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The Book of the Courtier

Introduction

The Book of the Courtier is written by Baldassare Castiglione. This book is a courtesy book which is written in Italian. The writer has worked on this artifact for several years that he started in the beginning of the year 1508 and got his book published in 1528 by Aldine Press located in Venice before his death. An English edition of the book was published in 1561. The book has addressed the constitution of a perfect courtier and a perfect lady in the last chapter of the book.

Discussion

Baldassare has drawn an inspiration for the Courtier from his experience as a courtier of virgin Duchess Elisabeth Gonzaga at the court of Urbino. The author has presented this book as a dialogue in four books, of which the third speaks of the rules to become a perfect lady, while the rest are concerned with how to become a true courtier (Baldassare, 1528, pp. 3). The book was an immediate success and was one of the best-selling books in the sixteenth century. It did make several copies, which he distributed among his courtiers. He thought that the book he painted has his ideal model of the royal court, which tried to reach the same for her. Nowadays the Courtier is a portrait of court life renaissance. For this aspect it is one of the most important works of the Renaissance.

Although in the new humanistic worldview in the Renaissance was rejected by the majority of the established medieval ideas about man, even among humanists for a long time remained the traditional view of women, placing it below the nature of man, attributed to her many supposedly inherent from birth defects and in general terms, is limited to its social role of the family and the cares of the household (www.history.com). Starting primarily with the Giovanni Boccaccio in Italian literature began to appear and praising the work of women, but they speak only of which is an exception to the rule of outstanding examples of heroines. Moreover, such work has been quite rare until the last quarter of the 15th century, and the most humanistic writings on women in the developing, very often, the traditional views, applying them to a new era.

The Circumstances when the Book was written

The Style of Government

The book was written in the sixteenth century, it was the time in which the Europe was under the un-precedence changes. That was the beginning of the modern epoch and there were changes coming in almost all the elements of life. This century started off with the breakthrough of one new continent. Revitalization was taking place in Italy and was diffusing towards north, although incoming in backwaters as England. The economy at the time period was on boom and an average person was also enjoying his life at his maximum. The system of commerce, international finance mechanism, en entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and trading fleets; all were growing recognizably capitalist money based economy.

Aspects of Religion ...