The costumes (and the weapons) of the others

In the Libro del Cortegiano Castiglione puts to good use his experience as a careful observer of the change and variability, in space and time, of fashions and customs. In the numerous courts he visited, in Italy and abroad, he verified the existence of different languages, styles and traditions, such that men speak, dress and behave differently from one state to the next, from city to city. The spectacle continued to renew itself before his eyes every time: when, in Milan, in 1499 he witnessed the arrival of the French soldiers; when in 1503 he arrived for the first time in Rome; when, in 1506, he crossed Europe to meet Henry VII in London. All other people, according to his own parameters of judgement, seemed foreign, and he never ceased to feel like a foreigner among others: the only restraint on this change derives from culture and education, which, establishing norms and sharable practices, make it possible to live socially. It is a theme that on repeated occasions is taken up and developed in The Cortegiano.

In the first book of the work, for example, a profound difference between Italian and French civilisation is revealed: in fact, while in the Italian courts the humanist paradigm established that the education of a gentleman had to include arms and letters, in France the feudal code of the knights was still in use, that considered dishonourable for a gentleman any form of apprenticeship other than a strictly military one. In France, contrary to Italy, men of letters are considered of no value, and wanting to insult someone, the greatest insult is calling him a man of letters.

Similarly, in the second book, talking about clothing, the different fashion codes in France, Spain and Germany are noted, and it is lamented that Italy, due to an unmotivated submission to foreigners, had not tried to consolidate its own national style: “In questo vediamo infinite varietà: e chi si veste alla francese, chi alla spagnola, chi vuole parere tedesco, né ci mancano ancora di quelli che si vestono alla foggia dei turchi; chi porta la barba, chi no. [...] Ma io non so per quale fato intervenga che l’Italia non abbia, come solve avere, abito che sia conosciuto per italiano: che benché l’aver posto in usanza questi nuovi faccia parere quelli primi goffissimi, pure quelli forse erano segno di libertà, come questi sono stati augurio di servitù” (In this we see infinite variety: some dress in the French style, some Spanish, and others wish to appear German, and we must not forget those who wish to look Turkish; some wear a beard and some don’t. [...] But I do not know for what intervention of fate Italy has not, as would be fit, a way of dressing that could be recognised as Italian: although having introduced these new styles makes the old ones look ungainly, they were also a sign of liberty, just as these are a sign of servitude) (B. Castiglione, Il Cortigiano, edited by A. Quondam, Milan 2002, I, 133).