The taste for irony
In words, gestures and clothes the perfect gentleman of the court outlined by Castiglione will strive to present an image of himself that is grave and placid, not frivolous or vain. He should avoid any behaviour that is ungainly or too lively, loud and vulgar: but, at the same time, he shall ensure that he does not appear cold, pompous or inhuman. For this purpose it will be useful for him, in a careful and well studied manner, to us irony and self-effacement. This is an question that had already highlighted in his epistle to Henry VII, in which, following the model of Guidubaldo di Montefeltro, he celebrated the characteristics of the perfect conversationalist: good graces and affability, fluency and finesse, and above all the pleasing wit, courtesy and sociability, that lightens discourse and renders it attractive by means of clever sayings, without ever stooping, nonetheless, to looseness or improperness.
Wit regenerates the spirit and stops sadness and boredom taking over. This conviction, already firmly planted in the thoughts of Cicero, had been taken up again, at the end of the 15th Century, by Giovanni Pontano in the De principe. It is form here that Castiglione, evidently stimulated by a passion and sensibility for comic theatre, takes his cue for dedicating a large portion of the second book of The Cortegiano to studying the comic and festive forms of conversation. He therefore proposes a monographic treatise on the uses of comedy in interpersonal relationships: Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, to whom he entrusts the discourse, starts out by censoring all cases where laughter causes wounds or pain or perversity that damages the person object of the irony. Making use of gibes, legitimate and correct, must therefore be carefully calibrated: they must amuse without offending, without appearing to be too biting. The dangers to be avoided are peasant grossness, brash loudmouthness, trivial obscenity. The analysis ends with a rich selection of examples, which allows Castiglione to conduct a census and classify the good results obtained with witty and clever remarks.
