Monday, January 14, 2008

This will be one of our more difficult readings, and yet rewarding nonetheless. It is important to keep in mind that the courtier is that very person that Gianozzo railed against in Book III of Alberti's Family. Thus the expectations for both an ideal man and an ideal woman are going to differ vastly from Gianozzo's ideal, even though there may be overlap.

There are sections of this discussion that you should not read as rigorously as others; for the most part, when the men get sidetracked into a lengthy discourse on writing, speaking, style, and language, you can skim these pages, and you'll find that the lady presiding over the evening, Emilia Pia, will get weary of it just as you most likely will. I will place it in context for you in class when we meet.

I would like you to take a look at the preliminary notes at the back of the book (309), particularly as concerns the author Castiglione and his experiences in the early 16th-century court of Urbino, which are the basis for this dialogue. The most notable point is that the person who should be the center of that court, the Duke, is indisposed because of a chronic illness that forces him to retire early after supper each night. The lady pictured at left, Elisabetta Gonzaga, is the Duchess who take his place. Thus the evenings are the province of women, who establish the rules for the entertainment and command the men to follow their bidding. We are a far cry from the cloistered, silent wives of Alberti's Book of the Family.

Or are we? Joan Kelly Gadol's "Did Women Have a Renaissance" will argue that the women in this book are no less silenced in their own way than the citizen wives of Alberti's upper middle class households. The men do all the talking, and the women seem to want them to take that role. That at least is Gadol's opinion; what is yours? Are the ladies here more or less liberated than their bourgeois sisters?

Further Questions:

• Make sure that you read over the list of characters at the beginning (p. xi), getting familiar with their names, their ages, and their circumstances. Are some of them churchmen, for example? You'll note that they have significant differences of opinion on important points of discussion.
• The ideal courtier is a Platonic ideal--something that, even if it can't exist in reality, can be in the mind as a goal to which every courtier can aspire. Is this a worthwhile approach to take? Must there be one ideal, to which all individuals aspire?
• What do you make of the Duchess's role in the household? How do the men seem to regard her?
• What about Emilia Pia? Note her interactions with the men. What is her authority in the assembly?
• Why does the Duchess silence the women when it comes time to propose a game? What is your response?
• What is your overall picture of the way these people spend their time? Note the various games they suggest. We will discuss them in more detail in class.
• What do you make of the flirtatious interplay among the characters, especially the Unico Aretino's comments about the Duchess on page 16?
• Read carefully the introductory description of the ideal courtier on pgs. 21-23. How might this ideal of a man compare to Gianozzo's?
• The Renaissance courtier is the descendent of the military aristocracy of the Middle Ages, and thus his chief profession must be arms. How do these men strike you as warriors? What is important to them in the pursuit of their profession? How do they train for it?
• Pay attention to the discussion of grace between Cesare and the Count on pgs. 32-35. At the top of pg. 35, there occurs a term that is of paramount importance. Translated as nonchalance, the term in Italian is sprezzatura, but it really is untranslatable. You must rely on the way the characters discuss this quality to gain a more complete understanding. What do you think it means?
• You may skim the discussion of language, but stop to note the way the Count describes the emergence of Tuscan as a literary language from the original Latin. How does he understand the relationship between people of his own time and the Romans of antiquity? Also note Emilia's attempted intervention on pg. 52, and the way she eventually forces the men to get back to the original subject on pg. 53.
• How does Castiglione's discussion of makeup compare to Alberti's?
• What is affectation, and how does it differ from sprezzatura?
• Finally, note throughout any reference to women, comparing men to women, describing how men should interact with them, or using gendered terms such as "effeminate." How would you compare this universe to that of Alberti?

Make use of the notes in the back throughout your reading. This entire event took place against the backdrop of a lengthy European struggle called the Italian Wars. It gets rather confusing; I've linked you to the Wikipedia account just to give you an idea of some of the people and events that were involved.

Laurel Carrington carringt@stolaf.edu
Most recent update: January 11, 2008

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