Chapter IX: Part V: Society and Festivals

CHAPTER I.

THE EQUALISATION OF CLASSES.

Contrast to the Middle Ages 359

Common life of nobles and burghers in the cities 359

Theoretical criticism of noble birth 360

The nobles in different parts of Italy 362

The nobility and culture 363

Bad influence of Spain 363

Knighthood since the Middle Ages 364

The tournaments and the caricature of them 365

Noble birth as a requisite of the courtier 367

CHAPTER II.

OUTWARD REFINEMENT OF LIFE.

Costume and fashions 369

The toilette of women 371

Cleanliness 374

The ‘Galateo’ and good manners 375

Comfort and elegance 376

CHAPTER III.

LANGUAGE AS THE BASIS OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.

Development of an ideal language 378

Its wide diffusion 379

The Purists 379

Their want of success 382

Conversation 383

CHAPTER IV.

THE HIGHER FORMS OF SOCIETY.

Rules and statutes 384

The novelists and their society 384

The great lady and the drawing-room 385

Florentine society 386

Lorenzo’s descriptions of his own circle 387

CHAPTER V.

THE PERFECT MAN OF SOCIETY.

His love-making 388

His outward and spiritual accomplishments 389

Bodily exercises 389

Music 390

The instruments and the Virtuosi 392

Musical dilettantism in society 393

CHAPTER VI.

THE POSITION OF WOMEN.

Their masculine education and poetry 396

Completion of their personality 397

The Virago 398

Women in society 399

The culture of the prostitutes 399

CHAPTER VII.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

Contrast to the Middle Ages 402

Agnolo Pandolfini (L. B. Alberti) 402

The villa and country life 404

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FESTIVALS.

Their origin in the mystery and the procession 406

Advantages over foreign countries 408

Historical representatives of abstractions 409

The Mysteries 411

Corpus Christi at Viterbo 414

Secular representations 415

Pantomimes and princely receptions 417

Processions and religious Trionfi 419

Secular Trionfi 420

Regattas and processions on water 424

The Carnival at Rome and Florence 426