Note 75 page 37. The incident is supposed to have occurred on the occasion of a visit paid by Apelles to Rhodes not long after the death (323 B.C.) of Alexander the Great, whom he had accompanied into Asia Minor. Apelles was eager to meet Protogenes, and on landing in Rhodes went at once to the painter’s house. Protogenes was absent, but a large panel stood ready for painting. Apelles took a pencil and drew an exceedingly fine coloured line, by which Protogenes on his return immediately recognized who his visitor had been, and in turn drew a finer line of another colour upon or within the first line. When Apelles saw this line, he added a third line still further subdividing the one drawn by Protogenes. Later the panel was carried to Rome, where it long excited wondering admiration in the Palace of the Cæsars, with which it was finally destroyed by fire. Apelles was the first to stimulate appreciation of the merits of Protogenes by buying several of the latter’s works at enormous prices: he maintained however that he excelled Protogenes in knowing when to cease elaborating his paintings.

Note 76 page 37. The play upon words here is untranslatable into English. The Italian tavola stands equally well for a dining-table and for the tablet or panel upon which pictures were painted.

Note 77 page 40. ‘As those who speak [are present] before those who speak’ is a literal translation of the accepted reading of this passage. It is perhaps worth noting, however, that the earliest translator (Boscan) ventures to deviate from the letter of the Italian text for the sake of rendering what surely must have been the author’s meaning: como los que hablan á aquellos con quien hablan, i.e. “as those who speak [are present] before those with whom they speak.”

Note 78 page 41. Although the dialect of Bergamo was (and still is) ridiculed as rude and harsh, it possessed a copious popular literature.

Note 79 page 41. Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch, (born 1304; died 1374), belonged to a family that was banished from Florence at the same time with Dante, whom he remembered seeing in his childhood. He was the first Italian of his time to appreciate the value of public libraries, to collect coins and inscriptions as sources of accurate historical information, and to urge the preservation of ancient monuments. Had he never written a line of verse, he would still be venerated as the apostle of scholarship, as the chief originator of humanistic impulses based upon what Symonds describes as “a new and vital perception of the dignity of man considered as a rational being apart from theological determinations, and ... the further perception that classic literature alone displayed human nature in the plenitude of intellectual and moral freedom.”

Note 80 page 41. In an age when grammatical and rhetorical treatises, in the modern sense of the word, hardly existed, it was natural that the study of classic models should take the form of imitation.

Note 81 page 42. It will be remembered that Giuliano de' Medici was a native Tuscan.

Note 82 page 43. This Tuscan triumvirate was called “the three Florentine crowns:” Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio.

Note 83 page 44. Evander was a mythical son of Hermes, supposed to have founded a colony on the Tiber before the Trojan War. Turnus was a legendary king of an Italian tribe, who was slain by Æneas.

Note 84 page 44. The Salian priests were attached to the worship of Mars Gradivus. On the occasion of their annual festival, they went in procession through Rome, carrying the sacred shields of which they were custodians and which they beat in accompaniment to dance and song. The words of their chaunts are said to have become unintelligible even to themselves, and appear to have set forth a kind of theogony in praise of all the celestial deities (excepting Venus), and especially of one Mamurius Veturius, who is by some regarded as identical with Mars.

Note 85 page 44. Marcus Antonius (143-87 B.C.) and Licinius Crassus (140-91 B.C.), the two most famous orators of early Rome, were regarded by Cicero as having been the first to rival their Greek predecessors. Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (114-50 B.C.), the great advocate of the aristocratic party at Rome, yielded the palm of oratory only to Cicero (106-43 B.C.). Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.), a Roman soldier, author and reforming statesman, sought to restore the ancient purity and simplicity of the earlier republic. Quintus Ennius (239-169 B.C.), a Roman epic poet and annalist, imparted to the language and literature of his nation much of the impulse that affected their growth for centuries. Virgil was born 70 B.C., and died 19 B.C.

Note 86 page 44. Horace was born 65 B.C., and died 8 B.C. Plautus died 184 B.C.

Note 87 page 44. Sergius Sulpicius Galba was Roman Consul 144 B.C.; Cicero praised his oratory, but found it more old-fashioned than that of Lælius (flor. 200 B.C.) and Scipio Africanus the Younger (died 129 B.C.).

Note 88 page 46. In his Prose, Bembo says that courtly Italian, especially during the pontificate of the Spaniard, Alexander VI (1492-1503), was full of Spanish expressions,—an assertion amply confirmed by contemporary letters, which are rich also in Gallicisms.

Note 89 page 46. The Spanish primor has failed to win Italian citizenship. Aventurare has become naturalized in Italy; as also have acertare (in the sense, however, of to assure, to make certain, to verify), ripassare (to repass, to repeat, to rebuff), rimproccio or rimprovero, and attilato or attillato, which is recognizable in the Spanish atildado. Creato (Spanish criado) is now replaced by creatura in the sense mentioned in the text; in Sicily creato is used to mean servant.

Note 90 page 47. The reference here is of course to the Attic, Doric, Ionic and Æolic dialects.

Note 91 page 47. Titus Livius was born at Padua 59 B.C., and died there 17 A.D. Of the one hundred and forty-two books of his History (which covered the period from the founding of Rome in 750 B.C. down to 9 B.C., and upon which he spent forty years of his life), only thirty-five have survived, together with an anonymous summary of the whole.

Note 92 page 48. Of the four forms here condemned by Castiglione as corrupt, three (Campidoglio, Girolamo, and padrone) have become firmly established in Italian. Campidoglio had been used by Petrarch (Trionfo d'Amore, i, 14),—an “old” but certainly not an “ignorant” Tuscan.

Note 93 page 49. Oscan was a pre-Roman language spoken by the Opici, an Italian tribe inhabiting the Campanian coast. Much of the mist that shrouded it for centuries has now been dispelled by the epigraphists. Both Dante and Petrarch were great lovers of Provençal, with which in Castiglione’s time his friend Federico Fregoso was familiar.

Note 94 page 50. Bidon was a native of Asti, and one of the most famous choristers in the service of Leo X.

Note 95 page 50. Marchetto Cara, a native of Verona, entered the service of the Gonzagas in 1495 and lived nearly thirty years at Mantua, where he was made a citizen by the Marquess Federico. He frequented also the court of Urbino, and is known to have been sent by the Marchioness Isabella to relieve the tedium of her friend and sister-in-law the Duchess Elisabetta’s exile at Venice in 1503. In his time he was among the most prolific and successful composers of profane music, especially of ballads and madrigals, and a number of his popular pieces have been preserved.

Note 96 page 50. Leonardo da Vinci, (born 1452; died 1519), was the natural son of a notary, Pietro Antonio, of the village of Vinci, situated about fourteen miles east of Florence. He studied some three years with Donatello’s pupil Verocchio at Florence. Meeting small pecuniary success there, he removed to Milan about 1483 and entered the service of Duke Ludovico Sforza, who is said to have paid him the equivalent of £4000 a year while painting the “Last Supper,” and for whom he completed in 1493 the model of a colossal equestrian statue of Duke Francesco Sforza, never executed in permanent form. He was employed by Cesare Borgia as military engineer, and in that capacity visited Urbino in July 1502. His famous portrait known as the “Monna Lisa” or “La Gioconda,” upon which he worked at times for four years, was finished about 1504 and afterwards sold by him to Francis I. In 1507, he had been appointed painter to Louis XII, but did not visit France until 1516. On the election of Leo X in 1513, he journeyed to Rome in the company and service of Giuliano de' Medici, who paid him a monthly stipend of £66. Although he was received with favour by the new pope and lodged in the Vatican, his stay in Rome was artistically unprolific, his interest at the time being chiefly confined to chemistry and physics, and nature attracting him more than antiquities, of which he spoke as “this old rubbish” (queste anticaglie). Three years before his death he was visited at Amboise in France by Cardinal Ludovico of Aragon, who is mentioned later in The Courtier (p. 159), and whose secretary left an interesting account of an interview with him, describing the painter as then disabled by paralysis of the hand.

Note 97 page 50. Andrea Mantegna, (born 1431; died 1506), was a native of Vicenza and probably of humble origin. When a mere child he became the pupil and adopted son of the noted painter and instructor, Francesco Squarcione of Padua, and was soon enrolled in the painters’ guild of that city. In 1449 he began painting for the d'Este at Ferrara, and between 1453 and 1459 he married Niccolosa, a daughter of Squarcione’s rival Giacopo Bellini, and sister of the more famous brothers Gentile and Giovanni Bellini. He painted also at Verona, and about 1460 entered the service of the Gonzagas at Mantua, where the remainder of his life was chiefly spent, although he worked for Pope Innocent VIII at Rome about the year 1488, before which date he was knighted by the Marquess of Mantua. By one writer he is affirmed to have cast the fine bust which ornaments his tomb at Mantua, and which is said once to have had diamond eyes. He is known to have understood bronze casting, and besides the brush and the engraver’s burin, he handled modelling tools, while a sonnet of his has been preserved. Although praised by Vasari as kindly and in every way estimable, he is shown by contemporary letters to have been rather irritable and litigious in private life. Albert Dürer tells us that one of the keenest disappointments of his life was occasioned by the great painter’s death before he was able to make an intended journey to Mantua for the purpose of visiting Mantegna.

Note 98 page 50. Raffaello Santi or Sanzi,—euphonized by Bembo as Sanzio,—(born 1483; died 1520), was a native of Urbino and the son of Giovanni Santi and Magia Ciarla. The father was himself a painter of no mean skill, and wrote a quaint rhymed chronicle of the Duchy of Urbino, which is preserved in the Vatican and contains much interesting information. Having lost both parents when he had reached the age of eleven years, and probably having first studied at Urbino under Timoteo della Vite, Raphael was sent by a maternal uncle to the studio of Perugino at Perugia. The rest of his short life was an unbroken course of happy labour and brilliant success. In 1499 he seems to have been at Urbino for the purpose of arranging for the welfare of a sister, and again in 1504, when, after executing several works (including, it is believed, portraits of the duke and duchess) for the ducal family, he went to Florence with a letter of commendation from Guidobaldo’s sister. From 1504 to 1508 he resided chiefly at Florence, although he again visited Urbino twice, just before and probably soon after the date of the Courtier dialogues. His friendship with so many members of the Urbino court (Giuliano de' Medici, Bibbiena, Bembo, Canossa, and Castiglione), and even his acquaintance with Julius II, probably began during these later visits to his native city. In 1508 he was called to Rome by Julius, and resided there until his death. On succeeding Bramante as architect of St. Peter’s in 1514, he wrote to Castiglione: “Sir Count: I have made drawings in several manners according to your suggestion, and if everyone does not flatter me, I am satisfying everyone; but I do not satisfy my own judgment, because I dread not satisfying yours. I am sending them to you. Pray choose any of them, if you deem any worthy. Our Lord [i.e. Leo X] in honouring me has put a great burden on my shoulders,—that is, the charge of the fabric of St. Peter’s. I hope, however, not to fall under it; and the more so, because the model I have made for it pleases his Holiness and is praised by many choice spirits; but in thought I soar still higher. I fain would renew the beautiful forms of ancient buildings, but know not whether my flight will be that of Icarus. Vitruvius affords me much light on the subject, but less than I need. As to Galatea, I should hold myself a great master if she possessed half the fine things you write me; but in your words I recognize the love you bear me: and I tell you that to paint one beautiful woman, I should need to see several beautiful women and to have you with me to choose the best. But as there is dearth of good judgments and of beautiful women, I am using a certain idea that has occurred to my mind. Whether this has any artistic excellence in it, I know not,—but I am striving for it. Command me.” Passavant affirms that the ‘drawings’ mentioned at the beginning of this letter were designs for a medal that Castiglione meant to wear. Raphael is said to have painted two portraits of Castiglione, one of which (1516) is in the Louvre and appears as the frontispiece to this volume. His epitaph was written by Bembo, while Castiglione composed a Latin elegy in his honour.

Note 99 page 50. Michelangelo Buonarroti, (born 1475; died 1564), was a native of Caprese, a village about forty-seven miles south-east of Florence, and the son of Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca, daughter of Neri del Sera. His first schoolmaster seems to have come from Urbino. Apprenticed at the age of thirteen to Ghirlandajo, he soon came under the protection of Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1496 he removed to Rome, and remained there five years. From 1501 to 1504 he was working upon the great statue of David at Florence, and prepared his cartoon for a vast fresco on the Battle of Cascina, which, although never executed, was often copied, and is said to have exerted a greater influence on the art of the Renaissance than any other single work. In 1505 he was called to Rome to design a colossal mausoleum for Julius II. The anxieties and disappointments connected with this project became the continual tragedy of his long life. “Every day,” he wrote, “I am stoned as if I had crucified Christ. My youth has been lost, bound hand and foot to this tomb.” The matter was finally ended by the placing of his statue of Moses in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome. In the spring of 1506 he was present at the unearthing of the Laocoön, and at the date of the Courtier dialogues he was engaged in casting a great bronze statue of Julius II at Bologna. Duke Guidobaldo’s collection at Urbino seems to have included a Cupid made by Buonarroti in imitation of the antique, originally owned by Cesare Borgia, regained by him when he captured Urbino in 1502, and soon presented by him to Guidobaldo’s sister-in-law, the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. The famous tomb statue of Giuliano de' Medici at Florence is hardly to be regarded as a portrait, and was of course executed long after the period of The Courtier. In 1519 the Marquess of Mantua wrote to Castiglione, who was his ambassador at Rome, regarding a monument to his father that he hoped to have the master design. In 1523 Castiglione brought to Mantua a sketch made by Buonarroti for a villa which the marquess intended to build at Marmirolo.

Note 100 page 50. Giorgio Barbarelli, known as Giorgione or “Big George,” (born about 1478; died 1511), was a native of Castelfranco, a town about forty miles north-west of Venice, and was reputed to be a natural son of one Giacopo Barbarelli, a Venetian, and a peasant girl. Lack of data renders a consecutive account of his life and work impossible. He was brought up in Venice, and bred as a painter in the school of the Bellini. Vasari says that he played upon the lute and sang well, and was of a gentle disposition. Although he seems to have been exceptionally independent of great people, he enjoyed the especial favour of the Marchioness Isabella d'Este of Mantua. In a letter written from Venice in the year before that of the Courtier dialogues, Albert Dürer declared Giorgione to be the greatest painter in the city, which could then boast of the Bellini, Palma Vecchio, Carpaccio and Titian. One of the most acute of recent critics, Mr. Bernhard Berenson, ascribes to him only seventeen existing pictures, of which the best known is the Fête Champêtre in the Louvre, while the only one whose authenticity is entirely free from doubt is the “Madonna and Saints” in the Duomo at Castelfranco. The Urbino collection comprised two portraits by Giorgione, one of which is supposed to have represented Duke Guidobaldo, but unfortunately is lost.

Note 101 page 51. Isocrates, (born 436; died 338 B.C.), an Athenian orator, was a pupil of Socrates, and became the instructor of many famous orators. His diction was of the purest Attic, and his writings were highly prized by the Alexandrian grammarians. The first printed edition of his works (1493) was edited by Castiglione’s Greek master, Chalcondylas. Lysias, (died about 380 B.C.), an Athenian orator, abandoned the stilted monotony of the older speakers, and employed the simple language of every-day life, but with purity and grace. Æschines, (born 389; died 314 B.C.), was the rival and finally unsuccessful antagonist of Demosthenes.

Note 102 page 51. Caius Papirius Carbo, (Consul in 120 B.C.), was an adherent of the Gracchi, but became a renegade and finally committed suicide. He was generally suspected of murdering Scipio Africanus the Younger. While abominating the man’s character, Cicero praises his oratory. Caius Lælius Sapiens was Consul in 140 B.C. His friendship with Scipio is commemorated in Cicero’s De Amicitia. While he was in his own time regarded as the model orator, later grammarians resorted to his works for archaisms. Scipio Africanus the Younger, (died 129 B.C.), captured Carthage in the Third Punic War, and was leader of the aristocratic party at Rome against the popular reforms of the Gracchi. His works, of which only a few fragments survive, are praised by Cicero and were long held in esteem. Galba, see note 87. Publius Sulpicius Rufus, (born 124; died 88 B.C.), was a tribune of the plebs. Cicero says: “Of all the orators I ever heard, Sulpicius was the most dignified, and, so to speak, the most tragic.” Caius Aurelius Cotta, (Consul 75 B.C.), is characterized by Cicero, who had argued a cause against him, as a most acute and subtle orator, but his style seems to have been dry and unimpassioned. Caius Sempronius Gracchus, (died 121 B.C.), a son of the famous Cornelia, and brother-in-law of Scipio Africanus the Younger, is noted chiefly for his vain struggle in behalf of popular rights. Only fragments of his oratory have survived. Marcus Antonius and Crassus, see note 85.

Note 103 page 51. “In a certain place,” i.e., De Oratore, II, xxiii, 97.

Note 104 page 51. The Italian virtù has here its Latin meaning of natural vigour. See also note 330.

Note 105 page 51. Angelo Poliziano, (born 1454; died 1494), was a native of Montepulciano (about twenty-seven miles south-east of Siena), of which his name is a Latinized form. To English students he is better known as Politian, and as the author of the oft-cited line, “Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.” His father Benedetto Ambrogini died poor, leaving a widow and five young children almost destitute. At the age of ten, Angelo studied at Florence, and composed Latin poems and Greek epigrams while yet a boy. At thirteen, he published Latin epistles; at sixteen, he began his Latin translation of the Iliad; at seventeen, he distributed Greek poems among the learned men of Florence; and at eighteen, he edited Catullus. He was received into Lorenzo de' Medici’s household, and before he was thirty years old, he was professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Florence and was entrusted with the care of Lorenzo’s children. His pupils included the chief students of Europe. A born poet, entitled to the middle place of honour between Petrarch and Ariosto, he was the first Italian to combine perfect mastery of Latin and a correct sense of Greek with genius for his own native literature. Towards the close of his life, he entered holy orders and became a canon of the Cathedral at Florence. He was ill formed, and had squinting eyes and an enormous nose. His morals were lax. He was succeeded by Bembo as dictator of Italian letters.

Note 106 page 51. Lorenzo de' Medici, (born 1448; died 1492), was the grandson of Cosimo, Pater Patriæ, and father of Giuliano of The Courtier. On the death of his father Pietro in 1469, he succeeded jointly with his brother Giuliano to the family wealth and political predominance. Giuliano’s assassination in the Piazzi conspiracy of 1478 (which Poliziano witnessed and narrated in Latin) left Lorenzo sole ruler, but like his predecessors, he governed the republic without any title, by free use of money and great adroitness in securing the elevation of his adherents to the chief offices of state. He was a man of marvellous range of mental power,—an epitome of Renaissance versatility. Never relaxing his hold on public affairs, among philosophers he passed for a sage; among men of letters, for an original and graceful poet; among scholars, for a Hellenist sensitive to every nicety of Attic idiom; among artists, for a connoisseur of consummate taste; among libertines, for a merry and untiring roysterer; among the pious, for an accomplished theologian. “He was no less famous for his jokes and repartees than for his pithy apothegms and maxims, as good a judge of cattle as of statues, as much at home in the bosom of his family as in the riot of an orgy, as ready to discourse on Plato as to plan a campaign or to plot the death of a dangerous citizen.” (Symonds.)

Note 107 page 51. Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, (born 1466; died 1522), was a native of Florence, studied at Pisa, and returning to his native city became intimate with Ficino, of whose philosophy he may be said to have been the heir. For many years he lectured at Florence with such success that the Venetians tried to entice him to the University of Padua, in vain. A partisan of the Medici, he enjoyed the favour of Leo X and of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Clement VII. All his works (written in Latin) are of a philosophical character. His style is said to be sprightly and correct, and despite the ridicule then cast upon the vulgar tongue, he himself translated several of his books into Italian, notably the Tre Libri d'Amore, with which Castiglione shows familiarity in the Fourth Book of The Courtier.

Note 108 page 52. Caius Silius Italicus, (died 100 A.D.), was Consul under Nero and a follower of Cicero in the art of oratory. After a prosperous public career, he retired to a life of literary ease. His most important work was a long epic poem on the Second Punic War, and soon sank into oblivion. Cornelius Tacitus, (died probably after 117 A.D.), was Consul and orator as well as historian.

Note 109 page 54. Marcus Terentius Varro, (born 116; died about 27 B.C.), was somewhat older than Cæsar, Cicero and Sallust, but outlived them all. He was regarded as the most learned of the Romans, and was made director of the public library by Cæsar, although he had been a partisan of Pompey. Of his seventy-four works, which embraced nearly all branches of knowledge, only two survive. They were much esteemed by the Christian Fathers.

Note 110 page 55. Catullus was born about 87 B.C. His 39th ode begins: “Because Egnatius has white teeth, he smiles wherever he goes” (Egnatius, quod candidos habet dentes, renidet usque quaque). Later in the same ode, he says: “Nothing is more pointless than a pointless laugh” (Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est).

Note 111 page 57. Monseigneur d'Angoulême, afterwards Francis I, (born 1494; died 1547), was the son of Count Charles d'Angoulême and Louise of Savoy. His governor, Sieur de Boisy, strove to inspire him with a taste for arms and a love of letters and art, and it was from romances of chivalry that he derived much of his education and many of his ideas of government. He succeeded his cousin Louis XII in January 1515, and one of the earliest functions at his court was the marriage of his aunt Filiberta of Savoy to Giuliano de' Medici, who is here represented by Castiglione (with what truth remains uncertain) as having visited the French court shortly before the date of the Courtier dialogues. Writing in 1515, the Venetian ambassador describes the young king as being really handsome (the evidence of our nearly contemporaneous medal illustration to the contrary), courageous, an excellent musician, and very learned for one of his age and rank. Under his rule, relations between France and Italy became closer and more active, and there began to penetrate beyond the Alps that Italian influence which he later greatly increased by marrying his son to Giuliano de' Medici’s great-niece Caterina. His education had included a study of Italian literature and customs, and besides Federico Fregoso and Ludovico da Canossa he received and honoured many other illustrious Italians, among whom were Leonardo da Vinci and Benvenuto Cellini. He caused search to be made in Italy for rare MSS., and had them copied for his library. His reign, although clouded by defeats and humiliations, began a true literary and artistic Renaissance in France.

Note 112 page 57. The reference here is to the famous Sorbonne (founded by Robert Sorbon in 1253) towards which Francis was for religious reasons hostile during the early years of his reign, and to which he raised up a rival by founding the Collège de France in 1530.

Note 113 page 58. Lucius Licinius Lucullus, a Roman general and Consul (74 B.C.), noted chiefly for his wealth, luxury, and patronage of art and letters. Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a Roman general, Consul (88 B.C.), and dictator, was the first Roman to lead an army against the city, and the first to publish lists of his enemies, proscribing them and offering a reward for their death. Cneius Pompeius, or Pompey, (born 106; died 48 B.C.), a member of the Triumvirate with Cæsar and Crassus, and the finally unsuccessful champion of the conservative party against the power of Cæsar. Marcus Junius Brutus, (born 85; died 42 B.C.), a statesman and scholar, who adhered to Pompey, joined Cassius in the assassination of Cæsar, and was finally defeated by Mark Antony. Hannibal, (born 247 B.C.), the famous Carthaginian general who conquered Spain, crossed the Alps, overran Italy, was defeated by Scipio the Elder, became chief magistrate of Carthage, and committed suicide in exile about 183 B.C.

Note 114 page 59. In the last chapter of his “Prince,” Machiavelli (who was Castiglione’s contemporary) says: “Although military excellence seems to be extinct in Italy, this arises from the fact that the old methods were not good and there has been no one who knew how to devise new ones. We have great excellence in the members, if only it were not lacking in the heads. In duels and engagements between small numbers, see how superior the Italians are in strength, in dexterity, in resource. But when it comes to armies, they make no showing; and it all proceeds from the weakness of the heads. Whence it arises that in so much time, in so many battles fought in the last twenty years, when an army has been purely Italian, it has always succeeded ill.” Compare this opinion with Montaigne’s remark (Essais, II, c. 24) that the officers of Charles VIII ascribed their easy Italian conquests to the fact that “the princes and nobility of Italy took more pleasure in becoming ingenious and learned than in becoming vigorous and warlike.”

Note 115 page 59. In 1524 Castiglione wrote to his mother at Mantua regarding the education of his son, who had just begun to study the Greek alphabet, as follows: “As to Camillo’s learning Greek, I have had a letter also from Michael, who says so many things that he seems to me a flatterer. It is enough that the boy shows good capacity and inclination, and good pronunciation. As for Latin, I should be glad to have him attend more to Greek at present, for those who know are of opinion that one ought to begin with Greek; because Latin is natural to us, and we almost acquire it even though we spend little labour upon it; but Greek is not so.”

Note 116 page 59. The reader will hardly need to be reminded that the habit of versification was very prevalent in all ranks of Italian society in Castiglione’s day. Varchi (1502-1565) informs us that the vernacular was generally despised in the Florence of that time, and adds: “And I remember, when I was a lad, that the first and most important command which fathers usually gave to their children, and masters to their pupils, was that they must on no account whatever read anything in the vulgar tongue.”

Note 117 page 59. In the Vita Nuova (c. 25), Dante says: “And the first who began to speak like a native poet was moved thereto because he would have his words understood of woman.”

Note 118 page 59. Aristippus, (flor. 400 B.C.), was a Greek philosopher, whose school took its name from his birthplace, Cyrene in Africa. He was for some time a follower of Socrates, and afterwards lived at the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. Diogenes Laertius relates that when Aristippus was asked what was the greatest thing he had gained from philosophy, he replied: “The power to meet all men with confidence.”

Note 119 page 60. Among Plutarch’s works is a tract entitled “How to Tell Friend from Flatterer.” In 1532 Erasmus published a Latin version of it dedicated to Henry VIII of England.

Note 120 page 61. The first quatrain of a well-known sonnet by Petrarch:

of which Mr. John Jay Chapman has kindly furnished the following translation:

In his oration Pro Archia, Cicero describes Alexander as exclaiming: “O fortunate youth, who found Homer as herald of thy valour!” (O fortunate, inquit, adulescens qui tuæ virtutis Homerum præconem inveneris!).

Note 121 page 62. In an earlier version, this passage reads: “Grasso de' Medici will in this matter have the same advantage over Messer Pietro Bembo that a hogshead has over a barrel.” Bembo was slender, while Grasso (fat man) was probably the nickname of a corpulent soldier in the service of the Medici, possibly identical with a certain Grasso to whom Bembo desired to be commended in a letter to Bibbiena, 5 February 1506.

Note 122 page 63. The instrument used in Socrates’s time κιθάρα was certainly not the modern cithern, but more probably a kind of large lyre, supported by a ribbon and played with a plectrum of metal, wood or ivory.

Note 123 page 63. In a note to this passage, Cian says: “Abito [rendered ‘habit of mind’] is a special condition or habitual quality of the mind, which manifests itself outwardly in a special costume [rendered ‘habitual tendency’], or equally habitual behaviour, which in turn reacts upon the disposition and moral attitude of the individual.”

Note 124 page 64. Lycurgus probably lived in the 9th century B.C., and was the reputed author of the Spartan laws and institutions.

Note 125 page 64. Epaminondas, a Theban general, defeated the Spartans at Leuctra in 371 B.C. and at Mantinea in 362 B.C., and lost his life in the latter battle.

Note 126 page 64. Themistocles, the Athenian statesman and general, persuaded the Greeks to resist the second Persian invasion by naval force at Salamis in 480 B.C.

Note 127 page 64. One of the finest of the Pompeian frescoes represents the centaur Chiron teaching Achilles to play upon the lyre.

Note 128 page 64. The reference here is of course to the familiar story of Orpheus and the beasts.

Note 129 page 64. Castiglione doubtless had in mind the legend of Arion, a Greek poet of Lesbos, who probably flourished about 700 B.C. We have a fragment of his verse addressed to Poseidon and telling of the dolphins, who had wafted the poet safely to land when he had lost his course.

Note 130 page 65. As we shall see, the Magnifico’s request was not complied with until the second evening (page 81).

Note 131 page 65. Quintus Fabius Pictor was a Roman general who served in the Second Punic War, and wrote a Greek history of Rome, much esteemed by the ancients, but now lost. Pliny affirms that Fabius painted the temple in the 450th year after the founding of Rome (i.e. 300 B.C.), and that the painting was still extant about the beginning of our era.