The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy

Introduction

Introduction [T]he courtier must acquire this grace from those who appear to possess it. . . . However, having already thought a great deal about how this grace is acquired, and leaving aside those who are endowed with it by their stars, I have discovered a universal rule which seems to apply more than any other in all human actions or words: namely, to steer away from affectation at all costs, as if it were a rough and dangerous reef, and (to use perhaps a novel word for it) to practise in all things a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless. I am sure that grace springs especially from this. . . . Similarly in dancing, a single step, a single unforced and graceful movement of the body, at once demonstrates the skill of the dancer. . . . Our courtier, therefore, will be judged to be perfect and will show grace in everything, . . . if he shuns affectation .1 For Castiglione, author of Il libro del cortegiano, the necessity for a courtier to be skilled in the art of dance was without question. The ability to perform gracefully, seemingly without any effort, was one of the distinguishing marks of a courtier and the absence of this ability exposed a gentleman or lady to ridicule and derision from colleagues: Who is there among you who doesn’t laugh when our Pierpaolo dances in that way of his, with those little jumps and with his legs stretched on tiptoe, keeping his head motionless, as if he were made of wood, and all so laboured that he seems to be counting every step?2 2 The Eloquent Body Even though Castiglione was writing his book at the court of Urbino during the second decade of the sixteenth century, his depiction of life at one of the most renowned literary and artistic centers of his day was a retrospective one. The values he articulated in The Book of the Courtier reflected the values held by Italian elite society of the previous century. Correct bearing, carriage, and manner of moving, engendered by years of dance training, were important social skills, since the posture when dancing was a courtier’s natural way of moving. It was not a posture adopted only while performing a dance and then cast aside when the performance was over. The rules according to which courtiers were expected to move on the dance floor applied to every other part of their lives: a noble and temperate bearing helped to distinguish them from those who did not belong to the elite. Thus the instruction the young children of the nobility received from the maestri di ballo was extremely important socially and ethically, as it not only allowed them to obtain approbation when they exhibited their skills in the dance, but also trained them in the patterns of behavior and deportment essential for membership in the social elite. If you moved ungracefully , you immediately demonstrated to others that you did not belong to the right class in society, as you could not perform properly the movement patterns appropriate to that class. As a consequence , you appeared foolish, and would certainly not obtain recognition or esteem in the best circles. Clumsiness had other implications as well. Movements of the body were believed to be the outward manifestation of movements of the soul. Consequently, if the movements of the body were ungraceful , then the movements of the soul would be presumed to be similarly ugly and inharmonious. The movements of the body would be an outward manifestation of a soul that was full of vice, corrupt, ugly and bad. The belief that movements of the soul are manifest through movements of the body partly accounts for the strong attacks made on the dances of the peasants, and the efforts made by the dance masters to differentiate their noble art from the corrupt and ignoble dances of the poor. The dances of the peasants were condemned not only for their vulgar movements, but also because those performing such movements exposed to others the baser nature of their souls. The dance practice of the elite section of quattrocento Italian society had an intellectual and philosophical framework: it was not just a set of physical skills. The dance masters were fully aware that Introduction 3 for dance to be included (through its association with music) in the liberal arts, it had to be...