ught by Giuliano de' Medici--styled, like his
father, "Il Magnifico"--sitting now, ever, in helpless dignity on his
San Lorenzo tomb, "mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura"; and by the
unfortunate Doge of Genoa, Ottaviano Fregoso; or by the participants
in the learned discussions carried on by Cardinal Bembo, with whom he
made a gay excursion to Tivoli in 1516, in company with Raffael and
the illustrious Venetian Andrea Navigero and his friend Agostino
Beazzano, whose portraits on the same canvas are one of Raffael's
masterpieces. Another ecclesiastical friend was Cardinal Bibbiena, who
appears nowhere to more advantage than in a letter to the Marchioness
of Mantua, describing Castiglione's grief, and that of his friends, at
the news that the Marchioness herself had sent them of the death of
Castiglione's wife. The same year the Cardinal himself died. It was
the year of Raffael's death also, and Castiglione felt himself greatly
bereft. The Italian Bishop of Bayeux, Ludovico Canossa,--papal nuncio
in France and French ambassador at Venice,--was a cousin of
Castiglione's mother and in constant relations with the son; and it is
to him that in what may be called the "drama" of 'Il Cortegiano' is
gayly assigned the task of making the first sketch of "the perfect
courtier".

From such social relations came Castiglione's wide familiarity and
sound judgment respecting the various worlds of men, of women, and of
art. The higher qualities his book gives evidence of--the love of
simplicity, purity, sincerity, serenity, kindness, courtesy,
moderation, modesty, the appreciation of what is graceful, gay,
delicate,--these qualities were truly his own: we know not whence he
derived them.

Something should be said of the style in which the book is written.
Its author tells us that one of the principal criticisms made upon it
while it circulated for many years in manuscript, was that its
language was not the language of Boccaccio, who was then accepted as
the model for Italian prose-writers. Castiglione did not bind himself
to the manner of the Tuscan speech. He was of Lombard birth and habit,
and he chose--in the faith of which Montaigne is the great
defender--the words, the phrases, the constructions that best fitted
his thought, no matter whence he gathered them, if only they were
familiar and expressive. He thus gained the force of freedom and the
grace of variety, while the customary elegance and the habitual
long-windedness of