For gentlewomen, Castiglione recommends (digital pages pp. An image from Lucretius, it appears in his De rerum natura (1.935–942). Renaissance Italy is popularly portrayed as a realm of carnal debauchery. He has to avoid uncouth behavior and abstain from the company of people Under the influence of this celestial body (symbolizing the mythical Venus Urania, goddess of heavenly love), the speakers, having promised to continue their conversation in the evening, retire to their separate quarters. World Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historic Events That Influenced Them. The search for a unifying linguistic identity gave rise to many treatises, which gravitated around a few general positions: The classicist position: The proponents of this theory looked to the masterpieces of the great Tuscan writers of the fourteenth century for models—for prose, to Boccaccio’s Decameron and for poetry to Petrarch’s Canzoniere. Encyclopedia.com. As Castiglione lists the casualties among his protagonists, it becomes evident that a certain historical process has reached its peak. Since the courtier must serve his prince “in every reasonable thing,” he should excel in the profession of arms, that is, in the military domain (Courtier, p. 9). These officials were entrusted with the “internal organization of the palace, administration of revenue, and the application of justice in what were known as ‘lesser causes’—that is, actions In his profusely humanistic Gargantua and…, Baldassare Castiglione, whose The Book of the Courtier affectionately summed up humanistic thought, was one of its most powerful ambassadors. In former days, lords compensated their courtiers with personal privileges; by Castiglione’s day, courtiers received salaries. Considered the definitive account of Renaissance court life , it is cited frequently along with Stefano Guazzo's The civil conversation (1574) and Giovanni Della Casa's Galateo (1558). Individuals like clergymen, soldiers, and clerks were always present in courts. Principally an instructive work, the book takes place over the course of four evenings in the Italian court of Urbino in 1507. The court apparatus was formidable. Castiglione authored other, minor writings belonging to the conventional genres of courtly literature, including the dramatic eclogue Tirsi (performed in 1506), a celebration of the Duchess of Urbino and her circle. Giovanni della Casa was the author of another famous treatise, the Galateo (c. 1551–54; Galateo is…. Presented as a series of conversations between a group of clever individuals gathered in the palace of Urbino, the work provides descriptions of several different aspects of courtly interest. The Renaissance was the rebirth of European culture, occurring between the 14th and 16th centuries. 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