The Book of the Courtier

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Baldassare Castiglione

History

Jul 31, 2018

The Book of the Courtier depicts the world of its author, Baldassare Castiglione, a nobleman in the service of the Duke of Urbino, who led the most sophisticated court in Italy in the early sixteenth century. Castiglione’s volume, which he worked on for more than a decade, is a “courtesy book,” a genre of the High Renaissance that propounded etiquette lessons, rules for moral behavior, and advice for nobles in navigating the waters of politics and politesse that always surround royalty. Through a series of dialogues, modeled on the classical precedents of Plato and Cicero, Castiglione argues that a true gentleman needs both military training and education in the humanistic disciplines, such as music and history. Published in Italy in 1528, when publishing was still a young technology, The Book of the Courtier was a smash—it rocketed across the Continent and found an especially eager audience in England, where its principles of good living were especially influential (a translation came out just as Queen Elizabeth I was coming to the throne). The Book of the Courtier is still very much worth reading five centuries on for its unrivaled depiction of the aristocratic virtues and values of the Renaissance, and for its celebration of the kind of worldly grace to which even the humblest among us at times aspire.

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roppenhe

Feb 18, 2019

A great window on the Renaissance, and not a bad self-help book for our time either!

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