The Book of the Courtier

by conte Baldassarre Castiglione

Note [96] page 50. Leonardo da Vinci, (born 1452; died 1519), was the natural son of a notary, Pietro Antonio, of the village of Vinci, situated about fourteen miles east of Florence. He studied some three years with Donatello’s pupil Verocchio at Florence. Meeting small pecuniary success there, he removed to Milan about 1483 and entered the service of Duke Ludovico Sforza, who is said to have paid him the equivalent of £4000 a year while painting the “Last Supper,” and for whom he completed in 1493 the model of a colossal equestrian statue of Duke Francesco Sforza, never executed in permanent form. He was employed by Cesare Borgia as military engineer, and in that capacity visited Urbino in July 1502. His famous portrait known as the “Monna Lisa” or “La Gioconda,” upon which he worked at times for four years, was finished about 1504 and afterwards sold by him to Francis I. In 1507, he had been appointed painter to Louis XII, but did not visit France until 1516. On the election of Leo X in 1513, he journeyed to Rome in the company and service of Giuliano de' Medici, who paid him a monthly stipend of £66. Although he was received with favour by the new pope and lodged in the Vatican, his stay in Rome was artistically unprolific, his interest at the time being chiefly confined to chemistry and physics, and nature attracting him more than antiquities, of which he spoke as “this old rubbish” (queste anticaglie). Three years before his death he was visited at Amboise in France by Cardinal Ludovico of Aragon, who is mentioned later in The Courtier (p. 159), and whose secretary left an interesting account of an interview with him, describing the painter as then disabled by paralysis of the hand.

Note [97] page 50. Andrea Mantegna, (born 1431; died 1506), was a native of Vicenza and probably of humble origin. When a mere child he became the pupil and adopted son of the noted painter and instructor, Francesco Squarcione of Padua, and was soon enrolled in the painters’ guild of that city. In 1449 he began painting for the d'Este at Ferrara, and between 1453 and 1459 he married Niccolosa, a daughter of Squarcione’s rival Giacopo Bellini, and sister of the more famous brothers Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. He painted also at Verona, and about 1460 entered the service of the Gonzagas at Mantua, where the remainder of his life was chiefly spent, although he worked for Pope Innocent VIII at Rome about the year 1488, before which date he was knighted by the Marquess of Mantua. By one writer he is affirmed to have cast the fine bust which ornaments his tomb at Mantua, and which is said once to have had diamond eyes. He is known to have understood bronze casting, and besides the brush and the engraver’s burin, he handled modelling tools, while a sonnet of his has been preserved. Although praised by Vasari as kindly and in every way estimable, he is shown by contemporary letters to have been rather irritable and litigious in private life. Albert Dürer tells us that one of the keenest disappointments of his life was occasioned by the great painter’s death before he was able to make an intended journey to Mantua for the purpose of visiting Mantegna.

Note [98] page 50. Raffaello Santi or Sanzi,—euphonized by Bembo as Sanzio,—(born 1483; died 1520), was a native of Urbino and the son of Giovanni Santi and Magia Ciarla. The father was himself a painter of no mean skill, and wrote a quaint rhymed chronicle of the Duchy of Urbino, which is preserved in the Vatican and contains much interesting information. Having lost both parents when he had reached the age of eleven years, and probably having first studied at Urbino under Timoteo della Vite, Raphael was sent by a maternal uncle to the studio of Perugino at Perugia. The rest of his short life was an unbroken course of happy labour and brilliant success. In 1499 he seems to have been at Urbino for the purpose of arranging for the welfare of a sister, and again in 1504, when, after executing several works (including, it is believed, portraits of the duke and duchess) for the ducal family, he went to Florence with a letter of commendation from Guidobaldo’s sister. From 1504 to 1508 he resided chiefly at Florence, although he again visited Urbino twice, just before and probably soon after the date of the Courtier dialogues. His friendship with so many members of the Urbino court (Giuliano de' Medici, Bibbiena, Bembo, Canossa, and Castiglione), and even his acquaintance with Julius II, probably began during these later visits to his native city. In 1508 he was called to Rome by Julius, and resided there until his death. On succeeding Bramante as architect of St. Peter’s in 1514, he wrote to Castiglione: “Sir Count: I have made drawings in several manners according to your suggestion, and if everyone does not flatter me, I am satisfying everyone; but I do not satisfy my own judgment, because I dread not satisfying yours. I am sending them to you. Pray choose any of them, if you deem any worthy. Our Lord [i.e. Leo X] in honouring me has put a great burden on my shoulders,—that is, the charge of the fabric of St. Peter’s. I hope, however, not to fall under it; and the more so, because the model I have made for it pleases his Holiness and is praised by many choice spirits; but in thought I soar still higher. I fain would renew the beautiful forms of ancient buildings, but know not whether my flight will be that of Icarus. Vitruvius affords me much light on the subject, but less than I need. As to Galatea, I should hold myself a great master if she possessed half the fine things you write me; but in your words I recognize the love you bear me: and I tell you that to paint one beautiful woman, I should need to see several beautiful women and to have you with me to choose the best. But as there is dearth of good judgments and of beautiful women, I am using a certain idea that has occurred to my mind. Whether this has any artistic excellence in it, I know not,—but I am striving for it. Command me.” Passavant affirms that the ‘drawings’ mentioned at the beginning of this letter were designs for a medal that Castiglione meant to wear. Raphael is said to have painted two portraits of Castiglione, one of which (1516) is in the Louvre and appears as the frontispiece to this volume. His epitaph was written by Bembo, while Castiglione composed a Latin elegy in his honour.

Note [99] page 50. Michelangelo Buonarroti, (born 1475; died 1564), was a native of Caprese, a village about forty-seven miles south-east of Florence, and the son of Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca, daughter of Neri del Sera. His first schoolmaster seems to have come from Urbino. Apprenticed at the age of thirteen to Ghirlandajo, he soon came under the protection of Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1496 he removed to Rome, and remained there five years. From 1501 to 1504 he was working upon the great statue of David at Florence, and prepared his cartoon for a vast fresco on the Battle of Cascina, which, although never executed, was often copied, and is said to have exerted a greater influence on the art of the Renaissance than any other single work. In 1505 he was called to Rome to design a colossal mausoleum for Julius II. The anxieties and disappointments connected with this project became the continual tragedy of his long life. “Every day,” he wrote, “I am stoned as if I had crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, bound hand and foot to this tomb.” The matter was finally ended by the placing of his statue of Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome. In the spring of 1506 he was present at the unearthing of the Laocoön, and at the date of the Courtier dialogues he was engaged in casting a great bronze statue of Julius II at Bologna. Duke Guidobaldo’s collection at Urbino seems to have included a Cupid made by Buonarroti in imitation of the antique, originally owned by Cesare Borgia, regained by him when he captured Urbino in 1502, and soon presented by him to Guidobaldo’s sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. The famous tomb statue of Giuliano de' Medici at Florence is hardly to be regarded as a portrait, and was of course executed long after the period of The Courtier. In 1519 the Marquess of Mantua wrote to Castiglione, who was his ambassador at Rome, regarding a monument to his father that he hoped to have the master design. In 1523 Castiglione brought to Mantua a sketch made by Buonarroti for a villa which the marquess intended to build at Marmirolo.

Note [100] page 50. Giorgio Barbarelli, known as Giorgione or “Big George,” (born about 1478; died 1511), was a native of Castelfranco, a town about forty miles north-west of Venice, and was reputed to be a natural son of one Giacopo Barbarelli, a Venetian, and a peasant girl. Lack of data renders a consecutive account of his life and work impossible. He was brought up in Venice, and bred as a painter in the school of the Bellini. Vasari says that he played upon the lute and sang well, and was of a gentle disposition. Although he seems to have been exceptionally independent of great people, he enjoyed the especial favour of the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. In a letter written from Venice in the year before that of the Courtier dialogues, Albert Dürer declared Giorgione to be the greatest painter in the city, which could then boast of the Bellini, Palma Vecchio, Carpaccio and Titian. One of the most acute of recent critics, Mr. Bernhard Berenson, ascribes to him only seventeen existing pictures, of which the best known is the Fête Champêtre in the Louvre, while the only one whose authenticity is entirely free from doubt is the “Madonna and Saints” in the Duomo at Castelfranco. The Urbino collection comprised two portraits by Giorgione, one of which is supposed to have represented Duke Guidobaldo, but unfortunately is lost.

Note [101] page 51. Isocrates, (born 436; died 338 B.C.), an Athenian orator, was a pupil of Socrates, and became the instructor of many famous orators. His diction was of the purest Attic, and his writings were highly prized by the Alexandrian grammarians. The first printed edition of his works (1493) was edited by Castiglione’s Greek master, Chalcondylas. Lysias, (died about 380 B.C.), an Athenian orator, abandoned the stilted monotony of the older speakers, and employed the simple language of every-day life, but with purity and grace. Æschines, (born 389; died 314 B.C.), was the rival and finally unsuccessful antagonist of Demosthenes.

Note [102] page 51. Caius Papirius Carbo, (Consul in 120 B.C.), was an adherent of the Gracchi, but became a renegade and finally committed suicide. He was generally suspected of murdering Scipio Africanus the Younger. While abominating the man’s character, Cicero praises his oratory. Caius Lælius Sapiens was Consul in 140 B.C. His friendship with Scipio is commemorated in Cicero’s De Amicitia. While he was in his own time regarded as the model orator, later grammarians resorted to his works for archaisms. Scipio Africanus the Younger, (died 129 B.C.), captured Carthage in the Third Punic War, and was leader of the aristocratic party at Rome against the popular reforms of the Gracchi. His works, of which only a few fragments survive, are praised by Cicero and were long held in esteem. Galba, see note [87]. Publius Sulpicius Rufus, (born 124; died 88 B.C.), was a tribune of the plebs. Cicero says: “Of all the orators I ever heard, Sulpicius was the most dignified, and, so to speak, the most tragic.” Caius Aurelius Cotta, (Consul 75 B.C.), is characterized by Cicero, who had argued a cause against him, as a most acute and subtle orator, but his style seems to have been dry and unimpassioned. Caius Sempronius Gracchus, (died 121 B.C.), a son of the famous Cornelia, and brother-in-law of Scipio Africanus the Younger, is noted chiefly for his vain struggle in behalf of popular rights. Only fragments of his oratory have survived. Marcus Antonius and Crassus, see note [85].

Note [103] page 51. “In a certain place,” i.e., De Oratore, II, xxiii, 97.

Note [104] page 51. The Italian virtù has here its Latin meaning of natural vigour. See also note [330].