Part 12

Palmieri would have boys eschew any sedentary pastimes. They may jump, run, and play at ball; and music is highly suitable for them. To beat them is a barbarism. This may indeed, sometimes and perhaps, be necessary with boys ‘who are to follow mechanical and servile arts,’ but not with those who are carefully brought up by father and preceptor. Begin with encouragements to the well-behaved, and admonitions to the naughty: and the severer punishments should be ‘to shut him in; to withhold such food and other things as he best likes, to take away his clothing, and so on; to make him ponder long while over his misdoing.’ (This is singularly gentle discipline for A.D. 1430: indeed Palmieri intimates that ‘almost all people’ advocated manual correction in his time. Had any other writer, of so early a date, discovered that ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ is not the sum-total of management for minors?)

A dinner-party is considered well made up, in point of numbers, if the persons present are not less than three, nor more than nine. A larger number than the latter cannot all join together in united conversation.

‘The expenses of a munificent man should be in things that bring honour and distinction; not private, but public—as in buildings, and ornaments of churches, theatres, loggias, public feasts, games, entertainments; and in such like magnificences he should not compute nor reckon how much he spends, but by what means the works may be to the utmost wonderful and ‘beautiful.’ (Nice doctrine this for some of our conscript fathers in England, whose perennial diligence is, as Carlyle says, ‘preserving their game.’ But the Florentine Republic was in that outcast condition that the noblemen were not only not hereditary legislators, but were ipso facto excluded from all public employment, unless they enrolled themselves in the commonalty by belonging to one of the legislating guilds.)

Both Pandolfini and Palmieri are authors of good repute in Italian literature: but by no means equal to the writer next on our list, Baldassar Castiglione, with his book named The Courtier (Il Cortigiano). This is a remarkably choice example of Italian prose; which is the more satisfactory because Castiglione was not a Tuscan, but a Mantuan, and a proclaimed enemy of that narrow literary creed, the palladium of pedants and ever-recurring bane of strong individualism among Italian writers, that, save in the Florentine-Tuscan language (or dialect) of the ‘buon secolo,’ the days of Petrarca and Boccaccio, there is no orthodoxy of diction. Some noticeable details on this point are to be found in the Cortigiano: showing that the ultra-purists of that time insisted upon the use by writers, whether Tuscan or belonging to other parts of Italy, of words occurring in Petrarca and Boccaccio already quite obsolete and hardly intelligible even in Tuscany—and also upon the use of corrupt forms of words framed from the Latin, because these pertained to the Tuscan idiom, even although correct forms of the same words were in current use in other Italian regions. In all such regards Castiglione claims for himself unfettered latitude of choice: the verbal precisian, scared at his theoretic license, is surprised and relieved to find that after all the book is not only endurable in style, even to his own punctilious ears, but particularly elegant.

Baldassar Castiglione was born on the 6th of December 1478 at Casatico, in the Mantuan territory. Noble and handsome, he grew up almost universally accomplished and learned; a distinguished connoisseur; and valued by all the most eminent men of his time. His full-length portrait appears in one of the frescoes of Raphael in the Stanze of the Vatican. He went on many embassies—among others, to England. Henry VIII., of whose youthful promise he speaks in the most rapturous terms, knighted him: the Emperor Charles V. said that by Castiglione’s death chivalry lost its brightest luminary. His career closed at Toledo on the 2nd of February 1529. Among his writings are poems in Latin and Italian, but his chief work is the Cortigiano. This was composed between the years 1508 and 1518; and published in 1528, in a state which its author regarded as somewhat hurried and incomplete. It is written in the narrative form, but consisting principally of dialogue, or indeed of successive monologues; and purports to relate certain conversazioni (rightly to be so called) which were held in 1506 in the court of Urbino, for the delectation of the Duchess Elisabetta della Rovere (by birth a Gonzaga) and her ladies. The topic proposed for treatment is—what should a perfectly qualified Courtier be like? The principal speakers on the general subject are the Conte Lodovico da Canossa, Federico Fregoso, and Ottavian Fregoso; Bernardo Bibiena takes up the special question of facetiæ, and Giuliano de’ Medici speaks of the Court Lady, and generally in honour of women.

The term Courtier has not a very exalted sound to a modern or English ear: but Castiglione’s ideal Courtier is a truly noble and gallant gentleman, furnished with all sorts of solid no less than splendid qualities. His ultimate raison d’être is that he should always, through good and evil report, tell his sovereign the strict truth of all things which it behoves him to know—certainly a sufficiently honourable and handsomely unfulfilled duty. The tone throughout is lofty, and of more than conventional or courtly rectitude: indeed, the book as a whole is hardly what one associates mentally with the era of Pagan Popes,—of a Cæsar Borgia just cleared off from Romagna, and an Alessandro de’ Medici impending over Florence.

Almost the only illustration which Castiglione supplies of the art of dining is the following anecdote:

‘The Marquis Federico of Mantua, father of our Lady Duchess, being at table with many gentlemen, one of them, after he had eaten a whole stew, said, “My Lord Marquis, pardon me;” and, so saying, he began to suck up the broth that was left. Forthwith then said the Marquis: “You should ask pardon of the pigs, for to me there is no harm done at all!”’

Some other points I take as they come.

‘Having many a time reflected wherefrom Grace arises (not to speak of those who derive it from the stars), I find one most universal rule, which seems to me to hold good, in this regard, in all human things done and said, more than aught else; and this is—to avoid affectation as much as one can, and as a most bristling and perilous rock, and (to use perhaps a new-coined word) to do everything with a certain slightingness [sprezzatura], which shall conceal art, and show that what is done and said comes to one without trouble and almost without thinking.’ Yet there may be as much affectation in slightingness itself as in punctilio. Instances adduced of the latter, as regards the care of the person, are the setting a scrap of looking-glass in a recess of one’s cap, and a comb in one’s sleeve, and keeping a page to follow one perpetually about with a sponge and a clothes-brush. Female affectations were ‘the plucking out the hair of eyebrows and forehead, and undergoing all those inconveniences which you ladies fancy to be altogether occult from men, and which nevertheless are all known.’

The perfect Courtier ought to know music—sing at sight, and play on various instruments; he ought also to have a practical knowledge of drawing and painting. Better even than singing at sight is singing solo to the viol, and most especially thus singing in recitative [per recitare], ‘which adds to the words so much grace and force that great marvel it is.’ All stringed instruments are well suited for the Courtier; not so wind-instruments, ‘which Minerva interdicted to Alcibiades, because they have an unseemly air.’ The Court Lady also ought to have knowledge of letters, music, and painting, as well as of dancing, and how to bear her part in entertainments [festeggiare].

‘Old men blame in us many things which, of themselves, are neither good nor bad, but only because they used not to do them: and they say that it is unbefitting for young men to go through the city riding, especially on mules; to wear in the winter fur linings and long robes; to wear a cap [berretta], at any rate until the man has reached eighteen years of age,—and other the like things. Wherein in sooth they mistake: for these customs, besides being convenient and serviceable, are introduced by fashion, and universally accepted,—as aforetime to dress in the open tunic [giornea], with open hose and polished shoes, and for gallantry to carry all day a hawk on the fist for no reason, and to dance without touching the lady’s hand, and to adopt many other modes which, as they would now be most awkward, so then were they highly prized.’

Federico Fregoso, the chief speaker of the second evening, is of opinion that a man of rank ought not to honour with his presence a village feast, where the spectators and company would be coarse people. To this Gaspar Pallavicino demurs; saying that, in his native Lombardy, many young noblemen will dance all day under the sun with country people, and play with them at wrestling, running, leaping, and so on—exercises of strength and dexterity in which the countrymen are often the winners. Fregoso rejoins that this, if done at all, should be not by way of emulation but of complaisance, and when the nobleman feels tolerably sure of conquering; and generally, in all sorts of exercises save feats of arms, he should stop short of anything like professional zeal or excellence. [A concluding hint worth consideration in these days of ‘Athletic Clubs.’]

The discourse of Bernardo Bibiena on facetiæ is a magazine of good things, both anecdotic, epigrammatic, and critical. The speaker is particularly severe on ‘funny men’ and ‘jolly dogs’; concerning whom I venture to introduce one consecutive extract of some little length.

‘The Courtier should be very heedful of his beginnings, so as to leave a pleasing impression, and should consider how baneful and fatal it is to fall into the contrary. And this danger do they more than others run who make it their business to be amusing, and assume with these their quips a certain liberty authorizing and licensing them to do and say whatever strikes them, without any consideration. Thus these people start off on matters whence, not knowing their way out again, they try to help themselves off by raising a laugh: and this also they do so scurvily that it fails; so that they occasion the severest tedium to those who see and hear them, and they themselves remain most crestfallen. Sometimes, thinking thus to be witty and lively, in the presence of ladies of honour, and often even in speaking to them, they set-to at uttering most nasty and indecent words: and, the more they see them blush, so much the more do they account themselves good courtiers: and ever and anon they laugh and plume themselves at so bright a gift which they think their own. But for no purpose do they commit so many imbecilities as in order to be thought “boon companions.” This is that only name which appears to them worthy of praise, and which they vaunt more than any other; and, to acquire it, they bandy the most blundering and vile blackguardisms in the world. Often will they shove one another down-stairs; knock ribs with bludgeons and bricks; throw handfuls of dust into the eyes; and bring down people’s horses upon them in ditches, or on the slope of a hill. Then, at table, soups, sauces, jellies, all do they flop in one another’s face: and then they laugh! And he who can do the most of these things accounts himself the best and most gallant courtier, and fancies he has gained great glory. And, if sometimes they invite a gentleman to these their pleasantries, and he abstains from such horse-play, forthwith they say that he makes himself too sage and grand, and is not a “boon companion.” But worse remains to tell. There are some who vie and wager which of them can eat and drink the most nauseous and fetid things; and these they hunt up so abhorrent to human senses that it is impossible to mention them without the utmost disgust.—“And what may these be?” said Signor Lodovico Pio.—Messer Federico replied: “Let the Marquis Febus [da Ceva] tell you, as he has often seen them in France; and perhaps the thing has happened to himself.”—The Marquis Febus replied: “I have seen nothing of the sort done in France that is not also done in Italy. But, on the other hand, what is praiseworthy in Italian habits of dress, festivities, banqueting, fighting, and whatever else becomes a courtier, is all derived from the French.”—“I deny not,” answered Messer Federico, “that there are among the French also most noble and unassuming cavaliers: and I for my part have known many truly worthy of all praise. Yet some are to be found by no means well-bred: and, speaking generally, it appears to me that the Spaniards get on better in manner with the Italians than the French do; since that calm gravity peculiar to the Spaniards seems to me much more conformable to us than the rapid liveliness which is to be recognized almost in every movement of the French race—which in them is not derogatory, and even has grace, because to themselves it is so natural and appropriate that it indicates no sort of affectation in them. There are indeed many Italians who would fain force themselves to imitate that manner; and they can manage nothing else than jogging the head in speaking, and bowing sideways with a bad grace, and, when they are walking about, going so fast that the grooms cannot keep up with them. And with these modes they fancy they are good French people, and partake of their offhand ways: a thing indeed which seldom succeeds save with those who have been brought up in France, and have got into these habits from childhood upwards.”

The reader will probably agree with me in thinking that Castiglione’s own opinion is expressed here rather in the speech of Federico Fregoso than of the Marquis Febus; and that the all-accomplished Italian patrician of the opening sixteenth century by no means regarded the French as the courteous nation par excellence. Elsewhere it is remarked that the French recognize nobility in arms only, and utterly despise letters and literary men; and that presumption is a leading trait in the national character.

Castiglione does not seem to have entertained the same objection to gesturing that Francesco da Barberino did. In amusing narration or story-telling, at any rate, he approves of this accompaniment; speaking of people who ‘relate and express so pleasantly something which may have happened to them, or which they have seen or heard, that with gestures and words they set it before your eyes, and make you almost lay your hand upon it.’

The banefulness of a wicked Courtier is set forth in strong terms.

‘No punishment has yet been invented horrid and tremendous enough for chastising those wicked Courtiers who direct to a bad end their elegant and pleasant manners and good breeding, and by these means creep into the good graces of their sovereigns, to corrupt them, and divert them from the path of virtue, and lead them into vice: for such people may be said to infect with mortal poison, not a vessel of which one only person has to drink, but the public fountain which the whole population uses.’

The last two authors on our list, Giovanni Battista Possevini and Giovanni della Casa, will bring us to about the middle of the sixteenth century; beyond which I do not propose to pursue the subject of Italian Courtesy-Books. We are now fairly out of the middle ages, and in the full career of transition from the old to the new. Indeed, were it not that Della Casa’s work, Il Galateo, is so peculiarly apposite to our purpose, I might have been disposed to leave both these writers aside as a trifle too modern in date: but, coming closer as that does to the exact definition of a Courtesy-Book than any other of the compositions which we have been considering, it must perforce find admission here,—and a few words may at the same time be spared to Possevini, who introduces us to a special department of manners. And first of Possevini.

This writer was (like Castiglione) a Mantuan, and died young—perhaps barely aged thirty. A famous man of letters, Paolo Giovio, found him to be ‘a son of melancholy, and so learned, according to the title of Christ on the cross, as to make one marvel: he is a good poet.’ The book we have to deal with is of considerable size, a Dialogue concerning Honour (Dialogo dell’ Onore): it was published in 1553, after the author’s death, which seems to have occurred towards 1550. Possevini is charged with having borrowed freely from another writer, who devoted himself to the denunciation of duelling, Antonio Bernardi; although indeed the publication of Bernardi’s book did not take place till some years after the posthumous work of Possevini was in print. The special subject of the latter, as we have said, is honour—the quality and laws of honour, with a leading though not exclusive reference to the duelling system. Many other Italian writers of this period discussed that latter question, some upholding and some reprobating the institution. Possevini is certainly not one of its adversaries, but debates many of the ancillary points with the particularity of a casuist. The few items which I shall extract are cited more as curiosities than as fairly representing the substance of the book.

A man of letters affronted by a military man is not—so Possevini lays it down—bound to call him out, for the duel is not his vocation. If he is depreciated in his literary character, it is in writing that he should respond: if he is otherwise damnified, let him appeal to the magistrate. But this latter course is not permitted to a soldier: fighting is his business, and he must have recourse to the sword. The maxim that, in duel, one is bound either to slay one’s adversary, or take him prisoner, is barbarous: it should suffice to make him recant or apologize, or to wound him, or to reduce him to surrender and humiliation.

A man who marries a professional courtesan lowers himself; yet not so far as that he can properly be refused as a duellist, or as a magistrate, or in other matters pertaining to honour. A husband who connives at his own dishonour, either by positive intention or by stupidity exceeding a certain limit, should be refused as above; not so a betrayed husband who has taken any ordinary precautions. The husband who detects his wife in adultery, without resenting it, is a dishonoured man: yet to kill her is beyond the mark,—to divorce her, contrary to canon law. He should obtain a legal abrogation of the wife’s dowry, or else, as a milder course, send her back to her own people, and have no sort of knowledge of her thenceforth.

Monsignor Giovanni della Casa, created Archbishop of Benevento in 1544, was born of noble Florentine parentage on the 28th of June 1503, and died on the 14th of November 1556. He ranks as one of the best Latin and Italian poets of his century; but some of his poems are noted for licentiousness, and are even reputed to have damaged his ecclesiastical career, and lost him a Cardinal’s hat. The works thus impugned appear all to belong to his youth. He had already obtained some church-preferment, and was settled in Rome, by the year 1538. On the election of Pope Julius III., in 1550, Della Casa lived privately in the city or territory of Venice, in great state, and distinguished for courteous and charitable munificence. Paul IV., who succeeded to the papacy in 1555, recalled him to Rome, and created him Secretary of State.

The Galateo (written, I presume, somewhere about 1550) has always been a very famous book in Italy; and of that sort of fame which includes great general as well as literary acceptance. It is a model of strong sententious Tuscan; approaching the pedantic, yet racily idiomatic at the same time. The title in full runs Galateo, or concerning Manners; wherein, in the Character of an Elderly Man [Vecchio Idiota] instructing a Youth, are set forth the things which ought to be observed and avoided in ordinary intercourse. The paragraphs are numbered, and amount to 180. The name Galateo is given to the book in consequence of a little anecdote which it introduces, apparently from real life. There was once a Bishop of Verona named Giovanni Matteo Giberti, noted for liberality. He entertained at his house a certain Count Ricciardo—a highly accomplished nobleman, but addicted (proh pudor!) to eating his victuals with ‘an uncouth action of lips and mouth, masticating at table with a novel noise very unpleasing to hear.’ The Bishop therefore deemed it the kindest thing he could do to have the Count escorted on his homeward way by a remarkably discreet, well-bred, and experienced gentleman of the episcopal household, named Galateo, who wound up a handsome compliment at parting with a plain exposition of the guest’s peccadillo. His own misdoing was news to the Count: but he took the information altogether in good part, and seriously promised amendment.

Let us now dip into the Galateo for a few axioms; first on dining, and afterwards on other points of manners.

You must not smell at the wine-cup or the platter of any one, not even at your own; nor hand the wine which you have tasted to another, unless your very intimate friend; still less offer him any fruit at which you have bitten. Some monsters thrust their snouts, like pigs, into their broth, and never raise their eyes or hands from the victuals, and gorge rather than eat with swollen cheeks, as if they were blowing at a trumpet or a fire; and, soiling their arms almost to the elbows, make a fearful mess of their napkins. And these same napkins they will use to wipe off perspiration, and even to blow their noses. You must not so soil your fingers as to make the napkin nasty in wiping them: neither clean them upon the bread which you are to eat: [we should hope not]. In company, and most especially at table, you should not bully nor beat any servants; nor must you express anger, whatever may occur to excite it; nor talk of any distressful matters—wounds, illnesses, deaths, or pestilence. If any one falls into this mistake, the conversation should be dexterously changed: ‘although, as I once heard said by a worthy man our neighbour, people often would be as much eased by crying as by laughing. And he affirmed that with this motive had the mournful fictions termed tragedies been first invented: so that, being set forth in theatres, as was then the practice, they might bring tears to the eyes of those who had need of this, and thus they, weeping, might be cured of their discomfort. But, be this as it may, for us it is not befitting to sadden the minds of those with whom we converse, especially on occasions when people have met for refreshment and recreation, and not to cry: and, if any one languishes with a longing to weep, right easy will it be to relieve him with strong mustard, or to set him somewhere over the smoke.’ You should not scratch yourself at table, nor spit; or, if spit you must, do it in a seemly way. Some nations have been so self-controlling as not to spit at all. ‘We must also beware of eating so greedily that hence comes hiccupping or other disagreeable act; as he does who hurries so that he has to puff and blow, to the annoyance of the whole company.’ Rub not your teeth with the napkin—still less with your fingers: nor rinse out your mouth, nor spit forth wine. ‘Nor, on rising from table, is it a nice habit to carry your toothpick in your mouth, like a bird which is in nest-building,—or behind the ear, like a barber.’ You must not hang the toothpick round your neck: it shows that you are ‘overmuch prepared and provided for the service of the gullet,’ and you might as well hang your spoon in the same way. Neither must you loll on the table; nor by gesture or sound symbolize your great relish of viands or wine—a habit fit only for tavern-keepers and topers. Also you should not put people out of countenance by pressing them to eat or drink.

‘To present to another something from the plate before oneself does not seem to me well, unless he who presents is of much the higher grade, so that the recipient is thereby honoured. For, among equals in condition, it looks as if he who offers the gift were setting himself up somehow as the superior: and sometimes that which a man gives is not to the taste of him it is given to. Besides, it implies that the dinner has no abundance of dishes, or is not well distributed, when one has too much, and another too little: and the master of the house might take it as an affront. However, in this one should do as others do, and not as it might be best to do in the abstract: and in such fashions it is better to err along with others than to be alone in well-doing. But, whatever may be the best course in this, you must not refuse what is offered you; for it would seem as if you slighted or reproved the donor.’