A Renaissance Courtesy-book: Galateo of Manners & Behaviours — Edition Insights

The Author's Unlikely Authority

The introduction by J. E. Spingarn does not shy from paradox: Della Casa was a prelate and poet whose “morals were distinctly not above reproach” and who wrote licentious capitoli. Yet this very worldliness, Spingarn argues, made him fit to judge refined conduct. The treatise thus emerges from a man who knew courtly circles intimately, not from a detached moralist. Readers should note how Della Casa’s own background—Florentine lineage, diplomatic service, and a fall from papal favour—shapes his advice. He writes from experience, not theory, and his examples often betray a wry awareness of human folly.

Classical Precedents and Practical Wisdom

Della Casa grounds his advice in classical stories, but he uses them to make pointed, practical points. The excerpt recounts Oedipus, exiled and blind, embracing his daughter before King Theseus—a breach of protocol born of genuine emotion. Theseus’s reply, “I will not have my life honoured with other mens woordes, but with my owne deedes,” becomes a touchstone. Della Casa warns against flattery and empty ceremony, which “beare with all a shape of flattery, so slenderly covered, that every man doth openly see them.” He distinguishes between sincere courtesy and the “arte and merchandise” of those who “keepe a booke and a reconing of it.”

The Critique of Ceremony and Flattery

A central thread in the excerpts is Della Casa’s disdain for excessive ceremony, which he sees as a form of flattery or social climbing. He mocks those who “make a sale of their Ceremonies and entertainments, (after y e maner of harlots)” and notes that such behavior reveals the practitioner as “but a vaine, and arrogant bodie, an asse of grose capacitie.” He even traces the fashion for “superstitious Ceremonies” to Spain, adding that Italy has given them “but colde entertainement.” This critique is not merely moral but aesthetic: true grace, he implies, is effortless and unstudied.

The Translator's Voice and the Reader's Path

Robert Peterson’s 1576 translation gives the text a distinctive flavour: the English is vigorous, colloquial, and occasionally archaic (“glaverings,” “milkops”). This version preserves the immediacy of Della Casa’s address, as when he writes, “you shall understand, that trusting my owne skill but little, in writing this present treatise: I thought good to consult with many.” The reader is treated as a confidant, not a pupil. As you read, attend to the rhythm of Peterson’s prose and the way Della Casa shifts between anecdote, aphorism, and direct instruction. The treatise rewards slow reading, letting its observations on vanity and genuine courtesy sink in.

Della Casa’s Galateo is best approached not as a rulebook but as a conversation—one that values self-awareness over rigid etiquette. The excerpts reveal a writer more interested in the spirit of courtesy than its letter, and more amused than outraged by human pretension. Let the classical stories and sharp asides guide your reading; they are the heart of this Renaissance manual, not the occasional lists of do’s and don’ts.

That rainy afternoon, Della Casa’s insistence that grace hides in small gestures—the tilt of a head, a pause before speech—felt less like instruction and more like permission to notice. His firm belief that artful living outranks rigid rule somehow loosened my own grip, and I drifted toward Hegel’s quieter passages on the spirit’s unfolding. Both men, I thought, trust form to carry meaning. The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4) Hegel's Aesthetik — Background and Themes sat unopened beside me, patient as a friend.