1.2 - Literature Flashcards
Book of the courtier.
Written by Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529), a courtier to the Italian ducal courts. It memorializes, celebrates and idealizes life at the court. It is cast in the form of a series of dialogues spread out over 4 evenings at the court of Urbino. The central topic is the manners, education and behavior of the ideal courtier. His courtier was the ideal renaissance gentleman, of sound mind, body, and character, and learned in the ideas of the renaissance humanism.
His blending of the soldier and the scholar (merging of the ideals of medieval chivalry with those of renaissance humanism) made his book popular.
The prince.
Written by Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), a contemporary of castiglione. also wrote a guidebook on behaviour, a manual for princes and rulers. Machiavelli was well educated in the renaissance humanist tradition. His prince is also a model of an ideal, just like castiglione.
However the difference between the two writers is dramatic : castiglione supported the tenets of renaissance humanism , but machiavelli challenged them by introducing a radically different set of standards, standards that inform mannerist art.
Prince was written in 1513 and published in 1532. It asserts that people are selfish and greedy. He advices princes to play on the characteristics.
the view of human beings that forms the foundation of his arguments reflect political expediency, based on his observation of florentine politics.
