The Book of the Courtier (Penguin Classics)

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.

Well, contemporary for Niccolo Machiavelli. But this book has enduring relevance for anyone who has to spend time among those courting the politically powerful. It would be easy to dismiss this as without current relevance, but that would be a clear indication of either naiveté about political life or intellectual laziness (or both). The book is formatted as a series of fictional or fictionalized discussions among the influential. This was a common style for non-fiction, from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century, but does feel a little odd to many modern readers.

Over the course of several evenings, the topic is "What makes the perfect courtier?" That is to say, the perfect flunky in the company of the politically powerful. Many attributes an behaviors are discussed as appropriate for a courtier, and two things jumped out at me. First, that this could be a textbook for a political intern or a climber in the business world. Second, how shallow the desired traits were. Social graces, from a good family, a good dancer, a good athlete, but never a skilled planner, a thoughtful or reflective nature, and definitely not someone who will tell the boss the ugly news. There is also great deal of discussion of how to backstab with grace and style.

Reading this was something of a secret and dirty pleasure; the conformation that so little in human behavior has changed in five centuries, the underhanded social techniques, the unbridled ambition of the players.

If you are headed for an entry level position in the political arena, read this, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

E. M. Van Court

There really was a Camelot. But it was in Italy. Urbino in northern Italy to be exact, in the 1500s. Perched on top of a couple of hills in the region Le Marche, Urbino was ruled by the Montefeltro family. From 1444 to 1482 Federigo de Montefeltro skillfully steered his tiny domain through the rough storms of Italian Renaissance realpolitik. Federigo was a successful soldier of fortune yet maintained one of the largest libraries in Italy, spoke Latin, read Aristotle, helped orphans and in general earned the love of his people. He built a beautiful fairy-tale palace and had Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca decorate it.

His less fortunate son Guidobaldo inherited this charming and well-run dukedom. Guidobaldo married the cultivated Elisabetta of the Gonzaga family from Mantua. He was an invalid and not made of his father's stern military stuff. A victim of the brilliant military campaigns of Cesare Borgia that so enchanted Machiavelli, Guidobaldo was temporarily deposed. When the Borgias (Cesare and his father Pope Alexander VI) died, the people of Urbino rose up, drove out Borgia's soldiers and cheered Guidobaldo and Elisabetta upon their return.

For the next few years the court of Elisabetta and Guidobaldo was the most beautiful, enlightened, genteel place on earth. They attracted musicians, scholars and artists. Conversation was honed into a fine art. Into this paradise strode our Lancelot, Baldassare Castiglione, a diplomat descended from minor Italian nobility. He loved Elisabetta, but as far as we know the devotion remained platonic

It is because of Castiglione that we believe we have a sense of what the court of Montefeltro was like, or at least how they would have like to have been remembered. His "The Book of the Courtier" (Il Cortigiano) painstakingly analyzes the attributes of a gentleman through conversations (probably highly idealized) of refined visitors to Urbino.

It's a long, slow, but thoroughly enjoyable book. It is a window into the renaissance mind. It does not describe how the Italians of the sixteenth century were, Machiavelli and Cellini are probably more useful there. But it tells how they wanted to be. The book was read and studied by nobility all over Europe.

It's also how I wanted them to be. Urbino is one of my favorite places. It's a crowded student city now. But on a quiet morning when only a few people are about and the sun has made its way over the hills from the Adriatic, I can imagine that I can see the ghosts of Elisabetta and Guidobaldo walking on the cobbled streets outside their beautiful palace. Fussy, snobbish, yet kind and gentle Castiglione and his wonderful book help make that fantasy more real.

Oh, and for you bike people, Castiglione married Ippolita Torelli.

- Bill McGann, author of "The Story of the Tour de France"

This book is a wonderful treatise on the correct way for a courtier to behave in Renaissance Italy, and indeed in court life in general throughout Western Europe. Many of Castiglione's rules of behavior were applicable for the English or French courtier as well, so by no means should we look at this work as applying merely to Italian court life.

Also, from what I understand, Castiglione wrote the Book of the Courtier in 1528. That puts it in the fifteen hundreds, otherwise known as the sixteenth century.

Observations of life from an old world Italian gentleman.

Interesting aspects of life's nuances and the corrective measures people need tot ake according to the author.

Castiglione's "Courtier" is one of many books outlining protocol and proper behavior of the sophisticated elite. It might suffice to say that he was in some way the Emily Post of his era however, it seems that this work was more far reaching than this. The Courtier is a fascinating book that is actually more useful in studying the renaissance than Machiavelli's "The Prince" (which I do recommend as well) since its detail on why people should act as proscribed is directly taken from real events and people and it is less a work of philosophy and more a work centered about real action in living. I recommend this work highly to everyone wishing to learn more about this age. This version is far better than the one I first read and it offers decent commentary to help elucidate the reader.

Castiglione was extraordinarily fond of Federigo the duke of Urbino with whom he fictitiously converses in this work. I am inclined to believe, though possibly naively, that the fictitious conversations outlined in this work, though not actual, may have been a summation of actual conversations that Castiglione and Federigo actually had. We should remember that Federigo was a model duke and Urbino was the model court of renaissance Italy. Federigo was a lover of learning and the arts and an able ruler willing to give audience to any of his subjects. He also was a more than able military commander who was just in to his men and equally just to those whom he fought against. In short he was the finest example of a renaissance prince. Urbino, though far smaller than Florence, Venice, Genoa or Rome was a very well organized and lovely court that was a favorite place, not only for Castiglione, but also for many artists including Leonardo Da Vinci. Putting all of this in context it is understandable why it made sense for Castiglione to use Federigo as his model in writing this book and it also explains one reason why it was such an immediate success among all of the Italian nobility. Naturally they read it for different reasons than you will but this book had lasting appeal and should be regarded as a classic work.

One reason this book is so interesting is that it is the outline of protocol for courtiers of the Italian Renaissance. Pondering this one might ask the question "why did Castiglione feel he had to write this work?" I can assure you his aims were quite different from those of the handbag maven Kate Spade who has recently issued a series of books along the same vein as The Courtier for today's yuppie elite and their "wannabee" counterparts. I surmise simply that this book needed to be written because their was an essential break in culture of the nobles of the Renaissance and those of the Middle Ages. However this break was by no means sudden and the crudeness and bad manners of the Middle ages did not die quickly especially among the rural nobility. Even so Castiglione saw a benefit from everyone "working off of the same page" and thus he wrote that page.

If you are studying the Renaissance it is probable that you will read some short excerpt of this book. While enlightening as that small cut may be it pales in comparison to the entire work. Sociologists, historians, scholars, and interested people will all get something out of reading this book. It is not imposing and dry as it may appear. Though the language may be dense at times Castiglione is kind to his readers by making the work enjoyable and easy to read. Modeling the work after conversations naturally lightens the work and it really is not that long of a work anyway. I rate this version as the best I have seen and think that you will do a great service to yourself in reading this.

-- Ted Murena