Part 78

Note 305 page 156. One ANDREA CASTILLO was secretary to Leo X, and died in 1545.

Note 306 page 156. Cian identifies this CARDINAL BORGIA as the Francesco (born 1441; died 1511) who was raised to the purple by Alexander VI, and s’ known as a schismatic.

Note 307 page 156. The modern form of ballatore is ballerino. Although the distinction is not free from doubt, there seems to be reason for believing that danzare was the term applied to the more stately forms of dance, while ballare was reserved for more animated movements. See note 147.

Note 308 page 157. The Bergamasque was and still is regarded as the rudest and most rustic of the Italian dialects.

Note 309 page 157. Except as applied to a small Tuscan stream or torrent (flowing near Acquapendente and Orvieto, and finally tributary to the Tiber), the name Paglia does not occur in modern Italian geography. In his autobiography, Cellini mentions crossing the little stream on his first journey from Siena to Rome. Later in the 16th century, Montaigne records (in his diary of a trip into Italy) having spent the night at “La Paille” (Italian, Paglia), and describes it as “a small village of five or six houses at the foot of several barren and ill-favoured mountains.”

Note 310 page 157. They seem to have been playing primero (the modern primiera), a game much in vogue at this time.

Note 311 page 158. Loreto is a small hill town near Ancona, and is celebrated for its pilgrimage shrine of the Sacred House (Santa Casa), which was reputed to have been the veritable dwelling of the Virgin, miraculously transported by angels from Nazareth, and set down in Italy in 1294. In 1511 and again in 1524 Castiglione wrote to his mother that he was preparing to go to Our Lady of Loreto in fulfilment of a vow. The name was said to be derived from that of the widow upon whose land the house was deposited by the angels.

Note 312 page 158. Acquapendente is the name of a small town sixty-seven miles north-west of Rome.

Note 313 page 159. MONSIGNOR OF SAN PIETRO AD VINCULA was the title of Cardinal Galeatto della Rovere; see note 189.

Note 314 page 159. MONSIGNOR OF ARAGON was the title of Cardinal Ludovico of Aragon, (born 1474), a natural son of Ferdinand I of Naples, and a half-brother of Alfonso II (see note 31) and Federico III of Naples (see note 401). He was not elevated to the purple until 1519; Castiglione’s mention of him as a cardinal in dialogues supposed to take place twelve years earlier, doubtless arose from a natural confusion between the time when and the time of which they were written.

Note 315 page 159. ‘The Banchi’ (Banks) was the name of a street in Rome well known in the 15th and 16th centuries. Containing the offices of the papal Curia and magistrates, it became a preferred neighbourhood, and was enriched with fine buildings, among which was the counting-house of Julius II’s finance minister, Agostino Chigi, the greatest banker of his day.

Note 316 page 159. ‘The Chancery’ (Cancelleria) was a palace designed about 1500 by Bramante for Cardinal Riario, but at this time used for public offices and as the residence of Cardinal Galeotto della Rovere, who had enlarged and embellished the building. It was not far from the Banks.

Note 317 page 159. San Celso was the name of a street and church near the Banks. The saint (Celsus) whose memory is thus perpetuated was born at what is now Cimiez, near Nice, suffered martyrdom at Rome under Nero, and was finally put to death (together with his master, St. Nazarius) at Milan in the year 69.

Note 318 page 160. CESARE BECCADELLO is regarded by Cian as possibly identical with a certain Bolognese, who was the son of Domenico Maria Beccadello, married Landomia Fasanini, and was living at the papal court as late as 1559. The Spanish annotator Fabié suggests that he was the father (1502) of the author Ludovico Beccadello, who was a follower of Bembo and wrote biographies of Petrarch and others.

Note 319 page 161. These are characters occurring in the third, sixth and ninth tales of the Eighth Day, and in the fifth tale of the Ninth Day.

Note 320 page 161. This knavish student seems to be identical with a certain CAIO CALORIA PONZIO, who was born at Messina. Of his life little more is known than that he studied law at Padua between 1479 and 1488, and, after residing two years at Venice, returned to Sicily. For an account of a short poem by him in praise of Venice, and of his dialect comedy dedicated to the Marquess of Mantua, see Vittorio Rossi’s Caio Caloria Ponzio, e la poesia volgare letteraria di Sicilia nel Secolo XV, reprinted (Palermo, 1893) from the Archivio Storico Siciliano, N. S., A., xviii.

Note 321 page 161. The only belfry at Padua answering to this description is said to be that of San Giacomo.

Note 322 page 162. GONNELLA. This name was borne by two famous jesters employed by the d’Este family. The one here referred to was probably the later of the two, who lived at the courts of Dukes Niccolò III and Borso, was the son of a Florentine glover Bernardo Gonnella, and married one Checca Lapi. The next buffoon referred to was probably LUDOVICO MELIOLO, who acted as steward to the court of Mantua about 1500, and was a brother of the goldsmith and sculptor Bartolommeo Meliolo (1448-1514). He was called “the father of jests.”

Note 323 page 163. This is an instance of the use of the word calunnia (rendered ‘imputation’) in its primitive sense of malicious accusation without reference to truth or falsity.

Note 324 page 164. These characters occur in the sixth tale of the Third Day, and in the seventh and eighth tales of the Seventh Day of Boccaccio’s “Decameron.”

Note 325 page 164. The queen here mentioned is of course Isabella the Catholic; see note 391.

Note 326 page 164. Fabié says that this COUNTESS OF CASTAGNETA was Brazaida de Almada, daughter of a Portuguese cavalier Juan Baez de Almada and Violante de Castro (of the same nation). She was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella, and her husband Don Garci Fernandez Manrique (third Count of Castagneta and first Marquess of Aguilar) took part in the conquest of Granada.

Note 327 page 167. If unconvinced by the “Decameron,” readers of the Corbaccio will surely be persuaded of the justice of this opinion.

Note 328 page 167. According to one form of the legend of Orpheus, his grief at the final loss of his wife Eurydice, when his lyre had all but enabled him to recover her from Hades, led him to treat contemptuously the Thracian women, who avenged the insult by tearing him in pieces under the excitement of their Bacchanalian orgies.

Note 329 page 167. ‘Braccesque leave’ (una licentia bracciesca in the Aldine folio of 1528, and una licentia Bracciesca in the more correctly printed Aldine folio of 1545) is a phrase derived from the name of Braccio Fortebracci, a captain who was famous for his violence to friend and foe, and whose followers were called Bracceschi. To give a man Braccesque leave meant to dismiss him with blows.

Note 330 page 169. Although in this and a few other passages, Castiglione uses virtù in the sense of our “virtue,” he more often gives it its etymological meaning of “manliness,” which the present translator has generally rendered by “worth.” In considering a word like this, we must take into account the character of him who uses it. To Machiavelli, as no doubt to most of his contemporaries in Italy, virtù meant simply that combination of strength, courage, tenacity and cunning that enables a man to achieve his ends,—whether good or bad.

NOTES TO THE THIRD BOOK OF THE COURTIER

Note 331 page 171. Achaia, here used as synonymous with Greece, was the name given to that country when conquered by the Romans and made a province. Olympia was not in Achaia proper, but in the adjoining district of Elis, some forty miles south of the modern Patras. The site has been thoroughly excavated by German archæologists, the most noted discovery being that of the “Hermes” of Praxiteles and the “Victory” of Pæonius.