DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0159
104 COUNT BALDASSARE CASTIGLIONE
honourable entertainment. ' I came to Urbino/ he
wrote long afterwards, when the Duke and Duchess
were dead and all the actors in that stately pageant
had passed away—' I came to Urbino with only forty
ducats in my pocket, and there I stayed for six years.'
Merit was the only passport required of the stranger
who presented himself at the palace gates—as
the phrase ran—that is to say, excellence in one form
or another. ' I beg you to receive our friend Bembo
kindly/ wrote Madonna Emilia to Isabella d' Este,
when the Venetian scholar left Urbino, a few months
after this, to visit Mantua on his homeward journey,
' as his talents deserve, for truly he is a man worthy
to be held in high account Y At this particular
moment, when Castiglione came to Urbino, he found
many accomplished visitors assembled in the ducal
palace. ' This court/ wrote a Mantuan secretary
that September to his mistress, ' is full of talent just
now/ and among the poets who were present he
proceeds to name Vincenzo Calm eta and T Unico
Aretino, whose brilliant improvisations delighted the
assembled company night after nights
Another guest who is honoured with a place in the
' Cortegiano/ and whose jests and sallies frequently
provoked the laughter of the ducal circle, the Mantuan
buffoon Fra Serahno, was also at Urbino on this
occasion. Like the Aretine, this friar was one of the
Marchesa Isabellas prime favourites, and addressed
frequent letters in prose and rhyme to his mistress in
his absence, signing himself habitually, 'Your slave
and that of my Lady Duchess/ These effusions
abound in proofs of the strange licence that was
allowed to these buffoons, whose mad freaks afforded
1 V. Cian in 'Giornale d. Lett. It./ ix. 99-
2 A. Luzio in ' Giomale d. Lett. It./ iv. 382.
honourable entertainment. ' I came to Urbino/ he
wrote long afterwards, when the Duke and Duchess
were dead and all the actors in that stately pageant
had passed away—' I came to Urbino with only forty
ducats in my pocket, and there I stayed for six years.'
Merit was the only passport required of the stranger
who presented himself at the palace gates—as
the phrase ran—that is to say, excellence in one form
or another. ' I beg you to receive our friend Bembo
kindly/ wrote Madonna Emilia to Isabella d' Este,
when the Venetian scholar left Urbino, a few months
after this, to visit Mantua on his homeward journey,
' as his talents deserve, for truly he is a man worthy
to be held in high account Y At this particular
moment, when Castiglione came to Urbino, he found
many accomplished visitors assembled in the ducal
palace. ' This court/ wrote a Mantuan secretary
that September to his mistress, ' is full of talent just
now/ and among the poets who were present he
proceeds to name Vincenzo Calm eta and T Unico
Aretino, whose brilliant improvisations delighted the
assembled company night after nights
Another guest who is honoured with a place in the
' Cortegiano/ and whose jests and sallies frequently
provoked the laughter of the ducal circle, the Mantuan
buffoon Fra Serahno, was also at Urbino on this
occasion. Like the Aretine, this friar was one of the
Marchesa Isabellas prime favourites, and addressed
frequent letters in prose and rhyme to his mistress in
his absence, signing himself habitually, 'Your slave
and that of my Lady Duchess/ These effusions
abound in proofs of the strange licence that was
allowed to these buffoons, whose mad freaks afforded
1 V. Cian in 'Giornale d. Lett. It./ ix. 99-
2 A. Luzio in ' Giomale d. Lett. It./ iv. 382.