Part 66

Note 29 page 9. Born in 1422, Duke Federico was in fact sixty years old when he died.

Note 30 page 9. In his Latin epistle to Henry VII of England, Castiglione says that Duke Guidobaldo began to be afflicted with gout at the age of twenty-one years.

Note 31 page 10. ALFONSO II of Naples, (born 1448; died 1495), was the eldest son of Ferdinand I and Isabelle de Clermont. As Duke of Calabria, commanding the papal forces, he defeated the Florentine league in 1479, and in 1481 drove the Turks out of southern Italy. On his father’s death in 1494, he succeeded to the crown of Naples; but having rendered himself obnoxious to his subjects, he abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand just before the arrival of Charles VIII of France, and took refuge in a Sicilian convent, where he soon died, tortured by remorse for the hideous cruelties that he had perpetrated. His wife was Ippolita Maria, daughter of the first Sforza duke of Milan; while his daughter Isabella’s marriage to Giangaleazzo Sforza, the rightful duke, and the usurpation of the latter’s uncle Ludovico “il Moro” (see note 302), became the immediate cause of the first French invasion of Italy by Charles VIII.

Note 32 page 10. FERDINAND II of Naples, (born 1469; died childless 1496), made a gallant but vain stand against the French, and retired to Ischia with his youthful wife-aunt Joanna. When Charles VIII evacuated Naples after a stay of only fifty days, Ferdinand was soon able, with the help of his cousin Ferdinand the Catholic’s famous general Consalvo de Cordova, to regain his dominions, but died a few weeks later. He seems to have had no lack of courage; by his mere presence he once overawed a mob at Naples, and he was beloved by the nation in spite of the odious tyranny of his father and grandfather.

Note 33 page 10. Pope ALEXANDER VI, (born 1431; died 1503), was Roderigo, the son of Giuffredo (or Alfonso) Lenzuoli and Juana (or Isabella) Borgia, a sister of Pope Calixtus III, by whom the youth was adopted and whose surname he assumed. He was elected pope in 1492 through bribery, and while striving to increase the temporal power of the Church, directed his chief efforts towards the establishment of a great hereditary dominion for his family. Of his five children, two (Cesare and Lucrezia) played important parts in his plan. In 1495 he joined the league which forced Charles VIII to retire from Italy, although it had been partly at his instigation that the French invaded the peninsula. In 1498 Savonarola was burned at Florence by his orders. In 1501 he instituted the ecclesiastical censorship of books. He is believed to have died from accidentally taking a poison designed by him for a rich cardinal whose possessions he wished to seize. His private life was disgraced by orgies, of which the details are unfit for repetition. His contemporary Machiavelli says: “His entire occupation, his only thought, was deception, and he always found victims. Never was there a man with more effrontery in assertion, more ready to add oaths to his promises, or to break them.” While Sismondi terms him “the most odious, the most publicly scandalous, and the most wicked of all the miscreants who ever misused sacred authority to outrage and degrade mankind.”

FERDINAND II OF NAPLES 1469?-1496 ]

From Alinari’s photograph (no. 11305) of an anonymous bronze bust in the National Museum at Naples.

Note 34 page 10. Pope JULIUS II, (born 1443; died 1513), was Giuliano, the second son of Raffaele della Rovere (only brother of Pope Sixtus IV) and Teodora Menerola. Made a cardinal soon after his uncle’s election, he was loaded with sees and offices, including the legateship of Picene and Avignon, which latter occasioned his prolonged absence from Italy and afforded him an escape from the wiles of his inveterate enemy Alexander VI. The outrages with which Alexander sought to punish his sturdy opposition to the scandals of the Borgian court, aroused in him a fierceness of spirit that was alien to the seeming mildness of his early character and became the bane of his own pontificate. His younger brother Giovanni married a sister of Duke Guidobaldo, a union that cemented the friendship between the two families and furnished the Duchy of Urbino an heir in the person of Francesco Maria della Rovere. When Julius engaged Michelangelo to design his tomb, the old basilica of St. Peter’s was found too small to contain it, whereupon the pontiff is said to have decreed that a new church be built to receive it, and blessed the laying of the first stone shortly before setting out on his campaign against Bologna in 1506. In 1508 he formed the League of Cambray for the recovery of certain papal fiefs appropriated by Venice at the time of Cesare Borgia’s downfall, and in 1511 the so-called Holy League for the expulsion of the French from Italy. Italian unity was the unavowed but real goal at which his policy aimed.

Although a munificent patron of art and letters, Julius was frugal and severe,—a man of action rather than a scholar or theologian. In giving Michelangelo directions for the huge bronze statue at Bologna, he said: “Put a sword in my hand; of letters I know nothing.” Another of his reported sayings is: “If we are not ourselves pious, why should we prevent others from being so?”

Note 35 page 10. Although unexpressed in the original, the word ‘learned’ seems necessary to complete the obvious meaning of the passage.

From his tutor Odasio of Padua, we learn that in his boyhood Guidobaldo was even for the time exceptionally fond of study. He could repeat whole treatises by heart ten years after reading them, and never forgot what he resolved to retain. Besides his classical attainments, he appreciated the Italian poets, and showed peculiar aptitude for philosophy and history.

Note 36 page 10. The Italian piacevolezza conveys somewhat the same suggestion of humour which the word ‘pleasantness’ carried with it to the English of Elizabeth’s time, and which still survives in our ‘pleasantry.’

Note 37 page 11. EMILIA PIA, (died 1528), was the youngest daughter of Marco Pio, one of the lords of Carpi. Her brother Giberto married a natural daughter of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este (see note 64), while her cousin Alberto Pio (1475-1530) was the pupil and became the patron and financial supporter of the scholar-printer Aldus Manutius. In 1487 she was married very young to the studious Count Antonio di Montefeltro (a natural half-brother of Duke Guidobaldo), who left her a widow in 1500. She resided at Urbino and became the trusted and inseparable companion of the Duchess Elisabetta, whom she accompanied on journeys and in exile, ever faithful in misfortune and sorrow. In the duchess’s testament she was named as legatee and executrix. She seems to have died without the sacraments of the Church, while discussing passages of the newly published COURTIER with Count Ludovico Canossa. The part taken by her in these dialogues evinces the charm of her winning manners as well as her possession of a variety of knowledge and graceful accomplishment rare even in that age of womanly genius. Always ready to lead or second the learned and sportive pastimes by which the court circle of Urbino gave zest to their intercourse and polish to their wit, she was of infinite service to the duchess, whose own acquirements were of a less brilliant kind.

Note 38 page 11. It may be doubted whether the duchess’s influence always availed to secure what we should now regard as decorous behaviour at her court, and in an earlier draft of THE COURTIER Castiglione allowed himself a freedom, not to say licence, of expression singularly in contrast with the general tone of the version published.

Note 39 page 12. The duchess and her husband were expelled from their dominions by Cesare Borgia in 1502, and again in 1516 she was compelled to leave Urbino for a longer time, when Leo X seized the duchy for his nephew Lorenzo de' Medici. Her conduct on these occasions showed rare fortitude and dignity.

Note 40 page 12. These devices, so much in vogue during the 16th century in Italy, were the “inventions” which Giovio (a contemporary writer upon the subject) says “the great lords and noble cavaliers of our time like to wear on their armour, caparisons and banners, to signify a part of their generous thoughts.” They consisted of a figure or picture, and a motto nearly always in Latin. The fashion is said to have been copied from the French at the time of the invasions of Charles VIII and Louis XII.

Note 41 page 12. FEDERICO FREGOSO, (born 1480; died 1541), was a younger brother of Ottaviano (see note 11), and was educated for holy orders under the direction of his uncle Duke Guidobaldo, at whose court he also perfected himself in worldly accomplishments. In 1507 Julius II made him Archbishop of Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples, but, owing to his supposed French sympathies, he was not allowed to enjoy this benefice, and the next year was put in charge of the bishopric of Gubbio. In the same year he was sent by Julius with the latter’s physician to attend Duke Guidobaldo’s death-bed, but arrived too late. During the nine years that followed his brother’s election as Doge of Genoa (1513), he by turns commanded the army of the Republic, led her fleet against the Barbary pirates (whom he routed in their own harbours), and represented her at the papal court. During the Spanish siege of Genoa in 1522, he escaped to France, was warmly received by Francis I, and made Abbot of St. Bénigne at Dijon, where he devoted himself to theological study. In 1528 he returned to Italy and was appointed to the see of Gubbio. His piety and zeal for the welfare of his flock won for him the title of “father to the poor and refuge of the distressed.” In 1539 he was made a cardinal, and two years later died at Gubbio, being succeeded in that see by his friend Bembo. After his death, a discourse of his on prayer happening to be reprinted together with a work by Luther, he was for a time erroneously supposed to have been heretical. He was a profound student of Hebrew, and an appreciative collector of Provençal poetry. His own writings are chiefly doctrinal, and his reputation rests rather upon his friends’ praise of his wit, gentleness, personal accomplishments and learning, than upon the present value of his extant works.

Note 42 page 12. PIETRO BEMBO, (born at Venice 1470; died at Rome 1547), was the son of a noble Venetian, Bernardo Bembo (a man of much cultivation, who paid for the restoration of Dante’s tomb at Ravenna), and Elena Marcella. Having received his early education at Florence, where his father was Venetian ambassador, he studied Greek at Messina under Lascaris (a native of Hellas, whose grammar of that tongue was the first Greek book ever printed, 1476), and philosophy at Padua and Ferrara, where his father was Venetian envoy and introduced him to the Este court. Here he became acquainted with Lucrezia Borgia, who had recently wedded Duke Ercole’s son Alfonso, and to whom he dedicated his dialogues on love, Gli Asolani. By some writers indeed he is said to have been her lover, but the report is hardly confirmed by the character of the letters exchanged between the two, 1503-1516. Having been entertained at Urbino in 1505, he spent the larger part of the next six years at that court, where he profited by the fine library, delighted in many congenial spirits, and became the close friend of Giuliano de' Medici, who took him to Rome in 1512 and recommended him to the future pope, Leo X. On attaining the tiara, Leo at once appointed him and his friend Sadoleto (see note 242) papal secretaries, an office for which his learning and courtly accomplishments well fitted him. His laxity of morals and his paganism were no disqualification in the eyes of the pope, whom he served also in several diplomatic missions, and from whom he received benefices and pensions sufficient to enrich him for life. In 1518 his friend Castiglione sent him the MS. of THE COURTIER, requesting him to “take the trouble ... to read it either wholly or in part,” and to give his opinion of it. Ten years later, when the book was printed, it was Bembo to whom the proofs were sent for correction, the author being absent in Spain. Even before the death of Leo X in 1521, Bembo had entered upon a life of literary retirement at Padua, where his library and art collection, as well as the learned society that he drew about him, rendered his house famous. Nor was it less esteemed by reason of the presence, at its head, of an avowed mistress (Morosina), who bore him several children. After her death, he devoted himself to theology, entered holy orders, reluctantly accepted a cardinal’s hat in 1539, and in 1541 succeeded his friend Fregoso in the bishopric of Gubbio, to which was added that of Bergamo. His death was occasioned by a fall from his horse, and he was buried at Rome in the Minerva church, between his patrons Leo X and Clement VII. His works are noteworthy less for their substance than for the refining influence exerted by their form. He is said to have subjected all his writings to sixteen (some say forty) separate revisions, and a legend survives to the effect that he advised a young cleric (Sadoleto) to avoid reading the Epistles of St. Paul, lest they might mar the youth’s style. His numerous private and official letters have preserved many valuable facts and furnish interesting illustration of contemporary manners and character. Humboldt praises him as the first Italian author to write attractive descriptions of natural scenery, and cites especially his dialogue on Mt. Ætna.

GIACOMO SADOLETO 1477-1547 ]

Head enlarged from a photograph, specially made by Alinari, of a part of the fresco, “Leo X's Entry into Florence,” in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). See Milanesi’s edition of Vasari’s Opere, viii, 142. The chief facts of his life are given in note 242, at page 369 of this volume.

Note 43 page 12. CESARE GONZAGA, (born about 1475; died 1512), was a native of Mantua, being descended from a younger branch of the ruling family of that city, and a cousin of Castiglione, with whom he maintained a close friendship. His father’s name was Giampietro, and he had a brother Luigi. Having received a courtly and martial education at Milan, and after spending some time with his relatives at Mantua, he entered the service of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino. In 1504 he shared Castiglione’s lodgings after their return from a campaign against Cesare Borgia’s strongholds in Romagna, and in the carnival of 1506 they together recited Castiglione’s eclogue Tirsi, in the authorship of which he is by some credited with a part. A graceful canzonet, preserved in Atanagi’s Rime Scelte, attests his skill in versification. On Guidobaldo’s death in 1508, the two friends remained in the service of the new duke, Francesco Maria. In 1511 Cesare fought bravely against the French at Mirandola, and the next year took part in the reduction of Bologna, where he soon died of an acute fever. Little more is known of him, beyond the fact that he was a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, that Leo X sent him on a mission to Charles V of Spain, and that he was among the many friends of the famous Isabella d'Este (see note 397).

Note 44 page 12. Count LUDOVICO DA CANOSSA, (born 1476; died 1532), belonged to a noble Veronese family (still honourably extant), and was a close friend of Castiglione and a cousin of the latter’s mother. His boyhood was passed at Mantua, and his happiest years at Urbino, where he was received in 1496. In the pontificate of Julius II he went to Rome, and was made Bishop of Tricarico, in southern Italy, 1511. Under Leo X he was entrusted with several embassies, one of which (1514) was to England to reconcile Henry VIII with Louis XII, and another (1515) was to the new French king, Francis I, at whose court he continued to reside, and through whose influence he was made Bishop of Bayeux in 1516. In 1526 and 1527 he served as French ambassador to Venice. His ability and zeal as a diplomatist are shown not only by the importance of the posts that he held, but by his numerous letters that have been preserved. At the time of his friend Bibbiena’s death in 1520, Canossa remarked that it was a fixed belief among the French that every man of rank who died in Italy was poisoned.

Note 45 page 12. GASPAR PALLAVICINO, (born 1486; died 1511), was a descendant of the marquesses of Cortemaggiore, near Piacenza. He appears in THE COURTIER as the youthful woman-hater of the company, and was a friend of Castiglione and Bembo. For an interesting discussion of his rôle in the dialogues, see Miss Scott’s paper, cited above (page 316).

Note 46 page 12. LUDOVICO PIO belonged to the famous family of the lords of Carpi (a few miles north of Modena), and was a brave captain in the service of the Aragonese princes, of Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan, and of Pope Julius II. His father Leonello and more celebrated uncle Alberto had been pupils of Aldus, and were second cousins of Emilia Pia. His wife was the beautiful Graziosa Maggi of Milan, who is immortalized in the paintings of Francia and the writings of Bembo.

Note 47 page 12. SIGISMONDO MORELLO DA ORTONA is presented in THE COURTIER as the only elderly member of the company, and the object of many youthful jests. He is known to have taken part in the ceremony of the formal adoption of Francesco Maria della Rovere as heir to the duchy in 1504, is referred to in Castiglione’s Tirsi, and seems to have been something of a musician.

LOUIS XII OF FRANCE 1462-1515 ]

Much enlarged from a negative, specially made by Berthaud, of a part of a pen-drawing in the National Library at Paris. The drawing is touched with gold, and forms part of a series illustrating a MS. chronicle (nos. 20360-2) engrossed at Genoa in 1510 by Anthoine Bardin. See note 250.

Note 48 page 12. Of ROBERTO DA BARI little more is known than that his surname was MASSIMO, and that he was taken ill in the campaign of 1510 against the Venetians and retired to Mantua. Thither Castiglione sent a letter to his mother, warmly recommending Roberto to her hospitality, and saying that he loved the man like a brother.