Prince and the Courtier: Two

¶ … Prince and the Courtier: Two Views of Society and Statecraft

The Renaissance was an age in which the West expanded its horizons. Great minds rediscovered the past, learning to apply the lessons of the ancients to the politics and society of their own day. Men like Niccolo Machiavelli and Baldesar Castiglione began to examine their own world with the critical eye of the Classical thinkers and writers. For them, the drama of politics, the machinations of princes and their advisers, and the interplay of the different forces within the state and society became fields open to intensive analysis. They developed theories of proper behavior and appropriate action. Both Machiavelli and Castiglione focused specifically on the world of the Italian courts of the late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries. Contemporaries of each other, the two both wrote works of social and political commentary that became guidebooks on the statecraft and society of the time. Machiavelli's, the Prince, looked especially at the exigencies of politics and political maneuvering as they applied to the rulers of Italy's endlessly warring city-states. Castiglione, in his the Book of the Courtier, took a somewhat different view, examining the skills and talents required of the individuals who comprised the courts of these small states and served under the ruling princes. Machiavelli's work became a byword for intrigue, for an "ends justifies the means" cynical version of politics and political control. The Courtier, instead, emphasized the intellectual and social accomplishments of an individual - the broader culture that was required to become a successful and productive member of the ruling class. The two great works of each other author continue to influence views on politics and society down to this today, as politicians still fight over questions of realpolitik, and broader concerns of culture and education.

Machiavelli took the inquiring spirit of the Renaissance and applied it to politics. Using the methods of the ancients, he sought to show that government, too, could be made amenable to rational laws. A prince's decisions should be based on logical observations of actual conditions. He should react to these findings in ways that accorded with the analytical approach of Classical scholars. Things should not be accepted on faith alone. Assumptions must be challenged. What was effective should be done. Over and over again, Machiavelli speaks of conditions wherein good government is maintained because the people respond in a reasonable manner to the prince just and reason course of action. A prince, he advises, should live in his conquered dominions, because only in so doing can he hope to observe all that goes on. By observing what transpires with his own eyes, by keeping himself aware of the real situation, he appears to his subjects as one who is informed about their needs and customs. He is able to provide for their welfare. He protects the province from both internal and external enemies, and ensures that his own agents are the more loyal and fair:

By being on the spot, one sees trouble at its birth and one can quickly remedy it; not being there, one hears about it after it has grown and there is no longer any remedy. Moreover, the province would not be plundered by one's own officers; the subjects would be pleased to have direct recourse to their prince; thus, wishing to be good subjects, they have more reason to love him and, wanting to be otherwise, more reason to fear him. Anyone who might wish to invade that dominion from abroad would be more hesitant.

By his presence, the prince prevents disaffection, and works to increase the love of his people. The better the relationship between ruler and ruled, the more stable the government, and the more successful the prince himself. Good government is to the prince's advantage.

Reason could also be applied in other ways not so pleasant. The term "Machiavellian" has come to connote decisions that are self-serving, even cruel and despotic, but which nevertheless serve well-defined ends. Machiavelli's prince was to be ever on his guard against enemies. No stratagem was too mean or cynical not to be used in order to maintain order and control, and so preserve one's rule. Against the backdrop of the constant warfare and inter-city intrigue of Renaissance Italy, such ruthlessness was also rational. Essentially, this approach was all about adapting to changed circumstances. In the words of Machiavelli, "I also believe that the man who adapts his course of action to the nature of the times will succeed and, likewise, that the man who sets his course of action out of tune with the times will come to grief."

If your enemies are treacherous than you must be too. If your neighbors wish to be your friends, why fight them? A ruler must seek to please his people, and to deal as effectively as possible with his enemies and rivals while always maintaining the upper hand. Machiavelli cited the Fox and the Lion as emblematic of qualities that every good ruler should possess:

It is therefore necessary to be a fox in order to recognize the traps and a lion in order to frighten the wolves. Those who play only the part of the lion do not understand matters. A wise ruler, therefore, cannot and should not keep his word when such an observance of faith would be to his disadvantage and when the reasons which made him promise are removed. And if men were all good, this rule would not be good.... A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

Treachery is not beneath the prince because, to some extent at least, all people are treacherous, and the prince, most of all, has reason to break his word, because he governs for the good of all. If keeping his word would cause the government to become unstable, or lead to a decrease in the happiness or safety of the people, then he must not think twice about forgetting about his promises. The ultimate good is what matters most.

On the other hand, Baldesar Castiglione took a somewhat different view of statecraft and its relationship to the society of his day. Unlike Machiavelli, who trusted to the qualities of the prince to attract the best possible associates and officials, Castiglione sought to mold those associates into a class that would best serve the interests of the state and people. Castiglione's, the Courtier, is a classic text on behavior, education, and culture. The ideal courtier was to be trained in all the arts; refined and cultivated. He was to possess every accomplishment necessary to make him a model of good judgment and civilized conduct. He was to be learned so as to be able to give good advice, and well-versed in all the arts enumerated by the ancients so as to be knowledgeable in what constituted the proper society. Castiglione makes the point that while the courtly arts may be learned, once learned they must appear as a natural part of one's being. An essential aspect of being a true courtier, of being able to furnish all the advice and skills required by such a person, is the additional need to seem to "live" the part. One becomes, in effect, a living and breathing compendium of civilization's most noble precepts. Courtliness is associated directly with gracefulness - the way in which one carries oneself, at once elegant and artful. In Book I of the Courtier, Canossa explains this quality:

This grace derives either from heaven or from a universal rule which he identifies as sprezzatura. To obtain gracefulness, he adds, the courtier must use a carelessness or "Recklessness" to conceal his art... so that everything he does appears to be unpremeditated. As Daniel Javitch comments, "Canossa proposes that sprezzatura is at once artifice made to seem natural and a seemingly effortless resolution of the difficult." This is an ironic dissembling since the courtier's "deceptive actions always possess an implication of their opposite.

In Castiglione's view, artifice is curiously close to art. One must have one to have the other. The courtier who performs the appropriate actions in every social situation is, in fact, acting a carefully orchestrated part. Every detail of his performance is scripted and choreographed. Nevertheless, this exquisite choreography must appear to be an "accident" of nature. It is as if a person delivers a beautiful oration, yet makes it appear as if this speech had been composed on the spur of the moment, at the instant the words issued out of the mouth of the speaker. This is true grace - the talent of appearing perfect in very way, yet seeming to have never undertaken any effort to acquire that talent or to produce that effect.

In the eyes of Castiglione, the courtier's personal qualities must necessarily fit within the larger picture of the court performance. Courtiers are nearly always participating in some larger events, some function that demands the presence of many individuals around the ruler or rulers.

Court ceremonial and pageantry was especially important to the author of the Book of the Courtier. A significant aspect of court pageantry of the time was the performance known as masking, in which the courtiers themselves assumes other roles while wearing masks. The anonymity of the performance permitted them to engage in behavior that might otherwise be considered inappropriate. However, the custom of masking also gave concrete form to Castiglione's metaphor of the courtier as one who was continually playing a role. As Federico states in Book II of the Courtier,

But if a Courtier who is accustomed to handling affairs of importance should happen to be in private with his lord, he must become another person [lit., put on another mask], and lay aside grave matters for another time and place, and engage in conversation that will be amusing and pleasant to his lord, so as not to prevent him from gaining such relaxation.

In this situation, the courtier is not only, once again, assuming another role, but he is representing, in microcosm, the function of the larger ceremonials. While designed to project a "mask" of power, large pageants, like the intimate, but relaxed interlude between the courtier and his lord were designed to divert as much as to display. Thus, in participating in entertainments, the courtier was fulfilling a duel role - assisting his master in the exercise of power by helping him to visually display that power, while also helping to relax from the cares of that power. Through graceful relaxation, both master and courtier could be refreshed, and return again to the stage of state renewed and reinvigorated. For in public, even when engaged in sport or play, the courtier is careful to maintain his art. Everything, even the grand public spectacles of the courtiers amusing themselves is done with an eye toward correct performance and artistic flare. As Federico says in Book II,