella’s brilliant career, and especially her close relations with the chief men of her day and her weighty influence upon contemporary politics, are the subject of many scholarly volumes and interesting articles written jointly by Alessandro Luzio of Mantua and Rodolfo Renier of Turin.

ISABELLA OF ARAGON
DUCHESS OF MILAN
1470-1524
]

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 Giancristoforo Romano (1465?-1512). See Armand’s _Les
Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 54, no. 1.

Note 398 page 204. BEATRICE D’ESTE, (born 1475; died 1497), married Ludovico Sforza, Duke Regent of Milan, in the same year (1491) in which his niece Anna Sforza married Beatrice’s brother Alfonso, the future husband of Lucrezia Borgia. Younger, apparently less beautiful, and certainly less accomplished than her sister Isabella, Beatrice encouraged her husband’s patronage of art and letters, and took part in his turbid political schemes. It will perhaps never be determined precisely to what extent she was responsible for his treatment of his young nephew and of the latter’s wife (see note 396), and for the disasters to Italy that ensued, but she is known to have exercised a great ascendency over her husband’s mind, and he is said to have spent at her tomb the last night before his final capture and downfall. After the expulsion of the French from Italy in 1512, her sons Maximilian and Francesco Maria successively held the duchy for a time, until it passed into the hands of Spain in 1535. For an account of her life, the reader is referred to Mrs. Henry Ady’s recently published “Beatrice d’Este, Duchess of Milan; a Study of the Renaissance,” which owes much to the labours of Luzio and Renier.

Note 399 page 205. ELEANORA OF ARAGON, (born 1450; died 1493), was the elder sister of the Beatrice who married Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. A projected union with Ludovico Sforza (who afterwards married her daughter) having been abandoned, she became in 1473 the wife of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara, and bore him two daughters and four sons. Other contemporary accounts confirm the praise bestowed upon her by Castiglione, and show her to have been a woman of rare merit, manly courage and enlightened culture. Fond of music, and herself a player upon the harp, she seems to have been a discriminating patroness of art and letters, and at the same time to have taken an active share in the serious cares of government, especially when her husband was absent or disabled. A pleasant glimpse of her character is gained from a letter written by her to the duke’s treasurer on behalf of a certain Neapolitan engineer, who had rendered important services but had fallen ill and was in want. “You will see what this poor man’s needs are. You know with what devotion he has served us, nor are you ignorant who sent him to us,—a circumstance worthy of consideration. It would ill become us so to treat him in his sickness as to give him cause for complaint against us. You must know what his pay is. See, then, what can be done, and arrange for helping him.” She did not live to witness the downfall of her family in Naples.

Note 400 page 205. ISABELLA DEL BALZO, (died 1533), was a daughter of the Prince of Altamura, and the wife of Federico III of Naples (see note 401). When her husband lost his crown in 1501, she (together with the faithful Sannazaro) accompanied him to France, and shared his exile there until his death in 1504. Being, by the terms of a treaty between Louis XII and Ferdinand the Catholic, compelled to leave France, she and her four children took refuge, first with her sister Antonia at Gazzuolo, and then at Ferrara, where she was kindly treated and maintained by her husband’s nephew Duke Alfonso d’Este. Here she spent the last twenty-five years of her life, but at times in such poverty that when Julius II placed Ferrara under the ban of the Church, she obtained special permission to have religious services performed in her house, on the plea that she had not the means wherewith to leave the city.

Note 401 page 205. FEDERICO III, (born 1452; died 1504), was a son of Ferdinand I of Naples, a younger brother of Alfonso II, and an uncle of his immediate predecessor, Ferdinand II. Having taken part in the weak resistance offered to Charles VIII’s invasion of Naples in 1494, he became king on the early death of his nephew in October 1496, and seems to have tried to keep aloof from the turbulent schemes in which Alexander VI sought to involve him. After another vain attempt to withstand the invasion of Louis XII, and having been shamefully betrayed by the Emperor Maximilian and Ferdinand the Catholic, to both of whom he had appealed for aid, he retired with his wife and children to the island of Ischia (which furnished refuge at the same time to his widowed sister Beatrice, ex-Queen of Hungary, and to his widowed niece Isabella, ex-Duchess of Milan), ceded his crown to Louis XII in exchange for 30,000 ducats and the Countship of Maine, and spent the last three years of his life in France.

Note 402 page 205. Federico’s eldest son Ferdinand, DUKE OF CALABRIA, was besieged in Taranto during the Franco-Spanish invasion which resulted in his father’s downfall. On a sworn promise to set him free, he surrendered to the Great Captain (see note 239), but was treacherously detained and sent as a prisoner to Spain, where he was treated by Ferdinand the Catholic with almost royal honours. He continued to reside in Spain, and on the death of his mother in 1533, he was joined at Valencia by his two sisters.

Note 403 page 205. The reference here is probably to the siege of Pisa by the Florentines in 1499, which was finally abandoned owing in part at least to the bravery of the Pisan women. Castiglione himself was the author of some Latin verses celebrating an incident of the siege.

FEDERICO III OF NAPLES
1452-1504
]

Enlarged from a cast, courteously furnished by Professor I. B. Supino,
of an anonymous medal in the National Museum at Florence. See
Armand’s _Les Médailleurs Italiens_, ii, 59.

Note 404 page 205. TOMYRIS was in fact queen of the Massagetæ, who were a nomadic people allied to the Scythians and dwelt north-east of the Caspian Sea. Herodotus relates that Cyrus the Great sent her an offer of marriage, and on being refused, invaded her kingdom and captured her son, but was finally defeated and slain, 529 B.C. The ARTEMISIA referred to in the text is probably not the Queen of Halicarnassus (who fought on the Persian side at Salamis in 480 B.C.), but rather the sister-consort and successor of King Mausolus of Caria, a state on the western coast of Asia Minor. On her husband’s death in 352 B.C., she reigned two years until she pined away for grief. The monument, Mausoleum, erected by her to his memory at Halicarnassus, was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world—the others being: the Egyptian pyramids, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the walls and hanging gardens of Babylon, Phidias’s statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Colossus at Rhodes, and the lighthouse at Alexandria. ZENOBIA, an Arab by birth, was the second wife of Odenathus, King of Palmyra, which lay to the east of Syria. On the death of her husband, about 266 A.D., she acted as regent for her sons and seems to have shown great talent for war as well as for the arts of wise administration; but in her effort to extend her sway over the entire East, she was defeated by the Emperor Aurelian, and adorned his triumph in golden chains at Rome. She was allowed to spend the remainder of her life in dignified retirement at Tibur (Tivoli). SEMIRAMIS was the legendary daughter of the Syrian goddess Derketo, and with her husband Ninus was regarded as the founder of Nineveh. On his death she assumed the government of Assyria, built the city of Babylon and its wonderful gardens, conquered Egypt, etc. To her the Greeks ascribed nearly everything marvellous in the East. Her name appears in inscriptions as that of the consort of an Assyrian ruler who reigned 811-782 B.C. CLEOPATRA, (69-30 B.C.), was directly descended in the eighth generation from Ptolemy I, the most noted of Alexander the Great’s generals and the founder of the Egyptian dynasty that ended with her life. Her establishment as sole ruler, to the exclusion of her two brothers, was due to the favour of Julius Cæsar, who is said to have acknowledged the paternity of her son Cæsarion, ultimately put to death by order of Augustus. Her love of literature, and the refinement of her luxury, show her to have been no mere voluptuary.

Note 405 page 206. SARDANAPALUS,—Assurbanipal, the Asnapper of the Old Testament,—ruled over Assyria from 668 to 626 B.C., and was the last monarch of the empire reputed to have been founded by Ninus and Semiramis. His name became a by-word for effeminate luxury, but in recent times the discovery and study of the larger part of the tablets composing his library, prove him to have been a vigorous king and an intelligent patron of art and literature.

Note 406 page 207. In his life of Alexander, Plutarch extols the magnanimity with which the youthful monarch treated the captive mother, wife and two daughters, of Darius, the last King of Persia, whom he had utterly defeated in the battle of Arbela, 331 B.C. In furtherance of his plan of uniting his European and Asiatic subjects into one people, Alexander afterwards married Bersine, the elder of Darius’s two daughters.

Note 407 page 208. This incident is narrated in Valerius Maximus’s “Memorable Sayings and Doings” as having occurred in the first Spanish campaign of Scipio Africanus Maximus, 210 B.C., when that commander was in his twenty-fourth year.

Note 408 page 208. This story of the Platonist philosopher Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.) is derived from the same source last cited. His teaching was characterized by the loftiest morality, and included a declaration that it comes to the same thing whether we cast longing eyes, or set our feet, upon the property of others. The ‘very beautiful woman’ of the text is variously mentioned as Phryne and Laïs, rival _hetairai_ said to have served as models to the painter Apelles.

Note 409 page 208. Cicero’s version of this anecdote (_De Officiis_, i, 40) mentions Sophocles as the ‘someone’ rebuked by Pericles.

Note 410 page 210. The Italians still say:

_Donna pregata, nega;
E disprezzata, prega._

Note 411 page 213. The present translator prefers not to offer an English version of the following passage, but to reprint it, line for line, from the Aldine folio of 1528:

si che questo piu tosto un stratogema militare dir si poria, che pura continentia: auenga anchora che la fama di questo non sia molto sincera: perche alcuni scrittori d’authorità affermano questa giouane esser stata da Scipione goduta in amorose delicie: ma di quello che ui dico io, dubbio alcuno non è. Disse il Phrigio, Douete ha uerlo trouato ne gli euangelii. Io stesso l’ho ueduto rispose M. Ces. & però n’ho molto maggior certezza, che non potete hauer, ne uoi, ne altri che Alcibiade si leuasse dal letto di Socrate non altrimēti, che si facciano i figlioli dal letto de i padri: che pur strano loco, e tempo era il let to, & la notte, per contemplar quella pura bellezza: laqual si dice che amaua Socrate senza alcun desiderio dishonesto, massimamente amādo piu la bellezza dell’animo, che del corpo: ma ne i fanciulli & nò ne i uecchi, anchor che siano piu sauii: & certo non si potea gia trouar miglior exempio, per laudar la continentia de glihomini, che quello di Xenocrate: che essendo uersato ne gli studii, astretto, & obligato dalla profession sua, che è la philosophia, laquale consiste ne i boni costumi, & non nelle parole, uecchio, exhausto del uigor naturale, nō potendo, ne mostrando segno di potere, s’astenne da una femina publica: laquale per questo nome solo potea uenirgli à fastidio: piu crederei che fosse sta to continente, se qualche segno de risentirsi hauesse dimostrato, & in tal termine usato la continentia: ouero astenutosi da quello, che i uecchi piu desiderano che —le battaglie di Venere, cioè dal uino: ma per comprobar ben la continentia senile, scriuesi che di questo era pieno, & gra ue: & qual cosa dir si po piu aliena della continentia d’un uecchio: che la ebrietà? & se lo astenerse dalle cose ueneree in quella pigra, & fredda età merita tanta laude, quanta ne deue meritar in una tenera giouane, come quelle due di chi dianzi u’ho detto? dellequali l’una imponēdo durissime leggi à tutti i sensi suoi, non solamente à gliocchi negaua la sua luce, ma toglieua al core quei pensieri, che soli lungamēti erano sta ti dulcissimo cibo per tenerlo in uita. l’altra ardente innamorata ritrouādosi tante volte sola nelle braccia di quello, che piu assai, che tutto’l resto del mondo amaua, contra se stessa, & contra colui, che piu, che se stessa le era caro, combattendo uincea quello ardente desiderio che spes so ha uinto, & uince tanti sauii homini. Nō ui pare hora S. Gasp. che douessino i scrittori uergognarsi di far memoria di Xenocrate in questo caso? & chiamarlo per continente? che chi potesse sapere, io metterei pegno che esso tutta quella notte sino al giorno sequēte ad hora di desinare dormi come morto sepulto nel uino: ne mai per stropicciar che gli facesse quella femina, potè aprir gliocchi, come se fusse stato all’opia to. Quiui risero tutti glihomini & donne: & la S. Emil. pur ridēdo Ve ramente disse S. Gasp. se ui pensate un poco meglio credo che trouarete anchor qualche altro bello exempio di continentia simile à questo. Rispose M. Ces. Nō ui par Signora, che bello exempio di continentia sia quell’altro che egli ha allegato di Pericle? Marauigliomi ben chel non habbia anchor ricordato la continētia, & quel bel detto, che si scri ue di colui, à chi una donna domādò troppo gran prezzo per una not te, & esso le rispose, che non compraua cosi caro il pentirsi. Rideasi tut ta uia & M. Ces. hauendo alquanto tacciuto ... disse:

The only other instance in which the translator has suppressed any part of the text is in line 10 of page 212, where the Italian word _ignuda_ is not rendered.

ELEANORA OF ARAGON
DUCHESS OF FERRARA
1450-1493
]

Reduced from a photograph, kindly furnished by M. Gustave Dreyfus, of an
anonymous bas-relief in his collection at Paris. The sculptor may
possibly have been Sperandio di Bartolommeo de’ Savelli
(1425?-1500?). See note 399.

Note 412 page 214. The event occurred in 1501, six years before the date of the Courtier dialogues.

Note 413 page 214. The Volturno flows through Capua.

Note 414 page 214. Gazuolo or Gazzuolo is now the name of an Italian commune, containing less than 5,000 inhabitants, and situated eleven miles west of Mantua.

Note 415 page 214. The Oglio is a river of Lombardy about 135 miles long; it traverses the Lake of Iseo, and joins the Po some ten miles south-west of Mantua.

Note 416 page 214. In two earlier MS. versions of THE COURTIER, the passage ‘Now from this ... even her name is unknown’ reads: “Then messer Pietro Bembo said: ‘In truth, if I knew this noble peasant girl’s name, I would compose an epitaph for her.’ ‘Do not stop for that,’ said messer Cesare; ‘her name is Maddalena Biga, and if the Bishop’s death had not occurred, that bank of the Oglio’” etc.

With slight variations this story is narrated as fact in a letter of Matteo Bandello (1480-1562), from whose tales Shakspere took plots for his plays. The letter gives the poor girl’s name as Giulia and that of the Bishop of Mantua as Ludovico Gonzaga, and relates that, as it was unlawful to bury her remains in consecrated soil, he caused them to be deposited in the piazza, intending to place them in a bronze sarcophagus mounted on a marble column. The letter also affirms that the ravisher was one of the bishop’s valets.

Note 417 page 215. This was Ludovico Gonzaga, (born 1458; died 1511), a son of the Marquess Ludovico of Mantua and Barbara of Brandenburg, and a younger brother of “my lady Duchess’s” father. Made BISHOP OF MANTUA in 1483, he continued to hold that office until his death, and appears from various contemporary documents to have been a liberal and wise prince. The last years of his life were spent at Gazzuolo, which he made a centre of culture, art and learning. His brother Gianfrancesco was husband of the Antonia del Balzo mentioned above, note 400. For particulars regarding him, see an article by Rossi in the _Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana_, xiii, 305.

Note 418 page 215. The basilica of St. Sebastian, on the Appian Way, dates from the 4th century, was built over the most famous of the catacombs, and enjoyed an exceptional veneration during the Middle Ages. The saint was a young military tribune born in Gaul, suffered martyrdom under Diocletian about the year 288, and was buried in the catacombs of Callistus. St. George and he were the favourite saints of chivalry, and may be regarded as the martial Castor and Pollux of Christian myth.

Note 419 page 216. FELICE DELLA ROVERE, (died about 1536), was a natural daughter of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (afterwards Julius II) and a certain Lucrezia, the wife of Bernardo de Cuppis (or Coppi) da Montefolco; thus “my lord Prefect” of THE COURTIER was her own cousin. In 1506 she became the second wife of the elderly and eccentric Giangiordano Orsini, and the ancestress of the Dukes of Bracciano. Her name often occurs in contemporary documents, not only on account of her lofty position but because of her love of art and letters. Both Castiglione and Giancristoforo Romano were her friends. The incident mentioned in the text seems not to be referred to elsewhere. Savona, a seaport on the western Riviera, is near the birthplace of Felice’s great-uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, who was the founder of the della Rovere family.

Note 420 page 216. Duke Guidobaldo’s impotence is said to have given rise to the project of a divorce for his duchess.

Note 421 page 218. The reference here is to Ovid’s _Ars Amandi_, which enjoyed an extraordinary reputation during the Renaissance, and from which this passage is largely derived.

Note 422 page 220. The LAURA to whom Petrarch consecrated no less than three hundred and eighteen sonnets, is usually regarded as identical with Laure, the daughter of a certain knight of Avignon, Audibert de Noves. If this identification be correct, she was born in 1308, married Hughes de Sade in 1325, became the mother of eleven children, and died in 1348. In 1533 Francis I caused her reputed tomb to be opened, and found in it a small box which contained a medal bearing a woman’s profile, and a parchment on which was a sonnet signed by Petrarch.

Note 423 page 220. The so-called “Song of Solomon” is now thought to be the work of a period later than Solomon’s and to contain no mystic meaning.

Note 424 page 222. In the old romance, “Amadis of Gaul,” Isola Ferma is an enchanted island, with a garden at the entrance to which stands an arch surmounted by the statue of a man holding a trumpet to his mouth. Whenever an unfaithful lover attempts to pass, the trumpet emits a dreadful sound with fire and smoke, and drives the culprit back; while it welcomes all true lovers with sweetest music.

Note 425 page 228. Here again the reference is of course to “my lady Duchess.”

Note 426 page 235. The _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, first published by Aldus in 1499, was written by Francesco Colonna, a Dominican friar of Venice, who died an old man in 1527. The book is rare, and is said to be an allegorical romance full of lascivious erudition, and written in a pedantically affected mixture of Italian, Latin, and Venetian _patois_.

Note 427 page 237. _Ars Amandi_, i, 597-602.

Note 428 page 237. _Ars Amandi_, i, 569-72.

NOTES TO THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER

Note 429 page 243. Gaspar Pallavicino died in 1511, at the age of twenty-five.

Note 430 page 243. Cesare Gonzaga died in 1512, at about the age of thirty-seven. See note 43.

Note 431 page 244. Federico Fregoso was named Archbishop of Salerno in 1507, very soon after the date of the Courtier dialogues; see note 41.

Ludovico da Canossa became Bishop of Bayeux in 1520; see note 44.

Ottaviano Fregoso became Doge of Genoa in 1513; see note 11.

Bibbiena was made cardinal, and Bembo was appointed papal secretary, in 1513; see notes 10 and 42.

Giuliano de’ Medici was created Duke of Nemours in 1515. As he died in 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.

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.

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.

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.

Note 477 page 294. These ‘five other stars’ are of course the five planets then known (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), in addition to the Sun and Moon, which were until long afterwards regarded as planets. “The sun, the moon and the five planets were always to be found within a region of the sky extending about 8° on each side of the ecliptic. This strip of the celestial sphere was called the Zodiac, because the constellations in it were (with one exception) named after living things (Greek ζῷον, an animal); it was divided into twelve equal parts, the Signs of the Zodiac, through one of which the sun passed every month, so that the position of the sun at any time could be roughly described by stating in what ‘sign’ it was.” Arthur Berry’s “Short History of Astronomy” (London, 1898), p. 13.

Note 478 page 305. Castiglione here follows that version of the Hercules myth which represents the hero, tormented by the poisoned shirt sent him by the jealous Deianeira, as throwing himself upon a burning pyre on Mount Œta, whence he was caught up to heaven in a cloud.

Note 479 page 305. Compare: Exodus, iii, 2; Acts, ii, 1-4; and II Kings, ii, 11-2.

Note 480 page 307. This dialogue is by some represented as having actually taken place in the presence of Raphael.

Note 481 page 308. PLOTINUS was born in Egypt about 204 A.D., and taught philosophy at Rome. He lived so exclusively the life of speculation that he seemed ashamed of bodily existence, and concealed his parentage, birthplace and age.

Note 482 page 308. ST. FRANCIS, (Gianfrancesco Bernardone, 1182-1226), was born and died at Assisi near Perugia, and was canonized in 1288.

Note 483 page 308. II Corinthians, xii, 2-4.

Note 484 page 308. Acts, vii, 54-60.

Note 485 page 308. St. Luke, vii, 37.

Note 486 page 309. Mount Catria lies less than twenty miles to the southward of Urbino, between Pergola and Gubbio, and rises a little more than a mile above the sea level. It is mentioned by Dante in the _Paradiso_ (xxi, 109).

--------------

The stamp imprinted on the cover of this volume was engraved from an enlarged outline drawing made by Mr. Kenyon Cox from a photograph of one of the many examples of Castiglione’s seal preserved in the Royal State Archives at Mantua.

LIST OF EDITIONS OF THE BOOK OF THE COURTIER

COMPILED FROM THE FOLLOWING SOURCES:

Copy in the Library of the Spanish Academy at Madrid, ace

Copy in the Alessandrina Library at Rome, ala

Copy in the Ambrosiana Library at Milan, amb

Copy in the Angelica Library at Rome, ang

Copy in the National Library at Madrid, bnm

Copy in the National Library at Paris, bnp

Brunet’s _Manuel du Libraire_ (Paris: 1860-65), bnt

Copy in the Braidense Library at Milan, bra

Copy in the British Museum, brm

Brunet’s _Manuel du Libraire, Supplément_ (Paris: 1878), bts

Copy in the Casanatense Library at Rome, cas

Copy in the Cavriani Library at Mantua, cav

Copy in the Chigiana Library at Rome, chi

Copy in the Corsiniana Library at Rome, cor

MS. bibliographical notes by the late Count D’Arco, at Mantua, d’a

Copy examined by the translator in the National Library at Paris, exd

List of editions appended to Fabié’s (1873) edition of Boscan’s fab
Spanish translation,

Copy in the University Library at Jena, jen

List of editions appended to Aristide Joly’s _De Balthassaris jol
Castillionis opere cui titulus “Il Libro del Cortegiano,” etc._
(Caen: 1856),

List of editions appended to Count Mazzuchelli’s Life of maz
Castiglione (Rome: 1879),

Copy in the New York Public Library, nyp

Card Catalogue of the antiquarian bookseller Olschki, at Florence, ols

Copy owned by the translator, opd

Giambattista Passano’s _I Novellieri Italiani_ (Turin: 1878), pas

Article by Reinhardstöttner in _Jahrb. f. Münchner Gesch._ (1888, rei
pp. 494-9),

Copy in the Marciana Library at Venice, stm

Copy in the Vatican Library at Rome, vat

Copy in the Vittorio Emanuele Library at Rome, vel

List of editions appended to Count Carlo Baudi di Vesme’s (1854) ves
edition of THE COURTIER,

LIST OF EDITIONS

THE LANGUAGE IS ITALIAN UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED
DATES AND NAMES ENCLOSED IN PARENTHESES ARE NOT FREE FROM DOUBT

1528 Venice Aldine Press: fol.: April: opd

1528 Florence The heirs of Filippo di Giunta: 8vo: October: opd

(1529) Tusculano Alessandro Paganino: 12mo: stm

1529 Florence The heirs of Filippo di Giunta: 8vo: opd

1530 Parma Antonio di Viotti: 8vo: opd

1531 Florence Benedetto Giunti: 8vo: opd

1531 Parma Antonio di Viotti: 8vo: ves

1532 Parma Antonio di Viotti: 8vo: stm

1533 Venice Aldine Press: 8vo: with a few poems by exd
Castiglione:

1534 Barcelona Pedro Monpezat: fol.: Spanish version by Juan fab
Boscan Almogaver:

1537 Florence Benedetto Giunti: 8vo: brm

1537 Paris For Jean Longis and Vincent Sertenas: 8vo: exd
French version by Jacques Colin:

(1537) Lyons Denys de Harsy: 8vo: Colin’s French version: opd

1538 Venice Vettor de’ Rabani and associates: 8vo: stm

1538 Venice Giovanni Padovano for Federico Torresano exd
d’Asola: 8vo:

1538 Venice Curzio Navò and brothers: 8vo: cor

1538 Lyons Françoys Juste: 8vo: Colin’s French version exd
revised by Estienne Dolet:

1539 Venice Curzio Navò for Alvise Tortis: 8vo: stm

1539 s. l. Printer not mentioned: 8vo: abbreviation by maz
Scipio Claudio: