Giovanni Della Casa

“ To read a letter or to fall asleep in company, to turn your back to your neighbour, to be careless about one's way of standing or sitting, to be absent-minded or touchy about trifles, are social sins of this second kind. The art of conversation was the mainstay of social life in the Italian Renaissance, and to it Della Casa naturally, at this point, devotes most of his attention. ”

“ And, finally, if the desire to please is the aim of good manners, the guide, or test, or norm is common usage or custom, which no less than reason furnishes the laws of courtesy, and which in a sense may be said to be the equivalent in manners of what duty is in morals. ”

“ A modern idealist sums up this newer attitude when he says of the old code that it asks us "rather to let a million pine than hurt the feelings of a single man." But wholly apart from this, codes and rules have no more justification in the art of life than in the arts of poetry and painting. Each individual soul must express its past and its present, its inheritance and its aspiration, in its own way ”

“ In order to give pleasure, we are told, it is essential to pay heed to the way a thing is done as well as to what is done; it is not enough to do a good deed, but it must be done with a good grace. That is to say, good manners are concerned with the form which actions take, as morals are concerned with their content ”

“ Children and novices and immature societies may obtain practical guidance from the empirical observations of those who have had experience, but in order to create a real life of their own, a real social atmosphere, they must reach the point where the very rules that nurtured them no longer apply. To disregard every rule of good breeding is the symbol of real attainment in the creative art of living. ”

“ Among all these the "Cortegiano," one of the earliest, stands out preëminently, just because it is the spontaneous product of the age of which it is also a reasoned expression; that is to say, because it is a work of art of the Renaissance rather than a mere scholastic treatise of the Catholic Reaction. It is in no sense a courtesy-book; it is concerned with principles of social conduct rather than with details of etiquette. But of all the mere courtesy-books, the "Galateo" alone survives; its name is current coin in Italian speech to-day ”

“ It was first felt there that in such matters as yawning or coughing in another's face, carelessness and greediness in eating, and other annoying traits, there could be only one standard for both sexes and for all ages. ”

“ He has written a book that touches on the essentials of good manners as they affect all classes and groups which aim at individual perfection,—not merely the young, but the mature; not merely men or women, but both sexes ”

“ The "Galateo" deals solely with those little concessions to the tastes and whims of those around us which are necessitated by the fact that cultivated gentlemen are not hermits, and must consider the customs and habits of others if they wish to form part of a smoothly organized and polished society. ”

“ On the basis of such ideas,—to please others; to win their good graces and one's own ultimate success; to be sweetly reasonable in conforming xvto custom; to perform every act with an eye to its effect on those about us,—on the basis of ideas as elementary yet appealing as these, he formulates in detail the precepts of conduct for daily human intercourse in a refined society. ”

“ He is interested solely in the superficial aspects of life, and an intricate or consistent philosophy would have served no other purpose than to alienate or confuse minds concerned, like his own, solely with life on its superficial side. ”

“ When Della Casa calls good manners "a virtue, or something closely akin to virtue," he is making a mere concession to the ideals of his day. The moralists of the later Renaissance, or Catholic Reaction, felt it necessary to defend every social practice on the ground of its real or imaginary relation to virtue, as the only thing which can ever justify anything to a moralist. So the sixteenth century theorists of "honour" called honour a form of virtue ”

“ We are not only to avoid indiscretion in such matters, but we are to refrain from mentioning in conversation whatever might be indelicate as a physical act. In the second place, there are other indiscretions that have no such basis in the mere senses, and refer solely to the mental attitude or to the mere personal pride of our neighbours. ”

“ In speach a man may fault many wayes. And first in the matter it selfe that is in talke, which may not be vaine or filthye. For, they that doe heare it, will not abide it: as ye talk they take no pleasure to heare: but rather scorne the speache and the speaker both. Againe, a man must not move any question of matters that be to deepe & to subtile: because it is hardly understoode of the moste. And a man must warely foresee, that the matter bee suche, as none of the company may blushe to heare it, or receave any shame by the tale. ”

“ And therfore, you must not do so, with all your acquaintance generally: but only with your very friendes, or suche whom you are to governe & rule: or els, when a man hapely standes in daunger & perill, how muche a straunger so ever he be. But in our common Acquaintance and conversation, Let us not busy our selves, and medle to muche with other mens doings. In which fault many doe fall: but most of all, the men of least understanding. For, Men of grose capacities consider but litle: And they take no longe time to debate with them selves, as men that have litle busines to doe. ”

“ Perhaps we can judge this modern change without too great an exaggeration of its importance, if we bear in mind the paradox of the modern wit, that "dirt is evil chiefly as evidence of sloth, but the fact remains that the classes that wash most are those that work least." ”

“ And the Nature and effect of a scorne, is properly to take a contentation and pleasure to do another man shame and villany: thoughe it do our selves no good in the world. So that, good maner & honesty, would us beware we scorne no man in any case: wherin they be much to be blamed, that reprove men those blemishes they have in their person, either in woords, as Master Forese da Rabatta did, laughing at the countenaunce of Master Giotta: or in deeds, as many doe, counterfeting those that stutter, haulte, or be crookte shoulderd. ”

“ But, we see that Learned men have suche art and cunning to persuade, and such filed wordes to serve their turne: that wrong doth carry the cause away, and Reason cannot prevaile. And therefore let us give them no credite in this point. And what can I tell, if they have a secret drift herein, to excuse and cover the fault of their countrey, that is corrupt with this vice. But it is daungerous, perchaunce, for a man to reprove them for it: least asmuch happen to him, as chaunced to Socrates him selfe, for his over lavish controuling and checking of every mans fault. ”

“ Every man may applie those fashions, that be in common use, ye moste to his owne advantage that he can. For, if perchaunce your legges be very long, and men use but short garments: you may use a meane, not to long, nor to short. And if your legges be to small, to greate, or crooked: make not your hosen of to light and garishe a colour, that it may not call men to looke and to gawre uppon your deformitie. Thou must weare no garment that shall be to light, or overmuche daubde with garding; that men may not say, thou hast Ganymedes hosen, or wearest Cupides doublet. ”

“ Galsworthy does, such a speech as this: "For people brought up as we are, to have different manners is worse than to have different souls.... How are you going to stand it; with a woman who——? It's the little things." The Archbishop of Benevento, if permitted to read passages like this in modern plays and essays, would recognize his own ideas in all of them; he could point to dialogues and discourses of his own time in which dogmatic precepts were in like manner disguised as witty and elegant conversation ”

“ I beleeve, they could not lightly tell a more fowle & shamefull tale then this. We should be children still all the time of our riper yeares, & in our extreame age: and waxe as very fooles with gray hoary heads, as when we were very babes: if it were not that reason, which increaseth in us with our yeares, subdueth affections in us and growen to perfection, transformeth us from beastes in to men. So that it is well seene, shee ruleth our senses and bridleth our willes. And it is our owne Imperfection and not her faulte, if we doe swarve from vertue, goodnes, and good order in life. ”

“ It is very true, that With muche greater pleasure we harken and better beholde (as it were with our eyes) what soever is told us of men of our acquaintance, if the matter be suche as toucheth their maners: then what we doe heare of straungers and men unknowne unto us. And the reason is this: when wee doe knowe, that suche a man is woont to doe so: we doe easily beleeve, he hathe doone so indeede: and wee take asmuche knoweledge of him, as if wee were present: where it chaunceth not so with us, in the case of a straunger. ”

“ But our concern is only with secular society, and there we find that cleanliness was considered only in so far as it was a social necessity, if indeed then; as an individual necessity or habit it scarcely appears at all. ”