Excerpt from The Book of the CourtierThe popularity long enjoyed by this Old book, the place that it holds in Italian literature, and the fact that it is almost inaccessible to English readers, seem to furnish sufficient reason for a new translation.The art Of the Italian Renaissance delights us by its delicate and gentle beauty, and yet we know that life during this period was Often gross and violent. TO understand this, we must remember that art is more the expres sion Of the ideal than Of the actual, and that men's ideals are loftier than their practice. Castiglione gives utterance to the finest aspirations of his time. His pages will lack interest only when mankind ceases to be interesting to man, and will reward study so long as the past shall continue to instruct the present and the future.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Book of the Courtier (Classic Reprint)

Baldesar Castiglione

Biographies & Memoirs

Forgotten Books

âThe courtier has to imbue with grace his movements, his gestures, his way of doing things and in short, his every action’ In The Book of the Courtier (1528), Baldesar Castiglione, a diplomat and Papal Nuncio to Rome, sets out to define the essential virtues for those at Court. In a lively series of imaginary conversations between the real-life courtiers to the Duke of Urbino, his speakers discuss qualities of noble behaviour – chiefly discretion, decorum, nonchalance and gracefulness – as well as wider questions such as the duties of a good government and the true nature of love. Castiglione’s narrative power and psychological perception make this guide both an entertaining comedy of manners and a revealing window onto the ideals and preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance at the moment of its greatest splendour. George Bull’s elegant translation captures the variety of tone in Castiglione’s speakers, from comic interjections to elevated rhetoric. This edition includes an introduction examining Castiglione’s career in the courts of Urbino and Mantua, a list of the historical characters he portrays and further reading.

The Book of the Courtier

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Anchor

Baldesar Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier is the High Renaissance in microcosm. It is the portrait of a group of leading thinkers and wits gathered together in the Palace of Urbino in March 1507, playing a game where their task is to delineate the perfect courtier. In their conversations about courtliness they range from chivalry to humanist debates about language, literature, painting and sculpture, to the art of conversation and the telling of jokes, the role and dignity of women, the delicate job of guiding willful princes, and finally to love and its transcendent form in pure spirit. The paradox of Baldesar Castiglione's life is that he was held such high esteem while his career was that of an undistinguished soldier and a diplomat who could rarely achieve his goals. it was the style not the substance of his career that had won him Charles V's accolade of "one of the finest gentleman in the world." He was at the heart of a network of courtiers and artists, and he was unequaled in the deployment of all the symbols of a refined courtly and diplomatic life. In short, his life was a work of art.

The Book of the Courtier (The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

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