Alinari
PORTRAIT OF A LADY, HER HAIR DRESSED IN THE MANNER OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From the picture by ? Verrocchio in Poldo-Pezzoli Collection, Milan
The point which he undertakes is "to state what I consider the courtiership most befitting a gentleman in attendance on princes, whereby he may best be taught and enabled to perform towards them all seemly service, so as to obtain their favour and general applause; to explain, in short, what a courtier in all respects perfect ought to be."[*30]
We cannot here follow the Count into the wide field which he thus indicates, nor is it necessary, since his own work is accessible in several languages. But from various passages we may offer a sketch of the manners approved at the pattern court of Urbino, which will not be deemed misplaced in these pages. The men who figured there were chiefly distinguished in arms or letters. Whilst the former spent their leisure in recollections of war and love, or in the congenial pastimes of the field and the chase, the conversation of the latter was often warped towards scholastic disputation, or tainted by classic pedantry. Such manners have often been described, and their interest has long passed away; but in a society where female influence prevailed, and in an age when female intellect was fruitful in prodigies, it may be well to see what were the graces expected from a palace-dame.[*31]
At the head of a string of common-place endowments we find a noble bearing, an avoidance of affectation, a natural grace in every action. Beauty is considered as most desirable, not indispensable; and its improvement by such artificial means as painting and enamelling the face, extirpating hairs on the eyebrows or forehead, is derided. White teeth and hands are fully appreciated, but their frequent display is censured. A neat chaussure is lauded, especially when veiled by long draperies. In short, natural elegance and the absence of artifice are primary qualifications. A high-born lady must be circumspect even beyond suspicion, avoiding ill-timed familiarity, and all freedom of language verging upon licence; but when casually exposed to discussions tending to pruriency, a modest blush would be becoming, whilst shrinking or prudery might expose her to sneers. Willingly to listen to or repeat slander of her own sex is a fatal error, which will always be harshly construed by men. Her accomplishments and amusements should ever be selected with feminine delicacy, verging upon timidity; her dress chosen in tasteful reference to what is most becoming, but with apparent absence of study. In conversing with men she should be frank, affable, and lively; but modest, staid, and self-possessed, with a nice observance of tact and decorum. Noisy hilarity, a hoyden address, egotism, prolixity, and the unseasonable combination of serious with ludicrous topics are equally objectionable, but most of all affectation. Yet she ought to be witty, capable of varied conversation in literature, music, and painting, skilled in dancing and festive games. Nor should that of a good housewife be wanting to her other qualities. In short, the theory of a paragon lady of the 1500 might equally suit for one of the present day. We should come to a very different conclusion as to her real character, were we to test it by some passages of the Cortegiano, wherein the Duchess Elisabetta, in chastity the mirror of her age, listens approvingly with her courtly dames to long passages of prurient twaddle, ever skirting and often overstepping the limits of decency. Nor were the morals around her conformable to her own pure example, and that of the immaculate Emilia Pia.[*32] One sad instance in the ducal family we shall have to note, while narrating the early life of Duke Francesco Maria I.; another, remarkable from the subsequent status of the personage to whose birth the scandal attaches, will immediately be mentioned in connection with Giuliano de' Medici.[33]
But it would not be just, after adorning our narrative with flattering sketches from Castiglione's pencil, to exclude one or two anecdotes of the manners actually permitted among the polished society he professes to portray, although their coarseness and vulgarity, scarcely redeemed by their humour, may be considered as staining our pages. They occur in some memorials of the conversation of Francesco Maria, noted by a contemporary from personal observation.[34]
The subject of discussion happening to be Mark Antony's weakness in permitting Cleopatra to accompany him to the fight of Actium, the Duke said, "My father-in-law, the Marquis of Mantua, being at Mortara, in the service of France, Ludovico il Moro was in the camp with his Duchess, and one day, seeing the Marquis suffering from violent pain in the shoulder, said to him, 'Sir, I have the Duchess here, what shall I do with her?' The Marquis, being otherwise occupied, and suffering great pain, replied, 'How can I tell? send her to a brothel!' an answer quite off-hand, and truly appropriate"—from the brother of our paragon Duchess Elisabetta.
Niccolo de' Pii, a condottiere in the service of the Duke's father, was very fat and overgrown. Dining one day with some Spanish officers, after finishing a trout, he sent the head and back-bone to one of them called Pedrada, who thereupon caustically retorted, "It is yourself that has more want of head than of stomach," a reply applauded as most cutting, for, "having more size than sense, he needed the brains rather than the belly." The same Spaniard one day, at a cardinal's reception, began to eat a candle, which, though apparently of wax, was in the centre of tallow; finding it greasy between his teeth, he seized the candlestick, and dashed it on the floor, muttering, "I swear to God it is not silver:" the candle being counterfeit, he fancied the candlestick must needs be so too. When talking of absent men, the Duke told these anecdotes of Ottaviano Fregoso, a star of the Urbino circle. As he conversed with his aunt Duchess Elisabetta, holding her hand, his mind wandered to other matters, and he began to twist about her fingers as he would have done a switch, finally thrusting one of them into his nose, when a burst of laughter from the bystanders recalled his thoughts. Dining one day at the table of Julius II., he sheathed and unsheathed his poignard, jingling the handle, until the Pope, losing all temper, exclaimed, "Begone to a brothel, pox take you! Be off, and the devil go with you!" Whereupon Signor Ottaviano began to make humble excuses for his natural defect of recollection, to the infinite glee of many church dignitaries who witnessed the scene. Yet only two days thereafter, chancing to converse in the papal antechamber with an ambassador who wore a massive gold chain, he, in a fit of abstraction, thrust his finger into one of the links. Just then, his Holiness appearing, the courtiers drew aside to make way, and Fregoso was dragged along, throwing them all into confusion; nor could he get free until he had well "salivated" his finger. Yet when his wits were not a wool-gathering, this was considered the most finished gentleman in Italy, and the most ready in reply. Thus, his uncle, Duke Guidobaldo appearing one day in a violet satin jerkin of unexceptionable fit, Ottaviano exclaimed, "My Lord Duke, you really are the handsome Signor!" "How disgusting are dull flatterers who thus openly display their adulation," was the stinging reply. "My Lord Duke," rejoined the courtier, "I meant not to say that you are a man of worth, though I pronounced you a fine man and a handsome nobleman;" an answer which made the Duke wince, and brought credit to its author.