The Book of the Courtier (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)

by Baldassare Castiglione (Author), Baldassare Castiglione (Author), Baldassare Castiglione (Author), John Woodhouse (Introduction), L.E. Opdycke (Translator), L.E. Opdyke (Translator)

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $7.51

  This text is a historical record of conversational leisure at a Renaissance Italian court, a manual of instruction for aspiring courtiers and a handbook. From it spring the behaviour manuals which continue to reveal the ways of arriviste, from social climber to young business executive.

• Used

  Paperback
  1976

  $3.84

  In The Book of the Courtier (1528), Baldesar Castiglione, a diplomat and Papal Nuncio to Rome, sets out to define the essential virtues for those at Court. In a lively series of imaginary conversations between the real-life courtiers to the Duke of Urbino, his speakers discuss qualities of noble behaviour - chiefly discretion, decorum, nonchalance and gracefulness - as well as wider questions such as the duties of a good government and the true nature of love. Castiglione's narrative power and psychological perception make this guide both an entertaining comedy of manners and a revealing window onto the ideals and preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance at the moment of its greatest splendour.

• New

  Paperback
  1976

  $14.22

  In The Book of the Courtier (1528), Baldesar Castiglione, a diplomat and Papal Nuncio to Rome, sets out to define the essential virtues for those at Court. In a lively series of imaginary conversations between the real-life courtiers to the Duke of Urbino, his speakers discuss qualities of noble behaviour - chiefly discretion, decorum, nonchalance and gracefulness - as well as wider questions such as the duties of a good government and the true nature of love. Castiglione's narrative power and psychological perception make this guide both an entertaining comedy of manners and a revealing window onto the ideals and preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance at the moment of its greatest splendour.