The Book of the Courtier

The son of a wealthy Venetian family, Pietro Bembo was educated in Latin, Greek, and Tuscan. He was a member of the court circle at Urbino between 1506 and 1512. He moved to Rome to serve as papal secretary to Leo X, and later retired to Padua. Insisting on Petrarch and Boccaccio as the standard of great literature, the poet and courtier was made a cardinal in 1539. He concludes the four-day discussion by talking about the idea of Platonic love. He believes courtiers should seek to understand the concept of beauty. 

Descended from Veronese nobility, Canossa was a relative of Castiglione. Serving at the court of Urbino from 1496, Canossa later became a diplomat in the service of the Pope and then King Francis I, finally being made Bishop of Bayeux in 1516. A visiting diplomat, he kicks the discussion off the first evening. He believes that the ideal courtier is smart, friendly, a gifted dancer, and of noble birth. 

Bernardo Bibbiena was in the service of the Medici family, specifically Giovanni de’ Medici, who made him Cardinal S.Maria in Portico on becoming Pope Leo X. Dolvizi’s influence was so great that he was known as ‘the other Pope’.