The Courtier

In Baldesar Castiglione's The Courtier the clever circle of courtiers presents a vision of what a courtier should be. In addition, they discuss the question of what a court lady should be. Though this discussion of women takes up most of Book Three, the strategies that the men employ on the subject of women are not limited to that one conversation. Women are mentioned in various ways throughout the book. The remarks of Gaspare Pallavicino, noted for his disparagement of women, are the most obviously negative. But the overt discussion of women's qualities is not the only context in which the courtiers' ideas about women become apparent. Throughout the book there are also casual mentions of women as a group or of individual women. The nature of these passing remarks, the behavior of the women present at the conversations, and the general absence of women from most contexts, signify as much about them as do the conversation in Book Three and Pietro Bembo's concluding remarks on spiritual love. Even when they are present in the book, women are absent. It may be a fact that women such as the Duchess and Emilia Pia would not have liked to take a very active part in these conversations. But their withdrawal says a great deal about how they are viewed and how they view themselves. Ideals are the central theme of The Courtier -- what does the ideal courtier do? In contrast, the role of the ideal court lady is discussed (both by the pro-women and anti-women speakers) in te

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ers are actually supporting a vision of women that really has absolutely nothing to do with whether they can or should rule nations or fight battles, or even read and write books. Instead the conversations are concerned with establishing that it is absolutely unnecessary for women do to any of these things because, rather than being active beings they are completely passive. The entire view of women is developed by means of numerous arguments to make it appear that depriving women of such a large portion of their humanity is, in fact, doing them an enormous favor. Thus in the setting of a room containing a few women who have little to say or do except admire the men who are talking, the conversation eventually produces an ideal of women as the possessors of intense spiritual beauty that emanates out of them and arouses the interest of men. If the reader simply reduces the four nights of conversation to a sparse outline, it becomes clear that what happens is that the women say, "come in and talk while we admire you." The men respond by saying that the perfect man is one who is like myself (only better) while the perfect woman is the one who merely sits quietly and says little, allowing some innate quality to shine out of her.

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