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A review by fionnualalirsdottir
The Book of the Courtier by Edgar De N. Mayhew, Baldassare Castiglione
When I opened this book today to attempt to review it, a bookmark fell out. It isn't a real bookmark but simply a leaflet I picked up in a gallery when I was in Northern Italy last September.
Reviewing the book now feels like finally closing the chapter on that trip.
I had set out for Italy with three books in my bag, one of which was this one. Although it is three months since I returned home, and although the other two books have been finished and reviewed months ago, this book has hung on, if not to my attention, at least to its place on my reading pile—though fifteen further books were finished in the meantime.
And so, as the December evenings got longer and darker, I forced myself to return to the [b:The Book of the Courtier|314582|The Book of the Courtier|Baldassare Castiglione|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328865424l/314582._SY75_.jpg|515272] and to the discussions by a group of Italian noblemen and women which Baldesar Castiglione has recorded in this book. The discussions took place over the course of four winter evenings in 1507, in the salon of the Duchess Elisabetta Montefeltro of Urbino on the occasion of a visit to the ducal palace by a group of dignitaries from Rome.
'Discussion' is not quite the right term perhaps. 'Disquisition' might suit better since there was a topic around which the discussion was centered, and rather than everyone being free to speak, certain people were called on to give long commentaries on the chosen subject. The subject was the Ideal Courtier, how he should behave, how he should dress, how he should converse, and how he should love. That final aspect lead to a discussion of the Ideal Lady. She was allowed to be witty but mostly she had to be coy, and especially, never to speak out of turn or call attention to herself in any way. Hmm...
What was interesting for me in this book, apart from the way it documents a particular moment in history, was the way it overlapped with other books I'd been reading, in particular Alison Cole's [b:Italian Renaissance Courts|33007228|Italian Renaissance Courts (Renaissance Art)|Alison Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1479495330l/33007228._SX50_.jpg|53652266] which included sections on several of the people mentioned in Castiglione's book and which explained the relationship between the Montefeltros and the other noble families in fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy.
The other main interest for me was the way the book echoed places I visited on my Italian trip. The bookmark I mentioned at the beginning was a leaflet I picked up when I visited the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche which is located in the Ducal Palace in Urbino where the conversations in this book took place.
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So there I was, moving from one sumptuous room of the palace to another, viewing the art treasures in the Marche collection, when, around a corner and across a little corridor, I found myself entering the room that had belonged to Elisabetta, Duchess of Montefeltro. This was the salon in which the discussion of the Ideal Courtier took place more than 500 years ago. As I had read a third of the book at that stage, I was quite thrilled to be there. The focus of the room today is Raphael's 'La Muta' which is thought to be a representation of one of the Montefeltro noblewomen.
La Muta means the silent one—which fits well with the role of the women in this book. Speeches by women take up about 5 pages out of 350, and they are very short and always to the point. The rest of the book is taken up with long and involved speeches by men.
A further echo of my trip emerged in the final section of the book. castiglione mentions that although most of the people present in the discussions were dead by the time he published this account in 1528, the new Duke of Montefeltro, Francesco della Rovere, was still living. Francesco had been just a seventeen-year old in 1507 but he was nevertheless present at the discussions in Elisabetta's salon. He later married her niece, Eleanora Gonzaga of Mantua, who then became Duchess of Urbino. The day before I travelled to Urbino, I visited the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro—the elaborate summer residence that Francesco built for Eleanora. I didn't fully understand how significant that visit was until I came across the reference to Francesco and Eleanora in Castiglione's book. It was convergences like this that made reading this book memorable for me.
Reviewing the book now feels like finally closing the chapter on that trip.
I had set out for Italy with three books in my bag, one of which was this one. Although it is three months since I returned home, and although the other two books have been finished and reviewed months ago, this book has hung on, if not to my attention, at least to its place on my reading pile—though fifteen further books were finished in the meantime.
And so, as the December evenings got longer and darker, I forced myself to return to the [b:The Book of the Courtier|314582|The Book of the Courtier|Baldassare Castiglione|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328865424l/314582._SY75_.jpg|515272] and to the discussions by a group of Italian noblemen and women which Baldesar Castiglione has recorded in this book. The discussions took place over the course of four winter evenings in 1507, in the salon of the Duchess Elisabetta Montefeltro of Urbino on the occasion of a visit to the ducal palace by a group of dignitaries from Rome.
'Discussion' is not quite the right term perhaps. 'Disquisition' might suit better since there was a topic around which the discussion was centered, and rather than everyone being free to speak, certain people were called on to give long commentaries on the chosen subject. The subject was the Ideal Courtier, how he should behave, how he should dress, how he should converse, and how he should love. That final aspect lead to a discussion of the Ideal Lady. She was allowed to be witty but mostly she had to be coy, and especially, never to speak out of turn or call attention to herself in any way. Hmm...
What was interesting for me in this book, apart from the way it documents a particular moment in history, was the way it overlapped with other books I'd been reading, in particular Alison Cole's [b:Italian Renaissance Courts|33007228|Italian Renaissance Courts (Renaissance Art)|Alison Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1479495330l/33007228._SX50_.jpg|53652266] which included sections on several of the people mentioned in Castiglione's book and which explained the relationship between the Montefeltros and the other noble families in fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy.
The other main interest for me was the way the book echoed places I visited on my Italian trip. The bookmark I mentioned at the beginning was a leaflet I picked up when I visited the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche which is located in the Ducal Palace in Urbino where the conversations in this book took place.
So there I was, moving from one sumptuous room of the palace to another, viewing the art treasures in the Marche collection, when, around a corner and across a little corridor, I found myself entering the room that had belonged to Elisabetta, Duchess of Montefeltro. This was the salon in which the discussion of the Ideal Courtier took place more than 500 years ago. As I had read a third of the book at that stage, I was quite thrilled to be there. The focus of the room today is Raphael's 'La Muta' which is thought to be a representation of one of the Montefeltro noblewomen.
La Muta means the silent one—which fits well with the role of the women in this book. Speeches by women take up about 5 pages out of 350, and they are very short and always to the point. The rest of the book is taken up with long and involved speeches by men.
A further echo of my trip emerged in the final section of the book. castiglione mentions that although most of the people present in the discussions were dead by the time he published this account in 1528, the new Duke of Montefeltro, Francesco della Rovere, was still living. Francesco had been just a seventeen-year old in 1507 but he was nevertheless present at the discussions in Elisabetta's salon. He later married her niece, Eleanora Gonzaga of Mantua, who then became Duchess of Urbino. The day before I travelled to Urbino, I visited the Villa Imperiale in Pesaro—the elaborate summer residence that Francesco built for Eleanora. I didn't fully understand how significant that visit was until I came across the reference to Francesco and Eleanora in Castiglione's book. It was convergences like this that made reading this book memorable for me.