rince, it is better to quit his service.[1] A courtier
must be careful to create beforehand a favorable opinion of himself in
places he intends to visit. Much stress is laid upon his choice of
clothes and the equipment of his servants. In these respects he should
aim at combining individuality with simplicity, so as to produce an
impression of novelty without extravagance or eccentricity. He must be
very cautious in his friendships, selecting his associates with care,
and admitting only one or two to intimacy.

[1] From many passages in the 'Cortegiano' it is clear that
Castiglione is painting the character of an independent gentleman,
to whom self-culture in all humane excellence is of far more
importance than the acquisition of the art of pleasing.
Circumstances made the life of courts the best obtainable; but there
is no trace of French 'oeil-de-boeuf' servility.

In connection with the general subject of tact and taste, the Cardinal
Bibbiena introduces an elaborate discussion of the different sorts of
jokes, which proves the high value attached in Italy to all displays of
wit. It appears that even practical jokes were not considered in bad
taste, but that irreverence and grossness were tabooed as boorish. Mere
obscenity is especially condemned, though it must be admitted that many
jests approved of at that time would now appear intolerable. But the
essential point to be aimed at then, as now, was the promotion of mirth
by cleverness, and not by mere tricks and clumsy inventions.

In bringing this chapter on Italian Despotism in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries to a conclusion, it will be well to cast a backward
glance over the ground which has been traversed. A great internal change
took place and was accomplished during this period. The free burghs
which flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, gave place to
tyrannies, illegal for the most part in their origin, and maintained by
force. In the absence of dynastic right, violence and craft were
instruments by means of which the despots founded and preserved their
power. Yet the sentiments of the Italians at large were not unfavorable
to the growth of principalities. On the contrary, the forces which move
society, the inner instinct of the nation, and the laws of progress and
development, tended year by year more surely to the consolidation of
despotisms. City after city lost its faculty for self-government, until
at last Flo