The gentleman and his pride

Abstract

Castiglione's Il Cortegiano gives us the picture of a perfect gentleman whose ostensible raison d'etre is to serve his prince. Yet Burckhardt remarks of this paragon: 'The impulse which inspired him was directed, though our author does not acknowledge the fact, not to the service of the prince, but to his own perfection...' In fact the ideal gentleman, as he appears in sixteenth century fiction as well, was essentially a believer in himself: as such, he loved grand gestures and elaborate displays; and these might take the form of magnanimous pardon for his enemies, lavish entertainment for his guests, compliments for ladies, or presents for foe and friend alike. In such demonstrations, he exalted himself rather than others. This dedication to one's own gentility and worth I would call 'the code of arrogance'; although, of course, the term implies a modern and therefore an unhistorical way of looking at sixteenth century ideas, for the quality was then scarcely recognized as arrogance: 'Magnanimity' was the word most often used to describe it.