Giovanni Pontano

The political and moral treatise by the Neapolitan humanist Giovanni Pontano, were for Castiglione a fundamental reference point: they gave him the stimulus to investigate the mechanisms that govern the relationship between the interior virtues of the individual and the complex political and social reality every man is immersed in. It is not by coincidence, therefore, that the works of Pontano are listed in the inventories books belonging to Baldassarre, as they supplied Castiglione with the essential indications he used, first in the letter to Henry VII and then in the Cortegiano, to define the profile of the perfect prince and the perfect gentleman.

The portrait of Guidubaldo, detailed in the letter to the English sovereign, is the effective realisation of what Pontano prescribed in the magnanimitate, where are listed the qualities pertinent to a strong, noble and generous soul, inclined to benevolence rather than resentment. The admiration for Guidubaldo stems, in Castiglione and all the men of the court, from his natural and almost congenital ‘majesty’ that, as Pontano explains in the De principe, derives from a perfect control of oneself that translates into clemency, justice, constance and liberty. The prince and the gentlemen of his family will, therefore, have to beware of ambition, avidity, jealousy and suspect diffidence.

Pontano had already, in the treatise De fortuna, underlined the value of prudence, which, as Castiglione repeated in his own writings, constitutes – for the political man - the only instrument of defence and protection, especially in adverse situations. From the De splendore by Pontano, came the invitation, that Baldassarre transmitted to the prince and courtier, to cultivate the difficult virtue that consists in pursuing excellence without ever exaggerating, without affectation, so that one may know how to respect, simultaneously, ones own and other people’s dignity. In the De sermone by Pontano, lastly, there appear some considerations regarding the utility of wit and facetiousness, which are enlarged upon and developed by Castiglione in the second book of The Cortegiano: both authors, in fact, share, as well as a precise anthropological model, the ideal of liberal and open conversation, capable of alleviating the more ungracious and severe aspects of daily life.