Nobility, grace and scorn

In Chapter 12 of the first book of The Cortegiano, the character of Federico Fregoso, wining the convinced approval of the Duchess Elisabetta, proposes that the conversations of the brigade gathered at the court of Urbino should have as their theme the definition of the character of the courtier. Emilia Pio initially entrusts this discussion to Ludovico di Canossa, who immediately states that the first attribute a perfect gentleman must have is noble origins: “perché la nobiltà è quasi una chiara lampa, che manifesta e fa vedere le opere buone e le male, e accende e sprona alla virtù, così col timore d’infamia, come ancora con la speranza di lode” (because nobility is as a clear lamp, that manifests and renders visible good and bad deeds, and lights and spurs virtue, both through fear of infamy and desire for praise) (B. Castiglione, Il Cortigiano, edited by A. Quondam, Milan 2002, I, 31).

Anyone who is born into nobility is more greatly exposed to the judgments of others and, fearing to not appear being worthy of his ancestors, feels an additional incitement to excellence. Therefore, it is pointed out that a gentleman must be loyal and not cowardly and, at the same time, must avoid celebrating himself: it is expected of him that he refutes the vainglory typical of feudal customs. Thus, in the attempt to define the difference between the gentleman of the renaissance courts and the mediaeval cavalier men at arms, he introduces the concepts of grace and modesty, around which rotates the identity, both psychological and ethical, of the modern gentleman.

The courtier, in every circumstance, in his relationships, must posses that grace which will allow him to be always welcomed, pleasant and well accepted. On this subject, in a famous passage, Ludovico di Canossa proposed this “regola universalissima”(universal rule): “fuggire quanto si può, e come un asprissimo e pericoloso scoglio, l’affettazione, e per dire forse una nuova parola, usare in ogni cosa una certa sprezzatura, che nasconda l’arte e dimostri ciò che si fa e dice venir fatto senza fatica e quasi senza pensarvi” (turn away whenever possible, as if it were a jagged and dangerous reef, from affectation, and, to maybe coin a new word, use in every situation modesty, that it may hide the art and show that what we do and say is performed without any effort and hardly needing to think about it) (ed. cit., I, 48). Modesty is the distinctive sign of the modern gentleman, that Castiglione codifies elaborating themes present in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: a from of interiorised self-control, that translates itself into confidence, nonchalance, understatement.