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Describe and compare the main ideas about humour in Il libro del cortegiano and the Galateo.

The Italian Renaissance was a period of increasing political, economic and cultural stratification in which citizens and aristocrats alike sought to distinguish themselves from their fellow men and regional rivals as the more refined and successful.  Cities and townships emerged from the feudal hierarchies of the Middle Ages to become centres of commerce and learning, and cities struggled to establish power by building spheres of political and social influence.  Two popular treatises of conduct of the sixteenth century emerge from this period of sophisticated manners and economic competition, using the structure of the platonic dialogue to explore a society of manners and dissimulation as an artful performance.  The popular sixteenth centuries works Il Libro del Cortegiano, or the Book of the Courtier, by Baldassare Castiglione and Giovanni della Casa’s conduct book Galateo use the premise of a gathering of witty courtiers to discuss etiquette, social and regional difference, and the advantages of intellectual pursuit.  Courtiers participate in a verbal game in which humorous stories mask regional and political conflict.

Castiglione’s Il Libro del Cortegiano depicts a group of historical courtiers assembled from various regions at the court of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro in Urbino in 1507.  The book retells four nights of artful conversation in which the group attempts to articulate the qualities of an ideal courtier, but the narrative quickly degrades into verbal sparring.  Recent critical approaches to politeness and language in the Renaissance have uncovered tensions within Castiglione’s text which threaten the surface layer of verbal refinement.  The game becomes a contest between the society’s willingness to understand itself as a performative and artfully constructed culture, and on the other hand its desire to protect itself from such knowledge in order to function socially and politically.  Humour, specifically laughter, functions as a measure of the threat to the social surface.  Humour proves that a discussion of social norms and ideals can coexist with light hearted language, and that ‘serious’ conversation can be non-threatening to the social group.  However, humour proves to be an imperfect façade.  As Thomas Greene says, ‘Laughter is a guarantee of the polish of the conversational surface, and when it is silenced for an immoderate time one can detect a tension; one should be alert to the potentially intrusive’ (Greene 9).  These ‘counter-readings’ of the humorous language as an opportunity for subversion has focused on the verbal game between the courtiers which reflect the various regional political tensions of the time.  Castiglione attempts to present a sense of unity within the multifarious group, but, the veiled insults reveal the prince as a ruler impotent with bad judgement and his courtiers as envious rivals eager to undermine and attack each other’s efforts to advance socially.    

Greene describes the multilayered game the courtiers play in the relation of witty tales: ‘We can follow the progress of the game in terms of the potentially threatening or divisive issues it raises, in terms of the doubts it flirts with, the embarrassments it skirts, the social and political and moral abysses it almost stumbles into, the dark underside of the authorized truth it sometimes seems about to reveal’ (Greene 8).  Figured as a game of verbal wit, the dialogues serve not to detract from the political tensions with light hearted tales, but rather to highlight the sense of economic and political fragmentation within both the group of courtiers and Italy as a whole.  Pietro Bembo, a Venetian, and Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena, a Florentine, exchange a series of humorous jabs which illustrate this conflict.  Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena begins his account by describing humour as a form of recreation, removed from the weighty worldly concerns of politics.  ‘Tutto quello adunque che move il riso esilara l’animo e da piacere, ne lascia che in quel punto l’omo si ricordi delle noiose molestie, delle quail la vita nostra piena’ (Castiglione, 2.45: ‘Whatever moves to laughter restores the spirit’, he says, ‘gives pleasure, and for the moment keeps one from remembering those vexing troubles of which our life is full’).  Dovizi da Bibbiena likewise recognises humour as a social commentary rather than as an escape from it:  ‘Dai lochi donde si cavano motti da ridere, si posson medesimamente cavare sentenzie gravi per laudare e per biasimare, e talor con le medesime parole’ (Castiglione, 2:47 ‘the same sources from which laughable witticisms are derived provide us with serious phrases for praising or censuring, sometimes in the same words’).  Laughter provides a safeguard against hostility which would banish the play of the game.  Bibbiena describes the joking as ‘il far ridere mordendo’ (Castiglione, 2.46 ‘stinging with humour’), in which criticism is made innocuous by its humorous delivery.

Dovizi da Bibbiena’s function within the work is that of narrator and arbitrator for a panel on jests.  The gathering brings together am assorted group of characters derived from classical comedy.  But Bibbiena is the archetypal commediografo, unrelentingly making fun both ironically and wittily, and articulating the humanistic vision of uniting disparate entities while refusing to reconcile them completely.  Making use of the twins from the tradition of Roman comedy, Bibbiena carries out the scenario in Tuscan and causes it to conclude in a reconciliation of two opposing families, representing more than two cultural and generic lines.  Louise George Clubb has noted the Renaissance return to Greek and Roman ideals of ‘pure’ comedy and ‘pure’ tragedy as elevated forms of dramatic discourse (Clubb 196); however this supposed recovering of classical dramatic forms is here undermined by Bibbiena’s revelation of the comic principle as inadequate in articulating a highly complex and stratified society.  He acknowledges that humour is a tool to critique contemporary social and political situations rather than serving as an escape from the material world into fantasy, and his ‘stinging with humour’ is a form of veiled political censure.  Bibbiena’s stories censure the popes Alexander VI and Nicholas V for their violence and moral deficiency, respectively, and such pointed critiques would be both appreciated and political relevant to the assembled party. His involvement in both the contemporary political discourse and the tradition of classical dramatic forms outlines the theoretical in the discussion of what constitutes humour, the kinds and examples of comic narration and language, and the tonal judgment on the verbal spars.

The next courtier to take his turn in the game is Cesare Gonzaga of Mantua, who relates a humorous story concerning a visitor to Venice during the feat of the Assumption.  The Brescian visitor, never having seen a trombone before, believes the instrument is consumed as it is played.  Departing from the jokes of the other guests which focus on interregional and political conflict, Gonzaga’s joke plays on the tradition of the encounter between a country bumpkin and the refined city.  Gonzaga remarks on the opulence of the city, on ‘quante mercanzie e quanti argenti, speziarie, panni e drappi’ (Castiglione, 2.53 ‘how much merchandise …, how much silverware, spices, cloth, and fabrics’).  In highlighting the wealth and extravagance of the city, Gonzaga is outlining the stark contrast between the region of Venice and its population and that of the rival Florentines, as previously related by Bembo.  Therefore, although Gonzaga’s tale superficially is an attempt to use the humorous trope of the country bumpkin visiting the cosmopolitan centre of refinement, upon deeper inspection the description of the Venetian military and mercantile success suggests the tale as pro-Venetian propaganda.

In response to Gonzaga’s jesting tale, Bibbiena makes a pointed description of the ideal courtier:  ‘devesi guardare il cortegiano di non parer maligno e velenoso, e dir motti ed arguzie solamente per far dispetto e darn el core; pereche tali omini spesso per diffetto della lingua meritamente hanno casrigo in tutto l’corpo’  (Castilgione, 2.57: ‘the Courtier must take care not to appear malicious and spiteful, and not to utter witticisms and argue solely to annoy and hurt; because such men often suffer deservedly in all their person for the sins of their tongue’).  Bibbiena’s observation is key to understanding the representation of humour and manners in Il Cortegiano and Galateo as a courtly performance.  In Galateo Giovanni della Casa describes the perfect courtier in terms of dress action, in which the courtier must adapt himself to the customs of others in they way they dress, down to the cut of their hats and the shape of their beards, and indeed following form and fashion was the cornerstone of courtly society.  Dissent and criticism must be delivered in an eloquent and pleasing fashion, and therefore humour played a key role in expressing censure without disrupting the aesthetic of the court.  Treating uniformity not only as the norm, but the desired standard, and in so doing lose individual expression and emotion.  To an extent, the biting humour of Il Cortegiano is a subversive way of conforming to the image of the smooth and witty courtier while articulating, however subtly, individual opinion and critique.

The psychiatrist D. W. Winnicott which identified an area of experience which mediates between the inner psychological world and the outer material world which Winnitcott terms the ‘area of play’.  This area is located in the potential space between the individual and the environment, a space which is filled with creativity and play.  In Il Cortegiano the space of play has been uncomfortably filled with political interplay, a force of enclosure which defines the humour in Castiglione’s work.  The laughter, however, cannot be sustained as the veil for socio-political tension.  Mary Thomas Crane has examined the exercises of invention and disposition, which she terms ‘gathering and framing’, as a foundation for ‘a theory and practice of reading, writing, education and social mobility’ that offers an alternative to the ‘aristocratic paradigm’ associated with the Renaissance in Britain.  Crane looks to the audience of such works as Il Cortegiano  and Galateo as eager to adopt the codified rules of social conduct outlined in the manuals, turning the information into ‘cultural capital’ to enable ‘upward mobility in the newly bureaucratized state’ (Crane, 6, 79).  The rhapsodic hymn to love by Bembo constitutes the supreme denial of the company, the game, and the society itself.  There is a moment of pregnant silence as his façade finally reveals itself, a moment when the game is no longer being played.  It is, however, only a moment, and Emilia Pia quickly tells Bembo to take care.  The moment passes, but the crack is visible, and the laughter which follows is hollow and inadequate to gloss over the socio-political tensions. 

The Renaissance idea of sprezzatura involves a conscientious effort at grace and art which is disguised by performance.  The ideal courtier would engage in such play as an effortless act, careful not to crack the façade and allow anyone to see the manners and language as self-conscious and deliberate behaviour.  The terms sprezzatura epitomises the ideal courtier as effortless artfully, and yet false in his art.  Sprezzatura is closely aligned with the ironic comedy evidenced in the conduct manuals of the Italian Renaissance, in which the success of such dissimulation is dependent on a certain discrepancy between appearance and reality; that is, on how behaviour is perceived and the impetus behind it.  Della Casa’s focus on the importance of manners and appearance stress the importance of reception, and Il Galateo emphasises the supremacy of manners and ‘correct’ behaviour over traditional virtues.  While della Casa emphasises the outward show, Castiglione focuses on the inadequacy of such facades to mask social and political differences.  Ultimately, humour serves a dual purpose in literature of the Italian Renaissance: it is both the epitome of courtly sophistication and artfulness, and simultaneously draws attention to the instability of the performance of social and political harmony.

Works Cited

• Castiglione, B. (1980)  La Corte e Il Cortegiano: un modello Europeo.  Roma: Bulzoni.
• Clubb, L. G. (1983) Castiglione’s Humanistic Art and Renaissance Drama. In Castiglione: the Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, ed. R. W. Hanning and D. Rosand.  New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
• Crane, M. T. (1993) Framing Authority: Sayings, Self and Society in Sixteenth-Century England.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Della Casa, G. (2000) Overo Galateo de’ customs.  Torino: Einaudi tascablini.
• Greene, T. M. (1983) Il Cortegiano and the Choice of a Game.  In Castiglione: the Ideal and the Real in Renaissance Culture, ed. R. W. Hanning and D. Rosand.  New Haven and London:  Yale University Press.
• Winnicott, D. W. (1982). Playing and Reality. New York: Routledge.

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