Welcome to my new blog, Castiglione! I've named it after Baldassare Castiglione: a renaissance diplomat, soldier, and author of one of the most widely read and published books of 16th Century: The Book of the Courtier. Why? Because as a young Washingtonian and graduate student studying international politics I spend a lot of time thinking about how to prepare myself for a profession of political thought. Castiglione's book was a classic in its time, used as a primer for those who aspired to a life among the social and political elite. Written as a dialogue among the real-life court personalities of renaissance Urbino, the characters discuss what they believe to be the virtues of the perfect courtier. Given that much of being an upstart in Washington consists of self-promotion, application, and rejection, I find Castiglione’s book to be reassuring in its similar depiction of the personal aspects of political life, and, furthermore, a clear statement of basic, essential truths about the profession of politics.
I will spare you my thoughts on what the dialogue could be said to have "concluded" or what, for instance, is the difference between sycophancy and courtiership. My comment here is about its form as a work of political thought, and in particular that its focus is on something that isn’t a major part of modern political science: personal political virtues. The book is, first of all, a dialogue, a form of writing which has vanished from modern political works, and one which recalls the ancient Greeks. As in Socratic dialogues, the dialectic process of the conversation with its personalities, disagreements, and subtle hints among characters, points to greater truths about its subject: the art of courtiership. It is not, like later political works, a treatise professing clear and definite prescriptions for conduct. Nor is it a mere description of social niceties and character types (The Wikipedia page some of you may be checking calls it a courtesy book; yes but no).
On the face of it, Castiglione's Urbino has much in common with Plato's Athens. The 1800 years between the two thinkers had hardly changed the realities of political existence in communities centered on a dense, urban commercial centers and controlling surrounding agricultural lands: like the πολις, the essential unit of Greek political thought, Urbino was a city-state. But, whereas Aristotle and Plato speak as citizens of the πολις, Castiglione's characters do not speak as citizens of Urbino; they belong to the court. Furthermore, they openly speak of moving about to other courts, and providing their services to those who rule there. This demonstrates an aspect of professionalism absent from the Greeks, who prized patriotism far more fiercely. In this professionalism we begin to see the departure of the modern world from the ancient; whereas Greek political thought possesses the simple clarity of the classical age, and professes noble, arcadian virtues, by Castiglione’s time the world was beginning to take on modern, international complexities.
This reflects the long series of crisis which afflicted Italy during Castiglione's lifetime, and within which Castiglione made his career. Beginning in the 15th century, the rising secular power of Europe's princes was creating the first true nation states. The Italian Wars, which began in 1494 and lasted throughout the first half of the 16th century, demonstrated the relative weakness of the Italian city-states and the Papacy to nation-states like France. In 1527, the year before The Book of the Courtier was published, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked Rome, seat of the papacy, as part of his attempt to dominate the peninsula. European politics was beginning to resemble what we would now recognize as international relations, including professional diplomats and armies, as well as balancing alliances.
Castiglione’s focus on the court instead of the city-state thus reflects the late Renaissance’s new political actors. Because the increasingly powerful secular states were ruled by princes, politics happened in courts. Politics as a vocation meant being a courtier: one who frequented the court, and mixed his social life and personality with the business of politics and the state. The dialogue reflects the reality of this profession: how one dressed, acted, spoke, wrote, and thought was both political and personal. Cultivating personal virtues was an intimate part of what we might now term "professional development." The virtues Castiglione's characters speak of reflect the values of their class: military prowess, humanist learning, prudent speech, restrained yet fashionable dress, and a graceful, perceived nonchalance in how one conducts one's affairs.
In the same way that we can look back on the Greeks as possessing a clear view of politics in its most simply human form, I want to look at Castiglione’s work as having a clear view of the essence of politics as a profession. But I also want to contrast it with what political education offers us today: Where, now, has the focus on personal virtues disappeared to? What has changed the profession of politics so that our principal training now is in methods of advancing and navigating ever greater quantities of impersonal, abstract, knowledge? Have we forgotten the social part of social science?
I will stop with these questions for now. For me, writing is as much an act of clarifying thoughts as expressing them. I hope that in reading them you may experience the same.
Correction: An early version of this post said that the French sacked Rome in 1527. It was, in fact, the forces of Charles V, the German Holy Roman Emperor.
Correction: An early version of this post said that the French sacked Rome in 1527. It was, in fact, the forces of Charles V, the German Holy Roman Emperor.
