Book V

of “The Republic.”

Note 442 page 270. Fregoso here declares for what has been called “that Utopia of the 16th Century—the _Governo Misto_—a political invention which fascinated the imagination of Italian statesmen much in the same way as the theory of perpetual motion attracted scientific minds in the last century.” (Symonds’s “Renaissance in Italy,” i, 306.) In this regard the men of Castiglione’s time, men like Machiavelli and Guicciardini, were only following Plato and Aristotle.

Note 443 page 270. The reference here is to the _Cyropædia_, i, 6.

Note 444 page 270. Castiglione seems to have in mind the game of _tavola reale_, which is similar to our backgammon.

Note 445 page 273. Circe’s transformation of some of Ulysses’s companions into swine is narrated in the tenth book of the Odyssey. In Castiglione’s day the term “King of France” was used to signify the acme of royal power.

Note 446 page 274. GIANFRANCESCO—more commonly called FRANCESCO—GONZAGA, (born 1466; died 1519), was the eldest son of the Marquess Federico of Mantua and Margarita of Bavaria, and a brother of “my lady Duchess.” Having succeeded his father in 1484, he married (1490) Isabella d’Este, to whom he had been betrothed at the age of sixteen. Like his ancestors and most other petty Italian rulers of his time, he was at once _condottiere_ and sovereign prince. He commanded the Italian troops against Charles VIII, and although with an overwhelmingly superior force he failed to block the retreat of the French at Fornovo, he treated that disgraceful affair as a glorious victory, and even caused it to be commemorated by Mantegna in a votive picture now in the Louvre. He served successively as captain of the imperial troops in Italy, as commander of Duke Ludovico Sforza’s army, as viceroy of Naples under Louis XII, etc. He joined the League of Cambray and was taken prisoner by the Venetians. In the general disorders that filled the period of his reign, he and his more brilliant wife had the address to protect his dominions from the ravages of war. Although, as Castiglione’s natural lord, he was asked and gave his consent to the latter’s entry into the Duke of Urbino’s court (1504), he seems to have continued to resent the affair until Castiglione’s return (1516) to his service,—in which the author remained when this part of the text was written. Castiglione’s eulogy was far from undeserved, for to the Marquess’s munificence, no less than to his consort’s taste and enthusiasm, must be ascribed the lustre of their provincial court. Besides being a patron of art and letters, he was also a successful breeder of horses for use both in war and in racing.

Note 447 page 274. The duke is said to have had no small share in planning the palace; his chief architect was one Luciano, a native of Laurana in Dalmatia on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. The cost of the structure was about £400,000 sterling. See, besides the authorities cited in note 28, Luzio and Renier’s _Mantova e Urbino_, (Roux: Turin: 1893), p. 10, note 1.

Note 448 page 274. The ancient basilica of St. Peter’s had become ruinous by 1450, but little was done towards rebuilding it until 1506, when the execution of Bramante’s plan was begun with the solemn laying of the first stone by Julius II on Sunday, 18 April. On the death of Bramante, Raphael was put in charge of the work in 1514, as we have seen (note 98), but, apparently owing to lack of funds, progress was slow until 1534 when Michelangelo’s designs were substituted. The dome was completed in 1590, and the church dedicated in 1626.

Note 449 page 274. This ‘street’ was designed by Bramante to be a kind of triumphal way connecting the Vatican with the Belvedere pavilion. It was to be bordered by palaces, courts, gardens, porticoes, terraces, etc., but the death of Julius II led to the abandonment of the plan.

Note 450 page 274. Pozzuoli (the ancient Puteoli), situated seven miles west of Naples, was originally a Greek city, but became one of the chief commercial ports of the Roman Empire, and a resort of the patrician class. It is noted for its ruins, especially those of a large amphitheatre.

Baja (the ancient Baiæ), on the Gulf of Pozzuoli, was the chief Roman watering place, famous for its luxury, and containing the villas of many celebrated Romans. Its principal antiquities are ruins of baths.

Civita Vecchia lies on the coast about thirty-eight miles north-west of Rome, and was anciently known as Centum Cellæ. The Emperor Trajan (reigned 98-117 A.D.) converted it from a poor village into a great seaport, and of his monuments some remains are still extant.

Porto was a Roman city near the mouths of the Tiber. In Castiglione’s time it had become a marshy island. One of the earliest Italian archæologists, Flavio Biondo, visited the site in 1451, and found there many huge marble blocks ready for building and bearing quarry marks of the imperial period. The Apollo Belvedere was discovered here in 1503.

Note 451 page 274. Almost the same phrase occurs in the well known letter which Raphael (who had been appointed guardian of antiquities) wrote to Leo X, urging the pontiff to avert the complete destruction of “that little which remains of Italian glory and greatness in proof of the worth and power of those divine minds.” Castiglione was long supposed to be the author of the letter, but is now believed only to have aided Raphael in its composition.

Note 452 page 274. Alexandria was founded by the conqueror in 332 B.C.

Bucephalia (founded 327 B.C.) was situated on the river Hydaspes (the modern Jhelum), a branch of the Indus, about 120 miles north-west of Lahore, and was named in honour of Alexander’s favourite horse, which died there. Bucephalus (ox-headed) is supposed to have been a name given to Thessalian horses, which were branded with a bull’s head.

Note 453 page 274. Mount Athos (6780 feet high) forms the extremity of the easternmost peninsula of Chalcidice in Macedonia. During the Persian invasion of Xerxes (480 B.C.) it was temporarily converted into an island, and since the Middle Ages has been noted for its monasteries. Both Vitruvius and Plutarch give an account of the project mentioned in the text, and ascribe it to a Macedonian architect who appears under the names, Dinocrates, Cheirocrates, and Stasicrates,—and who also planned the city of Alexandria and was chosen to rebuild the great temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The statue was to represent Alexander, who is said to have abandoned the idea when he learned that the city to be placed in the hand of the statue would be without territory and could be provisioned only by sea,—saying that such a city would be like a child that cannot grow for failure of its nurse’s milk.

Note 454 page 275. In Athenian legend PROCRUSTES was a cruel robber, who had a bed upon which he tortured his captives by stretching those who were too short and by cutting off the legs of those who were too long. He was finally slain by the hero Theseus.

SCIRON was another legendary Attic robber, who compelled his victims to wash his feet on the Scironian rocks near Athens, and then kicked them into the sea where they served to fatten the turtles upon which he fed. He also was slain by Theseus, and in the same manner in which he had slain others.

In Roman myth CACUS was a gigantic son of Vulcan, living near the site of Rome. He robbed Hercules of some of the cattle stolen from the monster Geryon, and dragged them into his cave backwards, so that they could not be tracked; but Hercules discovered them by their lowing, and slew the thief.

DIOMED (not the Argive prince of the Iliad, but Ares’s mythical son, who was king over the Bistones in Thrace) was slain by Hercules because he was accustomed to feed his mares on human flesh.

ANTÆUS was a fabulous and gigantic wrestler of Libya, reputed to be the son of Poseidon and Gæa, the Earth goddess. Being held aloft and thus deprived of the miraculous strength derived from contact with his mother earth, he was crushed to death by Hercules. GERYON was the mythical three-headed king of Hesperia, the theft of whose cattle constituted the tenth of the Twelve Labours of Hercules.

Note 455 page 275. “The crimes of the tyrants against their subjects and the members of their own families had produced a correlative order of crime in the people over whom they tyrannized. Cruelty was met by conspiracy. Tyrannicide became honourable; and the proverb, ‘He who gives his own life can take a tyrant’s,’ had worked itself into the popular language.” (Symonds’s “Renaissance in Italy,” i, 154.) “The study of the classics, especially of Plutarch, at this time as also during the French Revolution, fired the imagination of patriots.” (Id., 151, note 2.)

Note 456 page 275. Similar exhortations to a fresh crusade are of frequent occurrence in Italian literature of this period, and were often used by popes and princes as a cover for their selfish designs.

Note 457 page 275. The meaning obviously is that if they had not been exiled, they never would have enjoyed their present prosperity. Plutarch tells the story in four slightly varying forms.

Note 458 page 276. MONSEIGNEUR D’ANGOULÊME afterwards became Francis I (see note 111). Even stronger evidence of the author’s admiration than this and another passage (see page 57), is afforded by the Proem with which he originally intended to preface the dialogues, but for which he seems to have been led by political considerations to substitute the introduction finally printed.

Note 459 page 276. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards Henry VIII, (born 1491; died 1547), was the younger son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and was educated for the church. Having succeeded his father in 1509, he married (in accordance with his parents’ wish) his elder brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine, the youngest child of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic. His accession was hailed with enthusiasm. Left rich through his father’s avarice, he was generous, frank, handsome, exceptionally robust, and an accomplished athlete and scholar. Good men were delighted with the purity of his life, his gaiety pleased the courtiers, and sober statesmen found in him a singular capacity for business. Besides being a musician, he spoke Latin, French and Spanish, and was very devout,—usually attending mass five times daily. Even as late as 1521 he dedicated to the pope an anti-Lutheran tract on the Seven Sacraments, and in return received the title of Defender of the Faith. As an offset to the enormities of his later life, it is only just to remember that he raised England to the rank of a great European power, and that for twenty years he did nothing to mar the harmony of his reign.

[Illustration:

HENRY VII OF ENGLAND 1457-1509 ]

Reduced from Walker and Boutall’s photograph of an anonymous portrait (no. 416) in the National Portrait Gallery at London. Painted on an oak panel for one Herman Rinck in October 1505, the picture was once owned by M. Julien at Le Mans, by M. Émile Barre at Paris, and by Mr. E. J. Muller, from whom it was acquired by the Gallery in 1876.

Note 460 page 276. ‘His great father,’ i.e., Henry VII, (born 1457; died 1509), was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, (a son of Henry V’s widow Catherine), and Margaret Beaufort, whose paternal grandfather was an illegitimate half-brother of Henry IV. After the downfall of the House of Lancaster and the death of the young York princes, Henry succeeded in gathering a strong party, landed in England and wrested the crown from Richard III, 1485. Soon afterwards, by his marriage to Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth of York, he united the hostile factions that had so long harassed the kingdom. As a ruler he was avaricious, calculating, and far from popular. He is said to have left a treasure of £2,000,000 sterling. The marriage of his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland finally led (on the failure of his son’s issue) to the accession of the Stuarts in the person of her grandson, James I.

Note 461 page 276. This is consistent with the earlier passage (see page 8) where Castiglione pretends to have been absent in England at the date of the Courtier dialogues. An earlier MS. version here reads: “as we are told by our friend Castiglione, who has just returned from England,” which accords with what we have seen (note 23) to be the fact.

Note 462 page 276. DON CARLOS, afterwards the Emperor Charles V, (born 1500; died 1558), was the son of the Emperor Maximilian’s son Philip of Austria, and of Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic. Born and bred in the Low Countries, and educated at least partly under the care of the future pope Adrian VI, he is said to have shown less taste for study than for military exercises, and on his accession to the Spanish throne in 1516, he was ignorant of the Spanish language. By right of his grandmother Mary of Burgundy, he already held the Netherlands. As representative of the house of Aragon, he was king of Naples and Sicily. On the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited Austria, and (in spite of the rivalry of Francis I and the intrigues of Leo X) was elected Emperor;—thus achieving, without a blow, a dominion vaster than any in Europe since the time of Charlemagne.

In an earlier MS. version the text here reads: “Then messer Bernardo Bibbiena said: ‘I do not think that any of those present, except myself, have seen the prince Don Carlos, who, having recently lost such a father as the king Don Philip was, has shown such courage and wisdom in this great bereavement, that although he has not reached the tenth year of his age, we may nevertheless regard him as competent to rule over all his hereditary possessions, vast though they be,—and that the Empire of Christendom (which men think will be in his hands) must grow not a little in power and dignity.’”

Note 463 page 279. FEDERICO GONZAGA, the first Duke of Mantua, (born 1500; died 1540), was the son of the Marquess Gianfrancesco Gonzaga and Isabella d’Este. At the age of ten he spent some time as the hostage-guest of Julius II at Rome, where he seems to have been generally caressed. Raphael is known to have introduced the boy’s face into one of the Vatican frescoes, and a little later to have painted his portrait. Having succeeded his father as marquess in 1519, he waged war for Leo X against the French. In 1527 he joined the league of Italian princes against Charles V, but went over to the Emperor’s side two years later, and was created Duke of Mantua. In 1531 he married Margarita Paleologus. Both Giulio Romano and Benvenuto Cellini were in his employ.

Note 464 page 280. These lines were written after Ottaviano Fregoso’s election as Doge of Genoa; see note 11.

Note 465 page 281. In an earlier MS. version, my lady Emilia continues: “‘And even if it were so, I do not see how he is on that account set above the Court Lady.’ The Magnifico Giuliano said: ‘We regard the Lady as the equal of the Courtier, and according to my lord Ottaviano, the Courtier is superior to the Prince; therefore the Court Lady comes to be superior to the Prince.’”

Note 466 page 284. Phœnix appears in the Iliad as appointed by Peleus to superintend the education of the latter’s son Achilles.

Note 467 page 284. ARISTOTLE was summoned (342 B.C.) to undertake the education of Alexander, who was then thirteen years old, and whom no one had thus far been able to control. The philosopher’s training continued uninterruptedly for four years, included instruction in poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, physics, and medicine,—and is said to have had beneficial effect upon the future conqueror’s character.

Note 468 page 285. Stagira lay on the easterly side of the Chalcidic peninsula. Philip had destroyed it in his Olynthian campaign of 348 B.C., but rebuilt it at Aristotle’s request and caused a gymnasium to be erected there, in a shady grove, for the use of the philosopher and his pupils, among whom was Alexander.

Note 469 page 285. Plutarch expressly affirms that Alexander’s policy, of uniting all the nations under his sway into a single people, was not founded on Aristotle’s advice, as indeed an examination of the latter’s political theories would seem to prove.

Note 470 page 285. The Bactrians were an Aryan people dwelling on the upper Oxus, in what is now Afghanistan. They were conquered in 327 B.C. by Alexander, who married Roxana, the daughter of one of their princes. In ancient times the inhabitants of northern and eastern Europe and Asia were called Scythians.

Note 471 page 285. CALLISTHENES was a cousin and fellow pupil of Alexander’s. On Aristotle’s recommendation, Alexander took Callisthenes with him on his Asiatic expedition of 334 B.C., but, exasperated by his young kinsman’s plain-spoken disapproval of his conduct, had Callisthenes put to death.

[Illustration:

DON CARLOS PRINCE OF SPAIN 1500-1558 ]

Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 43.099) of the portrait, in the Borghese collection at Rome, attributed to Bernhard Strigel (1460?-1528).

Note 472 page 285. DIO, (born about 408; died about 354 B.C.), was an austere Syracusan philosopher who became an ardent disciple of Plato on the occasion of the latter’s short residence at the court of Dionysius the Elder, and later induced the younger DIONYSIUS also to invite Plato to Syracuse, where, however, the philosopher was unable long to check the tyrant’s profligacy.

Note 473 page 287. Bembo was thirty-six years old at the date of the Courtier dialogues.

Note 474 page 288. In