Part 82

Note 404 page 205. TOMYRIS was in fact queen of the Massagetæ, who were a nomadic people allied to the Scythians and dwelt north-east of the Caspian Sea. Herodotus relates that Cyrus the Great sent her an offer of marriage, and on being refused, invaded her kingdom and captured her son, but was finally defeated and slain, 529 B.C. The ARTEMISIA referred to in the text is probably not the Queen of Halicarnassus (who fought on the Persian side at Salamis in 480 B.C.), but rather the sister-consort and successor of King Mausolus of Caria, a state on the western coast of Asia Minor. On her husband’s death in 352 B.C., she reigned two years until she pined away for grief. The monument, Mausoleum, erected by her to his memory at Halicarnassus, was regarded as one of the seven wonders of the world—the others being: the Egyptian pyramids, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the walls and hanging gardens of Babylon, Phidias’s statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Colossus at Rhodes, and the lighthouse at Alexandria. ZENOBIA, an Arab by birth, was the second wife of Odenathus, King of Palmyra, which lay to the east of Syria. On the death of her husband, about 266 A.D., she acted as regent for her sons and seems to have shown great talent for war as well as for the arts of wise administration; but in her effort to extend her sway over the entire East, she was defeated by the Emperor Aurelian, and adorned his triumph in golden chains at Rome. She was allowed to spend the remainder of her life in dignified retirement at Tibur (Tivoli). SEMIRAMIS was the legendary daughter of the Syrian goddess Derketo, and with her husband Ninus was regarded as the founder of Nineveh. On his death she assumed the government of Assyria, built the city of Babylon and its wonderful gardens, conquered Egypt, etc. To her the Greeks ascribed nearly everything marvellous in the East. Her name appears in inscriptions as that of the consort of an Assyrian ruler who reigned 811-782 B.C. CLEOPATRA, (69-30 B.C.), was directly descended in the eighth generation from Ptolemy I, the most noted of Alexander the Great’s generals and the founder of the Egyptian dynasty that ended with her life. Her establishment as sole ruler, to the exclusion of her two brothers, was due to the favour of Julius Cæsar, who is said to have acknowledged the paternity of her son Cæsarion, ultimately put to death by order of Augustus. Her love of literature, and the refinement of her luxury, show her to have been no mere voluptuary.

Note 405 page 206. SARDANAPALUS,—Assurbanipal, the Asnapper of the Old Testament,—ruled over Assyria from 668 to 626 B.C., and was the last monarch of the empire reputed to have been founded by Ninus and Semiramis. His name became a by-word for effeminate luxury, but in recent times the discovery and study of the larger part of the tablets composing his library, prove him to have been a vigorous king and an intelligent patron of art and literature.

Note 406 page 207. In his life of Alexander, Plutarch extols the magnanimity with which the youthful monarch treated the captive mother, wife and two daughters, of Darius, the last King of Persia, whom he had utterly defeated in the battle of Arbela, 331 B.C. In furtherance of his plan of uniting his European and Asiatic subjects into one people, Alexander afterwards married Bersine, the elder of Darius’s two daughters.

Note 407 page 208. This incident is narrated in Valerius Maximus’s “Memorable Sayings and Doings” as having occurred in the first Spanish campaign of Scipio Africanus Maximus, 210 B.C., when that commander was in his twenty-fourth year.

Note 408 page 208. This story of the Platonist philosopher Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.) is derived from the same source last cited. His teaching was characterized by the loftiest morality, and included a declaration that it comes to the same thing whether we cast longing eyes, or set our feet, upon the property of others. The ‘very beautiful woman’ of the text is variously mentioned as Phryne and Laïs, rival hetairai said to have served as models to the painter Apelles.

Note 409 page 208. Cicero’s version of this anecdote (De Officiis, i, 40) mentions Sophocles as the ‘someone’ rebuked by Pericles.

Note 410 page 210. The Italians still say:

Donna pregata, nega; E disprezzata, prega.

Note 411 page 213. The present translator prefers not to offer an English version of the following passage, but to reprint it, line for line, from the Aldine folio of 1528:

si che questo piu tosto un stratogema militare dir si poria, che pura continentia: auenga anchora che la fama di questo non sia molto sincera: perche alcuni scrittori d’authorità affermano questa giouane esser stata da Scipione goduta in amorose delicie: ma di quello che ui dico io, dubbio alcuno non è. Disse il Phrigio, Douete ha uerlo trouato ne gli euangelii. Io stesso l’ho ueduto rispose M. Ces. & però n’ho molto maggior certezza, che non potete hauer, ne uoi, ne altri che Alcibiade si leuasse dal letto di Socrate non altrimēti, che si facciano i figlioli dal letto de i padri: che pur strano loco, e tempo era il let to, & la notte, per contemplar quella pura bellezza: laqual si dice che amaua Socrate senza alcun desiderio dishonesto, massimamente amādo piu la bellezza dell’animo, che del corpo: ma ne i fanciulli & nò ne i uecchi, anchor che siano piu sauii: & certo non si potea gia trouar miglior exempio, per laudar la continentia de glihomini, che quello di Xenocrate: che essendo uersato ne gli studii, astretto, & obligato dalla profession sua, che è la philosophia, laquale consiste ne i boni costumi, & non nelle parole, uecchio, exhausto del uigor naturale, nō potendo, ne mostrando segno di potere, s’astenne da una femina publica: laquale per questo nome solo potea uenirgli à fastidio: piu crederei che fosse sta to continente, se qualche segno de risentirsi hauesse dimostrato, & in tal termine usato la continentia: ouero astenutosi da quello, che i uecchi piu desiderano che —le battaglie di Venere, cioè dal uino: ma per comprobar ben la continentia senile, scriuesi che di questo era pieno, & gra ue: & qual cosa dir si po piu aliena della continentia d’un uecchio: che la ebrietà? & se lo astenerse dalle cose ueneree in quella pigra, & fredda età merita tanta laude, quanta ne deue meritar in una tenera giouane, come quelle due di chi dianzi u’ho detto? dellequali l’una imponēdo durissime leggi à tutti i sensi suoi, non solamente à gliocchi negaua la sua luce, ma toglieua al core quei pensieri, che soli lungamēti erano sta ti dulcissimo cibo per tenerlo in uita. l’altra ardente innamorata ritrouādosi tante volte sola nelle braccia di quello, che piu assai, che tutto’l resto del mondo amaua, contra se stessa, & contra colui, che piu, che se stessa le era caro, combattendo uincea quello ardente desiderio che spes so ha uinto, & uince tanti sauii homini. Nō ui pare hora S. Gasp. che douessino i scrittori uergognarsi di far memoria di Xenocrate in questo caso? & chiamarlo per continente? che chi potesse sapere, io metterei pegno che esso tutta quella notte sino al giorno sequēte ad hora di desinare dormi come morto sepulto nel uino: ne mai per stropicciar che gli facesse quella femina, potè aprir gliocchi, come se fusse stato all’opia to. Quiui risero tutti glihomini & donne: & la S. Emil. pur ridēdo Ve ramente disse S. Gasp. se ui pensate un poco meglio credo che trouarete anchor qualche altro bello exempio di continentia simile à questo. Rispose M. Ces. Nō ui par Signora, che bello exempio di continentia sia quell’altro che egli ha allegato di Pericle? Marauigliomi ben chel non habbia anchor ricordato la continētia, & quel bel detto, che si scri ue di colui, à chi una donna domādò troppo gran prezzo per una not te, & esso le rispose, che non compraua cosi caro il pentirsi. Rideasi tut ta uia & M. Ces. hauendo alquanto tacciuto ... disse:

The only other instance in which the translator has suppressed any part of the text is in line 10 of page 212, where the Italian word ignuda is not rendered.

ELEANORA OF ARAGON DUCHESS OF FERRARA 1450-1493 ]

Reduced from a photograph, kindly furnished by M. Gustave Dreyfus, of an anonymous bas-relief in his collection at Paris. The sculptor may possibly have been Sperandio di Bartolommeo de’ Savelli (1425?-1500?). See note 399.

Note 412 page 214. The event occurred in 1501, six years before the date of the Courtier dialogues.

Note 413 page 214. The Volturno flows through Capua.

Note 414 page 214. Gazuolo or Gazzuolo is now the name of an Italian commune, containing less than 5,000 inhabitants, and situated eleven miles west of Mantua.

Note 415 page 214. The Oglio is a river of Lombardy about 135 miles long; it traverses the Lake of Iseo, and joins the Po some ten miles south-west of Mantua.

Note 416 page 214. In two earlier MS. versions of THE COURTIER, the passage ‘Now from this ... even her name is unknown’ reads: “Then messer Pietro Bembo said: ‘In truth, if I knew this noble peasant girl’s name, I would compose an epitaph for her.’ ‘Do not stop for that,’ said messer Cesare; ‘her name is Maddalena Biga, and if the Bishop’s death had not occurred, that bank of the Oglio’” etc.

With slight variations this story is narrated as fact in a letter of Matteo Bandello (1480-1562), from whose tales Shakspere took plots for his plays. The letter gives the poor girl’s name as Giulia and that of the Bishop of Mantua as Ludovico Gonzaga, and relates that, as it was unlawful to bury her remains in consecrated soil, he caused them to be deposited in the piazza, intending to place them in a bronze sarcophagus mounted on a marble column. The letter also affirms that the ravisher was one of the bishop’s valets.

Note 417 page 215. This was Ludovico Gonzaga, (born 1458; died 1511), a son of the Marquess Ludovico of Mantua and Barbara of Brandenburg, and a younger brother of “my lady Duchess’s” father. Made BISHOP OF MANTUA in 1483, he continued to hold that office until his death, and appears from various contemporary documents to have been a liberal and wise prince. The last years of his life were spent at Gazzuolo, which he made a centre of culture, art and learning. His brother Gianfrancesco was husband of the Antonia del Balzo mentioned above, note 400. For particulars regarding him, see an article by Rossi in the Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, xiii, 305.

Note 418 page 215. The basilica of St. Sebastian, on the Appian Way, dates from the 4th century, was built over the most famous of the catacombs, and enjoyed an exceptional veneration during the Middle Ages. The saint was a young military tribune born in Gaul, suffered martyrdom under Diocletian about the year 288, and was buried in the catacombs of Callistus. St. George and he were the favourite saints of chivalry, and may be regarded as the martial Castor and Pollux of Christian myth.

Note 419 page 216. FELICE DELLA ROVERE, (died about 1536), was a natural daughter of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere (afterwards Julius II) and a certain Lucrezia, the wife of Bernardo de Cuppis (or Coppi) da Montefolco; thus “my lord Prefect” of THE COURTIER was her own cousin. In 1506 she became the second wife of the elderly and eccentric Giangiordano Orsini, and the ancestress of the Dukes of Bracciano. Her name often occurs in contemporary documents, not only on account of her lofty position but because of her love of art and letters. Both Castiglione and Giancristoforo Romano were her friends. The incident mentioned in the text seems not to be referred to elsewhere. Savona, a seaport on the western Riviera, is near the birthplace of Felice’s great-uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, who was the founder of the della Rovere family.

Note 420 page 216. Duke Guidobaldo’s impotence is said to have given rise to the project of a divorce for his duchess.

Note 421 page 218. The reference here is to Ovid’s Ars Amandi, which enjoyed an extraordinary reputation during the Renaissance, and from which this passage is largely derived.

Note 422 page 220. The LAURA to whom Petrarch consecrated no less than three hundred and eighteen sonnets, is usually regarded as identical with Laure, the daughter of a certain knight of Avignon, Audibert de Noves. If this identification be correct, she was born in 1308, married Hughes de Sade in 1325, became the mother of eleven children, and died in 1348. In 1533 Francis I caused her reputed tomb to be opened, and found in it a small box which contained a medal bearing a woman’s profile, and a parchment on which was a sonnet signed by Petrarch.

Note 423 page 220. The so-called “Song of Solomon” is now thought to be the work of a period later than Solomon’s and to contain no mystic meaning.

Note 424 page 222. In the old romance, “Amadis of Gaul,” Isola Ferma is an enchanted island, with a garden at the entrance to which stands an arch surmounted by the statue of a man holding a trumpet to his mouth. Whenever an unfaithful lover attempts to pass, the trumpet emits a dreadful sound with fire and smoke, and drives the culprit back; while it welcomes all true lovers with sweetest music.

Note 425 page 228. Here again the reference is of course to “my lady Duchess.”