Baldassare Castiglione: The Courtier, Perfected

The term “Renaissance Man” is a reasonably well known one, which draws a pretty wide set of definitions but which basically refers to someone who is accomplished in multiple fields seen as desirable by their peers and superiors. This, both in the Renaissance and the modern day, is a big ask.

It comes with assumptions about sophisticated thought, philosophy and humanity, but it is not merely linked to the intellect. A Renaissance man should also be something of a poet, their actions bringing beauty into the world.

Of equal importance are physical attributes, skill in courtly arts such as dancing and graceful in poise. Someone who can claim to be a thinker and a doer all at once was, it was reasoned, someone who had mastered all that was important in life.

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Above all such attainments must appear effortless, as if the individual was preternaturally gifted. This was, of course, a lie, and those who aspired to being seen in this way would in truth have to work extremely hard to achieve something they needed to appear simple.

From where comes this idea? Well, much of it comes from human nature: the most valuable individual is one who excels in multiple fields and the most valuable of those in the person who does it without trying. Such people were rare, then and now.

But for the details and the specifics we have a Renaissance diplomat and author who, perhaps of all such men, came closest to achieving the ideal. Happily he wrote a book, a manual to guide others on how to build themselves into similar overachievers.

His name was Baldassare Castiglione, and his book was simply called The Courtier.

Sophistication and Etiquette

Some might already be crying foul at the idea of someone excelling in a way which they themselves had defined to be “best” but this is to do the man a disservice. Castiglione, even without his guidelines, was clearly a cut above.

Born in 1478 in a town near Mantua, Castiglione was not himself from a great family. However through his mother his lineage was tied to the ruling house of Mantua, the Gonzagas.

Castiglione was to receive a first rate education in the humanities, that radical departure from previous thinking which emphasized the individual and which was at the heart of the Renaissance. For five years he studied in Milan before returning home as the head of his family in 1499.

By this time his talents had been recognized by the Gonzaga family and he was dispatched on numerous diplomatic missions. Italy at the time was a land of independent city states jockeying for power and prestige, and a skilled negotiator was invaluable.

In truth, Castiglione was too skilled in this role for the Gonzagas, and the opportunity for advancement came when he met Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino and married to a Gonzaga. The court of Urbino was among the most refined in the world, and an offer for him to join them could not be refused.

Now in the center of Italian politics and society, Castiglione had a chance to meet the rich and powerful from across Italy and Europe, and proved a close observer of the world in which they lived. The Renaissance was a time of immense patronage of the arts, and it seems that his schooling had never stopped, and he learned much about social graces and behaviors.

He would move in these circles for almost two decades, acting an ambassador for the Gonzagas and successive Dukes of Urbino, ultimately to the Pope himself. It would be Pope Clement VII who eventually took Castiglione under his wing, and sent him to Spain to negotiate with the all powerful Holy Roman Emperor Charles V as Papal representative.

Castiglione died in 1529 from the plague, a courtier and diplomat respected by all who knew him or knew of him. A year before his death he would publish his most famous work, Il Libro del Cortegiano, commonly translated as The Book of the Courtier. 

In it he outlined the behaviors which had seen him rise so far: how to act, how to seem, and how to achieve this impression. Its starting point is a view that the Court of Urbino, where Castiglione had learned so much in his youth, was an ideal, another Camelot, and it taught how one could advance themselves in such a society.

It takes the form of a discussion between two ladies of the court (Elisabetta Gonzaga and her sister-in-law) as to the qualities that an ideal Renaissance gentleman should possess. Castiglione himself is not present in the narrative, modesty forbidding that he contribute to a description which so closely and clearly resembles himself.

Until the publication of The Courtier the ideal man had been molded on the ideals of knightly chivalry. The ideal man was graceful and generous, but also a battle-hardened warrior capable of brutality on the battlefield. Not so the Renaissance man of Castiglione’s vision.

That is not to say that martial prowess was unimportant now, but this new Renaissance courtier had to be well versed in philosophy, rhetoric and both Latin and Greek, and ideally to find themselves in a diplomatic role where this knowledge would offer them an edge in a world where sophistication and learning were everything.

The Renaissance was of course a “rebirth” of ancient thinking and Castiglione’s work leaned heavily on that great orator of the Roman world, Cicero. It is no coincidence that Cicero considered diplomacy and political service to be the highest calling, a career he followed too.

But nobody, as mentioned before, is impressed with such achievements if they seem hard won. Castiglione called this veil of effortlessness sprezzatura, the art that conceals art.

This, above all, is what survives of Castiglione’s thinking. Ask why modern politicians use invisible teleprompters, if not to seem more well versed in a topic than they are. Ask why the supreme test of a candidate is to debate another candidate, to find out who among them has the greatest grasp of the facts yes, but also to find out who among them can use these facts to make a point, off the cuff and with eloquence.

Castiglione may have been writing about a 16th century Italian court, yes. But in The Courtier he fashioned, for the first time in detail, the model which modern politicians have followed ever since. It is not enough to be a dealmaker. 

You must aspire to be the perfect human too.

Top Image: Looking good: Castiglione based his ideas of the ideal courtier on his experiences in the court of Urbino during the high Renaissance. Source: Raphael / Public Domain.