Durant W. The Renaissance. A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D

charging him with heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape,

perjury, treason, and sacrilege. `051215 Sigismondo laughed at the

bull, saying that it had not perceptibly lessened his enjoyment of

food and wine. `051216 But the patience, arms, and strategy of the

scholar Pope proved too much for him; in 1463 he knelt in penitence

before a papal legate, surrendered his realm to the Church, and

received absolution. Still afire with energy, he took command of a

Venetian army, won several victories against the Turks, and returned

to Rimini with what seemed to him a prize as precious as the bones

of the greatest saint- the ashes of the philosopher Gemistus Pletho,

the Greek Platonist who had in effect proposed the replacement of

Christianity with a Neoplatonic pagan faith. Sigismondo buried his

treasure in a splendid tomb alongside his Tempio. Three years later

(1468) he died. We must not forget him in our composite image of the

Renaissance.

-

If Sigismondo represented that small but influential minority

which had more or less openly ceased to accept the medieval

Christian creed, we need only follow the Adriatic down from Rimini

into the Marches to Loreto to find a living symbol of the old religion

still warm in Italian hearts. Every year during the Renaissance, as in

our times, thousands of earnest pilgrims traveled to Loreto to visit

the Casa Santa, or Holy House, in which, they were told, Mary and

Joseph and Jesus had lived in Nazareth, and which, said the

marvelous legend, had been miraculously transported by angels first to

Dalmatia (1291), then (1294) over the Adriatic to a laurel grove

( lauretum ) near Recanati. Around the little stone house a marble

screen was built from designs by Bramante, and Andrea Sansovino

added sculptural decorations; and over the Casa a church called the

santuario was raised by Giuliano da Maiano and Giuliano da

Sangallo (1468f). On a small altar inside the Holy House was a

figure of Mary and her Child in black cedar, which piety ascribed to

the artist hand of Luke the Evangelist. Consumed by fire in 1921,

the group was replaced by a reproduction, adorned with jewels and

precious stones; and silver lamps keep lights burning before it day

and night. This too was part of the Renaissance.

IV. URBINO AND CASTIGLIONE

-

Twenty miles inland from the Adriatic, midway between Loreto and

Rimini, hidden aloft on a scenic spur of the Apennines, the little

principality of Urbino- forty miles square- was in the fifteenth

century one of the most civilized centers on the earth. That fortunate

territory, two hundred years before, had come into the possession of a

family- the Montefeltri- that made fortunes as condottieri, and

spent them as wisely as they were darkly earned. In a remarkable reign

of thirty-eight years (1444-82) Federigo da Montefeltro ruled Urbino

with a skill and justice unequaled even by Lorenzo the Magnificent. He

began judiciously by being a pupil of Vittorino da Feltre, and his

life was the finest encomium that noble teacher ever received. While

governing Urbino he hired himself out as a general to Naples, Milan,

Florence, and the Church. He never lost a battle, and never allowed

war to touch his own soil. He captured a town by forging a letter, and

sacked Volterra with superfluous thoroughness; yet he was reputed

the most merciful commander of the time. In civil life he was a man of

high honor and fidelity. He earned enough as a condottiere to

administer his state without oppressively taxing his people; he walked

unarmed and unprotected among them, confident of their affectionate

loyalty. Every morning he gave audience, in a garden open on all

sides, to any who wished to speak to him; in the afternoon he rendered

judgment, in the Latin tongue. He relieved the destitute, dowered

orphan girls, filled his granaries in time of plenty, sold grain

cheaply in time of dearth, and forgave the debts of impoverished

purchasers. He was a good husband, a good father, a generous friend.

In 1468 he built for himself, his court, and the five hundred

members of his government a palace that served not so much as a

bastion of defense as a center of administration and a citadel of

letters and arts. Luciano Laurana, a Dalmatian, designed it so well

that Lorenzo de' Medici sent Baccio Pontelli to make drawings of it. A

facade of four stories, with four superimposed arches in the center

and a machicolated tower at each side; an inner cortile of

graceful arcades; rooms now mostly bare but still revealing, by

their irremovable carvings and magnificent fireplaces, the taste and

luxury of the time; this was the center of the court where Castiglione

molded his Courtier. The rooms that most delighted Federigo were

those in which he gathered his library, and discoursed with the

artists, scholars, and poets who enjoyed his friendship and patronage.

He himself was the most widely accomplished man in the state. He

preferred Aristotle to Plato, and knew the Ethics, Politics, and

Physics thoroughly. He put history above philosophy, doubtless

feeling that he could learn more about life by studying the record

of human behavior than by tracing the web of human theory. He loved

the classics without surrendering his Christianity; he read the

Fathers and the Scholastics, and heard Mass every day; in peace as

well as war he was a foil to Sigismondo Malatesta. His library was

as well provided with patristic and medieval literature as with

classic works. For fourteen years he kept thirty copyists transcribing

Greek and Latin manuscripts, until his library was the fullest in

Italy outside the Vatican. He agreed with his librarian, Vespasiano da

Bisticci, that no printed book should be allowed entry to the

collection; for they thought of a book as a work of art in binding,

lettering, and illumination, as well as a vehicle of ideas; and almost

every book in the palace was carefully handwritten on vellum,

illustrated with miniatures, and bound in crimson leather with

silver clasps.

Miniature painting was a favorite art at Urbino. The Vatican

Library, which purchased Federigo's collection, prizes particularly

two volumes of the "Urbino Bible" which the Duke commissioned

Vespasiano and others to illustrate, bidding them, says Vespasiano, to

"make this most excellent of all books as rich and worthy as

possible." `051217 To adorn the palace walls Federigo brought in

tapestry weavers and the painters Justus van Ghent from Flanders,

Pedro Berruguete from Spain, Paolo Uccello from Florence, Piero

della Francesca from Borgo San Sepolcro, and Melozzo da Forli; here

Melozzo painted two of his finest pictures (one now in London, the

other in Berlin), showing the cultivation of the "sciences" (i.e.,

literature and philosophy) at the court of Urbino, with a splendid

portrait of Federigo. From these painters, and from Francia and

Perugino, came the stimulus that developed Urbino's own school, led by

the father of Raphael. When Caesar Borgia appropriated the art

treasures of the palace in 1502 they were valued at 150,000 ducats

($1,875,000?). `051218

Federigo had few enemies, many friends. Pope Sixtus IV made him a

duke (1474), Henry VII of England made him a Knight of the Garter.

When he died (1482) he bequeathed a flourishing principality and an

inspiring tradition of justice and peace. His son Guidobaldo did his

best to follow in his steps, but disease interfered with his military.

pursuits, and left him an invalid through most of his life. In 1488 he

married Elisabetta Gonzaga, sister-in-law of Isabella, Marchioness

of Mantua. Elisabetta too was a frequent invalid, made timid and

gentle by physical weakness. Perhaps she was relieved to find that her

husband was impotent; `051219 she was content, she said, to live

with him as a sister; `051220 and on that basis they avoided the

quarrels of man and wife. She became his mother rather than his

sister, cared for him tenderly, never deserted him in his tragic

tribulations. Her letters to Isabella are all the more precious

because they reveal a delicacy of feeling, a warmth of family

attachment, that are sometimes ignored in moral appraisals of the

Renaissance. When, after a fortnight's visit at Urbino in 1494, the

lively Isabella returned to Mantua, Elisabetta sent after her this

touching note:

-

Your departure made me feel not only that I had lost a dear

sister, but that life itself had gone from me. I know not how else

to soften my grief, except by writing every hour to you, and telling

you on paper all that my lips desire to say. If I could express the

sorrow I feel, I believe that you would come back out of compassion

for me. And if I did not fear to vex you, I would follow you myself.

But since both these things are impossible from the respect which I

owe to Your Highness, all I can do is to beg you earnestly to remember

me sometimes, and to know that I bear you always in my heart. `051221

-

One of the questions discussed at the court of Guidobaldo and

Elisabetta was, "After perseverance, what is the best proof of

love?" The answer was, "The sharing of joys and griefs." `051222 The

young couple gave plentiful proof. In November, 1502, Caesar Borgia,

after flourishing protestations of friendship for Guidobaldo, suddenly

turned his army up the road to Urbino, claiming that principality as a

fief of the Church. The ladies of Urbino brought to the Duke their

diamonds and pearls, their necklaces, bracelets, and rings, to finance

an impromptu mobilization for defense. But Borgia's treachery had left

no time for effective resistance; what troops could now be mustered

would be easy victims of the trained and ruthless force that was

advancing; the bloodshed would be useless. Duke and Duchess left their

power and wealth, fled to Citta del Castello and thence to Mantua,

where Isabella received them with loving commiseration. Borgia,

fearing that Guidobaldo would organize an army there, demanded that

Isabella and her Marquis should dismiss the exiles; and to protect

Mantua Guidobaldo and Elisabetta moved on to Venice, whose fearless

Senate gave them protection and sustenance. A few months later

Borgia and his father, Alexander VI, were struck down with acute

malarial fever in Rome; the Pope died; Caesar recovered, but his

finances collapsed. The people of Urbino rose against his garrison,

drove it from the city, and joyously welcomed the return of Guidobaldo

and Elisabetta (1503). The Duke adopted his nephew Francesco Maria

della Rovere as heir to his throne; and as Francesco was nephew also

to Pope Julius II, the little principality remained for a decade

secure.

In the five ensuing years (1504-8) the court of Urbino became the

cultural model and paragon of Italy. Though fond of the classics,

Guidobaldo encouraged the literary use of Italian; and it was at his

court that one of the earliest Italian comedies- Bibbiena's

Calandra - received its first performance (c. 1508). Sculptors and

painters carved and painted scenery for the occasion; the spectators

sat on carpets; an orchestra, hidden behind the stage, provided music;

children sang a prelude; ballets were danced between the acts; at

the close a Cupid recited some verses, viols played a song without

words, and a quartet sang a hymn to love. For though Urbino's was

the most moral court in Italy, it was also the center of the

movement that raised woman upon a pedestal, and liked to talk of love-

Platonic or unphilosophical. The leading spirits in the cultural

life of the court were Elisabetta, who had no viable alternative to

Platonic love, and Emilia Pio, who remained to the end of her life the

chaste and grieving widow of Guidobaldo's brother. A livelier

element was contributed to the circle by Bembo the poet and Bibbiena

the dramatist; an esthetic dash by a famous singer, Bernardino

Accolti, called Unico Aretino- "the one and only Arezzian"- and the

sculptor Cristoforo Romano, whom we have met in Milan. A seasoning

of noble blood was provided by Giuliano de' Medici, son of Lorenzo;

Ottaviano Fregoso, soon to be Doge of Genoa; his brother Federigo,

destined to be a cardinal; Louis of Canossa, soon to be papal nuncio

to France. Others now and then joined the group: high ecclesiastics,

generals, bureaucrats, poets, scholars, artists, philosophers,

musicians, distinguished visitors. This varied company gathered in the

evening in the salon of the Duchess, gossiped, danced, sang, played

games, and conversed. There the art of conversation- the polite and

urbane, serious or humorous consideration of significant matters-

reached its Renaissance peak.

It was this genteel company that Castiglione described and idealized

in one of the most famous books of the Renaissance- Il Cortigiano,

The Courtier, by which he meant the gentleman. He was himself an

exemplary gentleman: a good son and husband, a man of honor and

decency even amid the dissolute society of Rome, a diplomat esteemed

by friend and foe, a loyal friend who never had an unkind word for

anyone, a gentleman in the best definition as a man always considerate

of all. Raphael caught his inmost character astonishingly well in

the superb portrait that hangs in the Louvre: a wistful meditative

face, dark hair and soft blue eyes; too guileless to be successful

in diplomacy except by the sheer charm of his integrity; clearly a man

who would love beauty, in woman and art, in manners and style, with

the sensitiveness of a poet and the comprehension of a philosopher.

He was the son of Count Cristoforo Castiglione, who held an estate

in the territory of Mantua, and had married a Gonzaga relative of

the Marquis Francesco. At eighteen (1496) he was sent to the court

of Lodovico at Milan, and pleased everyone by his good nature, good

manners, and versatile excellence in athletics, letters, music, and

art. When his father died his mother urged him to marry and attend

to the perpetuation of his line; but though Baldassare could write

most elegantly of love, he was too Platonic for matrimony; and he kept

his mother waiting seventeen years before he yielded to her counsel.

He joined the army of Guidobaldo, achieved nothing but a broken ankle,

convalesced in the ducal palace at Urbino, and remained there for

eleven years, enamored of the mountain air, the courtly company, the

gracious conversation, and Elisabetta. She was not beautiful, she

was six years older than he, and almost as heavy, but her gentle

spirit captivated his; he kept her picture behind a mirror in his

room, and composed secret sonnets in her praise. `051223 Guidobaldo

eased the situation by sending him on a mission to England (1506); but

Baldassare seized the first excuse to hurry back. The Duke perceived

that there was no harm in him, and graciously consented to form with

him and Elisabetta a Platonic menage a trois. Castiglione stayed

on till the Duke's death (1508), continued in chaste devotion to the

widow, and remained at Urbino until Leo X deposed the nephew of

Guidobaldo and put upon the ducal throne a nephew of his own (1517).

He returned to his little patrimony near Mantua, and disinterestedly

married Ippolita Torelli, twenty-three years his junior. Then he began

to fall in love with her, first as a child, then as a mother; he

perceived that he had never really known woman, or himself, before,

and the new experience brought him a profound and unprecedented

happiness. But Isabella persuaded him to serve as Mantuan ambassador

in Rome; he went reluctantly, leaving his wife behind in the care of

his mother. Soon across the divisive Apennines a tender letter came:

-

I have given birth to a little girl. I do not think you will be

disappointed. But I have been much worse than before. I have had three

bad spells of fever; I am better now, and I hope it will not return. I

will write no more, as I am not very well yet, and I commend myself to

you with all my heart.- From your wife who is a little exhausted

with the pain, from your Ippolita. `051224

-

Ippolita died shortly after writing this letter, and Castiglione's

love of life died with her. He continued to serve Isabella and the

Marquis Federigo in Rome; but even at the polished court of Leo X he

missed not only the peace of his Mantuan home but the integrity,

kindliness, and grace that had made the Urbino circle almost the

embodiment of his ideals.

He had begun in Urbino (1508), he finished in Rome, the book that

carried him down to posterity. Its purpose was to analyze the

conditions that produced, and the conduct that distinguished, a

gentleman. Castiglione imagined that fine company at Urbino discussing

the subject; perhaps he reported, nicely refined, some of the

conversations he had heard there; he used the names of the men and

women who had spoken there, and gave them sentiments agreeing with

their characters; so he put into the mouth of Bembo a paean to

Platonic love. He sent the manuscript to Bembo, asking if the now

exalted secretary of the pope had objections to this use of his

name; the genial Bembo had none. Even so the timid author kept his

book unpublished till 1528; then, a year before his death, he

surrendered it to the world only because some friends forced his

hand by circulating copies of it in Rome. Within ten years it was

translated into French; and in 1561 Sir Thomas Hoby made it a quaint

and piquant English classic, which every educated Elizabethan read.

Castiglione was not quite sure, but he inclined to believe that

the first requisite of a gentleman must be gentle birth; i.e., it

would be very difficult for one to acquire good manners, and an easy

grace of body and mind, except by being reared among persons already

possessing these qualities; aristocracy seemed a necessary depository,

nursery, and vehicle of manners, standards, and taste. Secondly, the

gentleman must, early in life, become a good horseman, and learn the

arts of war; enthusiasm for peaceful arts and letters must not be

carried to the point of weakening in the citizens the martial

qualities without which a nation is soon enslaved. Too much war,

however, can make a man a brute; he needs, along with the hardening

hardships of soldiering, the refining influence of women. "No court,

how great soever it be, can have any sightliness or brightness in

it, or mirth, without women; nor any courtier can be gracious,

pleasant, or hardie [brave], nor at any time undertake any gallant

enterprise of chivalrie, unless he be stirred with the conversation

and love... of women." `051225 To wield this civilizing influence

woman must as far as possible be feminine, avoiding all imitation of

the male in carriage, manners, speech, or dress. She must discipline

her body to comeliness, her speech to kindness, her soul to

gentleness; therefore she should learn music, dancing, literature, and

the art of entertaining; in this way she may achieve that inner beauty

of spirit which is the stimulating object and genesis of true love.

"The body, where beauty shineth, is not the fountain whence beauty

springeth... because beauty is bodiless." `051226 "Love is nothing

else but a certain coveting to enjoy beauty"; `051227 but "whoso

thinketh in possessing the body to enjoy beauty, he is far

deceived." `051228 The book ends by transforming the lusty chivalry of

the Middle Ages into that pale Platonic love which is the last

disappointment that a woman will forgive.

The ideal world of refined culture and mutual consideration that

Castiglione had conceived collapsed in the brutal sack of Rome (1527).

"Many times," reads a passage toward the end of his book, "abundance

of wealth is cause of great destruction, as in poor Italy, which

hath been, and still is, a prey and booty in the teeth of strange

nations, as well for the ill government as for the abundance of riches

in it." `051229 He could in some measure reproach himself for the

disaster. Clement VII sent him (1524) as papal nuncio to Madrid to

reconcile Charles V to the papacy; Clement's own behavior made the

mission difficult, and it failed. When the news reached Spain that the

troops of the Emperor had invaded Rome, imprisoned the Pope, and

destroyed half the wealth and grace that Julius and Leo and a thousand

artists had created there, life flowed out of Baldassare Castiglione

as from a severed vein; and at Toledo in 1529, aged but fifty-one, the

gentlest gentleman of the Renaissance passed away.

His body was taken to Italy, and his mother, "who against her will

survives her son," raised a tomb to his memory in the church of

Santa Maria delle Grazie outside of Mantua. Giulio Romano designed the

monument, and Bembo composed for it an elegant inscription; but the

finest words engraved on the stone were the verses that Castiglione

himself had composed for the grave of his wife, whose remains were

now, in accordance with his will, brought to lie beside his own:

-

Non ego nunc vivo coniunx dulcissima vitam

corpore namque tuo fata meam abstulerunt,

sed vitam tumulo cum tecum condar in isto,

iungenturque tuis ossibus ossa mea:

-

"I do not live now, O sweetest spouse, for fate has taken my life

from your body; but I shall live when I am laid in the same tomb

with you, and my bones are joined with yours." `051230

CHAPTER XIII: The Kingdom of Naples: 1378-1534

I. ALFONSO THE MAGNANIMOUS

-

SOUTHEAST of the Marches and the Papal States all mainland Italy

constituted the Kingdom of Naples. On the Adriatic side it included

the ports of Pescara, Bari, Brindisi, and Otranto; a bit inland the

city of Foggia, once the lively capital of the wondrous Frederick

II; on the "instep" the ancient port of Taranto; on the "toe"

another Reggio; and on the southwestern coast one scenic splendor

after another, rising to the glory of Salerno, Amalfi, Sorrento, and

Capri, and culminating in busy, noisy, loquacious, passionate,

joyous Naples. It was the only great city in the realm. Outside of

it and the ports the country was agricultural, medieval, feudal: the

land was tilled by serfs or slaves, or by peasants "free" to starve or

to work for bread and a shirt, under barons whose ruthless rule of

their great estates defied the authority of the throne. The king had

little revenue from those lands, but had to finance his government and

court from the returns of his own feudal domains, or by exploiting

to the point of diminishing returns the royal control of commerce.

The house of Anjou had begun a rapid decline with the escapades of

Queen Joanna I, which ended when Charles of Durazzo had her

strangled with a silken cord (1382). Joanna II, though forty at her

accession (1414), was as excitable as the first. She married thrice,

banished her second husband, and had the third murdered. Faced by

revolt, she called to her aid King Alfonso of Aragon and Sicily, and

adopted him as her son and heir (1420). Rightly suspecting him of

planning to replace her, she disowned him (1423), and left her state

to Rene of Anjou at her death (1435). A long war of succession

followed, in which Alfonso, having sampled Naples, fought to seize its

throne. While he was besieging Gaeta he was captured by the Genoese,

and was brought before Filippo Maria Visconti at Milan. With

consummate logic surely never learned in schools, he persuaded the

Duke that French power re-established in Naples, added to French power

already pressing upon Milan from the north and Genoa from the west,

would hold half of Italy in a vise, which the Visconti would be the

Durant W. The Renaissance. A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D

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