The strength and courage of female nature

The third book of The Cortegiano is structured in three parts, dedicated to the discussion of three distinct topics: the essence of female nature, the prerogatives typical of a ladies virtues, relationships between men ad women. In particular in the second part of the book, Castiglione presents in an oblique manner the strenuous affirmation of the specific prerogatives of female nature. Rather than entrusting one of the characters with an explicit and direct testimony, he proposes a rich sequence of examples both ancient and modern, from which the reader must then extract the fundamental message. Through this series of tales and short stories Baldassarre wishes to highlight the three qualities that distinguish the most noble female type and are, probably, most congenial to his own sentiment, on the basis of the favoured figures of his mother, the Duchess of Urbino, and his wife Ippolita Torelli: strength, constance and patience.

The virtuous woman is, essentially, brave and firm in her sentiments, contrary to what was traditionally preached about female volubility. Against the protests of the misogynists, Gaspare Pallavicino and Niccolò Frisio, Giuliano de’ Medici tells a story from Plutarch: the protagonist is Camma, who, not wanting to submit to the will of King Sinorige, who had killed her husband so as to have his way with her, poisons herself and obliges the tyrant to death. A modern one follows this ancient example: milady Argentina, whose husband had been kidnapped, dies at the news of his liberation, because of her excess of love and devotion. This is proof that women are often capable of a level of love more intense than that of men. Other examples follow: the noble lady of Capua, taken hostage by the French who are sacking her city, kills herself; the peasant from Gazuolo, who, after the horror of the violence she has suffered, throws herself into the Mincio; in the same way a young Roman woman, after an attempted rape in the catacombs of Saint Sebastian, prefers to die. From these cases Cesare Gonzaga draws the inspiration for celebrating the constance and continence of women, capable of resisting the assaults of men and their attempts to expurgate them, or otherwise to end their life.