Part 9

Moreover, it is a nedefull observation to bethinke your selfe, how you doe move your bodie, and specially in talke. "For, it many times chaunceth, a man is so ernest in his tale, that hee hath no minde of any thing els. One wagges his head. Another lookes bigg and scowles with his browes. That man pulls his mouth awry. And tother spittes in and uppon their faces with whome he talkes. And som suche there be that move their hands in suche a sorte, as if they should chase y^e flies as they go: which be very unhansome & unseemely maners to use." And I have heard it saide (for you knowe I have byn familiarly acquainted with learned men in my time) that Pindarus that worthy man was wont to saye: that "Whatsoever it were that had a good & savourie taste: was seasoned by the hands of the Graces. Now, what shall I speake of them y^t come forthe of their studies with their penne in their eare: and nibble their hankercheifs in their mouthe, or ly lolling w^t their legge over the table, or spit one their fingers, and of a number of other blockishe gestures and fashions more then these, which cannot be all rehearsed well: nor shal not, I meane, put me to further paines to tel them al if I could. For, there be manie perchaunce will say this is to muche, that I have said allredie."

FINIS

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Giovanni della Casa, the author of the "Galateo," was born near Florence in 1503, and died at Rome in 1556. He took orders before 1538, and became successively Apostolic Clerk, Apostolic Commissary, Archbishop of Benevento, Papal Nuncio at Venice, and Secretary of State under Paul IV. He was distinguished as a poet, as a diplomatist, and as an orator.

The "Galateo" was written between 1551 and 1555, at the suggestion of Galeazzo Florimonte, Bishop of Sessa, whose "poetic" name it bears in consequence. It was published posthumously at Venice, in 1558, in a volume entitled "Rime e Prose di M. Giov. della Casa," and was republished separately at Milan in 1559, at Florence in 1560, and often thereafter. A complete edition of the works of Della Casa, in three volumes, was edited by Casotti at Florence in 1707.

The "Galateo" was translated into French by Jean du Peyrat in 1562, and again, anonymously, with the original and the translation on opposite pages, in 1573. A Spanish version by Domingo Becerra was published in 1585, and this was followed in 1599 by a loose imitation by Gracian Dantisco, entitled "El Galateo Español," which in its turn was translated into English in 1640 by William Styles as "Galateo Espagnol, or the Spanish Gallant." In 1598 an edition of the "Galateo" in four languages, Italian, French, Latin, and Spanish, was published at Lyons; and a German version was added in the editions of 1609 and 1615.

The first English translation, by Robert Peterson of Lincoln's Inn, appeared in 1576, as "Galateo of Maister Iohn Della Casa, Archebishop of Beneventa, or rather a Treatise of the Manners and Behaviours it behoveth a Man to use in his familiar Conversation;" and an edition of it, limited to one hundred copies, was privately printed by H. J. Reid in 1892. Peterson's rendering is based almost entirely on the anonymous French translation of 1573, although he occasionally refers to the Italian original on the opposite pages. Two proofs of his indebtedness will suffice: Where the Frenchman renders the single Italian word "mezzanamente" by the phrase "avec discretion et médiocrité," Peterson follows him with "by Discretion and Measure;" and again, the single word "questa" in Della Casa becomes "cette gracieuseté et courtoisie" in the French and "this civilitie and courtesie" in the English version.

At least five other English translations have been published. In 1616, Thomas Gainsford appended to his "Rich Cabinet" an "Epitome of Good Manners extracted from Archbp. J. de la Casa;" the treatise was paraphrased by N. W. as "The Refin'd Courtier" in 1663; in 1701, an English translation (from the Latin version of N. Chytraeus) was published "by several young Gentlemen educated at a private Grammar School near Hackney," under the title of "J. Casa his Galateus, or a Treatise of Manners;" a version entitled "Galateo of Manners" appeared in 1703; and still another version, entitled "Galateo, or a Treatise on Politeness and Delicacy of Manners," appeared in 1774. Della Casa was also the author of another treatise on conduct, "Trattato degli Uffici communi tra gli Amici superiori e inferiori," which was translated into English by Henry Stubbe in 1665, as "The Arts of Grandeur and Submission."

Peterson's version is reproduced in the present work. The proofs have been collated with the British Museum copy of the original 1576 edition by Mr. W. B. Owen, formerly scholar of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge. In deference to the insistence of the publisher and the general editor, a few passages "perfume our pages only in their native Italian."

J. E. S.

THIS VOLUME WITH TITLE-PAGE BY T. M. CLELAND WAS PRINTED BY D. B. UPDIKE AT THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS BOSTON, U.S.A. MDCCCC XIV

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation errors repaired.

The following correction has been made to the text:

Page 88: not shoofle them together at random[original reads "randon"]

End of Project Gutenberg's A Renaissance Courtesy-book, by Giovanni Della Casa