DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0012
VI
PREFACE
as valour and courtesy hold a place in our hearts,
the name of Castiglione will he held in honour.
Nowhere has the popularity of Castiglione's treatise
been greater than in our own country. From the
time when, only thirty-four years after its first appear-
ance in Venice, Sir Thomas Hoby's translation, ' The
Book of the Courtyer,' took the Elizabethan world
by storm, no less than seventeen English versions
of the ' Cortegiano' have been published. In those
days, when to know Italian was held to be 'a grace
of all graces/ and translations of Boccaccio and
Bandello's novels 'were solde in every shop/ Cas-
tiglione's book was in the hands of all cultured
Englishmen. Poets and dramatists alike quoted his
sayings and borrowed his stories. ^ Florio, in his
' Second Fruites/ tells us that Castilion's ' Courtier' is
one of the books most read by young men who would
pick up a little Italian. Ben Jonson and Webster
mention the 'Courtier'; Marston, in his 'Satires,'
speaks of the author, not without a touch of scorn,
as 'the absolute Castilio.'
There seems little doubt that Shakespeare was
familiar with the book, if not in the original Italian,
at least in Hoby's translation. As Mr. Wyndham/
first pointed out, the platonic philosophy of the
Sonnets was clearly borrowed from Bembo's oration ;
and a clever American writer, Miss Scott, has almost
succeeded in convincing us that the characters of
Benedick and Beatrice were derived from the Lord
Gaspare Pallavicino and the Lady Emilia of the
' Cortegiano.
1 ' 11 Malpiglio,' 251.
2 See the Introduction to Hoby's ' Book of the Courtyer/ by
Professor Raleigh.
3 Introduction to ' The Poems of Shakspeare.'
' The Book of the Courtyer/ by M. A. Scott, Ph.D.
PREFACE
as valour and courtesy hold a place in our hearts,
the name of Castiglione will he held in honour.
Nowhere has the popularity of Castiglione's treatise
been greater than in our own country. From the
time when, only thirty-four years after its first appear-
ance in Venice, Sir Thomas Hoby's translation, ' The
Book of the Courtyer,' took the Elizabethan world
by storm, no less than seventeen English versions
of the ' Cortegiano' have been published. In those
days, when to know Italian was held to be 'a grace
of all graces/ and translations of Boccaccio and
Bandello's novels 'were solde in every shop/ Cas-
tiglione's book was in the hands of all cultured
Englishmen. Poets and dramatists alike quoted his
sayings and borrowed his stories. ^ Florio, in his
' Second Fruites/ tells us that Castilion's ' Courtier' is
one of the books most read by young men who would
pick up a little Italian. Ben Jonson and Webster
mention the 'Courtier'; Marston, in his 'Satires,'
speaks of the author, not without a touch of scorn,
as 'the absolute Castilio.'
There seems little doubt that Shakespeare was
familiar with the book, if not in the original Italian,
at least in Hoby's translation. As Mr. Wyndham/
first pointed out, the platonic philosophy of the
Sonnets was clearly borrowed from Bembo's oration ;
and a clever American writer, Miss Scott, has almost
succeeded in convincing us that the characters of
Benedick and Beatrice were derived from the Lord
Gaspare Pallavicino and the Lady Emilia of the
' Cortegiano.
1 ' 11 Malpiglio,' 251.
2 See the Introduction to Hoby's ' Book of the Courtyer/ by
Professor Raleigh.
3 Introduction to ' The Poems of Shakspeare.'
' The Book of the Courtyer/ by M. A. Scott, Ph.D.