The Book Of The Courtier A Historic Guide To Manners And Etiquette In The Royal Courts Of Renaissance Europe

The Book of the Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione's classic account of Renaissance court life, offers profound insight into the refined behavior which defined the era's ruling class. The courtly customs and manners of Italy to a great extent characterized the Renaissance, which elevated art and expression to new heights. Baldassare Castiglione published this book with the intention of chronicling the manners, customs and traditions which underpinned how courtiers, nobles, and their servants, behaved. Although ostensibly a book of etiquette and good conduct, Castiglione's treatise carries enormous historical value. He derived his observations directly from the many gatherings and receptions conducted by society's elite. Conversations with the officials, diplomats and nobility of the era further enhanced the accuracy of this book, imbuing it with an authenticity seldom seen elsewhere.

The Book of the Courtier, Baldassare Castiglione's classic account of Renaissance court life, offers profound insight into the refined behavior which defined the era's ruling class. The courtly customs and manners of Italy to a great extent characterized the Renaissance, which elevated art and expression to new heights. Baldassare Castiglione published this book with the intention of chronicling the manners, customs and traditions which underpinned how courtiers, nobles, and their servants, behaved. Although ostensibly a book of etiquette and good conduct, Castiglione's treatise carries enormous historical value. He derived his observations directly from the many gatherings and receptions conducted by society's elite. Conversations with the officials, diplomats and nobility of the era further enhanced the accuracy of this book, imbuing it with an authenticity seldom seen elsewhere.

The Reader's Guide to the History of Science looks at the literature of science in some 550 entries on individuals (Einstein), institutions and disciplines (Mathematics), general themes (Romantic Science) and central concepts (Paradigm and Fact). The history of science is construed widely to include the history of medicine and technology as is reflected in the range of disciplines from which the international team of 200 contributors are drawn.

An insider's view of court life during the Renaissance, here is the handiwork of a 16th-century diplomat who was called upon to resolve the differences in a war of etiquette among the Italian nobility.

Castiglione's Cortegiano, or the Courtier, is one of the best-known texts of the Italian Renaissance. When it first appeared in 1528, the Courtier was widely read as a guide to contemporary conduct. Its popularity led to its publication in six languages in twenty different European centers in the sixteenth century alone. While the text itself has been studied very carefully in recent years as the embodiment of the spirit of the High Renaissance, its multitude of readers, spread over the world, has received much less attention. In this engaging study Peter Burke explores how readers over the years have responded to the Courtier. Because it was read so widely in Europe, the Courtier affords Burke an ideal test case for the diffusion and reception of ideas. From Poland and Hungary to England, Portugal, and even the New World, he takes us on a fascinating tour of the courts, libraries, and reading rooms of Europe in search of Castiglione's idea of the perfect courtier. He shows how changing responses to the Courtier, both positive and negative, reveal changing social values and how regional variations in its reception reflect the emerging cultural map of early modern Europe. His evidence includes printing history, translations, marginalia, and records of sale and possession. He concludes with a discussion of the later fortune of the Courtier, including its role in the "civilizing process" and its curious appeal to writers as different as Samuel Johnson and W. B. Yeats. Informed by Burke's considerable knowledge of printing and publishing history, this book contributes to our growing understanding of the history of the book and to our knowledge of the Renaissance and its reception.

“A scholarly guide to etiquette as entertaining and amusing as a work of fiction” (Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine). Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to live in the nineteenth century? How would you have gotten a partner in a ballroom? What would you have done with a letter of introduction? And where would you have sat in a carriage? Covering all these nineteenth-century dilemmas and more, this book is your must-have guide to the etiquette of our well-heeled forebears. As it takes you through the intricacies of rank, the niceties of the street, the good conduct that was desired in the ballroom, and the awkward blunders that a lady or gentleman would have wanted to avoid, you will discover an abundance of etiquette advice from across the century, and a lively, occasionally tongue-in-cheek, and thoroughly detailed history of nineteenth-century manners and conduct. This well-researched book is enjoyable, compelling reading for anyone with an interest in this period. In exploring the expectations of behavior and etiquette, it brings the world of the nineteenth century to life.