The Courtier During the Renaissance
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Description: Souvik Mukherjee discusses the notion of a courtier by dwelling on Bembo's Discourse on Love in Castiglione's The Courtier.
Castiglione, The Courtier. Bembo's Discourse on Love Bembo's Discourse on Love: a fitting conclusion to The Courtier? Introduction: The idea of the Renaissance Gentleman . Just as it is false to see the Renaissance as a simple and sharp contrast with the Middle Ages, as did Michelet and Burckhardt, neither should it be seen as all of one piece. After the age of civic humanism came the dominance of the Medici in Florence, and in those contacts made with eastern scholars when the Council of Florence was attempting the reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches (a last effort to stave off the menace of the Turk) Cosimo de'Medici had been attracted to the figure of Plato. So there came his patronage of Marsilio Ficino and the birth of the Platonic Academy. Ficino became the disciple of Plato, and an advocate of neo-Platonism. Perhaps coincidentally, but as befits a court, the contemplative ideal began once more to gain over the active one. It was transmitted potently to Europe by a book that mirrored one of the noblest of Italian courts, that of Urbino. This was Baldassar Castiglione's Il cortegiano/The Book of the Courtier). Published in 1528 (that is, after the Sack of Rome, 1527) it has a nostalgic vision of the civilisation nurtured in Urbino from the time of Federigo da Montefeltro, in one of the most beautiful of princely palaces. Apart from offering in its close the neoplatonic idea to Europe, it recommended not so much the status of the courtier, as the ideal of the gentleman. There is no other comparable book that encapsulated the ideals of the Italian Renaissance, and its European success ensured the diffusion of the message. (Penguin Hutchinson Reference Library Copyright © 1996 Helicon Publishing and Penguin Books Ltd)
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| Page title: | Castiglione, The Courtier. Bembo's Discourse on Love |
| Keywords: | Castiglione, Baldassare Castiglione, The Courtier, Il Cortegiano, Discourse on Love, Renaissance Humanism, War, Beauty, Cinquecento Italy, Plato, Symposium, Urbino, Gaspar Pallavicino, Lord Julian, Bernard Bibiena, Pietro Bembo, Lord Octavian, Sir Frederick Fregoso, Count Lewis, Platonic, Burckhardt, Prince, Society, Soul, Goodness, Neo-platonic, Venus, Ficino, De Amore, Divine Frenzy, Asolani, Sprezzatura, Ars Amandi, English Literature Resources, Essays, Forum, Books made into movies |
| Description: | A study of Castiglione's The Courtier Book IV asking whether Bembo's Discourse on Love is a fitting conclusion to The Courtier? |
| IP-address: | 91.151.214.1 |
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| Date | Creation Date: 25-feb-2006 Expiration Date: 25-feb-2016 |