Medicine and Statecraft in 'The Book of the Courtier'

Abstract

The connection between medicine and statecraft in The Book of the Courtier (Il libro del cortegiano, 1528) is not one of this elegant work’s more obvious features. Its author, Baldessare Castiglione(1478–1529), was neither a physician nor from a family of physicians. Rather, he was a gentleman of the minor Italian nobility who, after having received a humanist education, spent most of his life as acourtier and diplomat, serving in these capacities at the courts of Milan, Mantua, Urbino, Rome and Madrid. We should not assume, however, that Castiglione was uninformed about classical medical doctrines, which in his day were part of the common humanist culture. The non-medical humanist Erasmus (1466–1536) published well-regarded Latin translations of three minor works by the ancient medicalauthority Galen, as well as an oration in praise of medicine which convinced some readers that its author was a physician. Also, there were humanist physicians, such as Guido Postumo Silvestri (1479–1521) and Girolamo Fracastoro (1483–1533), whose Latin poetry and other writings had gained them recognition as literary figures.