A text for Carnival
At the start of 1508, between Urbino and Fossombrone, Baldassarre Castiglione and his cousin Cesare Gonzaga wrote together, jointly, the poem Tirsi, a pastoral tale in fifty five stanzas, that the two authors recited at the court of Elisabetta Gonzaga and Guidubaldo di Montefeltro, for the carnival festivities, in March of the same year, obtaining a great success.
It was composed for the occasion, refined and artificial, following the gallant fashion of the epoch, with a humanistic stamp. Nonetheless, the ability and genius of the two writers produced one of the poetic writings of the highest quality of the first decade of the Century, also due to the quantity and quality of the classical sources ably introduced (Teocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Horatio, Properzio, Calpurnio, Nemesiano).
Probably, the two cousins projected and drafted the work between January and February, since Cesare Gonzaga was forced to stay in bed to nurse a leg broken falling from a horse during a ride on the snow. Castiglione referred to it in a letter to his mother Aloisia Gonzaga on 15th January: “Per queste neve andando a spasso a cavallo, scherzando, la disgratia volse che ’l cavallo de M. Cesari cascò: in fine li ruppe un poco una gamba. [...] Hora è passato el dolore e quasi tutto il male, excetto che del fastidio de stare in letto” (Due to this snow while riding a horse for fun, fate would have it that Cesare’s horse fell: slightly breaking one of his legs [...] Now the pain and almost all the suffering have passed, except for the suffering of staying in bed) (B. Castiglione, Le lettere, edited by G. La Rocca, I, Milan 1978, 142).
The forced idleness, in the heart of winter, gave the two gentlemen the opportunity to put together a poetic composition paying homage to the court where they were guests. Having finished the writing, the Tirsi was performed in front of the Duke, the Duchess and all the dignitaries of the family of Montefeltro during the carnival festivities, that in 1508 finished on 7th March. The representation, for the first time, took place at the palace at Fossombrone, where the prince, Guidubaldo di Montefeltro, had asked to be transferred, together with his wife, hoping that the climate, milder than at Urbino, would alleviate the illness that, contrarily, was soon to bring about his death.
