The Perfect Courtier



The Perfect Courtier

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Baldasare Castiglione, count of Novellata (1478 – 1529), was an Italian courtier, diplomat, soldier and a very prominent Renaissance author. In 1528, the year before his death, Baldassare was inspired to write the Courtier by his experiences as a courtier of Duke Guidobaldo Montefeltro and the virgin Duchess Elisabetta Gonzaga at the court of Urbino It describes the ideal court and courtier, defining the ideal Renaissance gentleman, and in book three, a perfect lady. In the Middle Ages, the perfect gentleman was a chivalrous knight who distinguished himself by his prowess on the battlefield. Castiglione's book changed that; now the perfect gentleman had to be educated in the classics as well. To this day, the Book of the Courtier remains the definitive account of Renaissance court life. Because of this, it may possibly be considered one of the most important of Renaissance works.

THE CHIEF CONDITIONS AND QUALITIES IN A COURTIER

• To be well borne and of a good stock. To be of a mean stature, rather with the least then to high, and well made to his proportion. To be portly and amiable in countenance unto whoso beehouldeth him.

• To do his feats with a slight, as though they were rather naturally in him, then learned with study: and use a Recklessness to cover art, without minding greatly what he hath in hand, to a man’s seeming.

• Not to be womanish in his sayings or doings. Not to praise himself unshamefully and out of reason, nor to boast of his acts and good qualities. Not to be stubborn, willful nor full of contention: nor to contrary and overthwart men after a spiteful sort. To shun Affectation or curiosity above all thing in all things.

• Not to carry about tales and trifling news. No liar. No fond flatterer. Not to be a babbler, brawler, or chatter, nor lavish of his tongue. Not to be given to vanity and lightness, not to have a fantasticall head. .

• To be well spoken and faire languaged, To be wise and well seen in discourses upon states. To be seen in tongues, and specially in Italian, French, and Spanish.

• To be handsome and cleanly in his apparel. To make his garments after the fashion of the most, and those to be black, or of some darkish and sad colour, not garish.

• To be an honest, a faire conditioned man, and of an upright conscience. To have the virtues of the mind, as justice, manliness, wisdom, temperance, staidness, noble courage, sober-mood, etc.

• To be more then indifferently well seen in learning, in the Latin and Greek tongues. To confess his ignorance, when he seeth time and place thereto, in such qualities as he knoweth himself to have no manner skill in.

• To have the feat of drawing and painting. To dance well without over nimble footings or to busy tricks. To sing well upon the book. To play upon the Lute, and singe to it with the ditty. To play upon the Vyole, and all other instruments with frets.

• To be nimble and quick at the play at tennis. To hunt and hawk. To ride and manage well his horse. To swim well. To leap well. To run well. To vault well. To wrestle well.

• To be skillful in all kind of martial feats both on horseback and a foot, and well practiced in them: which is his chief profession, though his understanding be the less in all other things. To play well at fence upon all kind of weapons. To run well at tilt, and at ring. To tourney. To fight at Barriers.

• To set out himself in feats of chivalry in open shows well provided of horse and harness, well trapped, and armed, so that he may show himself nimble on horseback.

• Not to wait upon or serve a wicked and naughty person. Not to commit any mischievous or wicked fact at the will and commandment of his Lord or Prince.

• To endeavor himself to love, please and obey his Prince in honesty.

• The final end of a Courtier, where to all his good conditions and honest qualities tende, is to become an Instructor and Teacher of his Prince or Lord, inclining him to virtuous practices: and to be frank and free with him, after he is once in favour in matters touching his honour and estimation, always putting him in mind to follow virtue and to flee vice, opening unto him the commodities of the one and inconveniences of the other: and to shut his ears against flatterers, which are the first beginning of self leekinge and all ignorance.

• His conversation with women to be always gentle, sober, meek, lowly, modest, serviceable, comely, merry, not biting or slandering with jests or railings, the honesty of any.

• His love toward women, not to be sensual or fleshly, but honest and godly, and more ruled with reason, then appetite: and to love better the beauty of the mind, then of the body.

THE CHIEF CONDITIONS AND QUALITIES IN A WAITING GENTLEWOMAN

• To be well born and of a good house. To flee affectation or curiosity. To have a good grace in all her doings. To be of good conditions and well brought up. To be witty and foreseeing, not heady and of a running wit.

• Not to be haughty, envious, ill tongued, light, contentious nor untowardly. To take heed that give none occasion to be ill reported of. To commit no vice, nor yet to be had in suspicion of any vice. To have the understanding being married, how to order her husband’s substance, her house and children, and to play the good housewife.

• To have the virtues of the mind, as wisdom, justice, nobleness of courage, temperance, sober mood, etc. to be good and discreet. To accompany sober and quiet manners and honesty with a lively quickness of wit.

• Not to speak words of dishonesty and baudrye to show her self pleasant, free and a good fellow. To be heedful in her talk that she offend not where she meant it not. To beware of praising her self indiscreetly, and of being to tedious and noisome in her talk. Not to mingle with grave and sad matters, merry jests and laughing matters: nor with mirth, matters of gravity. To be circumspect that she offend no man in her jesting and taunting, to appear thereby of a ready wit.

• To apparel herself so, that she seem not fond and fantasticall. To set out her beauty and disposition of person with meet garments that shall best become her, but as feigningly as she can, making semblance to bestow no labor about it, nor yet to mind it.

• To have an understanding in all things belonging to the Courtier, that she may give her judgment to commend and to make of gentlemen according to their worthiness and desserts. To be learned. To draw and paint. To dance.

• To be heedful and remember that men may with less jeopardy show to be in love, then women. To give her lover nothing but her mind, when either the hatred of her husband, or the love that he beareth to others inclineth her to love. To use a somewhat more familiar conversation with men well grown in years, then with young men.

• The final end whereto the Courtier applieth all his good conditions, properties, feats and qualities, serveth also for a waiting Gentlewoman to grow in favour with her Lady, and by that means so to instruct her and train her to virtue, that she may both refrain from vice and from committing any dishonest matter, and also abhor flatterers, and give her self to understand the full troth in every thing, without entering into self leeking and ignorance, either of other outward things, or yet of her own self.

1. According to Castiglione, what is the proper bodily frame for a courtly man? Why is extra height undesirable?

2. Under what circumstances should a courtier be ready to fight?

3. Why did a courtier need to handle different kinds of weapons skillfully?

4. Why did Castiglione feel a courtier should engage in hunting, swimming and tennis?

5. What qualities “befit” all women at this time?

6. How must a lady conduct her conversation?

7. Compare Castiglione’s descriptions of a courtly man and a courtly woman. What qualities do they share? What qualities are unique to each?

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