Love in Print in The Sixteenth Century-The Popularization of Romance

E a r ly Mode r n C u lt u r a l St u di es
Jean Howard and Ivo Kamps, Series Editors

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Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century: The Popularization of Romance
by Ian Frederick Moulton
L ov e i n P r i n t i n t h e
Si x t e e n t h C e n t u ry
Th e Popu l a r i z at ion of Rom a nc e
Ian Frederick Moulton

LOVE IN PRINT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Copyright © Ian Frederick Moulton, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-39267-1
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
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this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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ISBN 978-1-349-48339-6 ISBN 978-1-137-40505-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137405050
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moulton, Ian Frederick, 1964–
Love in print in the sixteenth century : the popularization of romance /
by Ian Frederick Moulton.
pages cm—(Early modern cultural studies)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Love in literature. 2. Love—Early works to 1800. 3. Books—

Europe—History—16th century. 4. Printing—Inﬂuence. I. Title.
PN56.L6M68 2014
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First edition: April 2014
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For Wendy Williams
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C on t e n t s
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Love, the Book Market, and the

Popularization of Romance 1
1 Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier: Love and
Ideal Conduct 27
2 Mario Equicola’s De Natura d’amore: Love and
Knowledge 61
3 Antonio Tagliente’s Opera amorosa: Love and
Letterwriting 105
4 Jacques Ferrand’s On Lovesickness: Love and Medicine 145
Conclusion: Romeo + Juliet 183
Notes 187
Bibliography 231
Index 245
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Ac k now l e dgm e n ts
Preliminary research for the project was facilitated by a Huntington

Library Fellowship in the summer of 2004, and I have spent many
pleasant hours since that time sitting in the Ahmanson reading room
working with their two editions of Equicola’s De Natura d’amore.
The community of scholars at the Huntington is a great resource in
itself, and I’d like particularly to thank Heidi Brayman-Hackel for
her friendship and hospitality on many trips to San Marino. Primary
research for the volume was also conducted at the British Library,
the Marciana Library in Venice, the Newberry Library in Chicago,
and the Houghton Library at Harvard. My thanks to the librarians
and support staff at each of these institutions. All are wonderful and
inspiring places to work, but there’s nothing like hearing the water
lapping on worn stone steps while reading at the Marciana.
Excerpts from the volume have been presented at numerous aca-
demic conferences, including meetings of the Shakespeare Association
of America, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Canadian
Society for Italian Studies. My special thanks to Stephanie Trigg for
her invitation to speak at the University of Melbourne, and also to
present a paper on lovesickness at the Australia and New Zealand
Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies conference at
the University of Otago, New Zealand. Thanks as well to Matthew
Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield for inviting me to give a plenary
address at the conference on Popular Culture in the Early Modern
World organized by the Center for Early Modern Studies at the
University of Sussex in 2007. It was that conference which first got
me thinking seriously about the popular impact of the dissemination
of printed books about love in the sixteenth century. And thanks to
Laura Giannetti and Guido Ruggiero for inviting me to present an
early overview of the question of “love” in the sixteenth century at the
Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Colloquium at the University of
Miami in 2006.
Sections of the book have previously appeared in print. The genesis
of the chapter on Castiglione appeared as “Castiglione: Love, Power,
and Masculinity” in The Poetics of Masculinity in Early Modern Italy
x Acknow ledgments
and Spain (Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2010),

edited by Gerry Milligan and Jane Tylus. Early work on Tagliente’s
Opera Amorosa and Equicola’s De Natura d’amore was published as
“‘Popu-love’: Sex, Love, and Sixteenth Century Print Culture,” in
Literature and Popular Culture in Early Modern England (Ashgate,
2009), edited by Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield, a col-
lection that grew out of the popular culture conference at Sussex.
My discussion of Equicola’s unorthodox treatment of the sense of
touch appeared in an article entitled “In Praise of Touch: Mario
Equicola and the Nature of Love,” in the journal Senses and Society 5,
no. 1 (March 2010). That piece had its genesis in an Institute for
Humanities Research seminar on the five senses at Arizona State
University (ASU), organized by Richard Newhauser and Corine
Schlief in 2009. My thanks to Richard in particular for his rigorous
and thoughtful editorial work.
I am also grateful to my Palgrave editors, senior editor, Brigitte
Shull; her editorial assistant, Ryan Jenkins; and series editors Ivo Kamps
and Jean Howard. And thanks to Deepa John for copyediting.
At ASU I have been extremely fortunate in the scholarly com-
munity and support offered by the Arizona Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies. The Center’s director, Robert Bjork, has been
both a great advocate for this project and a great friend over many
years.
One of the chief pleasures of working on early modern Italian
texts has come from collaborating on numerous panels and presenta-
tions with my colleague Juliann Vitullo. We have presented our work
together from Sicily to San Diego, and her groundbreaking work on
early modern Italian notions of fatherhood has been a constant source
of inspiration to me.
The decade or so I spent working on this volume coincided almost
exactly with the years Ayanna Thompson spent at ASU. Ayanna’s
energy and leadership transformed early modern English studies at
Arizona State. The Renaissance Colloquium for graduate students
and faculty that she founded is an ideal forum for workshopping
manuscripts in progress. The introduction to this volume profited
significantly from the comments and criticism of colloquium mem-
bers, in particular, Cora Fox, Bradley Ryner, David Hawkes, Heather
Ackerman, Jennifer Downer, Jason Demeter, Valerie Fazel, John
Henry Adams, William Fullam, Jenna Steigerwalt, Devori Kimbro,
and Michael Noschka.
ASU’s School of Letters and Sciences, which I joined in 2009,
has provided a wonderful interdisciplinary environment, supportive
Acknow ledgments xi
of innovation in both research and pedagogy. It is a pleasure to work

with such a diverse, energized, and engaged faculty. I would like to
thank my dean, Frederick Corey, and my former department chair,
Duane Roen, for their unfailing support and good humor through
many years of institutional change and transformation. I am also
grateful to Joni Adamson and Eva Brumberger for taking over the
position of faculty head during the sabbatical semester in which I
(finally!) completed the manuscript.
Most of all, I would like to thank my wife, Wendy Williams, for her
support, friendship, companionship, and love during the many years
it took to bring this project to fruition. And finally, I’d like to thank
my daughter, Sophia, just for being Sophia.
I n t roduc t ion: L ov e , t h e Book
M a r k e t, a n d t h e Popu l a r i z at ion
of Rom a nc e
Above all you must beware the power of love’s frenzy, for it is the
most vehement of all the disturbances of the spirit . . . the disorder of
the mind in love is abominable in itself.
—Cicero, Tusculan Disputations. Book 4.75 1
It is not that . . . I think to have arrived at a true and perfect

understanding of love. I am aware that this subject preoccupied
all of antiquity, and that it gave considerable trouble to all those
who have embarked upon this ocean of marvels.
—Denis Moreau, publisher of Jacques Ferrand’s
Treatise on Lovesickness (1623) 2
You will not find anyone who discusses Venus and Cupid who
writes in an orderly fashion, without confusion.
—Mario Equicola, De Natura d’amore (1525) 3
I n our own culture, the value of romantic love is largely settled.

Despite a steady stream of popular songs devoted to the notion that
“Love Hurts,”4 romantic love is seen as generally positive, an essential
element in all strong marriages, a pleasurable and valuable and norma-
tive part of a healthy emotional life. The main contemporary contro-
versy on the subject involves the extension of traditional notions of
heterosexual romance and marriage to include gay and lesbian rela-
tionships. But love itself is generally seen as a Good Thing.
To cite one example among many, A General Theory of Love (2000),
a mass-market volume cowritten by three psychiatrists, has this to say
in its preface:
Every book, if it is anything at all, is an argument: an articulate arrow of

words, fledged and notched and newly anointed with sharpened stone,
2 Lov e in Pr int in the Sixteenth Century
speeding through paragraphs to its shimmering target. This book—

as it elucidates the shaping power of paternal devotion, the biological
reality of romance, the healing force of communal connection—argues
for love. Turn the page and the arrow is loosed. The heart it seeks is
your own.5
The sentiment and beliefs here are clear: Love is good in all its
forms, and indeed, as the rest of the volume argues, love is neces-
sary for mental health. As the flowery prose of this passage sug-
gests, the volume attempts to convey scientific findings related to
love and emotion in a poetic and metaphorical style. All the same,
the authors might have considered their metaphor a bit more care-
fully. Cupid’s arrow, alluded to here, is of course a weapon and, as
poets from Ovid to John Donne knew well, the heart it seeks is left
pierced and bleeding. And though sexual desire in its many forms
may well be a “biological reality,” romance is not—it is a historically
specific way of understanding and validating certain forms of sexual
attraction. Its cultural formulation and significance demonstrably
changes over time.
In the early modern period, romantic love was not necessarily felt
to be natural, good, pleasurable, or essential to a healthy life. This
book is an examination of the conflicting cultural notions about
romantic love during the first period in which “love” was a broadly
popular concept—roughly the first century after the introduction of
printing. Its thesis is simple: that the rise of a commercial market for
printed books in the sixteenth century greatly facilitated the cultural
dissemination of various conflicting ideas about romantic love and its
significance. This relative popularization of the concept of romantic
love led to profound transformations in the rhetoric, the ideology,
and the social function of love—transformations that arguably con-
tinue to shape cultural notions about love to this day.
In the sixteenth century, the traditional notion that romantic love
was an essentially aristocratic emotion, indicating nobility of spirit,
was challenged by a paradigm that saw love as a more universal emo-
tion, experienced by middling and common people as well as by the
elite. At the same time, there were debates over whether love was a
negative or positive emotion, whether it was part of healthy normal
life or a diseased state, and whether it was a spiritual state or a physi-
cal urge. Though “falling in love” is often thought to be natural and
unchanging, European notions of what romantic love should be were
learned from books, and they spread as books spread. By focusing
Introduction 3
on the “strangeness” of love in the early modern period, this study

attempts to historicize and thus defamiliarize notions about love in
contemporary culture.
This study focuses on four influential and significant early modern
books dealing with love: Baldassare Castiglione’s Cortegiano [The
Book of the Courtier] (1528), Mario Equicola’s De Natura d’amore
[On the Nature of Love] (1525), Giovanni Antonio Tagliente’s
Opera amorosa [Amorous Work] (1527), and Jacques Ferrand’s De
la maladie d’amour [Treatise on Lovesickness] (1623). Each of these
books represents a particular approach to the cultural, social, and
intellectual issues surrounding love in the early modern period:
Castliglione’s Courtier, often read as a guide to proper conduct, was
one of the most popular books of the sixteenth century. It incor-
porates a wide-ranging debate about the status of both sexual and
spiritual love, strongly suggesting that love is a crucial part of the
emotional life of a successful and sophisticated person. Equicola’s
De Natura d’amore is a philosophical work of encyclopedic scope
that was popular as a printed book despite its intellectual complexity
and overall incoherence. Perhaps better than any other text it demon-
strates the confused and contradictory nature of ideas about love in
the period. Tagliente’s Opera amorosa was the first book of model
letters devoted exclusively to love letters. Its popularity and influ-
ence clearly demonstrate the practical ways in which print culture
encouraged the spread of discourses of love to nonelite groups such
as women and servants. And Ferrand’s book, known in its 1640
English translation as Erotomania, is perhaps the most detailed and
serious exposition of the widespread early modern notion that love
is a physical disease in need of treatment and cure. Though they
represent only a small sample of the many books dealing with love
published in the period, taken together these four texts provide a
comprehensive view of the cultural changes around the idea of love
in the first century of the popular market for books, examining the
subject from the point of view of social relations, philosophy, rheto-
ric, and medicine.
Some Definitions
In 1929 Cole Porter memorably asked, “What is this Thing Called
Love?” Perhaps wisely, his song does not attempt a definitive answer,
though it does suggest that love is a “funny” thing that makes a
fool out of people by stealing their hearts and throwing them away.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is less reticent. Love is “that

disposition or state of feeling with regard to a person which (aris-
ing from recognition of attractive qualities, from instincts of natural
relationship, or from sympathy) manifests itself in solicitude for the
welfare of the object, and usually also in delight in his or her pres-
ence and desire for his or her approval; warm affection, attachment”
(definition 1a).
For all its precision, this is not a definition likely to satisfy Cole
Porter. And it is only the first of six primary definitions, and it is just
for the noun, not the verb. According to the OED, “love” comprises
everything from “the paternal benevolence and affection of God
towards His children,” (definition 2) to “the affection which subsists
between lover and sweetheart and is the normal basis of marriage,”
(definition 4a) and “the animal instinct between the sexes, and its
gratification” (definition 6).
Problems of definition were no easier in the early modern period.
Our fourth book, French physician Jacques Ferrand’s 1623 Treatise
on Lovesickness had this to say about love:
The Naturalist defines it otherwise then the Supernaturalist: the

Physitian otherwise then the Lawyer; and the Orator will give it
a different definition from that of the Poet. The truth of this will
appeare, by comparing their severall definitions of Love together.
For first, the Peripateticks say, that it is, an Argument and signe of
good will, by apparant favour: the Stoicks will have it to be a Desire
caused by some beautifull object: the Academicks determine, that
Love, is a Desire to enjoy that which is Lovely, and to make of two, one.
Avicen saith, that it is a Passion of the mind, introduced by the senses,
for the satisfaction of our desires. Theophrastus demonstrates it to be
a Desire of the Soule, that easily and very speedily gets entrance, but
retireth back againe very slowly. Plutarch, Marsilius Ficinus, Franc.
Velleriola, with many other learned Authors, will have Love to be,
a Motion of the blood, getting strength by little and little, through the
hope of pleasure, and almost a kind of Fascination, or Inchantment.
Tully thought it to be a Wishing well to the person we love: Seneca, a
great strength of the understanding, and a Heat that moved gently up
and downe in the spirits. Galen saies one while, that it is a Desire;
another while, a Judgement of a beautifull object. But for my owne
part I shall rather be of that opinion of Galen’s, where he saies, that
in such things as these, definitions are altogether superfluous and
uselesse, because that every one of himselfe conceaves what love is,
better, then the subtilest Logician can explaine it unto him by an
essential definition; which cannot indeed well be given in such cases
Introduction 5
as these: and they that pretend to effect it, are to be accounted noth-
ing but meere empty Sophisters.6
Despite feeling that love is ultimately subjective, and thus, definition is

futile, Ferrand eventually settles on this: “Love, or this Eroticall Passion,
is a kind of Dotage, proceeding from an Irregular [i.e., inordinate] desire
of enjoying a lovely object; and is attended on by Feare and sadnesse.”
As definitions go, this is not bad, although reducing love to “eroticall
passion” is already narrowing the scope of the term substantially. Most
striking to a modern reader is Ferrand’s matter-of-fact association of
sexual love with sadness and fear. This is a fair bit more pessimistic
than Cole Porter, though not surprisingly so, when one considers that,
following a two thousand–year medical tradition, Ferrand seriously
believed love to be a physical disease—a formulation still found today
in many popular songs, but only as an ironic metaphor.
What this plethora of definitions should make clear is that love is
a complex subject, and its terminology is so vague as to make precise
analysis difficult, if not impossible. The years since 1990 have seen
a wealth of scholarship on eroticism in the Renaissance, but in the
postmodern era scholars are more likely to write about “desire” than
“love.” Love seems an idealized and imprecise term for the sort of
materialist analysis characteristic of academic movements such as the
New Historicism. The changes in rituals like the marriage ceremony
have been well documented by social historians,7 but in recent years
literary scholars and cultural historians have tended to avoid analysis
of the discourses of love, focusing instead on issues of social power and
sexual desire. Though scholars are exploring the history of emotion in
the period,8 love remains, to some extent, out of bounds. A colleague
once told me that when he raised the issue with other Shakespeareans,
he was informed that “love is not a critical concept.”
This would have been news to Shakespeare. His writings make
hundreds of references to “love,” but he uses the term “desire” rela-
tively rarely and often in an nonsexual context, in phrases like “I do
desire thy worthy company” (Two Gentlemen of Verona, 4.3.25) and
“I humbly do desire your grace of pardon” (Merchant of Venice,
4.1.402). Whatever its current status, love most certainly was a critical
concept in the sixteenth century. It was the topic of lengthy, serious,
and widely circulated philosophical treatises and medical texts, as well
as countless books offering practical advice about marriage, court-
ship, and sexual relations. And this is to say nothing of its ubiquity as
the subject for lyric poetry, stage plays, and fictional narratives.
Commonplace Attitudes:
TWO G ENTLEMEN OF VERONA
A Shakespearean example will serve to demonstrate the ways in which
ideas about love permeated literary discourse by the late sixteenth
century. Two Gentlemen of Verona is one of Shakespeare’s earliest sur-
viving texts,9 and though the play introduces many themes and motifs
that Shakespeare would go on to develop in his later comedies, com-
pared to his subsequent work it remains a relatively simple play. The
largely conventional nature of Two Gentlemen makes it an ideal source
for examining the received ideas about love in the sixteenth century.
Indeed, the play touches on all four discourses of love addressed in
this study: social, philosophical, rhetorical, and medical.
Love dominates the play’s dialogue to an extraordinary extent:
The leading character Valentine could be describing Two Gentlemen
itself when he exclaims,
Now, no discourse except it be of love.

Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep
Upon the very naked name of love. (2.4.133–135)
In fact, there is more frequent use of the word “love” and its cog-
nates in Two Gentlemen than in any other Shakespearean play. The
word “love” appears 104 times; “loves” (the plural) appears 8 times;
“love’s” (the possessive), 5 times; “loved,” 10 times; “loving,” 4 times;
“lovest,” 6 times; and various forms of “lover,” 12 times, for a grand
total of 149 occurrences in a play of 2,298 lines. That works out to one
iteration of the word “love” every 15 lines or so. (The corresponding
figure for Romeo and Juliet is 130 in a play of 3,185 lines—one itera-
tion approximately every 24 lines).10
Like most romantic comedies, Two Gentlemen of Verona creates a
world in which love is the main principle underlying all social inter-
action: almost all significant relations in the play are described in
terms of “love.” The main conflict in the play is between the loving
friendship of the two gentlemen of the title, Proteus and Valentine,
and their romantic attraction for two young women, Julia and Silvia.
Initially in love with Julia, Proteus shifts his affections to Valentine’s
beloved, Silvia, bringing his friendship with Valentine into crisis.
The play thus features a pair of loving male friends, two romantic
couples, as well as various comic characters who mirror the central
plot: Thurio, Valentine’s foolish rival, is favored by Silvia’s father but
detested by Silvia herself. Lance, the idiot servant, is famously in love
Introduction 7
with his dog. Even Speed, the clever servant, jokes that he is in love
with his bed (2.1.72).11
Neither same-gender friendship nor cross-gender romance is
straightforwardly endorsed by the play. At first glance, it might
seem that, like many texts of the period,12 Two Gentlemen privileges
male friendship: After all, the play is named after the gentlemen,
and ends with Valentine offering to give up his beloved Silvia if
that will please his friend Proteus. But in fact Proteus and Valentine
have a relatively tepid relationship, and spend more time arguing
and betraying each other than being friends. On the other hand,
the play’s genre would seem to privilege romance, for the teleology
of romantic comedy tends to endorse heterosexual marriage as the
solution to all problems. But in Two Gentlemen, as in many other
Shakespearean comedies, there is a fair amount of ambivalence
about the final pairings.
The play’s conclusion does little to clarify the situation: The last
lines of the play blur the distinctions between friendship and mar-
riage, as Valentine says to his friend Proteus:
. . . our day of marriage shall be yours,

One feast, one house, one mutual happiness. (5.4.169–170)
The literal meaning here may simply be that the two couples will
celebrate their weddings together in one place, but it almost sounds
as if the friends and their wives will all live together in future, one
big happy family—an overly optimistic vision of communal harmony,
given the many betrayals of the play.
Love is ubiquitous in the social world of the play, but from a philo-
sophical standpoint it remains an utterly confused concept. To begin
with, there are the usual problems of definition: Proteus uses “love”
to refer both to his affections for Valentine (2.4.196–199) and his
supposed loyalty to the Duke of Milan (3.1.46). The Duke uses it
to refer to his fatherly relation to his daughter (3.1.73) as well as his
avuncular fondness for Valentine (3.1.166). A band of outlaws vows
to “love” Valentine as their commander (4.1.65), and he uses the
same word to describe their obedience to him (5.4.16). “Love” is
also used to describe a personal fondness for things or states of being:
“as thou lovest thy life” (3.1.169), or even “I love crusts” (3.1.329).
Perhaps the most resonant use of the word comes when Valentine
declares he will give Silvia to Proteus because of the “love” he bears
his friend (5.4.82)—rhetorically equating same-gender friendship
with cross-gender romance.13
Nonetheless, despite the fact that “love” is used to describe rela-

tions of friendship, parenthood, patronage, and general fondness, in
Two Gentlemen, as in most romantic comedies, the word “love” most
often refers to romantic, sexual love between men and women. And
it is not a positive portrait. In the play’s first scene alone, romantic
love is associated with idleness, scorn, physical pain, mental anguish,
insomnia, stupidity, insanity, slavery, rot, corruption, and disease.
Proteus, the afflicted lover, sums up his situation as follows:
I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love.

Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis’d me,
Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought. (1.1.66–70)
“Metamorphised” is a key term here14 —and it obviously recalls

the many transformations of passionate lovers recounted in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses.15 The comic servant Speed later applies the same
term to the second “gentleman,” his master Valentine: “now you are
metamorphis’d with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly
think you my master” (2.1.28–30). Although this line might simply
mean that Speed can barely recognize Valentine now that he is in
love, its phrasing also suggests that Valentine’s metamorphosis makes
him unsuitable to be a master. Subordinate to his mistress, is he fit to
command a servant? It is useful to recall that most of the metamor-
phoses in Ovid are from higher to lower states of being—gods take on
the appearance of mortal beings; humans are transformed to animals,
plants, or even stones.16
When love transforms people, it is not usually for the better.
Indeed, before the play is over, Proteus (whose very name suggests
instability) will betray his beloved, betray his friend, lie to his patron,
and threaten to rape his friend’s beloved. Valentine, the more vir-
tuous of the two gentlemen, will attempt to betray his patron by
eloping with his daughter, become the leader of a gang of outlaws,
and offer to hand over his beloved to Proteus (who has just been dis-
suaded from raping her).
Thus, far from leading to virtuous or self-sacrificing actions,
romantic love in Two Gentlemen leads to selfishness, dishonesty, and
cruelty—at least on the part of the men in the play. The women, Julia
and Silvia, behave much better, each remaining faithful to the man
who first loved her. But, on the whole, love brings them little but
pain during the action of the play. Both are betrayed and humiliated,
Introduction 9
and Silvia is threatened with rape. At the play’s conclusion, Julia has
regained the affections of Proteus, but his earlier rejection of her
does not bode well for their future happiness. And Silvia is betrothed
to Valentine, although he has made it clear he is willing to give her
to Proteus if that is what his friend wants. The ambivalence many
readers and viewers feel at the end of the play may or may not be
intentional—the deep and disquieting ironies that mark the conclu-
sions of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends
Well are still in the future. But Two Gentlemen in no way constitutes
a strong endorsement of romantic love.
Indeed, love is seen above all as an irrational, disruptive force, and
one that finds ultimate recourse in violence. Love is described as a
cruel master (1.1.39); a wanton child (2.2.58); blind (2.1.63); a can-
ker in a budding rose (1.1.46); a fire (2.2.20). As Proteus puts it to
Silvia:
Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words

Can no way change you to a milder form
I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arm’s end,
And love you ’gainst the nature of love: force ye. (5.4.55–58)
Though Proteus claims here that rape is “against the nature of love,”
love is frequently associated with violence in the play. Love as a sol-
dier, after all, is another very old and resonant image, going back to
Ovid, if not earlier.17 And as we have seen already, love has no fixed
“nature.” It is based instead on instability and paradox. Throughout
the play love is described primarily in terms of oxymoron and contra-
diction: It is blind, but has 20 pairs of eyes (2.4. 88–90); it is both
master (1.1.39) and child (3.1.124); and the more it is spurned, the
stronger it grows (4.2.14–15).
If in philosophical terms, love is an unstable concept, the rhetoric
of love is characterized by falsehood. Proteus’s threat suggests that
the polite language of love, “the gentle spirit of moving words,” is just
a cover for the brute force of desire. In Two Gentlemen of Verona the
rhetorical quality of love is often foregrounded. Whatever else it may
be, love is a discourse, a way of speaking and writing. John Donne
described the rhetoric of love as a “masculine persuasive force,”18 and
indeed Valentine equates successful rhetoric and masculinity in similar
fashion:
That man that hath a tongue I say is no man

If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. (3.1.104–105)
But in the very same passage he also highlights the essential empti-
ness of love’s discourse:
Take no repulse, whatever she doth say:

For “Get you gone” she doth not mean “Away.”
Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
Though ne’er so black, say they have angels’ faces. (3.1.100–103)
Women say no when they mean yes; men say black is white. Everyone
lies.19
The emptiness of the rhetoric of love is reflected in the play’s overuse
of the word “love” itself: endlessly repeated, played with, defined, rede-
fined, and exchanged throughout the play. Like many of Shakespeare’s
early plays, Two Gentlemen delights in wordplay. Samuel Johnson once
observed that “a quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapors are
to the traveler: he follows it at all adventures,”20 and his insight is never
truer than here. In the play’s very first scene the word “love” becomes
a motif for a series of learned witticisms. Lovesick Proteus protests he
will miss his departing friend Valentine:
Proteus: Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers;

For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine.
Valentine: And on a love-book pray for my success?
Proteus: Upon some book I love I’ll pray for thee.
Valentine: That’s on some shallow story of deep love—
How young Leander crossed the Hellespont.
Proteus: That’s a deep story of a deeper love,
For he was more than over-shoes in love.
Valentine: ’Tis true, for you are over-boots in love,
And yet you never swam the Hellespont.
Proteus: Over the boots? Nay, give me not the boots.
Valentine: No, I will not; for it boots thee not.
And so on. . . . In this passage, as in some others in the play, the repeti-
tion of the word “love” serves to empty the term of significance. The
quibbling shifts in context destabilize any solid, precise sense of the
word’s meaning.
Shakespeare was to recycle much of this patter to greater effect in
Romeo and Juliet (1.5.90–107) and As You Like It (4.1.86–92): the
conflation of love and (false) religious devotion, the mocking of pas-
sionate obsession, the mix of mythical material and mundane detail
(Leander’s soggy shoes), all reappear. Marlowe’s contemporaneous
poem Hero and Leander uses the same myth to mock and destabilize
Introduction 11
romantic affection in much the same way. The terrifying irrationality

of love is thus made to seem ridiculous as well as tragic, a dramatically
effective deflation, even if most authorities in the period did not see
laughter as an effective cure for love melancholy.21
Valentine’s reference to a “love book” is significant, for it ini-
tiates a particularly strong connection in the play between love
and writing: “No other Shakespearean comedy . . . devotes so many
scenes to the composition, delivery, and reception of love letters.”22
Julia receives a love letter from Proteus that she tears into pieces,
and then reconstitutes—a vivid suggestion of the destructive and
recuperative powers of both love and writing (1.2). She then sends
Proteus a letter in which she reciprocates his affections. Proteus
lies to his father about the letter, pretending it is from Valentine—
symbolically equating his friend and beloved (1.3). Meanwhile,
Silvia tricks Valentine into writing a love letter to himself—a won-
derful suggestion of love’s unconscious narcissism (2.1). He in turn
writes to her to arrange their elopement, and is caught by her father
both with the letter and a rope ladder (3.1). His letter is read out
(mockingly) by the Duke; it is revealed as a clichéd and pedestrian
sonnet, proof that strong emotion and eloquence do not necessarily
correspond. The high-flown conventional sentiments of Valentine’s
letter are mocked later in the same scene when Lance and Speed
review Lance’s written list of his mistress’ virtues and vices. Later
in the play, the disguised Julia is charged with delivering a letter
from Proteus to her rival Silvia. She mistakenly gives her a different
letter, possibly the one Proteus earlier wrote to Julia herself. Julia
quickly asks for it back and gives Silvia the one Proteus addressed
to her. Silvia tears it up unread. This complex exchange suggests at
once the fungibility of love’s objects, the fickleness of affection, and
the difficulties of communicating private emotions through a public
medium of exchange (4.4).
The prominence of these letters has been much discussed in the
critical literature on the play.23 Whatever else they do, they stress
the rhetorical and conventional nature of the discourses of romantic
love, especially since letter writing in the early modern period was a
highly structured and conventional form of discourse. 24 They also
highlight the ambivalence of love in the play—letters, like the affec-
tions they articulate, can be destroyed and reconstituted, transferred
from one recipient to another, confused, misplaced, discovered, and
publicized.
As we shall see, actual love letters do not seem to have been par-
ticularly common in early modern England. Material objects, such
as the rings Proteus exchanges with Julia and gives to Silvia, were
much more commonly given as love tokens at all social levels.25 Like
puns and quibbles, the letters in the play are thus primarily literary
devices—part of the overused and often empty rhetoric of romance
that suffuses Two Gentlemen.
Although Two Gentlemen is one of Shakespeare’s earliest works,
it encapsulates very well the ambivalence surrounding the notion of
romantic love in the late sixteenth century. Certainly in its wariness
about the possibilities of human happiness or fulfillment, the play
is typical of Shakespeare. Throughout his career, Shakespeare ques-
tioned received notions of affectionate happiness: friends betray each
other, brothers kill each other, parents are estranged from children,
men and women fall in and out of love. Romantic bliss, lovely as it
may be, is often associated with naiveté, and is almost always seen as
transitory. There are few happy couples in Shakespeare.
This critical vision of love is by no means unique to Shakespeare.
Like the characters of the play and the situations in which they find
themselves, the notion that love did more harm than good was utterly
conventional, and was echoed in a wide variety of contemporary texts,
from sonnets to sermons. As Stephen Guy-Bray memorably put it, “In
The Two Gentlemen of Verona . . . heterosexual love is not creation but
rather recycling.”26 But this does not mean that this view of love as
irrational and destructive is merely conventional or ironic. As we shall
see, serious medical and philosophical texts from the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth century describe romantic love as both a physi-
cal disease and a mental illness. Robert Burton’s massive Anatomy of
Melancholy (1621) devotes almost a third of its length—over three
hundred pages—to a discussion of the symptoms, causes, and cures of
love melancholy. Jacques Ferrand’s On Lovesickness (1610; 1623) even
suggests surgical remedies for extreme cases, including both clitoro-
dectomy and cauterizing the forehead with a branding iron. Milder
treatments include bloodletting, enemas, fasting, and scourging. 27
It’s unclear how often such “remedies” were applied, but they were
nonetheless seriously discussed by a reputable physician in a volume
addressed to medical students. (On what seems to modern readers
a less drastic note, Ferrand and Burton also discuss the Classical
world’s primary remedy for lovesickness—sexual intercourse: with the
beloved, if possible, with someone else if not). 28
The medicalization of love is evident at several points in Two
Gentleman of Verona. Proteus’s complaint about the way Julia has
“metamorphis’d” him ends by noting his wit is weak with “musing”
and his heart is “sick with thought”—that is, his normal thought
Introduction 13
processes are disturbed by the sad and obsessive thoughts associated

with love melancholy. When Valentine falls in love with Silvia, his
servant Speed gives a detailed description of love melancholy that,
but for the sarcastic tone, could have been taken directly from the
medical literature:
You have learned . . . to wreath your arms, like a malcontent; to relish

a love-song like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one that had the
pestilence; to sigh, like a schoolboy that had lost his ABC; to weep,
like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast like one that
takes diet; to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a
beggar at Hallowmas. (2.1.16–23)
Speed ends his diagnosis with a particularly vivid medical image.

When Valentine suggests that no one has noticed his lovesickness,
Speed replies that his condition is transparent for all to see: “These
follies are within you, and shine through you like water in a urinal,
that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your
malady” (2.1.34–36). The “urinal” he refers to is a clear glass bottle
used to collect a patient’s urine for analysis, a procedure which, in the
early modern period, usually consisted of holding the bottle up to the
light to judge the urine’s clarity and color. What is this thing called
love? Urine in a specimen jar.
A brief review then, of the ideas about love put forward in Two
Gentlemen of Verona: Socially, love is destabilizing; it undermines
the supposedly stable relation of same-sex friendship and the bonds
between parents and children, as well as those between masters and
servants. Philosophically, love is confused; it is defined by paradox
and contradiction, and the word “love” itself has a bewilderingly wide
range of reference. Rhetorically, love is false and empty; it is a dis-
course of lies, self-delusion, and hyperbole. And medically, love is
potentially fatal, a wasting disease of body and mind.
Some Observations
The concept of romantic love that Shakespeare inherited and recycled
in Two Gentlemen of Verona was not new in the sixteenth century;
it grew out of earlier traditions—the discourse of courtly love,
Petrarchism, and others. What was new in the sixteenth century
was the market for printed books, which allowed elite ideas about
love to be widely socially disseminated. It was in printed books that
Shakespeare and his colleagues found the plots for their plays and
the models for their characters. Print revolutionized the discourses

of love by making them widely available and widely applicable. The
process by which this occurred is complex, and no one study could
hope to address it in any comprehensive fashion. Instead, among the
thousands of books about love written and printed in the sixteenth
century this study focuses on four emblematic texts that not only
had an impact in themselves, but also can suggest general ways the
dissemination of ideas about love occurred in the first century of
print.
Before discussing the impact of this dissemination, five larger
observations are in order. First, as we have seen, the word “love”
is both ubiquitous and imprecise—and its imprecision is rooted in
vocabulary and etymology.29 Other languages may have more precise
vocabularies—in Greek one can distinguish between eros, (sexual love),
philia (friendly love), and agape (love of mankind)30 —in English,
we’re stuck with “love.” The same is true in most modern Western
European languages: “amour,” “amore,” “liebe,” and “amor” all have
the same wide range of meaning.
Second, the confusion about love’s significance is significant in itself
and should not be argued away. In investigating the sixteenth-century
history of love, I am not interested in defining love, in establishing a
hierarchy of different kinds of love, or saying that some things called
love are not really love at all. Rather than disentangling the semantic
confusions around the term “love,” I believe it is important to call
attention to them. For such confusion is an intrinsic part of love as a
cultural phenomenon. Love can be sexual or chaste, active or passive,
constructive or destructive. It is fundamentally paradoxical.
Third, as early modern authorities speculated, “love” cannot be
simply reduced to desire. When we desire something, we lack it, and
want it for ourselves. Judah Abrabanel’s Dialoghi d’amore (c. 1502,
published 1535) begins by differentiating love and desire; desire is
for things absent, love for things present. Desire is selfish; love can
be selfless. Postmodern theorists posit that there is no such thing as
presence, and therefore, in Abrabanel’s terms, there is no such thing
as love. Be that as it may, in the sixteenth century it was generally
believed that love existed, and people spoke of it as if it did. And so,
a cultural historian needs to take it seriously, as seriously as astrologi-
cal portents, magic charms, the four humors, and the music of the
spheres. Whatever its ontological status, as a cultural and social phe-
nomenon, love matters.
Fourth, as modern mass-market texts like A General Theory of Love
remind us, love tends to be seen as timeless and natural, rather than
Introduction 15
changeable and culturally specific. From a biological point of view,

human affection and sexual desires may be relatively constant, but the
ways in which love and sexuality are culturally expressed and under-
stood are in constant flux. Whereas our own culture tends to idealize
and celebrate romantic love, early modern opinion, as we have seen,
was much more ambivalent. Celebrations of “the marriage of true
minds”31 were countered by warnings that “great spirits and great
wisdom do keep out this weak passion.”32
And fifth, despite the fact that Western theorizing about love may
be said to begin in the homoerotic world of Plato’s Symposium, tra-
ditional scholarship on love has been overwhelmingly focused on
heterosexual relationships. Recall that the OED defines love as “the
affection which subsists between lover and sweetheart and is the nor-
mal basis of marriage,” and as “the animal instinct between the sexes”
(italics added). Such definitions deny the possibility of passionate love
between members of the same sex. But as Two Gentlemen of Verona
attests, the sixteenth century saw a powerful idealization of same-sex
friendship, and many early modern notions about friendship between
men inform our own notions about marriage, especially the idea that
marriage should be a spiritual union of equals. In recent years, queer
scholars have begun to explore the place of affection in homoerotic
and homosexual relations.33 Such work cannot help but change our
definition of what love is or can be.
The “Popularization” of Romantic Love

Love was not just ubiquitous in sixteenth-century culture; it was
also becoming “popular,” perhaps for the first time. In the fifteenth
and sixteenth century, noble heroes like Roland, Bevis of Hampton,
and the Cid who had their origins in sophisticated “literature pro-
duced by, for, and about the nobility”34 gradually became popular
culture heroes celebrated in ballads, plays, and puppet shows. In the
same way, romantic love—initially an idealized aristocratic fantasy
of sexual desire—moved from the upper to middling and even lower
classes.
In the aristocratic culture of the middle ages, love had been seen
as a potentially destabilizing force, painful, dangerous, and yet para-
doxically ennobling.35 Love and the sensitive feelings it provokes were
seen as the preserve of those of noble spirit—which usually meant of
noble birth. The aristocratic nature of love is evident in a wide array
of late medieval texts. To mention only some of the most promi-
nent: In his ironic and playful treatise De Amore (c. 1185), Andreas
Capellanus explicitly excludes common people from the discourses

of love:
You will hardly ever find peasants bearing arms in the court of love;
instead they are moved to the works of Venus naturally, like horses and
donkeys, as the impulse of nature provokes them. Therefore hard work
and continual uninterrupted satisfaction with the plough [i.e., penis]36
and pickax are enough for peasants. And even if, as rarely happens,
they are excited by the prick of a love beyond their nature, they ought
not be instructed in love’s doctrine.37
Peasants can pound away all day, but they have no higher sentiments
than a donkey.
In the great French allegory of love, Le Roman de la Rose (c. 1230),
the protagonist’s submission to love takes the form of a feudal oath
of fealty, complete with the joining of hands and kiss on the mouth.
The God of love commands the protagonist, “to give me a kiss on
my mouth, which no commoner [vilain] has ever touched . . . on the
contrary, my vassals must be courteous and noble.”38 Such texts rep-
resent an elite literary discourse that prides itself on speaking only for
an aristocratic minority. The refined notions of love they promulgate
were never intended for broad application, and did not reflect actual
social practices.
The notion that love is a noble passion proved an enduring one,
still endorsed by Robert Burton in his magisterial Anatomy of
Melancholy in the early seventeenth century: Burton notes that the
“mad and beastly” passion of romantic love is sometimes called “amor
nobilis . . . because noble men and women make a common practice
of it, and are so ordinarily affected with it.” In the same passage he
claims that love “rageth with all sorts and conditions of men, yet is
most evident among such as are young and lusty, in the flower of
their years, nobly descended, high fed, such as live idly and at ease.”39
Nonetheless, as literacy spread more widely, notions of romantic love
also spread beyond their aristocratic origins. While many stories of
romantic love still had princes and princesses as their protagonists,
novelle also presented lovers who were not noble, in serious as well as
comic narratives.40
This social diffusion of love greatly accelerated with the develop-
ment of a market for printed books in the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries. A thriving book market might not, in itself, nec-
essarily create a more literate public. But it greatly accelerated and
facilitated the other social processes that expand literacy, including
Introduction 17
increased education; increased economic activity in general, which

required literate merchants capable of keeping and u nderstanding
complex accounts and legal records; an increased bureaucracy, which
accompanied the growth of the power of centralized states; new
technologies that required literate workers;41 as well as trends in
popular religion which encouraged reading of scripture and other
devotional texts.
As literacy spread, notions of romantic love spread with it—not
just through elite poetic forms, like the vogue for Petrarchan poetry,
but also in more prosaic forms such as novelle and self-help books.
Philosophical dialogues and medical texts dealing with love also
proliferated—both appearing in the vernacular for the first time.
Models of romantic love and a rich discourse concerning its signifi-
cance, morality, advantages, and perils circulated ever more broadly.
Just how broadly is a difficult question to answer with any preci-
sion. It is notoriously difficult to measure literacy in early modern
culture. Counting the proportion of the population who can sign
their name is likely to miss those who could read but not write, and
undercount those who could do both.42 Broad trends in early modern
literacy are clear, however. More men read than women. Literacy rates
were higher in urban areas, and higher in Western than in Eastern
Europe. Literacy correlated with social class: the upper classes were
widely literate, the middling classes less so, and laborers and the poor
less still. Nonetheless, literacy in general increased over time in all
areas and for all segments of the population.43
So, given the levels of literacy in early modern culture, diffusion
of materials through the book market directly impacted only an edu-
cated minority of the population—generally urban rather than rural,
and middling or affluent rather than impoverished.44 The “popular-
ization” of love that occurred must thus be understood as a rela-
tive popularization—a discourse previously restricted to a tiny elite
proportion of the population was made available in various forms to
a substantial minority. But that minority—urban populations and
those of middling income and above—were economically and cultur-
ally dominant and dynamic. The attitudes this group adopted and the
discourses they engaged in were to spread more broadly over time.
It is likely that traditional folk practices of courtship and attitudes
about sex and marriage among the nonliterate segments of the popu-
lation were relatively unaffected by written discourses about love,
at least at first. However, as has been widely documented, the non-
literate often had secondary access to printed materials.45 “In early
modern England . . . no one lived beyond the reach of the written and
printed word. It was scarcely possible to function in society without

reference to records and even unconsciously people imbibed cultural
influences from textual sources.”46 Oral and literate culture over-
lapped: Ballads, mostly orally composed, could spread to a national
audience through print.47 Sermons and other public orations
reflected changing attitudes among the literate, as well as catering
to popular tastes.48 Stories written as novelle could be told orally. In
Italy, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and other
literary texts, especially romances, were commonly recited to audi-
ences in both courtly and public settings.49 Indeed, a wide variety of
texts were read aloud to small and large groups, both publicly and
in private homes.50 And though literacy was limited, the growing
availability of relatively cheap printed materials in itself provided an
incentive for a rise in literacy.51
Methods of Exclusion: Politesse and

Pornography
The social diffusion of love took place in a specific cultural context,
and occurred simultaneously with other major ongoing cultural shifts
that characterize the early modern period. The mechanisms, progress,
and details of such large and long-term cultural changes are difficult
to trace with specificity, but it is worth briefly outlining some of the
most pertinent developments here to provide some context.
At the same time that formerly elite notions of romantic love were
being more widely distributed among the population as a whole, aris-
tocratic culture was itself engaged in a thorough redefinition of polite
codes of behavior, a process that led to an increasingly self-conscious
rejection of things perceived as low or common. Broadly speaking,
there was a new and rigorous avoidance of physicality, along with
newly refined standards of speech and behavior. Blowing one’s nose or
spitting in public,52 eating with one’s fingers,53 or even washing one’s
hands in front of others54 —all accepted aristocratic behavior in earlier
periods—were increasingly disparaged. Polite discourse also became
increasingly restricted: bodily functions were not to be mentioned,
even in all-male company; rude or bawdy jokes were discouraged, as
was anything that could be construed as blasphemous or irreverent.
This so-called “civilizing process” has been extensively analyzed by
Norbert Elias and Peter Burke, among others.55 Examples of proper
behavior were disseminated through popular conduct books: not
only Castiglione’s Courtier (1528), but also Erasmus’s De civilitate
morum puerilium [On civility in children] (1530), Thomas Elyot’s
Introduction 19
Book Named the Governor (1531), Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo

(1558), and a host of similar texts. Galateo, an enormously popular
text, goes so far in its pursuit of decorum as to criticize Dante for
calling the sun the “lantern of the world” because the word “lantern”
[lucerna] reminds one of “the stink of oil and the kitchen.”56
The popularity of texts like Galateo highlights the paradoxical role
of the book market in the period. Conduct books were written to
define proper upper-class behavior, setting it apart from the ways of
the general population. But their printing put them into wide social
circulation, thus blurring the very class lines that the books were
intended to inscribe. Printing a conduct book made it available to
people for whom it was not necessarily intended, and gave them the
very information that was supposed to be kept from them. Galateo
was published in dozens of editions and translated into all the major
Western European languages, including English.57 In 1609 it appeared
in a polyglot edition with text in Italian, French, Latin, German, and
Spanish.58 In this way, aristocratic fastidiousness evolved quickly into
middle-class “good manners.” And, broadly speaking, this happened
at the same time that formerly aristocratic notions of romantic love
and courtship were also being spread throughout literate society.
Along with these general changes in aristocratic norms of behav-
ior, and the rejection of physicality they entail, one also sees the devel-
opment of a newly separate discourse of eroticism, outside the bounds
of respectability, which would eventually develop into the modern
discourse of pornography.59 Indeed, one could see this segregation
of erotic material into a specific genre of writing as a process parallel
to the removal of bodily functions from polite conversation. In the
sixteenth century, as in earlier periods, erotically charged or explicit
writing tended to appear in a wide variety of genres, including prose
fiction, drama, prose dialogues, lyric poetry, and satire. This material
was by no means restricted by class—elite writing was often as bawdy
and coarse as lower class discourses. In fact, the rules of decorum
maintained that certain genres of writing, such as satire, demanded a
rough style and subject matter.60 But by the middle of the seventeenth
century, eroticism was being expressed in a new genre of libertine
text. In French texts such as the anonymous L’École des filles [The
School for Girls] (1655),61 the Satyra Sotadica de Arcanis Amoris
et Veneris [A Sotadic62 Satire on the Secrets of Love and Venus]
(c. 1659)—written in Latin by the Frenchman Nicholas Chorier,63
and Venus dans le cloître [Venus in the Cloister] (1683), ascribed to
Father Jean Barrin,64 something resembling modern pornography
was coming into existence.
At its origins, libertinism was a largely aristocratic phenomenon

that saw sexuality primarily in terms of the unrestricted power and
pleasure of individual elite men.65 It is no accident that the most
famous libertine authors were themselves noblemen: the Earl of
Rochester, the Marquis de Sade, Lord Byron. If romantic love was
becoming middle class, the nobility and those who aspired to their
way of life could turn to libertinism for a truly elite sexual space.
Rather than idealizing aristocratic sentiment as courtly love did in an
earlier period, libertinism idealized the aristocratic pleasures of mas-
tery. But of course, once in print, libertine texts too began to move
beyond a coterie audience. By the mid-eighteenth century, texts like
Cleland’s Fanny Hill brought libertine notions of sexuality to that
most middle-class (and print-driven) of genres, the novel.
Thus, as the discourse of romantic love was spreading aristocratic
notions of affection and attraction to a broader portion of society,
there was a simultaneous effort to separate polite discourse from the
discourses of the body and of sexuality more specifically. And while
libertinism ensured that aristocratic culture would retain a strong
strain of physicality and hedonism, middle-class culture was charac-
terized by propriety on the one hand, and a sentimental discourse of
romantic affection on the other. The full significance of these later
developments are beyond the scope of this study, but the general
trend is worth keeping in mind.
Methods of Control: Marriage and

Ideal Love
Whatever its social level, in the early modern period passionate romantic
love was often seen as inherently destructive. This destructive quality
had to be controlled, and ideologically this control, broadly speak-
ing, took two forms. On the one hand, love was contained within a
discourse of marriage; on the other, it was idealized as a transcendent
and asexual source of concord. In marriage, love could be subordi-
nated to the larger social structure of the family, both in the form of
the parents and kin who had a role in marriage choices, and of the
children who were its ultimate product. From a twenty-first century
perspective, the role of love in marriage may seem so obvious as to be
banal, but in early modern discourses of love, marriage and passion-
ate affection were often seen as opposed. This is not to say, as C. S.
Lewis famously did, that in the late medieval period love was con-
ceived of as essentially adulterous,66 but rather that sexual love was
by its nature passionate, and the disorder entailed by that passion did
Introduction 21
not necessarily suit well with the domestic order thought most fitting
to married life. In his extensive study of seventeenth-century Dutch
marriage portraits, generally commissioned by middle-class patrons,
David R. Smith notes that they display “formality and informality,
abstraction and intimacy, but very little romance.”67
Competing ideas about the nature and function of marriage were
debated throughout early modern society.68 On one side, the aris-
tocratic Michel de Montaigne argued that marriages ought to be
arranged by parents:
In marriage, alliances and money rightly weigh at least as much as

attractiveness and beauty. No matter what people say, a man does not
get married for his own sake: he does so at least as much (or more) for
his descendants, for his family. The customary benefits of marriage go
way beyond ourselves and concern our lineage. That is why I like the
practice of having marriage arranged at the hands of a third party rather
than our own, not by our own judgment, but by someone else’s. . . . I
know no marriages which fail and come to grief more quickly than
those which are set on foot by beauty and amorous desire. Marriage
requires foundations which are solid and durable. . . . Few men have
married their mistresses without repenting of it.
Late in life, he added the franker marginal note: “That, as the saying
goes, is shitting in the basket and then plonking it on your head.”69
On the other hand, popular plays from Romeo and Juliet to George
Wilkins’s The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (1607) warned of the
troubles that ensued when marriages were arranged by parents against
their children’s wishes. Tracts on domestic life routinely insisted that
marriage must be based on mutual affection and attraction. A typical
example, George Whetstone’s Heptameron of Civil Discourse (1582),
concludes “if the Maried abhorre before Marriage, they may well
desemble with their tounges, but wyll never bee delighted in their
harts: and where there is such a devision in the desires of the Married,
fayre, fained semblaunce wil soone turne to flat fowle falling out.” 70
In general, both parental approval and the free consent of the couple
were believed to be crucial to a good marriage, though in practice
there was often some tension between the two.71
Along with the practical, traditional binding of love in marriage
went an alternate philosophical discourse that saw love as a nonsexual
source of cosmic concord, potentially uniting humanity and linking it
to God. These ideas have their roots in Plato’s Symposium, which was
rediscovered, translated into Latin, and extensively commented on in
the fifteenth century. In the Symposium Socrates outlines a method,
taught to him by the learned woman Diotima, of transforming the

physical, sexual attraction one feels toward other people into a puri-
fied and refined contemplation of spiritual beauty. Socrates equates
this spiritual beauty with Truth and Goodness (what could be better
or more beautiful than Truth?), thus positing that Truth, Beauty, and
Goodness are in some ideal sense identical. For later Christian readers
it was natural to equate these ideal qualities with God. As we shall
see, print spread such esoteric notions to a large public. Although they
were sometimes mocked72 and seldom if ever put into practice, theo-
ries of Platonic love offered a tempting intellectual solution to many
of the contradictions of romantic love in early modern thought. In
very different ways, the ritual of marriage and the idealism of Platonic
love attempted to harness the energy and passion of sexual desire and
turn it to socially constructive and spiritually pure ends. This was
bound to be an exercise full of contradiction and a source of endless
ambiguity and confusion.
Four Books on Love

Love was ubiquitous in sixteenth-century literary discourse: learned
treatises and conduct books philosophized about ideal love, stories
of comic or tragic lovers circulated in printed collections of tales,
and stories of love and courtship were staged in the new popular
theaters. Though they certainly have some literary qualities, the
books I focus on in this study are not, strictly speaking, “literary”
works. Rather than being poetry, drama, or narrative fiction, they
are texts that to differing degrees were used to provide their readers
with practical information and advice. The first and most famous of
the four, Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, was one of
the most widely disseminated texts of the sixteenth century, with at
least 125 editions in the century following its initial publication in
1528.73 Written in Italian, it was subsequently translated into French,
Spanish, Latin, English, German, and Dutch. It was read through-
out the European world and beyond: Early modern readers of the
Courtier have been documented in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal,
England, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Poland,
and Peru.74 The Courtier recounts a series of fictional discussions set
in the actual court of the Italian city of Urbino on the question of
what qualities and practices would characterize the perfect courtier.
The discussion ranges broadly, but one of its primary concerns is
what role love should play in the life of a courtier. There is much talk
of what sort of romantic behavior is appropriate, both for male and
Introduction 23
female courtiers, and the volume ends with Pietro Bembo’s elaborate
praise of an idealized and spiritualized Platonic love, based ultimately
on Diotima’s discussion with Socrates from Plato’s Symposium. As we
have seen, Platonic love was a popular subject in sixteenth-century
intellectual discourse, especially in Italy. The actual Pietro Bembo’s
1505 dialogue Gli Asolani provided an elegant exposition of the topic.
But the inclusion of the fictional Bembo’s description of Platonic
love in the Courtier exposed the concept to a broad European audi-
ence in the way no previous text had done.
The doctrine of love put forward by Bembo in the Courtier offers
an idealized fantasy of the separation of love not only from sexuality,
but also from physicality and from emotion. That is, it offers a vision
of love as a solitary masculine pursuit of self-perfection, a dream of
autonomy and mastery that stands in stark contrast to the subordinate
position of both the courtier and the traditional lover. While Platonic
love never caught on as a practice, as an idea it offered a comforting
alternative to the most frightening aspects of love in the early modern
imagination—its capriciousness and its capacity to subordinate sup-
posedly masculine reason to female and effeminized passion.
The Courtier is beautifully written, elegiac, and subtly nuanced. But
that is not what made it popular. As it circulated ever more broadly,
it was read and presented to readers not as a thoughtful and subtle
philosophical discourse, but as a list of precepts for correct or socially
effective behavior. Editors added lists of qualities the courtier should
possess, introduced printed marginalia to highlight particular points
of the argument, and generally enabled the reading of the text as a
reference work rather than a dialogue. The case of the Courtier is
emblematic, both of aristocratic efforts at self-definition, and of the
ways in which, through the medium of print, those very definitions
were immediately appropriated by a wider public. As with the later
conduct book Galateo, polyglot and indexed editions went out of their
way to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience.75
The burgeoning book market and increased literacy ensured that aris-
tocratic ideologies could not be restricted to a social elite.
The second of the four books is Mario Equicola’s De Natura
d’amore [On the Nature of Love], an encyclopedic and convoluted
scholarly treatise first printed in Italian in 1525 and republished fre-
quently for a hundred years afterward, as well as being translated
into French.76 If the Courtier demonstrates the role played by love in
self-fashioning and social interaction, Equicola’s book can stand as a
testament to the importance of love in the intellectual world of the
sixteenth century. The six books of the De Natura address love from
a bewildering variety of theoretical and epistemological perspectives.

They deal with everything from Petrarchan poetry to medicine, from
pagan philosophy to Christian theology, from techniques of flattery
to speculation on the love of God for the created world. It is fitting
that Equicola’s massive tome is often contradictory and inconclusive.
The confusion in Equicola’s thought perfectly mirrors the confusions
inherent in early modern ideologies and philosophies of love. Like the
Courtier, De Natura d’amore was extensively indexed and annotated
by subsequent editors, in this case with the result that Equicola’s text
became something of a cabinet of curiosities, a compendium of odd
and striking facts, stories, and bits of information on the subject. The
confused and contradictory nature of Equicola’s project also allows
him in some cases to challenge orthodox opinion, asserting for exam-
ple that touch, not sight, is the most important of the senses, since
without touch there would be no sex, and without sex, no people.
Our third book is a remarkable collection of model love letters:
Giovanni Antonio Tagliente’s Opera amorosa che insegna a componer
lettere, & a rispondere a persone d’amor ferite, [An Amorous Work
that Teaches How to Write Letters and to Reply to Those Wounded
by Love], published in Venice in 1527 and still being reprinted almost
a hundred years later. Letter writing in the early modern period was
largely formulaic and highly structured. Books of model letters, both
in Latin and the vernacular, were common, and Erasmus’s De con-
scribendis epistolis [“On the Writing of Letters”] (1522) was ubiqui-
tous as a school text. But Tagliente’s book was one of the first to focus
entirely on love letters and their replies. It also contains a much wider
variety of letters than most other collections of model love letters—
far beyond the standard letter from a young man pitifully begging
for attention and the standard reply from a young woman politely
declining his advances. Books like Tagliente’s demonstrate the degree
to which discourses of love were penetrating into traditional areas
of rhetorical education. But they also served as powerful models
for actual social practice. They established an accepted rhetoric for
expressing romantic or sexual interest, as well as providing a public
example for personal correspondence.
Our fourth book, Jacques Ferrand’s Treatise on Lovesickness, pub-
lished a full century after the three others, sums up and concludes a
tradition, rather than initiating one. Ferrand, a medical doctor who
practiced in southern France, near Toulouse, wrote probably the
most comprehensive text on the notion that love was a physical dis-
ease, capable of medical treatment and cure. The idea that love was a
physical affliction dated back to Classical antiquity, and was codified
Introduction 25
and elaborated by Arab physicians in the Middle Ages. By the time

Ferrand wrote, the traditional Galenic medical ideas he supported
were about to be eclipsed by empirical advances in medical science
and Cartesian notions of the relations between mind and body. But
his treatise provides an excellent survey of ideas about the physical
nature of love in the early modern period. It also documents the ten-
sion between medical lore and common experience, and between
physical and psychological explanations for love. And it stands as a
powerful example of the tendency in early modern culture to see love
as an affliction and ailment, rather than a vital part of a healthy emo-
tional and physical life. While medical texts like Ferrand’s are not
necessarily indicative of actual social practices, they nonetheless reveal
much about ways of thinking about the physical aspects of love.
The Enchanted Palace

In Canto XII of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso the characters enter into
an enchanted palace—an illusory maze of rooms and halls that traps
everyone who enters on an endless and fruitless chase for whatever
they most desire. Ariosto’s palace of illusion provides a powerful met-
aphor for the discourses of love in the early modern period. First, it
is constructed—a man-made environment, not part of the natural
world. Second, though a multitude of characters stumble through its
doors, it remains a palace, a beautiful place designed to be inhabited
by those of noble blood and breeding. Third, there is no end to it;
its hallways cannot be mapped, its limits cannot be set. Every time a
knight wanders outside, a beloved voice calls him back in. Fourth, it
is a fiction, made by a magician. There is nothing really there. The
beloved forms that the knights chase are unreal, illusory. Analyzing
early modern discourses of love, one often feels like one of Ariosto’s
knights, caught in a beautiful empty palace, chasing after a bewilder-
ing phantom.
It is encouraging, then, that in Orlando Furioso the palace of illu-
sion is finally abolished by means of a book. Astolfo, an English
prince, arrives at the palace later in the poem, carrying a book given
him by the wise woman Logostilla (daughter of Uther Pendragon,
sister of King Arthur, and the embodiment of rational thought). The
book gives remedies to magic spells. Looking in the index under
“Enchanted Palaces,” Astolfo finds the information he needs: the
enchanter who made the palace is hiding under the stoop. Following
the instructions, Astolfo lifts the stone, breaks the enchantment, and
the castle vanishes, liberating all those it had ensnared. Freed from
captivity and illusion, Ruggiero (a virtuous Saracen) and Bradamante

(a female knight) immediately realize they truly love each other. Not
only do they plan to wed, Ruggiero decides to get baptized for good
measure. It is not only ironic, but deeply fitting, that the key to true
love (and true religion!) is to be found not just in a book, but found
with the aid of an index.
This book, alas, is not that book. Neither are any of the four books
under discussion. But they all aspire to be.
Chapter 1
Ba l da ss a r e C a st igl ion e’s

BOOK OF T H E C OU RT I E R :
L ov e a n d I de a l C on duc t
Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier was quite possibly the

single most popular secular book in sixteenth century Europe, pub-
lished in dozens of editions in all major European languages. The
Courtier is a complex text that has many reasons for its vast popular-
ity. Over the years it has been read as a guide to courtly conduct,
a meditation on the nature of service, a celebration of an elite com-
munity, a reflection on power and subjection, a manual on self-
fashioning, and much else besides. But The Courtier must also be
seen as a book about love. The debates about love in The Courtier
are not tangential to the main concerns of the text; they are funda-
mental to it. To understand the impact of The Courtier on discourses
of love, one must place the text’s debates about love in the context
of the Platonic ideas promulgated by Ficino, Bembo, and others, as
well as the practical realities of sexual and identity politics in early
modern European society. Castiglione’s dialogue attempts to define
the perfect Courtier, but this ideal figure of masculine self-control is
threatened by the instability of romantic love.
Castiglione has Pietro Bembo end the book’s debates with a praise
of Platonic love that attempts to redefine love as empowering rather
than debasing, a practice of self-fulfillment rather than subjection.
Castiglione’s Bembo defines love as a solitary pursuit, and rejects the
social in favor of the individual. His speech is also, in subtle ways,
a rejection of women, and the threat of male debasement perceived
to be inherent in the love of women. The Neoplatonic theory of love

outlined by Bembo was already fashionable in elite intellectual circles
when Castiglione wrote The Courtier.1 But with the volume’s dis-
semination throughout Europe, The Courtier spread the Neoplatonic
idealization of love to a much broader demographic than Marsilio
Ficino, Castiglione himself, or the actual Pietro Bembo could have
imagined.
The Uses of Renaissance Platonism

Let us begin with one of the many products of that dissemination.
In 1596, almost 70 years after the initial 1528 publication of The
Courtier, Edmund Spenser published a collection of philosophical
poems on the topic of love and beauty called the Fowre Hymnes. The
Hymnes are paired; the first two, the Hymne to Love and the Hymne to
Beauty, are based primarily on Classical philosophy and poetry. They
deal with physical or earthly love and the beauty that is its object.
The second two, overtly Christian poems, deal with the love of God
and the beauty of Heaven.2 The first of the four poems, the Hymne to
Love, provides an elegant summary of the conflicting notions about
romantic love circulating in the sixteenth century, combining ele-
ments of Classical and Medieval poetic traditions with concepts from
Classical philosophy and Christian theology.
The first six stanzas of the poem introduce Love as a martial, tyran-
nical figure, a characterization found most influentially in Ovid’s
Amores3 and elaborated in Petrarch’s Triumph of Love and elsewhere.
LOVE, that long since hast to thy mighty powre

Perforce subdude my poore captived hart,
And raging now therein with restlesse stowre,
Doest tyrannize in everie weaker part,
Faine would I seeke to ease my bitter smart
By any service I might do to thee,
Or ought that else might to thee pleasing bee. (lines 1–7) 4
As in Ovid, the speaker is a helpless captive, subdued and wounded

by the mighty god of love. Paradoxically, the poet is grateful for his
suffering, and his hymn of praise is an attempt to placate his master
(lines 8–10).
The hymn the poet sings blends elements of various classical
accounts of Love’s genealogy and powers. There is little effort to rec-
oncile these often conflicting versions. The poem simply runs them
together and ignores the contradictions. For example, drawing on
B a l d a s s a r e C a s t i g l i o n e ’s B O O K OF THE COURTIER 29
Diotima’s account in Plato’s Symposium (203b–d), Spenser asserts

that Love is the child of Plenty and Penury (line 53), but whereas
Plato insists Love is not a god (202a–e), Spenser begins his paean by
calling Love, “Great God of might” (line 43). Spenser’s Love is not
only a martial conqueror, but also a cosmic force of harmony; it is at
once a principle of concord and a destructive flame of desire. Spenser
attempts to separate the divine fire of love from the earthly flame of
lust, but the distinction is weak: lust desires pleasure; love desires “to
enlarge his lasting progenie” (line 105). But the two desires remain
intimately connected.
Spenser also tries to unite the desire for “lasting progenie” to
the contemplation of beauty. Plato argued that earthly beauty could
entice a wise man to contemplation of a higher, heavenly or ideal
beauty. But once that mystical transition had been made, for Plato the
body became irrelevant. Spenser, on the other hand, needs the body,
for “progenie,” if not for pleasure. In another contradiction of Plato’s
account, Spenser’s Love is characterized as an “imperious boy” with
“sharp, empoisoned darts”—the capricious and destructive figure of
Cupid, 5 not the divine radiance that Plato associates with the ecstatic
contemplation of Beauty.
Such paradoxes are ubiquitous in sixteenth-century writing about
love. Spenser is well aware of these contradictions, and the speaker
of the poem calls attention to them: Why does he honor a tyrant
who abuses him and hardens his mistress’s heart against him? How
can this brutal and capricious tyrant be “the worlds great parent,
the most kind preserver / Of living wights, the soveraine lord of all”
(156–157)? Is Love a child or an adult? A loving parent or a cruel
tormentor? A force of desire that tears people apart or a source of
concord bringing them together? Does Love subjugate or reconcile?
Spenser finds ostensible answers to all these questions in
Neoplatonism.
A way of idealizing physical desire, Neoplatonic theories of love
have their beginnings in Plato’s Symposium. The Symposium presents
a series of speeches praising love given by a group of male friends
enjoying a drinking party, or symposium. Socrates’s friend Phaedrus
opens the dialogue by praising Love as the oldest and most glorious
of the gods. Pausanias, a young man, beloved of Agathon, the ban-
quet’s host, then makes a distinction between earthly love (physical
attraction to boys or women) and heavenly love (a spiritual and sexual
mentoring relationship between an adult man and a male youth).
Erxyimachus, a physician, makes the third speech, praising love as
a principle of universal harmony, active in the material world. Then
Aristophanes the comedian recounts a fanciful myth explaining that

in ancient times the original eight-limbed human beings were pun-
ished by Zeus by being split in two, and so now people want to have
sex to rejoin themselves to their lost halves. Next comes Socrates,
who in his usual fashion turns the entire preceding conversation on
its head by redefining the terms of the argument. Drawing on the
teachings of a wise woman named Diotima, Socrates posits that love
is a transcendent spiritual experience that can lead the soul to a con-
templation of beauty and truth. And finally Alcibiades the aristocratic
general reels drunkenly in and gives a speech praising Socrates as the
perfect lover because he is both wise and possessed of superhuman
self-control.
From this summary it seems self-evident that the Symposium puts
forth various competing and contradictory ideas about love. Based on
the order of the speeches, their philosophic content, and the general
rhetoric of the dialogue, it would seem that Plato endorses Socrates’s
speech, and that it is intended as an implicit refutation of all the oth-
ers. Early modern interpreters of Plato, on the other hand, tended
to assume that despite their contradictions, all seven speeches, from
Pausanias’s windy panegyric to Aristophanes’s joking myth, repre-
sented the unified thought of Plato on the subject of love. Ficino’s
famous commentary, De Amore, takes this approach, treating each of
the seven speeches with equal respect. While this snycretic approach
is characteristic of Ficino, who believed Platonic thought could
be reconciled both with Christian theology and Aristotelianism,6
his attempt to unify the many discordant voices of the Symposium
made early modern Neoplatonic theory even more complicated and
abstruse than it would otherwise have been. This eclectic approach
underpins the confusions about love, both Neoplatonic and other-
wise, that characterize Spenser’s Hymne to Love and many similar
texts from the period.
All the same, the core doctrine of Neoplatonic love is based pri-
marily on Socrates’s speech. He reports the wise words he was told
by a woman named Diotima, “deeply versed in [love] and many other
fields of knowledge” (201d). Diotima tells him that love cannot be
a god, for love desires beauty. You can only desire something if you
lack it, and no god could lack beauty; therefore love must not be
a god, but rather an intermediary being. Love is neither good nor
bad, ugly nor beautiful. After this syllogistic opening, Diotima shifts
to mythology and allegory, saying that love is the child of Resource
and Need (Spenser’s Plenty and Penury), begotten on the same day
Aphrodite was born, and thus devoted to her service (203b–d).
Socrates then raises an important question: What use is love to

human beings (204c)? This question, which may seem disingenuous,
lies behind much sixteenth-century discourse about love. Is there
any benefit to being in love, or is it simply something we must suf-
fer because we are physical beings? Diotima answers that, because
love is an intermediate creature, hovering between ignorance and
knowledge, it is an ideal conduit for ignorant mortal humans seeking
enlightenment. She explains how this process would work in an argu-
ment characterized by a series of bold and reductive redefinitions.
She begins by redefining sexual desire as a desire not for pleasure, but
for progeny, a deeply problematic move, since sexual desire through-
out the Symposium is presumed to be that of adult men for adoles-
cent boys, and thus fundamentally non-procreative in any commonly
understood sense of the term. Diotima gets around this obstacle by
redefining desire for progeny as the desire for immortality—the only
reason we want children, apparently, is so that some bit of us can live
forever (assuming our children also go on to have more children).
Thus reconfigured, “Love is a longing for immortality” (207a).
But any notion of immortality based on the body must be illusory,
because all bodies die. So Diotima posits that the only true immortal-
ity must be spiritual. She goes on to explain that the spiritual bonds
between friends are much more significant than the (primarily physi-
cal?) bonds between parents and children. According to Diotima,
true fatherhood consists in the spiritual bond between an adult man
and the adolescent boy he loves (209c). This loving, mentoring, rela-
tionship is the true meaning of “progeny.” Rather than generating
new bodies of physical children by having intercourse with women,
the loving man generates new ideas in the mind of his adolescent male
companion by educating him (209a–c).
Despite the male-centered nature of Athenian society, Diotima’s
misogynistic assumption that women’s attractiveness is merely physi-
cal whereas males can be both physically and intellectually attractive
is remarkable. Not only is it reductive of human experience and explic-
itly denied elsewhere in Plato’s writings, the wise woman Diotima
would seem to refute it by the very fact that she is both wise and a
woman. In the Republic Socrates insists that women have the same
intellectual potential as men (454d–e). But in the Symposium the cul-
turally powerful notion that women are physical creatures and men
intellectual ones is not questioned. The realm of true (spiritual) love
thus becomes an entirely masculine one.
Diotima’s argument proceeds: Ideally, what is beloved is not a par-
ticular beautiful body or beautiful soul, but Beauty itself. Love ought
to focus not on one person but on the contemplation of all manifesta-

tions of Beauty. Spiritual beauty is superior to physical beauty, and
intellectual beauty, the beauty of knowledge itself, is superior to the
beauty of any one spirit (210d). From the beauty of ideas, one may
come to the contemplation of Beauty itself, “an everlasting loveliness
which neither comes nor goes, which neither flowers nor fades” (211a).
And since truth is necessarily beautiful, the soul of Beauty must also
be the soul of Truth, and therefore of Virtue—goodness itself. Thus,
through this Platonic “ladder” of love (known as the scala in Italian),
sexual desire is adroitly transformed into spiritual enlightenment. The
physical becomes spiritual; sexual desire for transient bodily pleasure
becomes a spiritual longing for the infinite. Rather than seeking sex-
ual pleasure, “love longs for the good to be its own forever” (206b).
Though logic is employed at various stages, this is not a logical
argument. Diotima’s theory of love is rooted in sexual desire, but sex-
ual pleasure, or simple physical gratification, has no part in her theory
of sexuality. In her narrative, desire is never for pleasure; it is always
for something else: beautiful bodies, beautiful friendships, transcen-
dence. Her theory of sexuality explains the desire for intercourse, but
not the desire for orgasm. For Diotima, sex is a desire to possess the
beauty of others. What precisely “possession” means in this context is
never clearly defined—Is it physical penetration? Social dominance?
Intellectual mastery? Ownership? As already noted, Diotima’s discus-
sion of procreation is particularly fraught—if sexual desire is merely
desire for procreation, why would anyone be attracted to a person
with whom they cannot engender children—as all the men in the
Symposium are? And if “procreation” means engendering beautiful
ideas, why is sexual desire necessary in the first place? Even in fifth-
century Athens it was possible to educate someone without wanting
to have intercourse with them.
Then there are the many contradictions around the issue of gen-
der. Despite being attributed to a wise woman, the entire discussion
assumes that only adult men have sexual desires—this despite the
fact that women, not men, are characterized as being the more physi-
cal of the sexes. Desire here is the desire to physically penetrate, or
dominate, or nurture, or cherish a subordinate—someone younger,
less wise, less powerful. Given the social circumstances that gave rise
to the Platonic dialogue, this privileging of masculinity is not par-
ticularly surprising. It is the logical product of an aristocratic society
of leisured and intellectual men whose strongest emotional bonds are
to other men and whose preferred sexual partners are attractive and
submissive younger males.
Although its logic is often hazy, the argument’s aspirations are

obvious; it is an attempt to idealize physical sexuality out of existence;
it values the male over the female, the mind over the body, the ideal
over the actual, and the enlightened individual over the hedonistic
community. Socrates participates in the drinking party, but tran-
scends it; this is the point of Alcibiades’s panegyric of Socrates that
concludes the dialogue (215a–222b). Whatever use love may be, the
Platonic love described by Diotima is useful as a way of idealizing
and morally purifying sexual desire—in particular male homoerotic
sexual desire for beautiful youths.
So what is all this doing in Spenser? Theories that might seem
relatively unproblematic in the homosocial and pre-Christian world
of fifth-century Athens can seem very strange indeed when trans-
planted to the court of Elizabeth I, a female, Christian monarch in
sixteenth-century England.7 How can this homoerotic and mystical
discourse be accommodated to heterosexual notions of courtly love,
or the Ovidian idea that love is primarily experienced as physical suf-
fering, or to the Petrarchan notion that the lover is the subordinate
one, not the dominant?
These contradictions do not admit of easy resolution. But the new
market for printed books gave ample scope for them to be elabo-
rated, debated, and explored. Plato’s Symposium was rediscovered and
its ideas reinvigorated by Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century.
Ficino’s De Amore, a detailed and extensive Latin commentary on
the Symposium, circulated in manuscript in 1469, was published in
1484, and appeared in two Italian editions in 1544. It gave rise to a
host of vernacular dialogues exploring similar issues. In the hundred
years from Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Commento in 1486 to
Giordano Bruno’s Degli Eroici furori in 1585, over a dozen major
treatises dealing with Neoplatonic love appeared in Italy alone. They
were written not only by humanist philosophers like Ficino, but also
by churchmen like Pietro Bembo, and courtiers like Castiglione, as
well as by Jewish intellectuals like Judah Abrabanel (Leo Hebreo),
poligrafi like Giuseppe Betussi, and courtesans like Tullia d’Aragona.8
In the course of the sixteenth century, Abrabanel’s Dialoghi d’amore
(c. 1502) appeared in 11 Italian editions; Bembo’s Asolani (1505)
in 22;9 and Mario Equicola’s De Natura d’amore (1495) in 14.10 And
these texts soon circulated beyond Italy as well. Bembo’s treatise was
translated into Spanish and French, and Equicola’s appeared in two
separate French translations.11
In her influential 1935 study of Italian Neoplatonism, Nesca Robb
asked the relevant question: “Why did the Neoplatonic ‘trattato
d’amore’ become so immensely popular in the early part of the six-

teenth century?”12 Robb’s answer is somewhat condescending: She
contends that the trattati were the sixteenth century equivalent of
tabloid newspapers and paperback fiction; they “combined a certain
more or less superficial discussion of abstract questions with pictures
of contemporary life and . . . exploited the fashionable philosophy
much as our modern newspapers exploit psycho-analysis or the the-
ory of relativity.”13 While Robb’s disdain for popular culture is fairly
clear, her central insight remains valuable. She is right to point out
that a philosophy that “emerged almost inevitably from that peculiar
interplay of social and literary life” at Italian Renaissance courts was
effectively popularized in the course of the sixteenth century, and
was disseminated far more broadly and successfully than might have
been imagined.
The most basic answer to the question of why treatises on
Neoplatonic love were so popular is simply the fact of the bookmar-
ket. These texts became popular among the reading public because
they could be published and purchased and read in vernacular lan-
guages in large numbers. Why texts on this particular subject? That
is a more difficult question, but one may speculate. One thing such
texts did was make elite conversations and debates about love, sexual
attraction, and nobility of feeling accessible to a wide public. Did the
trattati function as conduct books? Castiglione’s Courtier certainly
fuses the two genres to great effect.
Of course, however many books were printed, sold, and read,
Neoplatonism was never a “popular” idea, if by popular we mean
“widely believed to be true” or “broadly familiar across a wide range
of social and economic groups,” let alone “commonly practiced.”
Neoplatonic love was always a notion rather than a practice. I know
of no evidence that anyone ever actually tried to follow the Platonic
scala in any sustained and systematic way. The same cannot be said
for the Imitatio Christi, the Spritual Excercises of Ignatius Loyola, or
other early modern spiritual techniques and disciplines. In Neoplatonic
writing, accounts of the progression from sexual desire to transcendent
insight tend to be related at several removes. In the Symposium itself,
this distancing is especially elaborate: We hear about the theory from
Apollodorus, who says he was not present at the actual symposium,
which occurred decades earlier. Apollodorus heard the story from
Aristodemus of Cydathenaeum, an obscure follower of Socrates who
was present, but did not participate (173a–b). So to recap: Diotima
told Socrates, who told the banqueters, one of whom many years later
told Appolodorus, who some time later related the conversation first to
Glaucon, and then the next day to an unnamed friend (this last is the
version recorded in the text). This is fourth-hand information at best,
and indeed, it is never explicitly asserted that either Diotima or Socrates
has actually experienced the vision of ideal Beauty she describes.
Neoplatonic theory provided an attractive or interesting or eccen-
tric idea of a way that sexual desire and spiritual fulfillment could be
reconciled. It was not a technique that could followed in any practical
way by any substantial number of people. Nonetheless it was an idea
that originated among an intellectual and courtly elite that then cir-
culated to a much broader reading public. And it influenced thinking
about love and sexuality even if it was not followed as a discipline or
broadly believed to be true.
The Uses of THE C OURTIER

The most widely disseminated text dealing with Neoplatonic love was
surely Castiglione’s Courtier. In the sixteenth century the Courtier
appeared in 62 editions in Italian alone,14 and it was translated into
Spanish, German, French, Latin, and English as well. In London in
1588 John Wolfe printed a multilingual edition with parallel text in
Italian, French, and English15 that one can imagine was used to build
its readers’ skills in translation as well as to spread the text to as broad
an audience as possible. There were also two bilingual editions in
Italian and French.16
One thing Shakespeare’s treatment of romantic love in Two
Gentlemen of Verona and elsewhere makes abundantly clear is that
in early modern culture the Lover is always a scripted part—a role a
young man or woman plays at certain times and in certain situations—a
cliché complete with a costume, catch phrases, and habitual gestures.
Castiglione teaches this, but his text also constitutes a fundamen-
tal reevaluation of the role of the lover in society. We are back to
Socrates’s question to Diotima: What is love good for? How can
its chaotic energies be made socially safe? What is the connection
between love and self-fashioning? What is the relation of love to mas-
culinity, and to power? The Courtier addresses all these questions in
complex, ambiguous, contradictory, and at times disturbing ways.
An incident, described in section 2.47 of the Courtier, is in many
ways emblematic of the book as a whole and the social world it
describes and negotiates. A close reading of the passage will allow us
to identify several key principles underlying Castiglione’s worldview.
A poor beggar approaches a lady, standing in Church after the
Mass has ended. He asks her for money. She ignores him. He asks
again, and again, weeping and crying out. She does not look at him.
Three gentlemen witness the interaction. One, who is in love with the
woman, looks at her, and says to his friends:
You see what I can expect from my lady, who is so cruel that she not
only gives no alms to that poor naked wretch who is dying of hunger
and is begging of her so eagerly and so repeatedly, but she doesn’t
even send him away: so much does she enjoy seeing a man languish in
misery before her and implore her favor in vain.
One of his two friends replied: “That is not cruelty; it is this lady’s
tacit way of teaching you that she is never pleased with an importunate
suitor.”
The other answered: “Nay, it is a warning to signify that even though she
does not give what is asked of her, she still likes to be begged for it.”
There you see how the fact that the lady did not send the poor man
away gave rise to words of severe censure, modest praise, and of cutting
satire. (2.47)17
Several observations can be made:

First: The story stresses the overwhelming importance of interpre-
tation. The meaning of the lady’s response is determined not by the
lady herself, but by the three gentleman watching.
Second: There is no obvious correct interpretation. Different
observers interpret differently, and their differing opinions are not
reconciled.
Third: The interpretations are subjective and tend to be self-serv-
ing. For the man in love, the lady’s actions are important primarily as
they relate to his desire for her.
Fourth: For all three gentlemen, the lady’s action is read primar-
ily in terms of her response not to poverty but to love and pleasure.
These aristocratic observers take a scene of social confrontation based
on status, wealth, and class, and transform it into a discussion of love
and courtship. Put another way, they see gender relations as more
important than class relations.
Fifth: For a man, love involves debasement. Because of his love for
the lady, an aristocrat sees himself as analogous to a naked beggar.
The other gentlemen do not question or contest this analogy, though
they draw differing conclusions from it.
It goes without saying that the Courtier is focused on social
performance—and all performance is ultimately evaluated by an audi-
ence. The open-ended nature of the dialogue is also fairly apparent, even
though many readers and editors over the years have ignored it in their
search for identifiable precepts for successful social performance.18

Even more than the Symposium, the Courtier is a multivoiced work
that has a history of being read as an ideological unity.
The Courtier is a record of four fictional conversations, held on
successive evenings in the actual Ducal court of Urbino. Castiglione
was a member of the court, but the conversations are imagined to
have been held during a period when he was absent on a diplomatic
mission to England, so he does not appear in the dialogue. Though
the dialogues are fictional, the participants are all actual members of
the Court, and the volume serves in part as a memorial of a particular
group of people at a specific time and place. The four conversations
that make up the four books are all part of an after-dinner game
among the members of the court—to see if any of them can define
the perfect courtier. The group involved in the discussion is large,
and though one or two people hold the floor at any one time, many
others contribute. The tone is subtle and sophisticated, and it is often
quite difficult to ascertain what Castiglione’s own opinions are on a
topic, given that speakers both for and against particular ideas make
good points and express themselves in depth.
The social setting of the dialogue is fraught, and the usual lines
of authority that structure a Renaissance court are in disarray. The
Duke, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the sickly heir to a powerful
father, is ill, and thus the court is without its leader. In the Duke’s
place is the Duchess, Elisabetta Gonzaga, and so in contradiction of
the usual gender hierarchy, the most powerful person in the room is
female. The Duchess gives authority to Lady Emilia Pio to direct the
conversation, but also decrees that the women should be silent and let
the men do the talking. This creates an ambiguous social dynamic, in
which men appear to have all the power, and yet are constantly being
judged by their silent female audience.
The topics and speakers change each night. In Book 1, Lodovico
di Canossa, a Veronese nobleman, outlines the qualities needed by
an ideal courtier, most famously, sprezzatura, the art of concealing
one’s own abilities, so that difficult achievements are made to seem
easy. In Book 2, Federico Fregoso tries to describe how the precepts
outlined in Book 1 might be put into practice. This tails off into a
lengthy discussion of wit and humor, in which Bernardo Bibbiena,
the Cardinal and comic dramatist, gives various examples of jokes.
The evening ends with a debate over jokes that impugn women’s
chastity and morals. This leads to the topic of Book 3, the role of
the court lady. Giuliano di Medici defends the status and abilities of
women against a group of misogynist detractors, especially the young
and outspoken Gaspare Pallavicino. In early drafts, this is where the

text ended, but the final version includes a fourth Book, in which the
discussion moves to evaluate the place and function of the courtier
in the world. Ottaviano Fregoso argues that the courtier needs to be
wise and moral, so that he can advise and support his Prince. The
discussion then concludes with the philosopher Pietro Bembo’s praise
of Platonic love.
As this brief summary suggests, the range of topics touched on in
the ebb and flow of discussion in the Courtier is extremely broad.
What has been underestimated is the extent to which various dis-
courses of love underpin the dialogue throughout.19 Bembo’s praise
of Platonic love in Book 4 of the Courtier has often been read as an
attempt to change the subject, to escape the limitations of a courtier’s
existence by retreating from the active to the contemplative life.20
The fourth evening’s conversation begins with Ottaviano’s attempt
to define the Courtier as a wise man, a philosopher whose highest
calling is to educate his master, the Prince. Ottaviano’s argument
runs into difficulty on several grounds, the most serious of which is
the Courtier’s subordinate status. The assumption that a subordinate
knows better than his master goes against most of the justification
for monarchy in the first place. Why assume the Courtier is wiser
than the Prince? If the Courtier is a better leader, why should he not
become Prince himself? And if he is not, why should the Prince listen
to a word he says?
Rather than grapple with these major issues, the conversation
turns on a minor contradiction. A wise courtier is likely to be an old
man, but the previous discussion has tended to define the Courtier as
a young man, strong in battle and good at dancing. If the Courtier
is not young, how can he be in love? This paradox leads Bembo to
defend the notion that a wise old man can also be a lover. He elabo-
rates a theory of idealized Neoplatonic love that has often been read
as providing a shrewd way out of the impasse of the previous discus-
sion: If the Courtier is ultimately subordinate to the Prince and has
no real power to effect political change, he can nonetheless contem-
plate beauty and meditate on goodness. He can reject the social world
for the personal one, and choose a private, contemplative life over an
active, public one.
But rather than changing the subject, Bembo’s speech is only one
manifestation of an ongoing debate about love that runs like a coun-
terpoint throughout the text. It is an attempt to have the last word
in that debate, redefining love as empowering rather than debasing, a
practice of self-fulfillment rather than subjection. In doing so, Bembo
defines love as a solitary pursuit, and rejects the social in favor of the
individual. His speech is also, in subtle ways, a rejection of women,
and the threat of male debasement inherent in the love of women.
Bembo’s speech turns on the relation of love to masculinity. To
understand what is at stake in this relationship, one must look not just
at Bembo’s speech, but the volume as a whole. Castiglione’s Courtier
is a book that tries to define the indefinable, to put in writing things
impossible to speak about clearly: grace, sprezzatura, honor, love. All
these qualities benefit from being discussed, but not defined. Being
a courtier, or a lover, or simply a successful, admired person, is not
a matter of precepts. The dialogue form is essential to this enter-
prise, because only the give and take of conversation can express the
subtlety of the analysis.
Castiglione and Machiavelli

The subtlety of the Courtier is especially striking in comparison
to its more forceful contemporary, Machiavelli’s Prince. Although
Machiavelli’s book and Castiglione’s are very different, stressing
their similarities provides a useful reminder of the political context
of Castiglione’s project. Where the Prince is all precept and can
seem dogmatic, the Courtier is all example and can seem indecisive.
The Prince is written in the imperative mode; the Courtier in the
subjunctive.
In part because of this rhetorical difference, the two texts have
traditionally been seen as polar opposites.21 But in terms of the issues
they face and the solutions they consider, the two books have more
in common than one might think.22 Both are grappling with the loss
of Italian political independence, and the fact that Italy’s great wealth
and cultural sophistication have not protected it from foreign armies.
The observation that, “many things that are evil appear at first sight
to be good, and many appear evil and yet are good,” seems typically
Machiavellian, but it comes from the Courtier, as does its chilling
elaboration:
When serving one’s masters it is sometimes permitted to kill not just

one man but ten thousand men, and do many other things that might
seem evil to a man who did not look upon them as one ought. (2.23)
Indeed, this passage was Machiavellian enough to be marked for expur-

gation by Sebastiano de Aiello, a late sixteenth-century Neapolitan
censor of the Courtier.23
Though the Courtier dances around difficult issues, it does not

ignore them. When Ottaviano argues that no one ever consciously
chooses to do wrong, Gaspare insists “there are . . . many who know
well they are doing evil, and yet do it” (4.14); Cesare Gonzaga rails
against old men, “some of the priesthood,” who use their power and
prestige to sexually abuse their subordinates (3.40); and Ottaviano
himself admits that among their “many faults,” princes are often
ignorant and conceited (4.5). Perhaps the most ominous moment
comes in a discussion of whether the Courtier should follow orders
to the letter or make necessary changes to ensure a project’s success.
Federico Fregoso tells the story of an Athenian engineer who was
beaten to death for giving his master the materials he needed, rather
than those he specifically asked for (2.24). At this point, the conversa-
tion adroitly turns to “how the Courtier ought to dress” (2.26).
This decorousness has often been read as cowardice. All the same,
like the Prince, the Courtier is a guide for living in a dangerous social
and political world.24 The Courtier may be structured as a game,
but it is not a trivial book. There is not just sadness, but desperation
beneath the elegant surface.
Surface is a key term. Like the Prince, the Courtier is concerned,
above all, with the importance of surfaces: both insist that in political
and social interaction appearance is often more important than reality.
This insistence on the importance of appearance has caused Machiavelli
to be accused of cynicism25 and Castiglione of superficiality,26 but
whatever its morality, the insight that surface is often more socially
significant than depth is resonant and particularly modern.
Courtiers in Urbino would rather talk about dressing for success
than contemplate a resourceful servant being beaten to death. But
power relations are never far from their minds, and their discussion of
fashion soon returns to questions of political and cultural dominance:
Italy does not have, as she used to have, a manner of dress recognized
to be Italian. . . . Our having changed our Italian dress for that of
foreigners strikes me as meaning that all those for whose dress we
have exchanged our own are going to conquer us: which has proved
all too true, for by now there is no nation that has not made us its
prey. (2.26)
Even at the most seemingly trivial moments, the Courtier is concerned

with the relations between social performance and political power.
More specifically, Castiglione combines a meditation on political
power with a debate about love, and by doing so, displaces social
anxieties into gender anxieties. Both Machiavelli and Castiglione read

power in terms of gender. Though Machiavelli is not usually thought
of as a gender theorist, throughout the Prince he conceives of the
world as an endless struggle between the masculine principle of virtù
(individual will) and the feminine one of fortuna (events beyond indi-
vidual control). He famously concludes that, while it is impossible for
virtù to withstand the force of fortuna, one can nonetheless prepare
for the inevitable catastrophe, and that “it is better to be impetuous
than cautious, for fortune is a lady, and it is necessary, if one wants
to hold her down, to beat her and dash her. And one sees that she
lets herself be won more by these men, than by those who proceed
coldly. For this reason, as a lady, she is always the friend of the young,
because they are less cautious, more ferocious, and they command her
with more audacity” (25).27
This brutal image brings together power, sexuality, and violence in
a particularly disturbing way. For it suggests that power is ultimately
sexual, and that sexuality is fundamentally violent.
Gender Dynamics
Castiglione, of course, is much more overtly concerned with gender
issues than Machiavelli, particularly with power relations between
men and women. Indeed the very conditions of discussion in the
Courtier accentuate the differing power of women and men. Since
the Duke is sick and absent, the highest ranking person present is
the Duchess, but she chooses not to participate actively in the discus-
sion, preferring the role of spectator and auditor. Although her friend
Emilia moderates the discussion, the Duchess asks all the women to
be silent, and thus the speakers are all men. These arrangements, sim-
ple on the surface, create a complex and ambiguous power dynamic
throughout the conversation. The absence of the Duke allows a fan-
tasy of courtly autonomy, in which the male courtiers can speak in
relative freedom, as if what they said mattered. The silence of the
Duchess and the ladies allows a parallel fantasy of male autonomy,
in which the men can speak in relative freedom, as if they were not
answerable to women. But both these fantasies are negated from the
start, for though the Duke is absent, his wife in present, and despite
their silence, the ladies are listening. Like the woman importuned
by the beggar in the church, the male courtiers are constantly being
observed and judged.
The presence of the ladies does not stop the men from speaking
about women, or from speaking harshly of them. Throughout the
dialogue, Gaspare Pallavicino, an audacious young man who bears

some similarity to the one described by Machiavelli, denigrates
women so obsessively that at times he almost appears comic. Other
men rise to women’s defence, and the third book is entirely devoted
to a debate on the role of women in court society.
These arrangements, and their implications for the status of courtly
women, have been the subject of much critical debate, some arguing
that women’s voices are stifled in the text, others that by the stan-
dards of the time, Castiglione is generous toward them. 28 Whatever
the power of women in the text, at no point in the Courtier is there
any question of gender equality: the women simply do not participate
on the same terms as the men.
To understand the cultural valence of the dialogue’s gender dynam-
ics, it is worth comparing the Courtier with the situation in Bembo’s
dialogue Asolani (1505), one of Castiglione’s most influential models.
In Bembo’s dialogue three young men pontificate about love as three
women listen. Unlike Castiglione, Bembo feels compelled to defend
his decision to have women present at all, even at a dialogue dealing
primarily with the traditionally feminine sphere of love.
There are many who will blame me because I have asked women
to participate in these investigations, since women should confine
themselves to womanly duties rather than searching into these things.
But they don’t convince me. For unless they deny that women have
been given souls just as men have, I don’t know why women should be
forbidden any more than we are to find out what sort of a thing they
are or what one should avoid or pursue (3.1).29
The women in the Asolani do not always like what they hear. The
speech of Gismondo, who argues for the sensual pleasures of love, is
deeply undercut by the fact that, while praising the joys of a man’s
love for a woman, he alienates and offends all his female auditors.
Here, as in the Courtier, the fact that women are in the audience
changes the nature of the conversation. By staging a conversation
with women present, both Bembo and Castiglione ensure that even
a solitary male reader of their texts will have to think of the impact
of the discussion on women. This is a long way from having women
speak on an equal footing with men, and the “women” are, after
all, female characters in a male-authored text. But given the cultural
norms of humanist discourse in early modern Italy, imagining women
present at an intellectual discussion of politics, philosophy, and social
behavior marks a modest move toward gender inclusiveness. It is more
than either Ficino or Machiavelli would have done, and is a long way
from the Symposium.
Speaking of Love
It is only fitting that women should make up a large part of the audi-
ence for the discussions of the Courtier, for the conversation is rooted
in the supposedly feminine sphere of sexuality and love as much as in
the masculine sphere of war and politics. It is seldom remarked that
the Courtier begins not as a discussion of ideal courtly behavior, but
of gender relations, specifically relations of love and sexuality. 30 At the
opening of the volume, the nobles gather to choose a game for their
evening’s entertainment.31 All of their options draw on the tradition
of “dubbi amorosi”—fashionable questions about love.32 The first to
propose a pastime is Gaspare, who suggests that everyone should tell
the group a virtue and vice they would desire in their beloved (1.7).
Unico Aretino flirtatiously proposes that everyone should guess the
significance of an “s” shaped jewel the Duchess is wearing on her
forehead (1.9). Ottaviano says that, since lovers’ quarrels are inev-
itable, everyone should say for what reason they would want their
beloved angry with them (1.10). Bembo elaborates on this, asking
each person to say whether it is worse to displease one’s beloved or
to be displeased by her (1.11). The only proposal not dealing directly
with love is Cesare Gonzaga’s suggestion that everyone should say
what sort of folly they would choose to show in public, but even in
this case one of the group pipes up and says, “I am already a fool in
love” (1.8).
Love, it seems, is all these people want to discuss. And love is
assumed to be ubiquitous (at least at court): everyone, it seems, has
a “beloved” to talk about. The group also see love as something that
occurs only between men and women, although in early modern Italy
sexual relations between men were common33 —a fact that would
have been obvious to all the actual members of the court of Urbino,
but which is almost never alluded to in the Courtier.34 In the third
book, Giuliano de Medici argues that women are the motive for all
masculine cultural activity, the cause of dancing, music, poetry—“of
all the graceful activities that delight the world” (3.52).35 He not
only claims that all vernacular poetry expresses “sentiments inspired
by women,” he also makes the astonishing claim that the same is
true of Classical poetry in Greek and Latin. These characteriza-
tions are an implicit denial of a homoerotic masculine world, both
actual and literary, which was a major fact of cultural and social life
in sixteenth-century Italy. The elision of same-sex love is particularly

significant in the closing sections of the text, when Bembo puts forth
his theory of Neoplatonic, idealized love.36 But its absence resonates
throughout.
There are two powerful, complementary, and familiar fictions at
work here: that heterosexual love is universal and that homosexual
love does not exist. But in Castiglione, love is not a paradise from
which the homoerotic has been cast out. It is instead, a site of bitter
conflict. All the suggested games depend on the notion that love
is primarily a source of strife, frustration, and embarrassment. The
beloved is bound to have faults; quarrels are inevitable; relationships
inevitably lead to disappointment and displeasure. The exclusion of
homoeroticism insures that love is defined as a site of gender conflict—
not least because it is the fundamental ground for communication
between the sexes. Despite the relatively benign rule of the Duchess
and Emilia, relations between men and women are assumed, through-
out the text, to be primarily sexual and founded on conflict. This is
not far from Machiavelli’s troubling suggestion that power is sexual
and sexuality is violent.
So when Federico Fregoso suggests that the group turn from the sad
spectacle of gender conflict to an idealistic—and self-congratulatory—
discussion of courtly perfection, everyone is delighted. And for a time
it seems as if the masculine self-fashioning involved in striving to be
a perfect courtier offers an escape from the folly, strife, and debase-
ment of love. But the same issues soon arise in different forms. As
the discussion grows and evolves through the first two evenings, it
becomes increasingly apparent that discussing the male courtier will
entail discussing the female courtier as well. And given the governing
fictions accepted by the group, a discussion of the female courtier will
necessarily entail discussing love. This in turn will force the dialogue
to confront limitations on the condition of the male courtier. These
limitations, taken up in Book 3, lead to the troubling questions of
Book 4.37
Joan Kelly-Gadol and Carla Freccero have both read the discussion
of women in Book 3 of the Courtier as a sublimation, a way for the
male courtiers to safely displace the anxieties inherent in their sub-
ordination to the Prince.38 Instead of discussing the limitations on
their own freedom, the courtiers debate the extent to which women
are subordinate to them. Freccero and Kelly-Gadol are surely right
about the displacement, but I question its “safety.” In the Courtier,
the discussion of women is never far from the discussion of love, and
love is not a safe place for men or women.
Effeminacy and Subordination

A perfect courtier is not simply a perfect warrior. He is in some ways
a perfect servant. He is, in some ways, feminine. Learning to be a
perfect courtier involves self-abasement as well as self-fulfillment. In
fact, it defines fulfillment in terms of abasement. As such, it is not
so different from being in love. And in the gender economy of early
modern Europe, love itself is frequently seen as a fundamentally femi-
nine activity.39 One of the Lady Emilia’s few actual contributions to
the conversation is her definition of proper conduct for male lovers:
He who begins to love must also begin to please his beloved and to
comply entirely with her wishes, and by hers govern his own; and he
must see to it that his own desires serve her, and that his soul is like an
obedient handmaid. (3.63)
The Courtier whose first concern is the profession of arms should

have the soul of a female servant.
Indeed, throughout the dialogue, the male Courtier is systemati-
cally defined in feminine terms. At the very outset of the discussion
it is quickly established that “the principal and true profession of the
Courtier must be that of arms” (1.17). And yet, his martial role is
immediately defined not in traditionally masculine terms of physical
strength or valor, but on the feminine ground of reputation:
Just as among women the name of purity, once stained, is never

restored, so the reputation of a gentleman whose profession is arms,
if ever in the least way he sullies himself through cowardice or other
disgrace, always remains defiled before the world and covered with
ignominy. (1.17)
For all his purported martial skill, the Courtier is like a maiden
safeguarding her virginity, or a matron defending her good name.
The notion that a Courtier’s martial skill is primarily a matter of
reputation is, to say the least, problematic. Ludovico immediately
worries that some courtiers may build their reputations for valor “in
small things rather than great.” And though he insists that the true
Courtier will show courage under all circumstances, this stress on
reputation leads logically to the infamous passage in Book 2 where
the Courtier is advised to fight primarily where he will be seen to
best advantage by his prince (2.8). Although this tactic might gain
the Courtier some favor, it is definitely not a formula for delivering
Italy from the barbarians.
In any case, the Courtier’s warlike aspect must be subordinated to

feminine standards of behavior, and military display is to be confined
to the battlefield. “We do not wish him to make a show of being so
fierce that he is forever swaggering in his speech, declaring that he
has wedded his cuirass,” Ludovico says (1.17)—and the matrimonial
metaphor is worth remarking. He proceeds to tell the story of a dour
Courtier who refuses to dance and boasts to a lady his profession
is fighting. The lady promptly humiliates him in front of the entire
assembly, comparing him to a rusty suit of armor. This anecdote leads
to the contradictory advice that the Courtier must be “exceedingly
fierce, harsh, and always among the first, wherever the enemy is; and
in every other place, humane, modest, reserved.” (1.17). In terms of
impossible social performance, this rivals the famously oxymoronic
precept that the Court Lady should participate in bawdy conversation
so as not to seem coy, but carefully avoid any implication that she is
herself lewd (3.5).
The subordination of the male Courtier to the female, and his sta-
tus as a servant could not be in greater contrast to the gender relations
expressed in another of Castiglione’s acknowledged models, Cicero’s
De oratore.40 Both the Courtier and De oratore are dialogues about
power and self-presentation, and both share an elegiac tone. But the
conversations in De oratore are exclusively masculine. Women are not
present, and are barely mentioned. Though the dialogue is grounded
on the friendship and mutual respect of the interlocutors, there is
no overt discussion of anything approaching love or sexuality. The
concept that women are the wellspring of all civilized male action is
utterly alien to De oratore.
The other key difference, of course, is that Cicero’s orators are
freemen. Their very leisure to have a lengthy theoretical discussion is
a mark of their free status. Courtiers, on the other hand, are subjected
to their masters. It is an easy step to parallel the actual subjection of
the Courtier to the Prince to his putative subjection to women. And
this is exactly the dynamic that Castiglione is exploring throughout.
He has taken the serious discussion of masculine power and self-
fashioning as he finds it in Cicero, and placed it in the incongruous
setting of a gathering of sophisticated men and women eager to talk
of love. The model here, clearly is the brigata of the Decameron,
a text in which nominal sovereignty is given to women, where the
fictional audience is said to be female, and where love and gender
relations are the central topic of discussion.
One need only imagine the ghost of Cicero sitting between
Fiammetta and Pampinea in the garden of the Decameron to see
the incongruities and stresses underlying the urbane surface of the

Courtier.
I am not arguing that the subordination of violent, aggressive
behavior is a bad thing, or that masculinity is somehow inherently
violent—any more than femininity is inherently sexual. But these are
the confused and conflicting ways that the most popular conduct
book of the sixteenth century formulates gender identity. The femini-
zation of masculine behavior is especially remarkable because the sub-
ordination of the male to the female is in many ways more rhetorical
than actual. But in The Courtier, rhetoric matters. The world of the
court, as we have seen, turns on representation and interpretation.
Seen in this light, the precepts of the Courtier seem more and
more Machiavellian. In the Prince, Machiavelli sees gender relations
as crude and obvious, (Fortune loves aggressive young men) whereas
political relations between men are marked by deception and social
performance.41 Castiglione extends this Machiavellian notion of social
performance to the sphere of gender relations. In the Courtier, both
men and women are being asked to conform to their putative nature
(men must be aggressive, women sensual), but at the same time, they
must hide these “natural” tendencies. Women must be sensuous but
chaste; men must be violent but civil. These paradoxes are at the heart
of the debate about love in Book 3 of the Courtier: “Love” is only
possible because of the social masking of men’s “natural” tendency
toward violence and women’s “natural” tendency to sensuousness.
If men do not temper their aggression, there is no love, only rape. If
women do not temper their sensuality, there is no love, only promis-
cuous sexual pleasure. Love, then, is built on a double contradiction,
and involves complex and contradictory gender performance from
both men and women. It is precarious, and fraught, and although
desirable, it is a source of endless anxiety, uncertainty, and debate.
In the course of the dialogue the feminization of the male Courtier
is constantly urged, but never wholly accepted. It functions both as
an ideal of social behavior and as a source of anxiety. As a servant, the
Courtier may be analogous to a woman, but he must be careful that
the analogy never become too apparent. Throughout the discussion
the relationship is debated, affirmed, and denied. Certainly a rejec-
tion of this way of thinking underlies much of Gaspare’s misogy-
nist bluster, as well as his attachment to the nostalgic notion of the
Courtier as a valiant and honorable warrior.
Since the Courtier is, after all, a debate about elite, rather than
normative behavior, this anxiety about effeminacy is also related to
issues of class and status. Ideal courtly masculinity is not just defined
against femininity, but also against lower-class, overly “masculine”

behavior. This dynamic comes out particularly clearly in Federico
Fregoso’s remarks on the way the Courtier should speak. He says
that ideally the Courtier should have “a good voice, not too thin or
soft, like a woman’s or stern and rough like a peasant’s, but sonorous,
clear, smooth, and well constituted” (1.33).42 When defining proper
masculine behavior, the extremes to be avoided are femina and rustico.
The Courtier must find a via media between soft feminine delicacy
and rough, animal masculinity. As Ottaviano’s discourse on the dif-
fering forms of rule makes clear, a distinction between upper-class
rational men, capable of rule, and lower-class, naturally servile men,
is crucial to the Courtier’s identity (4.21–22).
In the Courtier, then, masculinity is seen not just as a performance—
what Valeria Finucci has aptly termed the “manly masquerade”—but
as an exercise in Aristotelian temperance. This was clear to the first
English translator Thomas Hoby: When translating a passage describ-
ing temperance as the source of “true strength,” Hoby, generally a
very close translator,43 translates “la vera fortezza” [true strength] as
“true manliness” and gives it a marginal gloss for emphasis (4.18).
Oddly, this “true manliness” attempts to take masculinity beyond
gender itself—differentiating elite male behavior both from feminine
sensuality and masculine violence. To make this work, “true man-
liness” must deal with love—the sublimated battleground between
men and women, between violence and sensuality.
Bembo’s Speech
The notion that ideal, elite masculinity is a form of temperance,
almost beyond gender, finds its fullest elaboration in Bembo’s speech
on Neoplatonic love.44 Bembo’s speech attempts to make love safe by
purifying it, removing the taint of feminine sensuality and lower-class
aggression to formulate an empowering love free of sex and violence.
This is the opposite of Machiavelli’s notion that power is ultimately
sexual, and that sexuality is fundamentally violent.
When the Duchess commands Bembo to speak, she says that “a love
so happy that it brings with it neither blame nor displeasure . . . could
well be one of the most important and useful conditions that have
yet been attributed to [the Courtier]” (4.50). How is love useful?
As previously noted, Bembo’s speech marks a shift in the dialogue
from a debate about how the Courtier can best advise the Prince to
a discussion of how he can cultivate his awareness of divine beauty.
Philosophically, Bembo’s speech reworks the familiar Neoplatonic
theory of love originating with Diotima’s speech in the Symposium

and recently elaborated by Ficino and in the actual Bembo’s own
Asolani.45 My interest is not in what Castiglione adds to Neoplatonic
theory, but how he deploys it rhetorically in relation to gender iden-
tity. Seen in this context, Bembo’s redefinition of love is marked by
three related ideas: He attempts to separate love from the idea of sub-
ordination. He attempts to move love from the public to the private
sphere. And he attempts to make love ideally masculine by having it
transcend both feminine sensuality and lower-class masculine aggres-
sion. As the sun peeks through the windows at the end of the dialogue
the success of these attempts remains uncertain, but their motivation
is clear enough.
The courtly love tradition, which the courtiers of Urbino inherit,
already defined love as inherently noble and upper-class. Only a
wellborn person would have the nobility of spirit to express their
sexual desires through the civilized discourse of love. This courtly
notion that love is beyond the capacity of common people comes
through strongly in Bembo’s praise of Neoplatonic love: In the
words of Hoby’s translation, Bembo wants to teach the Courtier
to love, “contrarye to the wonted maner of the commune ignorant
sort” (4.61) and to “shonn throughlye all filthinesse of commune
love” (4.62).46 This idealization of love separates sexual attraction
from physicality and from bestial or “lower” social orders. It is a way
for the Courtier to show that although he is subjected to love, he is
not a “bondeman” (Hoby 4.21), much less a handmaid.
Bembo begins by defining love as “a certain desire to enjoy beauty”
(4.51).47 This definition could encompass sexual as well as spiritual
love, but Bembo quickly moves to sever love from sexuality by assert-
ing that beauty is a spiritual rather than material quality, consisting
of proportion and harmony rather than flesh and blood (4.52).48
Though one may disagree with his premises, Bembo’s discussion of
beauty is relatively logical and precise. But he makes no similarly rig-
orous attempt to define the other key term of his definition: “enjoy.”
[fruir]. As we shall see, much turns on the ambiguity of this term.
“Fruir” has an obvious sexual connotation, suggesting progeny and
offspring as well as physical pleasure. Its root meaning stresses owner-
ship: the Latin “fruor,” from which “fruir” is derived, means to have
something at one’s disposal, to enjoy the use or profit of it. It is a word
often used abstractly, but also has a very material derivative: fruit—
something grown in the earth, plucked by the hand, and eaten.
The sensuality (even practicality) suggested by “fruir” is in marked
contrast to Bembo’s insistence that beauty consists not in attractive
bodies, but in proportion and harmony. As such, Bembo asserts that

beauty can only be perceived by sight and hearing—the two least
tactile senses. Therefore there is no such thing as a beautiful texture,
or scent, or taste.49 It is worth stating outright that, traditional as
this definition may be, it is nonetheless ridiculous. All human beings
experience beauty with their senses of touch, taste, and smell. To claim
otherwise flies in the face of commonsense (some would say this was
a common feature of Platonic thought).50 In Ficino and elsewhere
this argument is established not by logic, but by assertion in order
to separate sensuous pleasure from love of beauty. Pleasure is mere
stimulus. Beauty is moral. This line of argument soon leads Bembo
to the ludicrous and untenable claim that ugly people are wicked and
beautiful people are good (4.58). (In another universe Machiavelli
rolls on the floor in a fit of convulsive laughter.) When the obvious
objections are raised, Bembo can do nothing but insist he is right and
forbid anyone to disagree: “You must not believe that beauty is not
always good” (4.56).
To judge by the way Bembo’s speech was strengthened and elab-
orated in the process of the Courtier’s revision, it seems clear that
Castiglione sympathized with Bembo’s spiritualization of love.51
Nonetheless he always reminds the reader that it contradicts common
experience. As Bembo makes his case, he is frequently opposed by the
more cynical members of the company, especially the elderly Morello,
who interrupt with commonsense objections: How can beauty exist
without a body? Hasn’t everyone encountered attractive people who
are cruel or unpleasant? (4.55). Isn’t sex the fundamental fact of gen-
der relations? (4.63). As a cranky old man, Morello is a figure of fun
throughout the dialogue, and rhetorically and intellectually he is no
match for Bembo. But that does not mean that his objections are
foolish in themselves.
Bembo begins his discussion by restating the terms of servitude
common to the courtly love paradigm debated in Book 3: “Let [the
Courtier] obey, please, and honor his Lady with all reverence, and
hold her dearer than himself, and put her convenience and pleasure
before his own, and love in her the beauty of her mind no less than
that of her body” (4.62). But, paralleling the arguments advanced
by Ottaviano in the earlier discussion, Bembo immediately redefines
the erotic servant as a moral teacher. The Courtier should “take care
therefore not to allow [his Lady] to fall into any error, but through
admonishment and good precepts let him always seek to lead her to
modesty, temperance, and true chastity, and see to it that no thoughts
arise in her except those that are pure and free of all blemish of vice”
(4.62). This is a remarkable transformation, and we might wonder

who in the worldly court of Urbino would believe that a lover’s dear-
est wish is to strengthen his beloved’s chastity and modesty. But
Bembo moves quickly on. In the same sentence he adds that the
Courtier “thus, by sowing virtue in the garden of her fair mind, he
will gather fruits of the most beautiful behavior and will taste them
with wondrous delight.” The loaded term “fruir” has reappeared—
this time in its homely derivative, “fruit” [frutti di bellissimi costumi].
The metaphor is significant: In a breathtakingly brief passage, the
Courtier has moved from being imagined as a servant, then a teacher,
then a gardener—a landowner. His Lady has shifted from being his
ruler, to his pupil, to land that he will cultivate for his own benefit
(“he will gather fruits . . . and will taste them”). The frantic, burning
courtly lover is rhetorically transformed into a contemplative gentle-
man enjoying [fruir again] his garden. Sex has become husbandry.52
It is no surprise that the elderly cynic Morello quickly brings the
discussion back to earth by insisting that relations between men and
women are primarily sexual (4.63). But Bembo’s point has been made,
and there is now no stopping him.
After playfully allowing his chaste lovers to kiss (because kissing
mingles the breath of the lovers, and thus is “a joining of souls rather
than bodies” [4.64]), Bembo goes on to reject human interaction
altogether. For Bembo love becomes a spiritual discipline—a sign of
rational and spiritual self-control rather than the helpless hurt confu-
sion that marks the erotic lover pierced by love’s poisoned arrows.
Such discipline is by its definition not available to ordinary men,
“whose actions pertain only to the body . . . [and] therefore are natu-
rally slaves” (4.21). If sexual desire subjugates Courtiers, spiritual love
makes them capable of rule.
But since they cannot, in fact, rule (only the Prince can do that),
the Courtier’s spiritual purification is marked by a move from the
public to the private sphere. Contemplative love removes love from
the sphere of human interaction—it becomes profoundly solitary,
even antisocial. The image moves from gardening to hoarding: “He
will always carry his precious treasure with him, shut up in his heart”
(4.66). This is an odd conclusion for a book on ideal social interaction
that began with playful talk of love.
The treasure that Bembo hoards has nothing to do with bodies—
let alone women’s bodies. The spiritual lover, he says, will soon feel
constricted by contemplating “the beauty of one body only” and will
go on to “form a universal concept . . . of that single beauty which
sheds itself on human nature generally.” That is, he will reject the
person he initially loved and “will feel little esteem for what at first
he so greatly prized” (4.67). This abstraction and universalizing of
beauty allows Bembo to remove the feminine from love. The sexually
attractive beauty of female bodies becomes little esteemed, as does
the individual beauty of a woman’s character or virtue. Like the ideal
masculinity formulated for the Courtier, the disembodied, spiritual
Beauty that Bembo’s lover contemplates transcends both feminine
sensuality and lower-class masculine aggression. It is refined, spir-
itual, and calm. There is some question as to whether women are
capable of perceiving it (4.72–73).
Bembo’s idealization of love, removing the taint of materiality
from it, is also a way to masculinize it. It thus offers the courtiers a
way out of the troubling contradictions of their existence as talented
and ambitious servants. Love need not mean subjection to women,
or a surrender to violent, “lower” passions. But in masculinizing love,
Bembo has to also keep it from becoming homoerotic, and he does
this by rewriting the Platonic tradition to make it heterosexual. This
is, of course, a large departure from Ficino, Castiglione’s most impor-
tant source, and from Plato himself. In Ficino’s De amore 6.14, men’s
physical love of boys is specifically acknowledged and largely equated
with men’s physical love of women:
Since the reproductive drive of the soul, being without cognition,

makes no distinction between the sexes, nevertheless, it is naturally
aroused for copulation whenever we judge any body to be beautiful;
and it often happens that those who associate with males, in order to
satisfy the demands of the genital part, copulate with them.53
Throughout Bembo’s speech it is assumed that beauty is female,

and that its contemplator is male. Socrates’s love of male beauty has
no place here, nor does Diotima, the woman who allegedly taught
Socrates how to transform his sexual desires to a contemplation of
abstract beauty.54
How successful is Bembo’s speech? Typically, although Castiglione’s
sympathy with Bembo is evident, he leaves the question open. It is
clear from Bembo’s rapture at the end of his speech that he is utterly
sincere in his beliefs. It is equally clear that the less idealistic par-
ticipants in the discussion, like Morello and Gaspare, remain uncon-
vinced. When Bembo seems rapt in ecstatic contemplation, Lady
Emilia teases him out of it by pulling gently on his robe and “shak-
ing him a little, [saying]: ‘Take care, messer Pietro, that with these
thoughts your soul too, does not forsake your body.’” (4.71)
Castiglione may yearn for a life of transcendent contemplation,

but he also knows that such a life is not compatible with what court-
iers really do.55 This is a painful realization, and it is not polite to
stress the painful aspects of life. Another of Bibbiena’s jokes makes
the point:
We must take care, using our words, . . . to avoid those . . . that are too
cutting. As where several had gathered in the house of one of their
friends who was blind in one eye, and when the blind man invited the
company to stay to dinner, all took their leave except one who said,
“I will stay with you because I see you have an empty place for one”;
and so saying he pointed with his finger to the empty socket. You see
this is too bitter and rude, for it wounded the man without any reason,
nor had the speaker first been wounded himself. (2.59)
Bembo may not be blind, but “keeping his eyes toward heaven, as if
in a daze,” he is no longer looking at the world around him (4.71).
Such a man does not deserve cutting words. So he is not refuted, only
teased.
The Dissemination of THE C OURTIER

We have already alluded more than once to the enormous popularity
and success of the Courtier as a printed book. Peter Burke’s Fortunes
of the Courtier (Penn State, 1995) provides a detailed introduction to
the topic of the text’s dissemination throughout Europe and the wider
world. Given the vast number of editions,56 generalizing about the
text’s reception is difficult, but it is broadly true that the more widely
the Courtier circulated, the more it came to be seen as a reference work
rather than a philosophical dialogue. This process was facilitated by
various forms of textual apparatus, including indexes, printed marginal
notes highlighting certain passages, epistles to the reader, and handy
lists of qualities courtiers and court ladies should possess.57 With this
editorial assistance, readers could ignore Castiglione’s subtleties and
go straight for the practical advice. They could read the Courtier as if
it were the Prince: as rules for success in a game of power politics.
Examination of editorial apparatus cannot tell us with certainty
how readers read a particular volume, but it can reveal what editors
and printers wanted to emphasize, and what they thought would
appeal to the book-buying public. Given the plethora of editions
of the Courtier in the sixteenth century, there is no space here for
exhaustive analysis, but some key trends can nonetheless be noted.
Although Bembo’s speech concludes the volume, and Castiglione

clearly took care to give him the last word, the text’s various editors
did not tend to stress this portion of the text. If anything, Bembo’s
speech receives fewer marginal annotations and index entries than
other portions, and tends to be slighted in tables of contents and
summaries of the volume. This may be because it does not directly
and explicitly address the social concerns that made the text so popu-
lar; it gives no practical advice on how to dress and talk and act,
and, as noted above, in many ways it constitutes a rejection of the
highly social world that is the volume’s main focus. If Castiglione
intended Bembo’s speech as a strong conclusion to the volume indi-
cating the best way forward for a Courtier wishing to perfect himself,
that intention was thwarted by the ways the text tended to be printed,
edited, and annotated. In general, it seems, readers of the Courtier
were not interested in learning how to renounce the world and con-
template abstract beauty. Bembo’s Neoplatonism was also rejected by
Counter-reformation censors, who were disturbed both by its pagan
origins and its argument that sexual desire could be spiritualized and
purified.
The one portion of Bembo’s text that reliably gets a marginal note
is his description of the spiritual significance of kissing:
The Lady may in reason and without blame go even so far as to

kiss. . . . The rational lover sees that, although the mouth is part of the
body, nevertheless it emits words, which are the interpreters of the
soul, and that inward breath which itself is even called soul. Hence a
man delights in joining his mouth to that of his beloved in a kiss, not
in order to bring himself to any unseemly desire, but because he feels
that that bond is the opening of mutual access to their souls. . . . Hence
a kiss may be said to be a joining of souls rather than bodies. (4.64)
The playful and ironic eroticism of this description is remarkable,

coming as it does in the midst of a serious and philosophical passage
arguing for the rejection of the physical world. It is not surprising
that editors chose to draw attention to it, though it has little to do
with Bembo’s overall argument.
Many Italian editions of The Courtier incorporated editorial
apparatus introduced in the 1540s and 1550s by that tireless editor
Lodovico Dolce. The Giolito edition of 1546 (Burke 42) began the
process by featuring a five page table of contents preceding the text.
This table is reprinted in several subsequent editions.58 The 1556
Giolito edition adds an introductory epistle from Dolce to Nicolosa
Losca, a noblewoman from Vicenza,59 followed by a 22-page index.60

The index items reappear as printed marginal annotations through-
out the text. This expanded apparatus also appeared in subsequent
editions.61
In Dolce’s table of contents, Bembo’s discussion of Platonic love in
Book 4 is summarized as follows:
Whether an older Courtier ought to be in love

What fortunate love is, that is blameless and brings no displeasure
What love is and what happiness lovers may possess
What beauty is
What evil lovers run into when they impose their dishonorable
desires on their beloved ladies
Conditions that suit lovers
Things that result from beauty and ugliness
Whether women’s beauty causes as much evil as it is said to do
Whether beautiful or ugly women are more chaste
What ways young lovers need to govern their love to escape dangers
Kisses as a union of spirit and body
Whence come lovers tears, sighs, and gasps
A subtle contemplation and argument concerning physical love and
beauty and divine love and beauty and union with the nature of
angels
The effects of divine love
Whether women are capable of divine love, as men are.62
Clearly, the table is a list of topics rather than a summary of the argu-
ment. It is a list of questions that tracks the subject of the conversa-
tion, but not the conclusions. For answers, the reader must consult
the text itself; the table of contents thus serves as an enticement to
read. Although this list focuses at times on some of the less promi-
nent portions of the argument, it is nonetheless a fairly comprehensive
review of the issues discussed. Drawing, perhaps, on the discussion
of the Court Lady in Book 3, there is a marked emphasis on noting
differences between men and women.
By contrast, the 1581 Spanish edition, published in Salamanca,
opens with a table of contents in which Bembo’s praise of Platonic
love is summarized in much less detail than in Dolce’s edition:
Chapter 6: Tells how the courtier, being old, can love without
hindrance.
Chapter 7: Tells how the perfect courtier can love very differently than
the common people do.63
A comparison of the two tables reveals distinctly different approaches

to reading Bembo’s speech. Not only is the list of topics in the Spanish
edition much shorter, but the emphasis is all on social privilege—an
older courtier is apparently free to act as he wishes, and courtiers are
clearly distinguished from common people. An item that in Dolce’s
table appears as an ethical question, “Whether an older Courtier
ought to be in love” here becomes an assertion of a social preroga-
tive: an older courtier can “love without hindrance.” In the Spanish
table, the philosophical idealism of Bembo’s speech is entirely absent
and what is stressed instead is patriarchal and aristocratic entitlement.
Love is the province of elderly elite men, and is a source of liberty and
distinction. Women are never mentioned. Whereas Dolce’s annota-
tion is primarily designed to open the text up to readers by encour-
aging them to engage with it, this edition closes the text down by
providing a comprehensive interpretation. And while this interpreta-
tion is no doubt reductive, it does not fundamentally misrepresent
the text; consciously or not, the Spanish table of contents highlights
the ideological work of the Bembo’s speech—making love elite, safe,
and masculine.
In Venice in 1584 Bernardo Basa published the first officially
expurgated edition of The Courtier, featuring an emended and anno-
tated text that endeavored to bring Castiglione’s treatise in line with
the dictates of the Tridentine reforms of the Counter-Reformation.
Most of the passages expurgated in this and other censored editions
consisted of irreverant or disparaging references to clergy or to scrip-
ture. For example, a copy of a 1531 edition of The Courtier in the
British Library contains extensive annotations by G. Rosati, “Revisor
to the Inquisition in Florence,” that change the second book’s many
jokes about friars to jokes about Jews by simply crossing out the word
“friar” and putting “Jew” in its place.64
Besides policing disrespect to the Church, the censor of the 1584
volume, Antonio Ciccarelli da Fuligni, was also clearly uncomfortable
with Bembo’s Platonism. In his introductory epistle Cicciarelli has
the awkward task of simultaneously praising the volume to the skies
and explaining why some passages have had to be censored. After
comparing Castiglione to Cicero and Xenophon, and conceding that
the Courtier has often been translated, and is read “with incredible
eagerness”65 by all sorts of people, he comes to the point: Since “no
earthly thing is so good that it does not carry some risk,” there are
regrettably some passages in the work that “could give some occa-
sion to take too much license and to use less respect than they ought,
completely contrary to the intentions of that most virtuous Cavalier
[Castiglione]” (A2v–A3r). So by ostensibly removing “stain[s]” from

the Courtier’s “purity” (A3r), Cicciarelli is both saving Castiglione
from himself and fulfilling the author’s own intentions. This patron-
izing approach is picked up in Cicciarelli’s treatment of Bembo’s
speech in Book 4—he simply asserts that Castiglione himself had no
sympathy with Bembo’s argument: “In the margins of the Fourth
Book those passages have been annotated in which the Author rea-
sons according to the Platonic School rather than following his own
opinion.”66
Cicciarelli does not cut anything from Bembo’s speech, but his
annotations clearly indicate that he is leery of its pre-Christian
approach to the divine, and is troubled that Bembo presents physi-
cal love as an acceptable entry point to spiritual love. Some of the
marginal notes he adds to Bembo’s speech are merely informational,
but others strongly augment Bembo’s critique of sensual or physical
love. Bembo’s praise of kissing cited above is explicitly glossed as a
“scherzo”—a joke, lest anyone mistakenly think that kisses were actu-
ally being praised.67 Ciccarelli also insists, as Bembo does not, that
heavenly beauty is completely separate from the wretched physicality
of human existence: It is, he says, “sincere, pure, whole, simple, not
contaminated by flesh or anything human, nor stained by any other
kind of mortal filth.”68
Glossing Bembo’s description of the miseries of sexual desire in sec-
tion 4.52, Cicciarelli cites Boccaccio’s misogynist treatise Corbaccio
or Labyrinth of Love, to amplify Bembo’s critique of physical attrac-
tion. This particular marginal note is considerably longer than most
of the others in the volume, taking up almost all the available space
on the margins of the page:
Here sensual love is attacked with effective words, as is the case in

many parts of this Dialogue. The same concept was explained by
Giovanni Boccaccio in his labyrinth, saying you will see, therefore,
that love is a blinding passion that waylays the spirit, dulls the intel-
lect, starves the memory, dissipates the sensual faculties, wastes the
body’s strength. It is the enemy of youth and the death of old age,
generates vice, and dwells in empty breasts, a thing without reason or
order, lacking all stability, the vice of an unhealthy mind, that drowns
human liberty. Consult both ancient histories and modern accounts,
and see how much death, disgrace, ruin, and extermination this dam-
nable passion has caused.69
This sort of selective and biased annotation is potentially an extremely

effective way of controlling a reader’s path through a subtle and
multivalent text like the Courtier, where many opposing views are
presented by different speakers, and there is no one character who
reliably and consistently puts forward the views of the author. In the
absence of a strong authorial voice, the interpretation of the text can
be relatively easily dictated by an authoritative editor using marginal
glosses. Passages like this make clear that from the point of view of
the Counter-reformation Church, Bembo’s attempt to purify love
from taints of effeminacy and subordination was simply untenable.
For Cicciarelli, sexual desire and physical attraction are not worth
transmuting or debating—they are just filth to be wiped clean.
The index of Cicciarelli’s volume follows Dolce’s closely, but
whereas in unexpurgated editions the printed marginal notes corre-
spond precisely to the index entries, this is not the case for many of
Cicciarelli’s lengthy annotations in Book 4—they are printed in the
margins of the text, but do not appear in the volume’s index. Thus
while “correcting” the text’s heretical Platonism in the volume’s mar-
gins, Cicciarelli takes care not to draw attention to it in his index.
The Courtier first appeared in English in a 1561 translation by Sir
Thomas Hoby.
Compared to the multitude of Italian and French editions, Hoby’s
English translation had a relatively modest print history. It was
reprinted in 1588 as part of John Wolfe’s polyglot edition, and again
in 1603.70 But the Courtier also circulated in England in a Latin edi-
tion translated by Bartholomew Clerke, first published in 1571 with
subsequent editions in 1577 (twice), 1585, 1593, 1603, and 1612.71
Hoby’s English edition has neither a table of contents, nor an index,
but it does have printed marginal notes. Bembo’s speech in Book 4
is fairly lightly annotated, and certainly the annotations do not call
attention to anything unorthodox or provocative in the passage.
Like many early modern printed marginal annotations, they point to
curiosities or passages of general knowledge in the text rather than
marking the development of an argument. The brief passage from
Bembo’s speech describing the solar system (4.58), for example, gets
the following notes in quick succession: “The worlde; The heaven;
The earth; The sonne; The moone; The planettes.” The following
passage, in which Bembo elaborates on the notion that human beings
are a microcosm reflecting the larger universal structures of the mac-
rocosm is glossed as follows: “Man; Aristot. 8 Phisic; Foules; Trees;
Shippes; Buildinges; The rouffe [roof] of houses.” These notes call
attention to things mentioned in the text, but a reader scanning the
marginal notes would have no idea of the philosophical idea being
advanced—that beauty in everything from the solar system to a house
depends on the harmonious and functional union of necessary parts.

Thus, though Hoby notes, in a particularly striking phrase, that
“Beawtye severed from the body is most perfect,” he is equally likely
to draw attention to the passing mention of “a mounteign betweene
Thessalia and Macedonia where is the sepulchre of Hercules.” And
pages and pages go by with no annotation whatsoever. As we shall
see in the next chapter’s discussion of Mario Equicola’s De Natura
d’amore, such seemingly random annotation was not uncommon in
the early modern period.
In addition to printed marginalia, Hoby also provides lists at
the end of the volume of “The chiefe conditions and qualities in a
Courtier” and “in a Wayting Gentylwoman.” The points made in
Bembo’s speech receive little emphasis in either. In the list of the
Courtier’s qualities, Hoby does state that
[the Courtier’s] love towarde women, not to be sensuall or fleshlie, but

honest and godlye, and more ruled with reason, then appetyte: and to
love better the beawtie of the minde, then of the bodie.” (371)
But in general these are lists of precepts to be followed, rather than a

summary of philosophical points.
Bartholomew Clerke’s Latin edition is lightly annotated compared
both to Hoby and to most late sixteenth-century Italian editions. It
has no index or table of contents, let alone lists of desirable qualities
for courtiers and their ladies. There are sporadic printed margina-
lia throughout the volume, including a note on Bembo’s praise of
kissing: “Osculum quanta virtutis” [How much power is in a kiss].72
Most of the prefatory material deals with questions of appropriate
Latin translations for contemporary terms (Clerke defends translating
Castiglione’s “burlas” and Hoby’s “mery pranckes” with the Latin
“ludicra,” for example.)73 He is also understandably nervous that in
dedicating his translation to Queen Elizabeth he might be suspected
of presumptuously trying to give her lessons in deportment.
The influence of the Courtier on the court culture of the
Elizabethan period has been much debated, and although the
text’s impact has at times been exaggerated, it was still a significant
publication.74 Roger Ascham, tutor to Elizabeth I, praised Hoby’s
translation in his tract The Scholemaster (written 1563–1564).75
Documented English readers of the Courtier include Francis Bacon,
Nicholas Breton, Robert Burton, Sir John Cheke, Thomas Coryate,
Thomas Dekker, William Drummond of Hawthornden, Elizabeth I,
John Florio, Sir John Harington, Gabriel Harvey, Henry Howard,
Earl of Northampton, James I, Ben Jonson, Mary, Queen of Scots,

Thomas Nashe, George Puttenham, Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset,
Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, and John Webster.76 Given his inter-
est in theories of both love and courtesy, Edmund Spenser was cer-
tainly familiar with Castiglione, though when composing his own
account of Neoplatonic love in the Fowre Hymnes he seems to have
drawn on a wide variety of writers on the subject, including Ficino,
Judah Abrabanel, and Bembo himself.77 There is no definite proof
that Shakespeare read Castiglione, though some have argued that he
did.78 In any case, whatever Shakespeare did or did not read, by the
late sixteenth century, ideas about love and courtly behavior similar
to those espoused by Castiglione were a fundamental part of elite
Elizabethan cultural discourse. Indeed, they were a part of common
cultural discourse throughout literate Europe.
Chapter 2
M a r io E qu ic ol a’s D E N A T U R A
D ’A M O R E : L ov e a n d K now l e dge
The Courtier is a work of art; the Nature of Love is an arid tract,

valuable only for cultural history.
—Lorenzo Savino (1915)1
Mario Equicola’s encyclopedic treatise De Natura d’amore [On the

Nature of Love] may be an “arid tract,” but that did not stop it from
being published in multiple editions in Italian and French for over a
hundred years. The frequent reprinting of Equicola’s Natura d’amore
is intriguing because it is a particularly dense and opaque scholarly
text, which would seem to have little popular appeal. Equicola was a
scholar at the court of Isabella d’Este, the Marchessa of Mantua, and
the Natura d’amore was not originally conceived for a broad audi-
ence. The work is over four hundred pages long, and unlike most
sixteenth-century philosophical texts on love, it is not written in the
relatively accessible dialogue format. De Natura d’amore is encyclopedic
in scope, but not in organization; it is repetitive, contradictory, and
unfocused. There is no central thesis, just information—a torrent of
facts, opinions, and citations. The method is not so much syncretic—
like Ficino’s attempts to reconcile Classical philosophy and Christian
doctrine—as accretive. Equicola loves to list things. To make matters
worse, he chose to write in an odd blend of Italian and Latin, with
torturous syntax and eccentric vocabulary.
The simultaneous incoherence and relative popularity of De Natura
d’amore highlight once again the fundamentally contradictory nature
of the discourses of love in the sixteenth century. The confusion
characteristic of Equicola’s work is not an aberration, but an intrinsic

part of love as an early modern cultural phenomenon. If love is meant
to be paradoxical and contradictory, Equicola’s De Natura d’amore
may be its most fitting expression. And it is a uniquely early modern
expression. Indeed, it stands as a striking example of a text that spoke
eloquently to sixteenth-century cultural concerns, but was dismissed
and even ridiculed in later periods. Despite its ubiquity in the century
of its publication, no complete edition of the De Natura has been
published in any language since 1626.
By its nature, Equicola’s text is difficult to summarize. It pres-
ents so many conflicting ideas and authorities that it is often dif-
ficult to detect any authorial viewpoint. Though the De Natura is
bursting with Classical philosophy and is often included in lists of
sixteenth-century Neoplatonist treatises, there is a strong undercur-
rent of practicality throughout that is the antithesis of neoplatonic
idealism. Lorenzo Savino, who wrote on Equicola in the early twen-
tieth century, summed up Equicola’s approach to his subject by saying,
“For Equicola love is a natural fact, for which the best theory is to let
nature freely take its course.”2 Thus, although the De Natura d’amore
has tended to be classified as Neoplatonic, it is in fact remarkable for
its frequent stress on practical materialism.
Equicola draws on Aristotle at least as much as Plato, and his work
is also informed by Arabic medical thought and Jewish mysticism.3
Though there is no more avid Classicist, Equicola also devotes much
space to early modern vernacular poetic traditions, in Spanish, French,
and Provençal as well as Italian. Although Equicola frequently insists
on his orthodoxy and his desire to avoid controversy, his text touches
on some ideas that completely contradict the fashionable Platonic
idealism found in Castiglione and Bembo. At various points, Equicola
claims that all love is self-love, that touch is the most important of the
senses, and that pleasure is the ultimate good. All this is a long way
from the Symposium.
Equicola covers some of the same ground as Castiglione, but he
is much less idealistic about the realities of life at court: He suggests
that the function of the lover and the courtier are identical—both
are fundamentally servile and desire above all to attract the benevo-
lence of their superiors. This benevolence can be gained most effec-
tively by flattery and appeals to pity. Equicola is outspoken in his
distaste for homoerotic relations between men, but unlike most other
sixteenth-century writers on the subject, rather than stressing Biblical
injunctions against sodomy, he argues instead that the problem with
pederastic sexual relations is that they are fundamentally abusive: the
M a r i o E q u i c o l a’s D E N A T U R A D ’A M O R E 63
adult lover has too much power over the adolescent beloved. And
despite his strong reliance on Classical authority, Equicola also makes
one of the first attempts to establish a canon of modern vernacular
love poetry.
These controversial and at times strikingly modern notions suggest
that far from being arid, Equicola’s text is extraordinarily fertile. In the
mass of opinions and information that constitute Equicola’s volume it
is easy to miss the iconoclastic views that sometimes emerge. But, as
the publishing history of the volume reveals, readers were encouraged
to approach the text discontinuously, treating it as a reference work
rather than a sequential argument building from beginning to end.
Such an approach builds on Equicola’s notion that truth is multiple
and all its disparate pieces must be collected and gathered together,
despite their contradictions and apparent incoherence.
Mario Equicola: Courtier and Scholar

Mario Equicola (c. 1470–1525) was a scholar and courtier at the
court of Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua. Born in the Southern
Italian town of Alvito, Equicola seems to have had connections with
the town’s elite, though he was not himself a nobleman. His par-
entage is somewhat unclear.4 His birth name was Mario Caccialupi,
but as an adult he adopted the Latin name Equicola, which derives
from the “Equi,” a fierce ancient tribe who lived in the area of
Alvito.5 Equicola was educated in the house of the local nobleman
Pietro Giampaolo Cantelmo, and became Cantelmo’s secretary. The
Cantelmo family quarreled with the King of Naples and lived in exile
in Rome after 1487. The young Equicola thus spent several years in
Rome, participating in the Roman Academy of Pomponio Leto and
engaging with the intellectual life of the Papal court. Leto and his
Academia Romana had famously been charged with paganism, sod-
omy, and subversion by Pope Paul II in 1468.6 When the scandal
broke, Leto himself was imprisoned and tortured, but by the time
Equicola arrived in Rome he had long since been rehabilitated by
Pope Sixtus IV. Equicola was proud of his connection with Leto and
frequently wrote of his admiration for the older scholar.7 From Leto
he would have gained a deep knowledge of the literature and culture
of Roman antiquity, as well as an object lesson in the dangers of
sexual unorthodoxy and intellectual rebellion.
When the French invaded Naples in 1494, the Cantelmo family
enthusiastically supported the invaders in hopes of regaining their lost
territories. Equicola accompanied Pietro Giampaolo on the military
campaign, and personally commanded the Cantelmo’s fortress of

Sora against the Spanish after the French were driven out.8 The defeat
of the French led to the permanent loss of the Cantelmo family lands,
but Equicola remained loyal to the family, living mainly in Ferrara,
and working for Sigismondo, one of Pietro Giampaolo’s sons. He also
allied himself closely with Sigismondo’s wife, Margherita, the daugh-
ter of a rich Mantuan notary with connections to Isabella d’Este.
Equicola entered Isabella’s service as a tutor in 1508 and spent the
remaining years of his life at her court in Mantua, rising to the post of
secretary when Isabella’s son Federico Gonzago succeeded his father
as Marquis of Mantua in 1519. Equicola served as Isabella’s intellec-
tual and artistic advisor, and all indications are that he was a valued
confidant.9 He served as a trusted messenger between members of
Isabella’s family on many occasions. And although he never became
wealthy in Isabella’s service, he was honored at his death with a state
funeral.10
While many Renaissance humanists, like Equicola’s mentor Leto,
inhabited a predominantly masculine world of scholarly academies
or the Church, Equicola seems to have spent much of his time in the
service and company of women. He was one of the few male court-
iers granted access by Isabella to the closed female community of
her ladies in waiting, le donzelle. He accompanied the donzelle when
the court travelled, and many of their flirtatious letters to Isabella’s
son Federico are in Equicola’s handwriting, suggesting that one of
his courtly duties was that of a scribe.11 The fact that Equicola spent
so much of his career in the service of women may well have had an
influence on the choice of topic for his magnum opus; love and sexu-
ality were broadly thought of as belonging to the feminine sphere
in the sixteenth century. And although Equicola began work on the
Natura d’amore before entering Isabella’s employ, the published vol-
ume is prominently dedicated to her.
Equicola’s attitudes toward women in his life and writings are
worth examining in some detail because they point to larger issues of
authority, subordination, and rhetoric that underpin the contradic-
tions and convolutions of the De Natura. Equicola tended to take
the role of defender of women in the perennial intellectual debates
over women’s worth and status.12 In 1501 he wrote De Mulieribus
[On Women], a short tract in praise of women,13 commissioned by
his patron Margherita Cantelmo.14 In De Mulieribus Equicola argues
that men and women are intrinsically equal in worth and abilities.
Both sexes have the same divine origin and both go through the
same human physical processes: “They are born, they are raised,
they grow, they age, they die.”15 Equicola ascribes the obvious social
inequality between men and women not to any essential weakness in
women, but to social structures that enforce women’s subordination
to men. His attitude to this injustice is instructive. While he does
not endorse the situation, neither does he offer any solution or sug-
gest that any change is possible. As we shall see in key passages of the
De Natura, this technique of quiet, well-reasoned, practical criticism
that stops short of endorsing any alteration in the status quo is typical
of Equicola.
Refreshing as Equicola’s commonsense egalitarianism may be to
modern readers, one should not necessarily conclude that his defense
of women in De Mulieribus constitutes his own strong opinion on
the subject. Lacking aristocratic birth and influential family connec-
tions, Equicola was deeply invested in his identity as a courtier—a
highly skilled and sophisticated servant. His many surviving letters
provide a detailed record of his service first to the Cantelmos, then
to Isabella d’Este and the Gonzaga family.16 His scholarly work was
frequently devoted to the praise of his patrons: his history of Mantua,
the Chronica di Mantua (1521), is a fulsome praise of the ruling
Gonzagas. He also wrote a genealogy of Isabella’s family, the d’Este;
a historical work praising their rule in Ferrara; and a Latin account
celebrating Isabella’s pilgrimage to Provence in 1517.17 Working for
female patrons, Equicola was bound to praise femininity.
In the manuscript draft of the fifth book of De Natura d’amore
Equicola matter-of-factly endorses the need for courtiers to flatter
their superiors, especially in public:
When making oneself beloved it is a great pleasure to know how to

accommodate oneself to the enthusiasms, the actions, and the expe-
riences of those whom we desire to love us, praising in them what
is worthy of praise, pressuring them to turn what is blameworthy to
virtue; praising them in public, admonishing them in secret, we have
good hope that they will attain excellence, which is their most urgent
desire, and will make them benevolent to us.18
There is a hint here of the notion debated in Book IV of the Courtier

that a courtier should be an ethical authority, instructing the Prince
on what is right and wrong. But what comes through most strongly
in Equicola is the principle that it is quite acceptable to say different
things in different circumstances. Truth is a relative quality, sometimes
useful, sometimes not. Above all else, Equicola values expediency.
What is crucial is to have the ruler’s support (Equicola’s term here and
elsewhere is “benevolence”). More explicitly even than Castiglione,

Equicola defines the courtier as a lover—someone whose primary
goal is to attain the good favor and affection of those around them,
especially that of their master. Without that, nothing is possible. The
practical value of love has seldom been so clearly stated.
For most of Equicola’s career, it was the benevolence of women
that he needed and sought. His attachment to Sigismondo Cantelmo
was a dead end, which he escaped by working for Sigismondo’s wife
Margherita and then using his connections with Margherita to enter
the service of Isabella. It is no coincidence that De Mulieribus devotes
considerable space to praise three women in particular: Margherita
Cantelmo (Equicola’s current patron), her kinswoman Cornelia
Cantelmo, and Isabella d’Este (Equicola’s future patron).
In the De Natura, Equicola’s attitude toward women is more
ambiguous. For example, he attacks Jean de Meun for his misogyny in
Le Roman de la rose,19 but in a later passage paraphrasing Ovid’s Ars
Amatoria Equicola encourages men to rape the women they desire if
other methods of seduction are not successful, saying “such violence
and force is welcome to [women]”—a passage highlighted approv-
ingly by editors in later editions with a printed marginal gloss. 20
In Book 6 of the De Natura Equicola praises women, saying,
I believe God made women not otherwise than men, and not of another
nature than men. It is written that women are docile, and have much
better memories than men, and that they are good advisors. They are
rational, they have an immortal soul, they are capable of blessedness.
But he also reminds his readers that some authorities, including

Aristotle have said the opposite:
Women . . . are envious, they love fighting, their counsel is worthless

because they are inconstant and unstable, and they are incapable of
ruling cities.
Of course, Equicola continues, Aristotle does also say women should

manage households, and Plato says they should have the same educa-
tion as men. . . . After presenting these conflicting views, Equicola says
he has praised women enough, and anyone who wants to read more
can consult his earlier book De Mulieribus.21 This passage provides a
characteristic example of Equicola’s rhetorical methods. He presents
one view, then another, and ends the discussion without providing
any resolution. The advantages to such a strategy are clear; he can
present unorthodox or even outrageous views without being held to

them. It is left up to the reader to decide what to make of it all.
Presumably Isabella d’Este would have disagreed with Aristotle’s con-
tention that women are incapable of ruling cities.
D E N ATUR A D’A MORE

Equicola claims to have begun work on the Libro de natura de amore
during the wars of 1495–1496.22 He suggests that the work was orig-
inally composed in Latin, but no copy of such a text exists, and some
scholars now believe it more likely that the Latin version consisted
of notes rather than a complete text.23 An autograph manuscript in
Italian exists, which can be dated to 1509–1511, Equicola’s first years
in Mantua with Isabella d’Este. The Natura de amore was substan-
tially revised prior to its publication in 1525, shortly before Equicola’s
death.24 It was first printed in quarto in Venice in 1525 by Lorio da
Portes, and it went through 14 Italian editions between 1525 and
1626.25 Beginning in the 1550s, editors translated his difficult prose
into readable Tuscan, and provided the labyrinthine volume with a
detailed index. These innovations made the text more accessible, both
as a reference work and as a collection of curiosities. It was translated
into French by Gabriel Chappuys in 1584 and this edition was repub-
lished in 1589 and 1597.26
Obviously popular in the sixteenth century, Equicola’s volume fell
out of fashion in subsequent periods. In 1615 it was mocked by the
satirist Trajano Boccalini in his Ragguagli di Parnasso [News from
Parnassus]: When Equicola begs Apollo for immorality, the god
replies,
Friend Mario, if you’ve brought nothing with you but that little volume
there that you wrote on the nature of love, I absolutely have to tell you
that you’ve sweated in vain. You’ve labored to show the world the very
nature of love that everyone knows already. . . . I assure you that if had
you spent your time usefully, writing on the nature of hatred instead,
you would have earned one of the principal places in my Senate. 27
Writing a few years earlier, Montaigne also dismissed Equicola (along

with Bembo, Ficino, and Leone Ebreo), saying that his page boy
knows quite well how to woo his sweetheart without consulting a
scholarly tome.28
After the early seventeenth century, Equicola’s “little volume”
really was dismissed—by satirists, scholars, courtiers, page boys, and
sweethearts alike. While sections of the work were edited and pub-
lished in Italian in the 1980s,29 the last complete publication of the
Natura de amore was in 1626 and no modern edition of the complete
text exists. An edition by Laura Ricci of the autograph manuscript of
1509–1511 was published in 1999.30 The Natura de amore has never
been translated into English.
Equicola’s opus is divided into six books: each dealing with a dif-
ferent aspect of love:
(Book 1) A discussion of modern writers on love.

(Book 2) Philosophical and mythological theories of love.
(Book 3) Theological notions of love.
(Book 4) Physiological aspects of love.
(Book 5) How to provoke love and affection in others.
(Book 6) The ends and purposes of love.
Describing the book in this way makes it seem more coherent than it
is: The Books do not actually have titles, and these descriptive head-
ings merely represent my own best summary of the disparate materi-
als contained in each. The volume is encyclopedic in scope, but not
in organization. Authorities are referred to, but there is seldom any
context: Plato says one thing; Ovid says another; Avicenna offers a
third opinion; and Equicola makes little attempt to synthesize or even
relate ideas to each other. Consequently, the text is thoroughly contra-
dictory and repetitive. In the sixth book, for example, in a discussion
on the value of temperance, Equicola uses Alexander the Great as a
negative example: “He would not have erupted in such outrageous
murders of friends if wine had not taken his prudence from him.”31
On the very next page, listing paragons of temperance, Equicola
includes Alexander here too:
Alexander the Great has been praised for giving his beloved Campaspe
to the famous Apelles.32 Oh Alexander, such a great spirit in feats of
war, but greater still for having the wisdom to be able to command
himself.33
Such blatant contradictions are typical of the text, and it is no exag-

geration to say that any statement made in the volume is very probably
contradicted somewhere else.
Within each book, there is little clear organization, no clear point
of view, and few conclusions. Ideas and citations flow into each
other; topics can change with dizzying speed, and at other points
the argument dissolves into seemingly endless lists of examples, all

endorsing the same point. And there is no real connection between
the books. Theological discussions of love in Book 3 are nowhere
related to the physiological ones of Book 4. Philosophical theories of
love in Book 2 are not linked to the social practices and techniques
for making oneself beloved outlined in Book 5. What modern writers
say about love in Book 1 has no clear relation to what ancient authori-
ties say in the other Books or to Equicola’s second discussion of early
modern poetry in Book 5.
One might be tempted to think Equicola is simply being careless,
or disingenuous, or even foolish. But the metaphor he uses to describe
his text says much about his methodology, or rather, the lack of it.
Therefore, friends and readers, since I have wearied myself to put forth
choice foods for you . . . know that those I have prepared were found
and diligently gathered in the fields of philosophy and theology, and
that they have been variously garnished by my tentative investigations
in the meadows of oratory and the groves of poetry. So I hope such a
garden will not be without pleasure. . . . But . . . I thought it best to put
forth first the opinions of some writers on Love who have appeared
before the public, and to let you taste the extracted juice of their
works, not as we read the oration of Lysis in Plato, in order to see all
its errors, nor as in Aristotle we encounter many opinions simply to
refute them, but so that no one will be deprived of their due praise,
and in accordance with my own nature, which has always been far
from ill-will and envy.34
The book is not an encyclopedia, but a salad—a collection of lovely

leaves gathered here and there. Contradictions are not to be resolved,
but savored. Refutation is a sign of bad manners. It is not surpris-
ing that the Natura de amore has no thesis: a garden is not an
argument.
Take, for example, the brief chapter in Book 2, entitled “The
Division of Love” (sig. I6v–I8v). Anyone turning to this chapter to
find a well-reasoned account of Equicola’s division of love into differ-
ent categories would be disappointed. Instead, after a brief peroration
in praise of clarity, we have accounts of all the various conflicting
ways that love has been categorized by different writers and thinkers:
Scholars at the University of Paris say love is either sensual, rational,
or somewhere in between. Others (Equicola does not specify who)
say there are five kinds of love, corresponding to the five senses.
Platonists say there are two kinds of love, one a love for divine beauty,
the other tending to the generation of children. Another school
divides love in three: sexual love, love of visual beauty, and love of
beautiful sounds. And so on. Equicola makes no effort to reconcile
these different systems or even to relate them to each other. At the
chapter’s conclusion, he endorses a division he ascribes to Pythagoras:
love is either heavenly or human. He gives no reason for this choice,
except to suggest it is simplest (“brevissima”). Heavenly love consists
of the love of God and the Angels for mankind and for each other. All
other love is human. Human love, is then divided into natural (love of
God, self-love, love of parents for children) and accidental. Accidental
love is honorable (love of virtue, love of good works, and love that is
proper) or dishonorable (love of sensual pleasure). These divisions are
not justified in any way or explained at any length. And they are not
followed in any systematic way throughout the rest of the volume.
Indeed, at points, Equicola praises the senses and says that all love
has pleasure as its object, directly contradicting the idea here that all
sensual love is dishonorable.
Of course, Equicola does at times have opinions. And there are
some ideas he disapproves of. But such disagreements, he says, are an
inevitable condition of the search for truth.
If by chance in these aforementioned modern authors some opin-

ions may be different than those that are to be found in my book, let
no one think I differ from them out of a desire to confute them, or
because I want to blame them for anything, but only because I want to
say what to me seems closest to the truth. For no one has ever been so
fortunate that he did not have many who dissented from his opinions
or who found no one to speak against him. This is why philosophical
sects, medical authorities, and historians contradict each other, and
even theologians do not agree on some points. And this comes from
nothing (I believe) but the overarching love that draws us to the truth,
for everyone hopes to find the truth.35
The approach to truth here is not dialectic—truth does not come

from having a thesis that is refuted by an antithesis, leading to a new
synthesis. For Equicola, truth is partial and relative. Contradiction
is natural and unavoidable. Everyone wants truth and each person
will find different pieces of it. So everyone should have their say. The
unspoken implication is that if a unified Truth exists, only God could
perceive it.
This is a profoundly unscientific attitude to truth, but it has a
distinguished intellectual pedigree nonetheless. John Milton later
articulated a similar view in Areopagitica (1644), where he imagines
humanity’s search for knowledge as the gathering of limbs of a dis-

membered body:
Then strait arose a wicked race of deceivers, who as that story goes of
the Ægyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the
good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewd her lovely form into a thou-
sand peeces, and scatter’d them to the four winds. From that time ever
since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the care-
full search that Isis made for the mangl’d body of Osiris, went up and
down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have
not yet found them all, . . . nor ever shall doe, till her Masters second
comming; he shall bring together every joynt and member, and shall
mould them into an immortall feature of lovelines and perfection.36
In the meantime, the important thing is to gather together as much

knowledge as possible—and Equicola is very knowledgeable.
In the epistle to Isabella d’Este that opens the text, Equicola states
that his models for the De Natura de amore are Cicero’s De Natura
Deorum [On the Nature of the Gods], Aristotle’s writings on animals,
and Pliny’s Natural History (A2r). Besides the fact that it has the
word “Natura” in the title, Equicola’s work has almost nothing in
common stylistically with Cicero’s urbane dialogue. Aristotle’s writ-
ings on animals are also a bit of a stretch. But Pliny’s Natural History
is a more telling model of what Equicola was aiming at. The 37 books
of the Natural History provide an astonishing compendium of knowl-
edge, opinion, and belief concerning all natural phenomena: animal,
vegetable, and mineral. Like Equicola, Pliny is concerned more with
recording and collecting information than with developing any sort
of coherent theory or philosophy that would explain the phenomena
he describes. And again, though it has often been called encyclopedic,
the Natural History is nothing like a modern, post-enlightenment
encyclopedia. Though it does have some overall organization, it is
frequently digressive, messy, and unstructured. The same is true of
De Natura d’amore; as his biographer Stephen Kolsky aptly noted,
Equicola “was more concerned about the extent of knowledge than
its quality.”37
D E N ATUR A , Book 1: A Modern Canon of Love

The first Book, in some ways the most innovative of the six, dis-
cusses the works and achievements of various “modern” writers on
love from Guittone d’Arrezzo in the thirteenth century to Equicola’s
contemporary Calandra. Like everything else in the volume, the list

of authors discussed is eclectic and heterogeneous:
M Guittone d’Arezzo (1235–1294). An influential Tuscan writer of

sonnets.
M Guido Cavalcanti (1250?–1300). Author of many love poems,
including the philosophical and often analyzed Donna me prega.
M Dante (1265–1321). Important in this context as author of La Vita
Nuova, as well as the Commedia.
M Petrarch (1304–1374). Praised by Equicola as the greatest of Italian
poets.
M Francesco Barberino (1264–1348). Author of the Documenti d’amore,
a collection of love poetry and theory in Italian and Latin.
M Jean de Meun (c. 1240–c. 1305). Continued and completed
Guillaume de Lorris’s Roman de la Rose. Equicola attacks his often
negative views of women.
M Boccaccio (1313–1375). Cited for his narrative love poems, Il
Filocolo and La Fiammetta, his attack on love in Il Corbaccio, and
also his account of the birth of Love in the Genealogy of the Gods.
M Ficino (1433–1499). Praised for the De Amore, his commentary on
Plato’s Symposium. Equicola sees him primarily as a translator.
M Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494). Praised by Equicola
for supposedly reconciling Plato and Aristotle.
M Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola (1470–1533). Nephew
of the more famous Pico, cited for his writings on love and on his
work on humoral theory.
M Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (1466–1522). A disciple of Ficino’s,
he wrote Latin treatises on Love and Beauty, and translated Ficino’s
De Amore into Italian.
M Battista da Campo Fregoso (1452–1504). Author of a 1496 dialogue
attacking love, entitled Anteros.
M Battista degli Alberti. An obscure Florentine, author of two works
on love.
M Platina (1421–1481). Papal librarian and historian, author of Contra
Amores.
M Pietro Edo di Fortuna. The most obscure figure on the list, a con-
temporary of Equicola and author of three books critical of love
entitled Anterici. Equicola says he hesitated to include him because
his works may not stand the test of time.
M Pietro Bembo (1470–1547). Author of the Asolani. Equicola
defends him against his detractors.
M Battista Carmelita. A Mantuan poet and friend of Equicola.
M Giovanni Giacomo Calandra (1488–1543). Another Mantuan

friend of Equicola, author of Aura soave, a text on love, written in
1507–1511 and dedicated to Isabella d’Este, but no longer extant.
The list mixes lyric and narrative poets with philosophers, and
major cultural figures like Petrarch and Bembo with friends of the
author, like the little-known Battista Carmelita. But it is remarkable
on several accounts: While most early modern treatises on love begin
implicitly or explicitly with Plato, this is a list comprised entirely of
modern writers—no classical authorities. As such, it is one of the ear-
liest attempts to define a canon of postclassical authorities on love.
The list is ecumenical in regard to the type of love being writ-
ten about. Some of the authors, like Ficino and Bembo, write out
of a classical, Neoplatonic tradition; others, like Jean de Meun, are
working with medieval concepts of courtly love. Some praise love,
others attack it. In no way is the list exhaustive. It does not list all the
important poets or philosophers in any of the traditions under con-
sideration. There is no mention here of the renowned Provençal poet
Arnaut Daniel, for example, praised by Dante as “il miglior fabbro,”38
and called “gran maestro d’amor” by Petrarch in the Triumph of Love
(4.41). Nor is it a list of the authors Equicola will refer to most fre-
quently in his own study.39 Indeed, Equicola claims his own theories
are entirely supported with references to classical authorities, not
modern writers (sig. A4r). Although Equicola insists he will exclude
from his consideration authors who merely wallow in their own emo-
tions rather than exploring the nature of love (sig. A4r), he neither
provides a justification of his methodology in compiling the list nor
a summary of what the list might or might not be intended to mean.
He attacks Petrarchism but praises Petrarch.
To refer to the names as a “list” is misleading in itself, if it sug-
gests that each of these figures is dealt with similarly, in the mode of
a modern encyclopedia entry. There is no uniformity whatever to the
discussions of the various authors. The chapter on Guittone d’Arezzo,
for example, says almost nothing about Guittone himself, but instead
gives an allegorical reading of the figure of Cupid (this does not stop
Equicola from devoting an entire chapter to Cupid in Book 2 that
makes no reference to the discussion here). The chapter on Bembo
provides a lengthy account of various literary rivalries and jealousies
to preface the remark that Bembo has been criticized for writing in
Tuscan rather than his native dialect (sig. C6v–C7v). The entry on the
renowned Cavalcanti is barely a page and a half long; the entry on the
relatively obscure Battista Carmelita is twice that length.
Equicola’s ostensible reason for beginning his treatise with this

survey of modern writers is so that he will not be accused of stealing
ideas from his predecessors, a practice he somewhat melodramatically
equates with grave robbing (sig. A3r). This might look like a mark-
edly modern concern with originality, but given the derivative nature
of Equicola’s treatise, it is more likely that his real concern is with
proper attribution of sources. If you are gathering truth from all over
the place it is important to record where you found each bit. At the
end of the book, Equicola compares his survey of previous authors to
a flotation bladder that an inexperienced swimmer uses to help stay
above water (sig. E7r). The real work, he says, is still to come.
D E N ATUR A , Books 2 and 3: All Love

is Self-Love
In the second and third books Equicola surveys an enormous range
of Classical and Christian ideas about love. And while he comes to
no consensus or synthesis on any of the many matters he discusses,
he does raise one surprising idea with some regularity: that all love
is based on self-love. While this theory may have some merit, it is
endorsed neither by Plato, nor Aristotle, nor by orthodox Christian
theology. In the context of the early sixteenth century, it is thus a
fairly radical notion, and one that has obvious parallels in the thought
of contemporary writers such as Castiglione and Machiavelli, though
Equicola makes no reference to either.
Equicola’s second Book deals with philosophical theories of love,
derived mainly from Plato, and incorporates traditional notions about
psychology, physiology, and aesthetics from Aristotle and other
Classical authorities. After a brief introduction there are chapters on
the origin of the affects, on the etymology of the word “love,” on
Venus, on Cupid, on the division of love into physical and spiritual,
on the definition of love, on desire, and on beauty. In the early pages
of Book 2, following Plato, Equicola defines love as “desire for the
good, which one wants to possess forever.”40 Later, however, in the
section on the definition of love, he introduces a torrent of conflicting
authorities: according to Dionysus love is a “unifying force”; accord-
ing to theologians it is “the desire for copulation between the lover
and beloved”; Augustine says it is “an attraction of a thing for itself”
(that is, self-love); and Plato says it is a desire for beauty—not for
the good, as Equicola said earlier (sig. K1r). Aristophanes, Avicenna,
Plutrarch, Horace, Ovid and Cicero are all trotted out to give their
differing views. Physicians, logicians, orators, and poets all have their
own definitions as well. Some say love is a disease, but how can that be
since diseases are against nature and it has been established on good
authority that love is a natural phenomenon? There is difference of
opinion over which organ in the body is the seat of love: heart, brain,
liver, spleen, or genitals. Given the dizzying number of contradictory
ideas, it is not surprising that Equicola ends by comparing himself to
a lost sailor whose ship is far from the sight of land, “desiring solid
ground, weighing the dangers, cursing the first inventor of boats,”
and saying, “Thus I will voluntarily withdraw from my definition of
love, and if I have not been able to bring her into port, it is enough
to have brought her up on the beach” (sig. K3r). There are not many
moments when Equicola shows signs of ironic self-awareness, but this
seems to be one of them.
Whatever love may be or not be, Equicola asserts that it is universal:
everyone desires something. Immediately after identifying love as the
Platonic “desire for the good, which one wants to possess forever,”
Equicola turns the definition on his head by specifying that there are,
in fact, innumerable desires for innumerable “good” things: “Desire
is multiple, a body with many heads, and changes its name accord-
ing to its object. Concerning food and wine it is called gluttony and
drunkeness.”41 Equicola’s willingness to equate love with any sort of
physical desire—even the desire for intoxication—constitutes a fun-
damental rejection of the Platonic formula he has just asserted. Is this
rejection deliberate? It is hard to think otherwise, but Equicola never
admits the contradiction exists.
Toward the end of his discussion of affect, Equicola concludes that
all love can be reduced to self-love: “if we do not wish to dissimulate
and quibble, we will confess that for the most part we love others
because of the love and benevolence we have for ourselves.”42 This is
a claim that comes up again and again throughout the De Natura—
that “self-love is the father, progenitor, author and creator not only of
every desire, but of every motion and action.”43
In typical fashion, Equicola begins his treatment of this idea not
by praising self-love, but by condemning it. He sees self-love as the
root cause of idolatry: ancient societies worshipped animals and forces
of nature because they were perceived as useful to self-preservation,
“Nothing so encouraged the worship of false gods and the rejection
of true religion than blind self-love”44 But if self-love is the cause of
idolatry, it also the source of civilization. Self-love encourages com-
munity, Equicola asserts, because living in a society makes life easier
and more secure. We make friendships for the same reason—for self-
preservation. Thus paradoxically, he argues, it is our love of ourselves
that is at the root of our attachment to others. Even the love of parents
for children, Equicola suggests, is based primarily on self-interest
(sig. G1v). So is patriotism, which comes from a desire to gain honor
by advancing one’s nation—and thus oneself. Equicola’s argument
culminates with the claim (which he attributes to Saint Augustine)
that the greatest evidence of self-love is religious martyrdom, because
those who choose to die for their faith are actively seeking their own
salvation, and what greater love of self could there be than that? “He
who loves himself,” Equicola states, “is a lover of God.”45 Augustinian
or not,46 this idea once again sets Platonism on its head: for Diotima in
the Symposium the true lover loves only spiritual Truth and Beauty—
all other affection is subordinate to that spiritual joy. For Equicola, we
love primarily ourselves, and if we love God it is because we are wise
enough to desire our own salvation above transient physical pleasures.
In this view, love is fundamentally pragmatic rather than idealist.
Equicola’s chapters on Venus and Cupid are compendia of con-
flicting information—mythological stories, astrological significances,
catalogues of attributes. The style, as always, is magnificently digres-
sive: a discussion of the astrological sign Libra, for example, shifts
effortlessly into a survey of conflicting explanations for why Syrians
are said not to eat fish (sig. H4r). Even Equicola may have sensed he
went too far: after concluding the chapter on Cupid, he writes,
If anyone wants to say that the preceding passages were disordered,

I will not disagree. You will not find anyone who discusses Venus and
Cupid who writes in an orderly fashion, without confusion.47
The confusions continue, however, in the chapter dealing with desire.

Equicola begins by drawing a distinction between love and desire
that is also found in Judah Abrabanel:48 “Desire is for things we do
not have; love is for things we possess.”49 But almost immediately
Equicola contradicts this distinction, saying,
The object of desire is the good, and as we find diverse kinds of goods,
so too there are diverse kinds of desire. Love is a kind of desire, for that
good that we call beauty.50
Love has now become not a separate category from desire, but a sub-
set of it—and a very limited one. How love as a desire for beauty
relates to the notion that all love is love of oneself is left unclear.
Equicola ends his second book with a section defining beauty, but
this does nothing to resolve the question.
The third Book, on theological notions of love, opens with a praise

of love, then discusses the love of God, of the angels, the love of man-
kind for God, and the love of human beings for each other, including a
discussion of friendship. Again and again, even in this more explicitly
Christian context, Equicola returns to the idea that all love is really
self-love.
The praise of love that opens Book Three sees love as a cosmic
force of attraction that sustains and animates the universe, an idea
that has its roots in Hesiod’s Theogony.51 But although Equicola cites
Aristotle’s contention that love is the prime mover of the universe
(sig. L3v-L4r), his conception is more sexual and material than spiri-
tual and abstract. He proceeds to relate a theory that comes from
the Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana’s conversations with the
Indian sage Iarchus as recounted in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by
Philostratus (3.34).
When Iarchus said to Apollonius that the world was an animal,

[Apollonius] asked if it were male or female. [Iarchus] answered that is
was both male and female, and that, copulating with itself it generated
and maintained all things, loving itself much more fruitfully than a
man who lives with a woman.52
Life on earth thus exists because of the world’s self-love—a self-love

that is here explicitly sexual, leading to generation.
Equicola goes on to assert at length that the classical virtues—
Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, and Prudence—can all be reduced to
love, a notion that can be traced back to St. Augustine (sig. L5r–L5v).53
And Love is Good—to those that say love is destructive and effemi-
nizing, Equicola replies that any good thing can be put to a bad use
(sig. L5v–L6r). The pleasure of love is only mixed with pain because
satisfaction is more pleasing if it follows effort and delay (sig. L7v).
Equicola next turns to the love of God. Because of his innate per-
fection, God must be unchanging—any stories of God getting angry
with people and then changing his mind can only be understood
as metaphors to make God’s thought comprehensible to humans
(sig. M5r). And God’s perfection must include love: “We must under-
stand that love is in the nature of God.”54 Plato and Christian and
Jewish theologians all agree that love caused God to create the uni-
verse (sig. M5r). How these ideas about divine love relate to the
notion that all human love is self-love is again left unclear. Is God’s
love for humanity also a form of self-love? Equicola does not go so
far, though Aristotle did speculate that the only thing that a perfect
being could think about would be itself.55 Equicola argues that while
God loves all creation, he loves humans most of all, even above the
angels (sig. M6r). Equicola’s discussion of angelic love deals primar-
ily with the notion that God assigns a guardian angel to each human
soul to aid and protect them—a very loving thing to do.
The section on humanity’s love for God begins with a praise of
ethics, “the mother of every good action,”56 and then proceeds to yet
another discussion of the four Classical virtues: Fortitude, Prudence,
Temperance, and Justice; Equicola argues that Justice is the greatest
and most necessary of the four. But eventually, he returns again to the
idea of self-love, which he presents as fundamental to a love for God
and to faith itself:
Man loves himself first, for his own well-being. Through faith, he
then comes to love God, not because God is God, but out of his own
self-interest. Afterwards, through reading, meditation, prayer, and
contemplation, he loves God and, through God, loves himself.57
The love of humanity for God subsumes all forms of human love:
God is loved as a friend, a father, even as a wife,
We love God as a man loves his life, having our being from him: and
not only our being, but our well-being. We love him like a friend,
never having ever had a better friend because he gave his life for us,
and that is the greatest charity. We love him like a father because he is
our progenitor; we love him like a wife.58
Christ’s relation the Church is often seen as analogous to a husband’s

relation to a wife, but Equicola here turns the tables, saying that the
believer loves God like a husband loves a wife (as well as loving Him
like a child loves a father). In his Dialoghi d’amore, Judah Abrabanel
conceived the union of humanity with God in sexual terms: “union
and copulation with the highest God.”59 In suggesting that men love
God “like a wife,” Equicola briefly suggests such a possibility, but
does not dwell on it.
Shifting to the love that exists between people, Equicola cites
Christ’s saying in Matthew 22:34–40 that the two highest com-
mandments are to love God and to love one’s neighbor. Equicola
argues these two commandments are, in fact, inseparable:
Someone who does not love God cannot know how to love their neigh-
bor: and someone who does not love his neighbor, whom he sees, how
can he love God, whom he does not see?60
But Equicola (unlike Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel) also insists that

there is a hierarchy of love: We must love those above us more, and
those beneath us less:
Jesus did not command inordinate charity. We will observe his man-
date if first we love more than all other things that which is above us,
then that which we are ourselves, that which is close to us, then that
which is beneath us.61
This insistence on hierarchy fits well with Equicola’s doctrine of the

importance of self-love—why spend energy loving those who cannot
advance us? Far better to love our social, spiritual, and intellectual
superiors. Why they should love us in return is another question, one
Equicola will address when he discusses how to provoke love in others
in Book 5.
Summing up the role of love in human relations, Equicola once
again praises self-love above all other forms of affection:
Some say that there are four kinds of love: the love of husband and
wife; of parents and children; of the lover and beloved; and the
fourth, greater than all others, that of the body and the soul, that
is, love of oneself. We love our parents because they are our authors;
we love our brothers because they are almost like other versions of
ourselves; our children, because they are part of us; many times we
love friends as much as brothers because we cannot do everything for
ourselves. In a particular affair one person will be more useful than
another.62
The theme of self-interest continues even in the praise of friendship

that closes the third Book. Friendship, especially friendship between
aristocratic men, was highly praised in the sixteenth century, and
always on the grounds that it was one of the few places for true equal-
ity in a social world defined by hierarchies.63 Equicola pays appropriate
lip service to this idea, but surprisingly entertains the notion that
friendship is often based on dissimilarity rather than similarity, on
need rather than equality.
Equality, conformity of will, and honest customs are the solid basis
of friendship, although every friendship has its true origin and is sus-
tained not by similarity, but by contraries. We see the poor man friends
with the rich one, the sick man with the doctor, the ignorant man with
the wise man. Euripedes affirms that the dry earth loves the humid,
cold loves heat, sour loves sweet, and emptyness loves fullness.64
This unorthodox idea does not stand for long before Equicola con-
tradicts it yet again, pointing out that true friendship must be based
on virtue and similarity—though, following Aristotle, he also sug-
gests that such virtuous relationships are so rare as to be nonexistent
(sig. O6v). Of course, friendships based on contraries (the patient
befriends the doctor) are simply utilitarian (the patient wants to be
cured). But Equicola has already implied that all relationships are util-
itarian since they are all based on self-love. We choose the friends we
need to advance ourselves in some way. We love others because they
remind us of ourselves. We love God because we love ourselves and
He will save us. Self-interest will trump virtue every time. Machiavelli
would agree.
D E N ATUR A , Book 4: Physical Love—

Pederastic Tyranny and the Sense of Touch
The fourth Book of Equicola’s De Natura d’amore deals with physiol-
ogy and the medical aspects of love. It opens with a praise of nature—
which leads to a digression on homoeroticism—and then moves to a
discussion of the five senses. Equicola goes on to explore the physi-
ological reasons why a particular lover might find one person more
attractive than another, then lists the physical signs or symptoms of
lovesickness. After a discussion of the physical power of love, the text
moves on to deal with jealousy, and ends with an analysis of the com-
mon symptoms of lovesickness: sighing, pallor, tears, and insomnia.
Although it is often difficult to ascertain Equicola’s own views on
any subject beneath the text’s thick layers of citation and authority,
in the fourth book in particular one can find places where he chal-
lenges conventional discourses in surprising ways. He is particularly
unorthodox both in his treatment of homoeroticism and in his praise
of the sense of touch. In both cases, he rejects abstract and idealiz-
ing theory in favor of pragmatic and practical analysis. And in both
cases, as with his praise of self-love in Books 2 and 3, he downplays
the radical implications of his opinions. Although it is difficult to say
what effect Equicola’s arguments had on larger discourses around
love and eroticism, these passages demonstrate that Platonic doctrine
did not go unquestioned in sixteenth-century intellectual discourse.
They certainly offered readers of the De Natura new ways of thinking
about fundamental issues.
Equicola opens Book 4 by praising nature for exquisitely mixing the
elements into male and female so that, coming together, they can gen-
erate life. He claims that because the desire for procreation is natural,
sex between men and women must be fundamentally good. All of this
discussion draws on the notion from Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius
of Tyana that the world is a hermaphroditic animal that sexually gen-
erates life, which Equicola previously quoted in Book 3, though in
typical fashion he does not draw attention to the connection.
In the course of this discussion, Equicola defines “natural” as “that
which pleases nature”—in other words, the natural is that which is
pleasurable (though not excessively so). This is a definition he refers
to again at various other points—for example, in Book 5 he claims
that love is natural, whereas hate is unnatural.65 If pleasure is natural,
then pain is a sign that something unnatural is occurring. Nature is
thus defined not as the processes of the material world, untouched
by human technology, but as something very close to “health.” If
we take “natural” as meaning “pleasurable,” or “healthy,” Equicola’s
next contention makes more sense. He argues that sexual attraction
should always be for someone who reciprocates the affection—for
there is no suffering worse than unrequited love. And love cannot be
compelled by force.
This observation leads Equicola, quite precipitously, into his only
extended discussion of homoeroticism. Given his concern to appear
orthodox and uncontroversial, it is not surprising that Equicola is
outspoken in his condemnation of homosexual relations. But though
Equicola duly indicts homoeroticism as aberrant and forbidden by
God, his primary criticism is that homoerotic relationships are unnat-
ural because they are not reciprocal. Equicola never imagines mutual
and pleasurable consensual sex between men or between women; he
assumes that all homoerotic relations consist of a pederastic relation
between an adult and a youth, a model that would have been familiar
to him from Classical writing as well as contemporary Italian practice.66
He then argues that homoeroticism is unacceptable because it con-
stitutes a exploitative relation in which the younger partner is bound
to resent the older one: “Let us eradicate sex with boys, where the
passive person loathes the active one” (33).67 In Equicola’s view, ped-
erastic relationships—whether involving citizen youths, slaves, or
servants—constitute what we would now call child abuse. It is telling
that in Book 6, when discussing cruel pleasures, Equicola equates
“masculine Venus” with eating one’s children.68
In Book 4, he makes an explicit analogy between pederasts and
tyrants:
We see that the masculine Venus is a selfish act, a shame which makes
a man a woman; and it is clear that this love that lovers intemperately
bear towards young men is tyrannical. For, while a king rules accord-
ing to the law, a tyrant rules against the law, for his own benefit, not
the public good.69
Equicola quotes a saying from Plutarch’s Life of Solon: The law is like
a spiderweb—it catches the weak and does not disturb the mighty.70
Just as the powerful often disregard human laws, so too may they
ignore the laws of nature. This freedom, Equicola says, leads to “the
unnatural love of boys and concubines.”
In early modern discourse it is usually the passive partner in anal
sex who is seen as more shameful, for his body has been penetrated,
and this penetration was thought to transform him from a man to
a woman. But Equicola places greater blame on the active partner,
who is acting selfishly and cruelly, taking his own pleasure and not
caring what pain he causes: He expands on the point by drawing on
Socrates’s critique of pederastic relationships from Plato’s Phaedrus,
“A lover is not pleased if his beloved boy is equal or superior to him.”

It pleases him if he is ignorant, timid, and slow-witted. And if he is not
naturally so, he will make him so, doing anything that is necessary,
because otherwise he will be deprived of the pleasure he desires. He
ensures, finally, that he is completely passive and that he only admires
him. He wants him to be “physically weak, ennervated, and delicate,
brought up indoors rather than in the sun, unfamiliar with danger,
effort and sweat.” He brings him up with feminine foods, scents,
and ornaments. Besides, he desires that [the youth] be deprived of
any friends or relatives he can trust, knowing that they would be an
impediment. Similarly, he wants him to be poor, so that he may more
easily be kept. . . . Gentle spirit, if you ever read this, flee this tyrannic
love that shows no sign of pity.71
Equicola thus sees homoeroticism almost entirely in terms of abuse

of power, status, wealth, and prestige. Though he tends to think of
homoeroticism in terms of relations between males, he sees even les-
bian relations in terms of an older more powerful partner abusing the
younger one: “It is a monstrous thing,” he says, “that worthy and
distinguished matrons [in ancient Sparta] loved virgins” (34).
Male homoerotic relations, usually between a more powerful older
man and a subordinate younger one, were quite common in Italy in
Equicola’s time, especially in the largely male worlds of the academies
and the Church.72 We have no real information on Equicola’s own
sexual practices. He was obviously drawn to the company and service
of women, but he never married and had no children. Nor is there
any indication that he had any long-term relations with courtesans.

He held no clerical office that would have required a vow of chastity.
He claims at the opening of the De Natura to have suffered from
love in his youth, but this is a conventional claim, and no details are
provided. We thus have no way of knowing if Equicola’s critique of
the power dynamics in homoerotic relationships is based on personal
experience.
True to form, Equicola gives a lengthy catalog of literary and his-
torical sodomites: the Spartans, the Thebans, Sappho, Euryalus in the
Aeneid, Pindar, Roscius the actor, Alcibiades—the list goes on. In a
passage of particular sarcasm he defiantly includes Socrates:
Socrates loved only the spirit? He didn’t love the body? Why didn’t he
love Theatetus? Why not Ctesiphon? Because he looked like a mon-
key. Why didn’t he love Ctesiphonte? Because he was pale. Why did
he not love Aristodemus? Because he was deformed. Whom did he
love? Those adorned with beautiful hair whose beautiful faces and eyes
commended them. (35)
It is typical of Equicola that despite his scorn here, he has already

praised many of these same people and relationships in other con-
texts. In the praise of love that opens Book 3, for example, Equicola
commends love between military comrades, giving the example of
Socrates and Alcibiades, as well as the same Thebans and Spartans
he condemns here (sig. M2r–M2v). In that passage he is praising the
strength of love, and argues that soldiers in love with their comrades
will be more valorous. Following his classical sources, Equicola says
the Spartan troops were made up of “amati ed amanti”—beloveds
and lovers—which suggests that their relationships were not strictly
reciprocal (one loved, the other was loved by him). There is no explicit
statement in Book 3 that these loving relations between Greek sol-
diers are to be construed as physical—but if Equicola believes that
Socrates loved Alcibiades’s body as well as his character, what else is
one to think?
Equicola’s list of sodomites is (again true to form) followed by a
list of those who decried the practice, including, somewhat dubiously,
Aristotle and Plato. In Plato’s case, Equicola cites the condemnation
of homoeroticism in the Laws,73 ignoring the obvious acceptance of
homoerotic relations in the Symposium and elsewhere. And all he can
find in Aristotle is a passage from the Politics that praises the separa-
tion of men and women in Cretan society, with the caveat that the
resulting male companionship may be a good or bad thing.74 Equally
dubiously, Equicola claims that the ancient Romans had no toler-

ance for sexual relations between men. (Although sex between adult
men and free born citizen boys was forbidden in ancient Rome, sex
between adult male citizens and male slaves or prostitutes was a com-
mon and accepted practice.)75 Equicola is on firmer ground with
saints Paul and Augustine, both of whom rejected all forms of non-
procreative sexual activity as sinful.76
Equicola’s discussion of homoeroticism concludes with a predict-
able exhortation to readers reject this “putrid concupiscence” and to
love only “what nature intends and offers.”77 Yet it is clear from the
tone of this passage that he sees both homoeroticism and the exploit-
ative relations he believes it entails as very real temptations to his
readers: “Let us content ourselves rather to burn and suffer for women
than to take pleasure among men” (36), he pleads. For Equicola,
homoeroticism is obviously a choice rather than an identity, and one
potentially open to any man perusing his book. Indeed, he points
out that men who choose to have sex with other men often blame
women for their choice, falsely claiming that women are “insolent,
impious, cruel, and have intollerable habits,” and that female beauty
consists only of rouge, white lead, and ointments (32). With typical
Aristotelian evenhandedness, Equicola then chides women for using
cosmetics to make themselves more attractive than nature intended,
but also advises that personal grooming should not be neglected: one’s
appearance must be cultivated, as a gardener tends a garden (32–33).
In an odd turn, Equicola ends by warning readers not to follow
the example of Hostius Quadra, a contemporary of Augustus, who,
according to Seneca, filled a room with magnifying mirrors, so that
he could admire the reflection of his penis at many times its natural
size, thus “satisfying his feminine lust” (36).78 The notion that a man
who loves his own penis is giving in to “feminine” lust might suggest
that Equicola sees “natural” love as involving difference—one should
love what one is not. To love one’s own masculinity is thus necessar-
ily to be feminine. And yet, how to square that idea with Equicola’s
frequent praise of self-love? It seems that even if all love is self-love,
there are some limits to be observed: don’t love your own genitals and
don’t use mirrors.
Similarly beyond the pale is oral sex: “Of irrumators and fellators we
abhor not only the effects, but the very names” (36), says Equicola—
conveniently providing (though not defining) the very names he says
he has no use for. In his distaste for oral sex, Equicola is once again
conventional—early modern discourse about sexuality made very little
mention of oral sex, though the practice was known and presumably
occurred with some frequency. But as in his remarks on the unfor-

tunate example of Hostius Quadra, although Equicola’s views here
conform to social propriety, his logic collapses: If the natural is defined
as the pleasurable, what about oral sex is unnatural? And if oral sex is
unnatural, why is it so pleasurable?
There follows a surprising and unorthodox praise of the sense of
touch:
Of the senses, some consider the principal is touch. Each sense has its
own element: sight, water; hearing, air; smell, fire; taste, earth. If it were
permitted to me (if only the arrogance of those who pay more attention
to words than to anything else, did not restrain me), I would say that
touch corresponded to all those celestial parts that Plato called “aether”
and Aristotle called “the fifth element.” But because I don’t want to
give slanderers a reason to demonstrate their malicious nature, I will say
(following common opinion) that touch corresponds to the dregs of the
earth; [but] in its praise, that we believe that this [sense] alone is neces-
sarily given for life. We see that the other senses are given us by nature to
ornament our existence. This is given as a necessity for existence.79
In suggesting that touch is the principal sense, and that it corresponds

to the transcendent “fifth element,” Equicola contradicts what he
refers to as “common opinion” in contemporary philosophical and
medical thought regarding the hierarchy of the senses. Conventional
wisdom, based primarily on Platonic tradition, saw touch as the lowest
and most material of the senses.
As usual, Equicola’s contradiction of the orthodox view here is
anything but defiant. Having made the claim that touch is preemi-
nent, he immediately withdraws it, saying he wishes to avoid contro-
versy. And yet he insists on the necessity of touch for life, and—as we
shall see—directly relates this claim to the necessity of sexuality for
the continuation of human existence. While Equicola’s cautious and
idiosyncratic defense of touch had relatively little impact on sixteenth-
century debates either about the status of sexuality or concerning the
materiality of human existence, it is nonetheless a telling moment, one
that sheds light on early modern ways of understanding the physical
world, and the relation between sexuality and love.
Equicola’s assertion that he is “not permitted” to stray from
Platonic orthodoxy is significant. For Plato, sense perception of all
kinds is demonstrably unreliable, and at best a “distraction.”80 As
Plato’s Socrates tells his disciples on his deathbed, understanding is
to be attained through “the unaided intellect, without taking account
of any sense of sight . . . , or dragging any other sense into [the]
reckoning . . . [pursuing] the truth by applying . . . pure and unadulter-

ated thought to the pure and unadulterated object.”81 Though all sense
perception is fundamentally unreliable, Plato nonetheless endorses a
clear hierarchy of the senses: The two highest senses are sight and
hearing, because they are the furthest removed from actual physical
contact. Taste, smell, and touch are beneath contempt—they bring
physical pleasure, but in doing so, they are, for Plato, impediments to
understanding.82
Given his rejection of the physical and sensual, one might expect
Plato to have little interest in human love. Instead, as we have seen,
he was fascinated by it, and devoted considerable intellectual energy
to finding a definition of love that completely denies the physical
world. Love, for Plato, is the desire for beauty—but as we have seen
in Bembo’s speech in the Courtier, Platonic philosophy insists that
beauty consists in the proportion and harmony of form rather than in
material bodies. Consisting of formal relationships, beauty can only
be perceived by the two least tactile senses: sight and hearing. As
Ficino puts it in his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium:
What need is there for smell? What need is there for taste or touch?
These senses perceive odors, flavors, heat, cold, softness and hard-
ness, and similar things. None of these is human beauty since they
are simple forms, whereas the beauty of the human body requires a
harmony of different parts.”83
The notion that beauty cannot be simple is refuted within Neoplatonic

theory itself by the unitary beauty of God. Ficino’s argument, like
Bembo’s speech in Castiglione, is clearly attempting to remove sexu-
ality from love: “an appetite which follows the other senses [taste,
touch, smell] is not called love, but lust or madness.”
Given Equicola’s love of citing precedent, it is not surprising that
he finds Classical authorities for his equivocal rejection of these
Platonic orthodoxies. The argument that touch is the most necessary
of the five senses because it alone is needed to sustain life is found in
the Aristotelian rather than the Platonic tradition: Commenting on
Aristotle’s De anima, the second-century philosopher Alexander of
Aphrodisias wrote, “Truly the other senses [besides touch] were not
given to animals so that they might exist, but so that they might have
a better existence.”84
Aristotle himself does not go so far, but he does argue that the
human sense of touch is much more refined than that of other
creatures:
While in respect of all the other senses we fall below many species
of animals, in respect of touch we far excel all other species in exact-
ness of discrimination. That is why man is the most intelligent of all
animals.85
Nonetheless, because touch is generally believed to be purely and

obviously physical in its workings, it was traditionally considered
the “lowest” or most earthly of the senses. In addition, touch is by
far the least discussed and debated of the senses, in part because
much of the Classical discourse around sense perception attempts
to explain how the senses can perceive phenomena at a distance—
sight, hearing, and smell all operate on objects that have no obvious
physical contact with the person who perceives them. Lucretius, in
De Rerum Natura, argues that sight, hearing, smell, and taste all
perceive emanations sent out by the objects of perception: simulacra
for sight, sounds for hearing, “juice” or “sap” [succus] for taste, and
odor for smell. He has nothing to say about touch.86 Aristotle is so
strongly committed to the notion that all sense perception must take
place at some remove from the sensory organs, that he argues flesh
cannot be the primary organ of touch because it comes in physical
contact with the things it senses.87
Even medical discourses downplayed the importance of touch.
In its authoritative discussion of the causes of lovesickness, Jacques
Ferrand’s early seventeenth-century medical treatise On Lovesickness,
ranks the senses according to the traditional hierarchy: sight, hearing,
smell, taste, touch. Ferrand’s work is a useful touchstone on these
matters not only because he sums up centuries of medical think-
ing about love, but more specifically, he draws heavily on Equicola
throughout his treatise.88 Ferrand spends almost no time on the role
of touch in inciting love: Although Aristotle himself says that “no
one loves without first seeing,”89 Ferrand is most concerned with the
dangers of hearing, noting cases where people fell in love with some-
one they had only heard about, and focusing especially on the role of
“lewd and immoral books,” (including medical texts such as his own)
in inciting desire. Music is also a threat. So is perfume. And worst of
all is “the use of hot, spicy, flatulent, and melancholy meats.” 90 The
only aspect of touch Ferrand discusses at any length is kissing—and
he has more to say about the inconveniences of kissing as a greeting
in Italy and Spain than any other aspect of the practice.91
Given this dismissive attitude to touch, epitomized by Ferrand but
common long before, it is all the more surprising that Equicola asserts
that touch is the principal sense. More remarkable still, he tentatively
puts forward the notion that just as the other four senses correspond
to the four elements, so touch, as the primary sense, corresponds to
“the fifth element” or what Plato referred to in the Timaeus as aether.
Equicola gets the idea that there are five, not four, elements from the
Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus (3.34)—the same passage
he drew on earlier for the notion that the world is a hermaphroditic
animal that generates life by having sex with itself. In Plato the aether
is the “brightest” part of the lightest element, air,92 but in the more
developed Aristotelian cosmology, aether is the eternal, and unchang-
ing substance out of which the heavens are made.93 Aristotle defines it
as “some bodily substance other than the formations we know, prior
to them all, and more divine than they.”94
How can Equicola compare touch, the most material and earthy of
the senses to the most refined and purified element? In part, because
aether is incorruptible. Equicola does not argue that touch is incor-
ruptible, but rather that when it is corrupted, life can no longer be
sustained:
If the other senses are corrupted, the entire animal does not suffer
corruption; if touch is corrupted, life fails, and without life the animal
can neither exist nor endure. Without touch the human race and other
perfected animals would cease.
Equicola goes on to clarify that touch is necessary because without it

sex is impossible:
In this sense is found the highest, precipitous, and most vehement

pleasure, greatest and most voluptuous above all others. The child of
touch is coitus, in whose pleasures nature is hidden, since love more or
less impels procreation.95
Equicola’s praise of touch is thus directly related to sexuality. Touch

becomes a metonymy for sexual intercourse. In fact, in many places,
Equicola seems to conflate touch with orgasm; subtler tactile pleasures—
the touch of soft cloth, the wind on one’s face, the warmth of a fire
on cold hands—are ignored, as is the role of touch in warning of
danger, and the whole question of physical pain, either as a deter-
rent or a torment. Thus Equicola’s vacillating defense of touch is also
a defense of sexuality and an acknowledgement of the crucial role
sexual pleasure has in human existence. Once again, this recalls the
idea from Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana that the world is
a hermaphroditic animal that sexually generates life. Given the ubiq-
uitous religious and philosophical association of sex with sin, one can
see why Equicola is so reticent on the subject. While physical touch

could be celebrated in love poetry, it was more difficult to do so in a
scholarly work like the De Natura.
In defending sexual pleasure, Equicola draws more on medical
theory than on theology or philosophy—at times adopting Galen’s
more physical understanding of sexuality. The combination of intel-
lectual traditions leads frequently to contradiction, not only between
the various Classical philosophical and medical authorities, but also
between Classical medical notions of sexuality and early modern
Christian morality. This is particularly evident in Equicola’s discussion
of chastity.
Noting the differences in sense perception between humans and
animals, Equicola (here contradicting Aristotle) asserts that humans
have superior understanding in all areas of sensual perception.
Animals, for example, have no sense of visual beauty, whereas human
beings “take pleasure in grace, color, and proportion.” 96 Animals hear,
but only human beings appreciate harmony. Tactile pleasure is given
to animals “to generate offspring.” But although it was given “to us,
as to them, to augment, preserve, and maintain the human race, . . . we
have varied, multiple, and continuous pleasure. Since they are irratio-
nal, beasts can only participate [in sex] at certain times. . . . [whereas]
we can engage in coitus at any time, according to our judgement. But
we believe that to keep measure in pleasures and place limits on them
is laudable and useful.” 97
Keeping with this logic, and once again following Aristotle,
Equicola warns against the dangers of sexual overindulgence.
When [sperm] is concocted, it becomes white. And when it is not

concocted and is emitted violently, it comes out as pure blood. This
happens through overuse of Venus.98
But, now following Galen, he also cautions against the “dangers of

chastity” for both men and women (41).
Chastity and abstinence are praiseworthy, and are always in every age
laudable, holy things. But as a writer I can only say what the situation
requires. And thus, I say that abstinence and too much retention [of
sperm] generates sadness and infirmity. . . . Philosophers say that many
accidents befall women if, when their genital parts desire to con-
ceive, these women do not have their will. They say that the senses
are clouded, and entire body is corrupted. . . . We read that Diogenes,
(a very strict and contented man) used Venus many times, feeling that
retention of seed was harming him.” 99
Muslim commentators on Galen, such as Haly Abbas [Ali al-Abbas

al-Majusi] (c. 950) and Avicenna [Abu Ali Husayn Abdullah ibn Sina]
(980–1037), had long stressed the healthy benefits of regular sexual
activity—often recommending intercourse as a cure for lovesickness,
for example.100 Indeed, this was the standard cure for erotic melan-
choly in the classical world,101 but this solution—though supported
by Christian medical writers such as Arnold of Villanova (c. 1280),102
was not socially or theologically acceptable in Christian Europe.
While the issue could be raised in Latin scholarly texts, it was much
more provocative in vernacular texts like Equicola’s. And indeed once
again one senses Equicola’s uncertainty about saying what he feels
“the situation requires” on such a touchy subject.
Equicola’s praise of touch and his stress on the centrality of sexu-
ality for human life, tentative and qualified as they are, in no way
constitute a thesis or even a sustained point of view. They lie buried in
the mass of information in his massive opus, between his condemna-
tion of pederasty (33–35) and a long discussion of the four humors
(46–56). Nonetheless, they demonstrate that Platonic orthodoxy was
not universally accepted, even in the scholarly community.
D E N ATUR A , Book 5: How to Win Friends and

Influence People
Equicola’s fifth Book addresses ways to make oneself loved by oth-
ers, and in some ways it constitutes a response to the central ques-
tion raised by Castiglione in The Courtier—How can one most
effectively navigate the new social environment of the Renaissance
court? Following a brief and rudimentary discussion of the rela-
tion between love and hate, Equicola moves to deal with practical
issues of how to be virtuous, diligent, and conciliatory. Though
the ostensible subject of the Book is how a male lover can get a
woman to love him in return, much of what Equicola writes here
is equally applicable to the situation of the early modern courtier.
As several commentators have noted, Equicola magnificently blurs
the line between the categories of courtier and lover.103 This raises
crucial questions about the nature of love and its relation to service.
Is the Book of the Courtier really an Ars Amatoria? For Equicola,
who spends a long passage in Book 5 paraphrasing Ovid’s poem,
the answer would seem to be yes. Both lovers and courtiers want
the same thing: to be loved and favored. Their methods are the
same: flattery and compliance. And their manner is the same: polite,
polished, and efficient. Both thrive on the same three virtues: mod-
esty, mildness, and urbanity.104
Equicola’s brief discussion of the relation of love and hate stresses
that although they are opposites, love is fundamentally unstable and
can quickly change into hate:
Hate gains strength quickly and grows quickly, and does not eas-
ily change into love. Love is a plant that grows strong slowly, can be
uprooted quickly, and easily changes into hate.105
Given this instability, the maintenance of love and favor is all the
more crucial. A lover (or courtier) must assiduously cultivate those
around him so that he attracts as much benevolence as possible.
After this brief introduction, the first half of Book 5 is taken up
with a long chapter on “Virtue, Diligence, Ways and Arts to attract
Benevolence”—how to foster love and avoid hatred.106 Equicola
begins by asserting that everyone has free will—and thus can choose
to make themselves more loveable. Temperament is not ultimately
determined by climate or other external factors, and whatever our
temperament, we can all choose to improve our behavior through
education.
Though beauty is useful in attracting others, it is not necessary,
nor does it have any moral significance:
To be shapely and beautiful is no reason for praise, just as being

deformed is not a fault. We will be judged by the motions of our
soul.107
This is a direct contradiction of the Neoplatonic argument put for-

ward by Castiglione’s Bembo, that outward beauty is a sign of inner
virtue. When it comes to attracting favor and fostering love, for
Equicola beauty is a means, not an end.
If we have free will and are to be judged by the motions of our
soul, we need to choose virtuous actions. According to Equicola,
there are only three praiseworthy activities: to gain insight by observ-
ing the natural world, to use reason to restrain our passions, and to
convince others to agree with you. That is, “to know how to converse
with men and to induce them to agree with you, inducing them to
place their works, their enthusiasm, and their will at your disposal for
your benefit.” This last is Equicola’s primary concern.108
The first principle of becoming loveable is not to be proud (sig. V2v).
Not only does pride provoke hatred in others, but love, as we shall
see, involves debasement. Only by rejecting pride can one learn its
opposite: Humanità:
By Humanità we now mean not the erudition and literature worthy of

free men, but that ease of pleasant customs which is found in no other
animal besides humans.109
Equicola the humanist scholar finds true humanity not in learning

but in civilized social graces. Indeed, Humanità here seems to consist
primarily in being polite:
According to Plato, humanity is manifested in three ways, grasping

hands in voluntary greeting, helping the person who has need of
us, and joyfully celebrating feasts with our companions. In our own
times one may add the custom of uncovering our heads to honor our
superiors.110
A detailed history of the custom of doffing one’s hat ensues (sig. V3v).
Just as there are three worthwhile activities and three ways to
practice Humanità, so Equicola says there are three necessary virtues
for courtiers: Modesty, Mildness, and Urbanity (sig. V3v). Modesty
is not simply an absence of pride—it also consists in using polite
euphemisms to speak of shameful necessities such as sex: “Many
things that we do lawfully, like generating children, are dishonor-
able to name, and we should avoid dishonor in all our discourses,”
says Equicola primly.111 Mildness consists in maintaining a placid
and tranquil demeanor, and never being disturbed by anger in the
presence of others (sig. V5r). Urbanity is the ability to converse pleas-
antly and mildly, without giving offense or saying anything sharp or
biting (sig. V5v). Following all three, one will doubtless be as pleas-
ant as possible.
Not to put too fine a point on it, in Equicola’s view, the key to being
a successful lover or courtier is to be an obsequious flatterer. The
satirist Pietro Aretino famously adopted as his motto a Latin saying
from Terence: Veritas odium parit [The truth brings forth hatred]. By
doing so, Aretino shrewdly represented himself as a fearless speaker
of truth—and all those who disagreed with him or attacked him
were cast as impotent hateful people, enraged by Aretino’s honesty.
Equicola too quotes this motto from Terence, but he takes precisely
the opposite lesson from it:
My lover should never slip into scurile maledictions, but should

remember that the truth will bring forth hatred, as the comic proverb
has it.112
For Equicola, politely lying is better than speaking an unpleasant

or inconvenient truth. We are a long way from Castiglione’s notion of
the courtier as the fearless and honest advisor who will gently instruct
the Prince in moral virtue. Indeed, Equicola specifies that he is not
“laying down precepts for Cyrus’ Xenophon or Artistotle’s King;
rather I’m speaking of lovers.”113 And lovers are servants, not rulers.
Several years after Equicola’s death, Aretino famously equated
courtiers and courtesans—both are paid to pleasure the powerful.114
Equicola’s lover/courtier would seem also to fall into this category.
Though Equicola never makes the connection, the list of accom-
plishments he recommends for the lover is not dissimilar from those
taught to high-class courtesans such as Veronica Franco or Angela
Zaffetta.115 Equicola says lovers should be well-read, especially in
poetry (sig. V6r). This will help them to be eloquent. Music is also
praised (sig. V7r). The lover must also speak elegantly, and there fol-
lows a long digression on proper pronunciation of Tuscan and how
difficult it is to learn (sig. X1v).
Like Castiglione in the Courtier (1.40), Equicola notes that laughter
should be modest, and the mouth should not open too wide (sig. X3r).
Hand motions while talking should also be modest and restrained (sig.
X3r). As for walking, Cicero’s advice is best: not too fast, not too slow
(sig. X3v). And to those who think one ought to be able to do some-
thing as basic as walking without consulting the wisdom of Classical
authorities, Equicola replies that such practical advice about deport-
ment is crucial to those he is addressing—unsophisticated people who
wish to succeed in an elegant and refined world:
If perhaps someone who thinks too much of himself finds these mat-
ters frivolous, and believes that in these sections I’ve filled my pages
with gossip, and because of this thinks I have erred in not having
understood what is fitting to such a volume, I say to him that if I have
erred, I have erred with Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Tullius [Cicero] and
Quintilian, whose opinions I have freely espoused here, not because
they are necessary for the naively educated, but because they are use-
ful to those who, like mushrooms that sprang up overnight are naked
of learning, and who wish to pass among elegant lovers as if they were
the most elegant of all. Thus trained, my young man will be able to
woo his beloved lady with diligent obsequiousness, and place himself
in voluntary servitude, and ensure that his service matches the desires
of the one he serves. He will anticipate her thoughts. For nothing in
love is more effective than servitude.116
Obsequious servitude may be effective, but love magic is not. Love

magic—potions, spells, and other occult means for creating or
controlling people’s affections and sexual desires were often consid-

ered a form of witchcraft in the sixteenth century, and could be dealt
with very harshly indeed.117 So it comes as no surprise that Equicola
decries love potions and spells at great length. More interesting is that
in condemning potions and philtres, Equicola gives detailed instruc-
tions on how to prepare them. For example,
There is no use at all in writing notes on twelve laurel leaves, and then
eating them with olive roots and dittany mixed with genital seed.118
He also lists all the Classical references to love magic in Theocritus,

Virgil, Catullus, Ovid, Horace, Pliny, and others that he rejects as
false and does not believe at all. Is this another one of Equicola’s
rare flashes of irony? In any case, openly advocating love magic was a
dangerous business, and if he wished he could have been much more
circumspect in his dismissal of the issue.
Equicola also lists precepts for women’s proper behavior, most of
them utterly conventional: “Be honest and shamefull.”119 “Give a
modest reproof to one who displeases you; do not be disdainful.”120
A woman should not behave like a yokel in a market, wondering at
everything on sale, but rather choose one person and love them con-
stantly (sig. X6r). And, as Equicola stressed in his attack on pederasty
in Book 4, love should be reciprocal—a woman should not fall in
love with someone who does not love her back (sig. X6r). In good
Aristotelian fashion, almost all of Equicola’s advice is to hold a middle
course between extremes: do not be too loud or too quiet; do not be
too proud or too timid, and so on. And always, Equicola returns to
the notion that love and servitude are identical:
Flee those who are too passionate, the cunning and suspicious, and not
less those who are too credulous and proud, and those who disdain to
serve, because they are base [villani] and have no judgement. Those who
are wise know that to serve a woman is true freedom, and courtesy, not
servitude: He who does not know how to love cannot serve.121
At this point, Equicola intrudes a lengthy digression on color-theory:

Is color a substance or is it light? Are shadows a color or the absence
of color? The relevance of any of this to the concerns of the rest of
the Book or of the volume is unclear. He follows this odd turn with a
lengthy prose summary of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.
The second half of Book 5 is devoted to a discussion of poetry:
How Latin and Greek Poets, Provencal Jongleurs, French Rhymers,
Tuscan Writers, and Spanish Troubadors Have Praised Their Beloveds,
with a Description of their Passions.122 Equicola argues that poets are

particularly skilled in using their writing to gain the benevolence of
those they love. They do this by two primary means—by praising
their beloved and by describing their sorrow at not being allowed to
serve her. Ideally, praise makes the beloved receptive, and the account
of the poet’s suffering evokes pity (sig. Y8r).
What follows at great length is a collection of paraphrases of the
work of various love poets: Latin, Greek, Provencal, French, Tuscan,
and Spanish. The authors discussed in this section are not related
in any systematic way to the canon of modern writers on love that
Equicola presented in Book 1. Some authors appear in both sections;
most do not. The section is organized by language, beginning with
Latin poets (Catullus, Horace, Virgil, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid), and
Greek writers of epigrams (Meleagar, and other poets of the Greek
Anthology), then moving to a discussion of medieval and early modern
poets from Provence (sig. Z5r), France (sig. Aa1v), Italy (sig. Aa3r),
and Spain (sig. Aa6v).
It must be said that Equicola’s paraphrases are unspeakably
dreary—a seemingly endless list of platitudes with every shred of wit,
poetic diction, and linguistic beauty systematically removed. It says
much about Equicola’s turn of mind that he thought they were worth
writing or that anyone might find them pleasurable or useful to read.
However, the breadth of Equicola’s reading is, as always, impressive.
He does not have too much to say about the French, but he does seem
to know a fair bit about Provençal poetry and to be conversant with
Spanish traditions as well. Provençal poets discussed include Bernart
de Ventadorn, Arnaut Daniel, Peire d’Alvernhe, and Peire Vidal,
though it seems Equicola is more familiar with troubadour poetry
as a genre than the particularities of individual works and authors.
Among the French, he praises Jean de Meun—but does not have
much to say here about the abundant satire in much of his work. The
Italians include Dante, Guido Guinizelli, Cino da Pistoia, Guittone
d’Arezzo, Guido Cavalcante, and (of course) Petrarch. Equicola para-
phrases the Spanish poets without naming them, as he says they are
familiar enough to Italian readers already. He says he does not want
to fatigue his readers by saying exactly who wrote what (sig. Aa6v).
Though his lengthy survey of vernacular love poetry does not
come to any systematic conclusion, Equicola is quite insightful about
the relation between modern and ancient love poetry:
The way [Provençal poets] described their love was new and differed
from that of ancient Latin writers. Latin poets wrote openly of things
as they saw them, however they pleased, without respect or reverence,

with no fear of shaming their ladies. The Provencals courteously hid
and dissimulated every lascivious sentiment. Their writings showed
above all else a desire to honor their beloved. . . . They loved great
persons, worthy of honor, not like our ancient poets . . . who wanted
to expose their ladies to the world and were described as being like
prostitutes.123
Medieval love poetry is infused with the idealizing rhetoric of courtly

love—sexual desire is sublimated, and the women who are its sub-
ject are unattainable noblewomen, not the sexy prostitutes praised
by Ovid and Catullus. One senses that this is a development that
Equicola, with his life among the noblewomen at the court of Isabella
d’Este, very much approves of. On the whole, one feels that Equicola
sees the same value in vernacular poetry that Castiglione suggests on
the first day of the Courtier:
Let [the courtier] be practiced also in writing verse and prose, espe-
cially in our own vernacular; . . . in this way he will never want for
pleasant entertainment with the ladies, who are usually fond of such
things. (1.44)
And as a courtier of Isabella d’Este, Equicola was well aware that the
benevolence of noble women could bring rewards more material than
amorous affection.
D E N ATUR A , Book 6: What Is Love for?

Fittingly, the sixth and final Book of the De Natura d’amore con-
cludes the volume with a discussion of the end or purpose of love. The
purpose of love, Equicola declares, is pleasure. The next question, of
course, is what kind of pleasure? The expected taxonomies follow:
Human life has three aspects: The first is regulated and governed by
art; let us call it “effective.” The second is “prudence,” and is domi-
nated by the moral virtues. Let us place in the third those who are
dedicated to knowledge, adorned with wisdom, aware of the excel-
lence of the intellect. Of the first, the end is utility, of the next it is
honor and reputation. The end of the third is the ultimate contempla-
tion of honorable and divine things. Of all the end is pleasure, which is
embraced by both the political and the contemplative arts.124
Much of this is drawn from Aristotle’s discussion of pleasure in the

Nicomachean Ethics and as such is unexceptional, though it is of
course incompatible with the Platonic notions of love put forward

by authorities such as Ficino, Bembo, and Castiglione. Since pain
is obviously bad, Aristotle argues, “pleasure, then, is necessarily a
good.”125 Equicola emphatically agrees:
If anyone denies that the end of these desires and activities is pleasure,
he is without doubt the stupidest man imaginable, who understands
neither himself nor others.126
Pleasure is the reward and goal of self-love, which Equicola has repeat-
edly asserted to be the ground of all human affection. But Equicola’s
Aristotelian praise of pleasure here is not simply a celebration of the
physical. He immediately attempts to link it to the Platonic ascent to
divine love:
Thus we can conclude that man in all his effects and actions cannot
think or do other than to love himself, and of this love the ultimate
end is pleasure. This being the case, we would like for our own satis-
faction to say some things about this pleasure, . . . because we hope by
this wide path to be able to attain divine love, which is . . . the perfect
state and ultimate perfection of man.127
Indeed, whatever Equicola may have said about the virtues of touch
in Book 4, he goes on here to reject sensual pleasure all together, say-
ing categorically that “false pleasures come from the senses.”128 But
as so often in Equicola, this bold assertion is immediately undercut
by the observation that pleasures associated with sustaining life, such
as eating and sex are spiritual as well as purely physical:
Some pleasures are corporeal, but appertain equally to the body and
the spirit, such as eating or the work of generating children: these
pleasures cannot be wholly bodily, because all such pleasure comes
from sense, and sense does not operate except through the spirit.129
A lengthy discussion of pleasure follows with the somewhat predict-

able conclusion that one should
Love God, for that is the ultimate good, and the ultimate good is
nothing other than ultimate pleasure.130
Having thus “reconciled” pleasure and spiritual love by persistently

redefining his terms, Equicola turns to more practical matters: To
experience pleasure it is necessary to be in good health, and the way
to maintain good health is through temperance, the greatest of the
four Classical virtues. (In Book 3 Equicola insisted at some length

that Justice was a more important virtue than Temperance [sig. N5v],
but what of it?) The focus on temperance leads naturally to a lengthy
digression on moderation in all forms and the importance of a healthy
diet. Touch, so highly praised in Book 4 is here roundly condemned
with all the predictable references to Plato and other authorities
(sig. CC3v). Fasting is good (recommended both in the Old and New
Testaments), and sex is bad (according to Hippocrates, Epicurus,
Galen, and Democrites) (sig. CC4v). In the end, love comes down to
keeping fit and subordinating the senses to reason:
Eat to live, do not live to eat. Anyone always devoted to their gul-
let will be incapable of great thoughts. We ought to use the sense
of touch as much as necessary to render our debt to nature and the
obligations hidden in that contract. Otherwise strong and robust men
will become effeminate and enervated. Thus, let us love ourselves and
if the end of love is pleasure let us embrace temperance and modera-
tion, the conservers of health and they will give us the pleasure we
desire. The purpose of true love and of all love and of all action and
all mortal work should be that end that leads us to consider that by
the benefit of this health we can long enjoy the integral pleasures of
the senses and in honest pleasure and translate our life into glory and
honor.131
This is good sensible Aristotelianism. But Equicola goes further,

reversing himself again and saying that Platonic idealism is simply
silly. Love must be of the body and the spirit, if only because human
beings have both spirits and bodies.
There are some fools in this younger generation. These hypocrites

insist on using the stupidest arguments to persuade silly people that
one should care nothing for the beauty of the body but on fire for
spiritual beauty we can be satisfied with only sight and hearing. . . . But
stopping amorous desire at sight and hearing is impossible because
love is of the spirit and the body, and the operations of the spirit
depend on the body and those of the body depend on the spirit. One
gives pleasure to the other and one cannot have pleasure without the
other.132
Equicola’s reluctance to wholeheartedly endorse a Platonic renuncia-

tion of the physical world is palpable here. It would be nice to think
that this is where the De Natura ends up, but once again true to
form, Equicola soon reverses himself yet again. Following another
passage of sensible advice for women (Don’t be tricked by men), he

comes back to Plato.
Plato concludes that man is nothing but a rational animal who merely
uses his body. . . . So anyone who wants to know himself must know his
spirit . . . the divine part of ourselves. . . . The way of sensual pleasure is
easy and clear, but it will lead you to an abrupt fall, deep darkness and
eternal oblivion.133
Not surprisingly, given the genre and period in which Equicola is

writing, the volume ends with an affirmation of the superiority of
heavenly things and the need to turn from earthly uncertainty to the
perfect bliss of God’s love. But not before he has railed in no uncer-
tain terms against the vicious atmosphere of court life:
If you hope to live happily at court, think of the jealous informers and
detractors who live there—slander without end. And to briefly under-
stand all the adversity and unhappiness that are at court, note that
most princes judge by what they hear, and often the one who pleases is
rewarded, not the deserving and faithful servant.134
This jaundiced view of courts and princes does not stop him from
reaffirming the volume’s dedication to Isabella d’Este in a conclud-
ing note.
Lorenzo Savino ends his 1915 summary of Equicola’s De Natura
d’amore by saying acerbically, “The sigh of relief breathed by the
reader at this point is the best comment on Equicola’s book.”135
There is no doubt the text is frustrating, confusing, verbose, and
contradictory. But it was also useful. The proof of this lies in the
many editions published in the hundred years after the text’s first
publication in 1525.
How to Read the D E N ATUR A :

Editions and Indexes
Equicola’s De Natura d’amore was first published in Venice by
Lorenzo Lorio da Portes in 1525 in a large elegant octavo edition.
Besides a simple table of contents listing book and chapter headings,
and Equicola’s brief epistle dedicating the volume to Isabella d’Este
there was no editorial apparatus. In all there were 14 editions of the
De Natura in Italian between 1525 and 1626. Later editions of the
De Natura d’amore changed and augmented the text to make it more
accessible to readers, translating Equicola’s eccentric Latinate prose

into readable Tuscan, and adding extensive indexes and marginal
glosses. But far from making the text more coherent, these additions
in many ways drew attention to its confusion.
To take one specific example: As we have seen, in the context of
sixteenth-century intellectual discourse Equicola’s attitude to women
tends to be positive—he often praises women and seldom forcefully
takes a misogynist line of argument. But, as we have also seen, he
frequently cites misogynist opinions of other writers, and marginal
glosses added by later editors often highlight these passages: For
example, a passage in which Equicola is summarizing the writings
of Batista Degli Alberti includes the phrase, “The nature of women
is unstable.”136 In the 1584 edition, this phrase is highlighted by a
printed marginal gloss which reads, “The Nature of Women”—as if
this passage gives Equicola’s definitive view on the subject. The gloss
thus privileges the notion that women are fundamentally unstable,
although this idea is refuted by Equicola at many points in the vol-
ume, not least in its dedication to Isabella d’Este.
Both the Tuscan translation and the indexing involved a consider-
able amount of work on the part of editors, so it is surprising that
this was done not once, but at least twice. In 1554 Lodovico Dolce,
whose editions of Castiglione we have already encountered, prepared
an edition of the De Natura published by Giolito in Venice. This was
reprinted in 1563. Then in 1587 another Venetian printer, Battista
Bonfadino, published a newly translated and newly indexed edition.
It seems that as late as 1587, publishing Equicola’s text was thought
to be worth considerable editorial effort.
Generally speaking, editions of the Natura became cheaper and
more down-market as time went by: The original 1525 edition is
in quarto; the 1554 edition is an elegant duodecimo; the 1587 edi-
tion is a smaller duodecimo, roughly printed. The Giolito edition is
prefaced by a letter from the printer. The later, cheaper Bonfandino
edition forgoes this nicety, but adds marginal glosses, in addition to
the index, for greater ease of reference. Thus, as the text is reprinted,
retranslated, and republished, it becomes both cheaper and easier
to use.
The letter from the printer that prefaces Giolito’s 1554 edition
explains why he has gone to the trouble to make the book accessible
in the first place:
Many years ago, this present book by Mario Equicola on the nature of
love was published by its author. Since it was a work full of beautiful
and varied doctrine, although not written in a polished style . . . I was

saddened that it was almost dead, being . . . little read and known in
the world. I wanted to emend many of its errors, improve it in various
ways, and republish it. And so that everyone can find the useful things
he seeks without any effort, in addition to the Table of Contents . . . I
added another table [the index], containing every detail dealt with in
the work, so that, showing up front how learned this man was and all
the things he wrote about, students will be more eager to read the
book, and will derive the greatest possible benefit from it.137
The index is prominently advertised on the volume’s title page,138 and

is placed not at the end, but at the beginning of the volume. And it
is massive: for a text of 412 pages the index is 59 pages long, giving a
ratio of roughly one page of index for every 7 pages of text.
Some early modern authorities criticized indexes, arguing that
they weakened the faculty of memory, and that they were only of
use to the learned, since you had to know what you were looking for
already before you could find it in an index.139 This may be true of
single-word indexes that only list names and general subjects. The
indexes to the De Natura are much more inviting and engaging.
Obviously both Giolito the printer and Dolce the editor saw the
index as key to the success of the volume. And subsequent reprint-
ings suggest that the volume was successful. So how would the
index have been used by readers? William Sherman and other histo-
rians of early modern reading have demonstrated the ways in which
indexes enable and encourage discontinuous reading. Texts written
to be read from start to finish are instead consulted at random,
according to the interests and purposes of their readers. There
is reason to believe that such discontinuous reading may in fact
have been the dominant form of using texts in the early modern
period—especially in the case of nonnarrative texts. The indexes
of later editions of the De Natura d’amore certainly encourage
readers to move through the text a random in search of intriguing
information or ideas. But with its endless citations, digressions, and
inconsistencies, Equicola is already “discontinuous,” the index just
makes it more so.
Like many indices from this period (including the indices to edi-
tions of Castiglione discussed in the previous chapter), the Giolito
index is not organized in the concise, logical fashion we expect
of an index today. For one thing, it is not strictly alphabetical: It
lists terms alphabetically, but within each term, it generally (not
always) goes through the text sequentially from beginning to end,
rather than alphabetically by secondary terms in the definition. For
example, the following is a list of some of the entries under “Lover”

(amante):
Amante temperato che effetti causa 17

Amante vero serve ad una sola con fede 237
Amante secondo Plauto, quello che disidera, se sogna 280
Amante nel pensar vede la imagine dell’amata 344
Amante vuole dall’animo amore 385
Amante vuole dal corpo il frutto dell’amore 385
Amante giura di morire in fuoco & si posa in ghiaccio 396
[Lover, temperate, what effects he causes
Lover, true, serves only one faithfully
Lover, according to Plautus, dreams of what he desires
Lover, in his thoughts sees the image of the beloved
Lover, desires the love of the spirit
Lover, wants the fruits of love of the body
Lover, swears to die in fire and lies down in ice]
(The Italian is clearly no more alphabetical than the English transla-

tion.) The sequential organization does not reveal any logical devel-
opment, since the volume does not develop ideas progressively, but
is rather a disorderly catalogue of conflicting points. So the index
does not much offer much help if one is searching for a specific
sub-reference for a word with many entries. Worse, the index is not
consistent or logical in its choice of terms: Some entries on women are
under “D” for “Donne,” others under “L” for “Le donne,” so finding
any particular thing is bound to be difficult, and the reader can never
be sure if he or she is looking at a comprehensive list of references for
the topic or word they are seeking. An entry indicating that black is
a sign of good luck is found under “C” for color, and the claim that
two women died of happiness is found under “D” for “due” (two).140
And there are other inconsistencies: The entry “Remedies to escape
lascivious love” is followed immediately by “Remedies against lascivi-
ous love.” Each entry refers to a different page in the text.141
Rather than allowing a reader to better navigate the volume, the
index highlights the confused nature of the work: entries frequently
contradict each other. One says, “Women are the origin of every praise-
worthy act of men,” another that “women are the cause of sin.”142 One
notes that “fortune is said to be masculine,” another that “fortune is
said to be womanly.”143 One claims, “Love is natural,” another that
“love does not come from nature.”144
Many entries have little to do with the central concerns of the
volume, but instead call attention to curiosities mentioned in the
text: Consequently, taken as a whole, the index is a Borgesian

delight—a jumble of contradictory and odd observations. Here are a
few entries taken at random:
Adonis according to the Assyrians means the sun

Africans are perfidious
Abstinance from coitus has caused some people to vomit
The Egyptians prohibited music
The Greeks forbade their slaves to paint
Words shouldn’t change
A child of Xenophon was beloved by a dog
Lovers have small feet.145
Thus, although Equicola wrote his text as a scholar speaking to

scholars, and it has been seriously suggested that his work as a whole
poses a subtle challenge to the orthodoxies of Platonic theory,146
within 30 years of his death it was being marketed very differently—
as a cabinet of curiosities and an entertainment for the general reader.
The copious index suggests that the text was intended to be read
not from beginning to end, but as a reference work, full of intrigu-
ing stories, offbeat facts, and conflicting opinions—a collection of
interesting items, not a thoroughgoing intellectual argument. In the
dissemination of the Natura d’amore one can see the popularization
of the most esoteric and arcane discourses of love.
Though the number of editions indicates that Equicola’s text was
seen to have an enduring sixteenth-century readership, finding evi-
dence for specific readers of Equicola is challenging, in part because
of the encyclopedic nature of his text. Equicola himself refers almost
everything he says to some authority or other, and subsequent writ-
ers using his text could simply cite the source without mentioning
Equicola. Still, in some cases, traces of the De Natura remain. For
example, Jacques Ferrand’s references to love poetry in On Lovesickness
are clearly influenced by Equicola’s discussion of vernacular poets in
Book I of the De Natura.147 And Montaigne knew Equicola’s work
well enough to mention it with the writings of Bembo and other
philosophical writers in a discussion of overly theoretical approaches
to love.
English readers would have come to Equicola in Italian or French,
since no English translation was ever made. But many Elizabethan writ-
ers read French and Italian books. Robert Burton included Equicola
with Plato, Plutarch, Judah Abrabanel and Pico della Mirandola and
others in his list of “many grave and worthy men” who have written on
love.148 There is some reason to believe that Edmund Spenser drew on
Equicola when writing the Fowre Hymnes.149 Indeed, the De Natura

d’amore may also offer a teasing insight into a Spenserian mystery.
In his “Letter to Raleigh” that prefaced The Faerie Queene, Spenser
famously suggests that his epic will be in 12 books, each focused on
one of Aristotle’s 12 moral virtues. Unfortunately, Aristotle’s extant
works do not contain a list of 12 moral virtues, and since Spenser’s
poem is unfinished, no one knows precisely what 12 virtues Spenser
had in mind. Like Spenser, Equicola also suggests that Aristotle listed
12 moral virtues—but frustratingly, again like Spenser, he does not
say what they are.150
By the seventeenth century, Equicola’s confused jumble of a text
had fallen out of fashion. The style was impenetrable, the thesis
unclear. The volume ceased to be useful and was eventually forgot-
ten, a relic of antiquated ideas and outdated forms of knowledge. But
the subject of his text—defining the nature of love—has not gone out
of fashion. According the The Guardian newspaper, “What is love”
was the most searched query in Google for the year 2012.151 Readers
are apparently still searching the indexes for answers.
Chapter 3
A n t on io Tagl i e n t e’s
O P E R A A M O R O S A : L ov e a n d
L e t t e rw r i t i ng
To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia,

these in her excellent white bosom, these:
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon
my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him.
Hamlet
(Hamlet: 2.2.109–124)1
H amlet, it seems, woos Ophelia with letters. The details are some-
what unclear. She tells her father Polonius that Hamlet has given her
“many tenders of his affection” (1.3.99–100), and has “importuned”
her “with love in honorable fashion” (1.3.110–111) but neither phrase
necessarily refers to letters. Later she attempts to return “remem-
brances” Hamlet gave her and, when he denies giving them, she
protests, “you know right well you did / And with them words of so
sweet breath composed / As made the things more rich” (3.1.96–98).
Again, she may not be referring to letters. The remembrances could
be tokens of some sort; the words, though “composed,” are made of
“sweet breath,” spoken, not written.
Investigating the matter, Polonius finds the letter reproduced above.

He sees it as clear proof that Hamlet is suffering from love melancholy
arising from an unrequited passion for Ophelia. But Polonius is not
necessarily a reliable interpreter. How are we to read Hamlet’s letter?
It appears to be a disarmingly inarticulate note by a very articulate
man, charming, even comic, in its clumsy honesty. But while such a
letter might be the natural expression of a blunt man who knows not
“seems,” it might also be a lie, a stratagem, a ruse. Is the letter a true
reflection of Hamlet’s feelings for Ophelia? Or is it part of a plan by
Hamlet to make Polonius (and by extension, Claudius and Gertrude)
think that his “antic disposition” is love melancholy rather than a
cover for revenge? What is the relation of the letter to Hamlet’s odd
visit to Ophelia’s chamber in the guise of a raving lover, shirt unbut-
toned, staring, sighing, pale and pitiful (2.1.74–97)?
The precise nature of Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia is left
undefined in the play, and these questions are left unanswered.
Nonetheless, they point to the ambiguous connection between letters
and authenticity. Because letters are written and exchanged privately
and personally, they seem to offer a more intimate glimpse of the feel-
ings of their authors than would be available in other contexts or from
other documents. This is especially the case for love letters, which
are often taken to be the sincere expression of deep and powerful
emotion. At the conclusion of Much Ado about Nothing, for example,
Beatrice and Benedick are finally forced to reveal their love publicly
when love poems they have privately written to each other are pro-
duced by their friends. “A miracle!” jokes Benedick, “Here’s our own
hands against our hearts” (5.4.91–92). The hand’s writing provides
solid material evidence of the heart’s true feelings.
Unless it doesn’t. The most famous love letter in Shakespeare is
a forgery, written by the vengeful servant Maria to trick the steward
Malvolio into believing that their mistress Olivia is madly in love with
him (Twelfth Night, 2.5). Believing the letter to be genuine, Malvolio
makes a fool of himself, and is imprisoned on suspicion of insanity.
And in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff’s love letters to various
women are worse than forgeries—they are so similar that Mistress
Page thinks they must be form letters that can be customized for each
new beloved:
I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
different names—sure, more, and these are of the second edition. He
will print them, out of doubt—for he cares not what he puts into the
press. (2.1.74–78)
A n t o n i o T a g l i e n t e ’s O P E R A A MOROSA 107
Mistress Page’s witty description of these letters points to some other

key cultural assumptions about letter writing: Handwritten texts
are assumed to be unique, private, and sincere. Printed texts on the
other hand are mass-produced, public, and potentially hypocritical.
Although Falstaff’s letters are handwritten, like printed texts, they
exist in multiple copies, and thus as far as Mistress Quickly is con-
cerned, they might as well be printed. Since true love can only have a
single object, the value of a love letter lies entirely in its uniqueness.
A printed love letter is by definition a fraud. Reproduction destroys
its authenticity.
And yet, as we shall see, printed love letters were common in the
early modern period—in the course of the sixteenth century they
became a standard feature of books of model letters. In the early
modern period letter writing of all kinds was highly formulaic. The
modern assumption that letters are the artless and honest reflection
of an individual’s true state of mind is misleading when applied to
the sixteenth century, when letter writing, like all writing, was taught
more by formal rules and traditions than by an appeal to notions of
individual creativity. Although it is unclear how much letter-w riting
theory influenced actual practice, manuals on letter writing and
printed collections of model letters were widely popular, and letter-
writing technique formed a significant part of formal schooling. 2
This chapter focuses on the role of printed books in disseminat-
ing models of vernacular love letters, and the role of such models in
establishing public cultural norms for the expression of private feel-
ings. Feelings of love may be deeply personal, but their expression is
part of a cultural discourse—learned, not natural behavior. Writing
to Ophelia, Hamlet excuses his awkwardness, claiming to be “ill at
these numbers” and lamenting that he lacks the necessary “art” to
reckon his groans. He insists he loves her best, but cannot put his
feelings into appropriate words. Judging from the number and popu-
larity of model letter books in the sixteenth century, Hamlet was not
alone. The discourses of love had to be learned, and letter books tried
to teach them.
Tagliente’s Love Letters

The first printed book of model correspondence entirely devoted to
love letters is probably Giovanni Antonio Tagliente’s Opera Amorosa
che insegna a componer lettere, & a rispondere a persone d’amor ferite,
[An Amorous Work that Teaches how to Write Letters and Reply to
Persons Wounded by Love] also known as the Rifugio di Amanti,
[The Lovers’ Refuge]. It was first published in Venice in 1527 and

frequently reprinted. This volume is remarkable not only for its focus
on love letters as a genre, but also for the wide range of tone and
content in the letters themselves. As its title indicates, it consists
not just of men’s letters of seduction; it also provides appropriate
replies to such letters. This may suggest that the volume—like many
of Tagliente’s other books—was intended both for male and female
readers.
Probably born in the early 1460s, Tagliente was a Venetian hand-
writing expert who taught throughout Italy before settling in his
native city in 1491.3 He was given a sinecure by the Venetian senate,
and served as writing-master to the Chancery for over 30 years. Late
in life he published a series of what might be called textbooks and
self-help books: a volume on bookeeping, Luminario di arithmetica
[Arithmetic Illuminated], in collaboration with his relative Girolamo
Tagliente; a book of handwriting models, La vera arte de lo excelente
scrivere [The True Art of Excellent Writing]; and the Libro maistrev-
ole [The Book of Mastery] (1524)—the first book designed to teach
the illiterate, including women and servants, how to read Italian.4
There were also two volumes of model letters, first a general collection
called Componimento di parlamenti [A Collection of Discussions],
then the Opera amorosa; as well as a book of embroidery patterns,
the Essempio di recammi [An Example of Designs]. Tagliente’s books
were all designed to spread specialized knowledge beyond traditional
elites. All were widely reprinted and republished in cheap octavo
editions, and some, like the book on handwriting, were reissued in
simplified editions for less sophisticated readers.5
The Opera amorosa is not a letter-writing manual. As Tagliente says
in his address to the reader that opens the volume, it is simply a collec-
tion of “amorous letters with replies dealing with various and diverse
situations originating in certain Italian cities among many lovers of all
conditions.” (sig. A1v).6 There is no pedagogy in the volume at all—
no guide to the principles of letter writing, no suggestions on how
the volume should be used. It consists merely of a brief introduction
and a collection of letters, each with a short introductory paragraph
indicating who the fictional writer is, and what circumstances the let-
ter is intended to address. Despite these pedagogical limitations, the
Opera amorosa seems to have sold well: It first appeared in quarto in
1527, then in octavo editions in 1533 (twice), 1535, 1537, and 1552.
It was being reprinted as late as 1608.7
All of Tagliente’s books are practical texts aimed at a broad popular
audience. Indeed, the first exchange of letters in the Opera amorosa
demonstrates the practical advantages of writing an eloquent love

letter: the fictional 20-year-old, Messer Iacinto da Rimino, “unable
to endure the torments of love, writes the following letter”8 to
the beautiful and equally fictional 23-year-old Madonna Cesarina
Donzella.
I am so keenly wounded by the cruel arrows of love, my noble and

sweet lady, that I know if I had not expressed my most ardent passion
in these few words impious death would certainly have come to cut
the thread of my miserable life. Oh how strongly, powerfully, and bit-
terly I feel within myself the sharp and severe law of love. For the one
secret glimpse that I caught of your serene face and delicate breast has
so tightly bound my heart that surely my feelings, my soul, and my
thoughts are altogether united in you and live with you day and night.
No other riches, no other treasure runs through my memory but that
of your beauty and grace, the most ardent desire of my miserable eyes,
born for my perpetual shame, since my unlucky life is passed so miser-
ably between tears and sighs. So, most kind lady, since by fate you are
my light, my support, my life, my comfort, and the dear sustenance of
my hungry thoughts, I wish that through your gentleness and piety
you would accept me as your most faithful servant and secretly think
me worthy of a most welcome reply.
Your prostrate and unworthy servant Iacintho9
This letter may seem so conventional as to defy close reading, and

indeed, it is typical of most of the love letters in model books. But its
rhetoric is worth examining precisely because of its cultural ubiquity.
The letter is written from the point of view of a young, unmarried
man who is attempting to communicate his affections to a young,
unmarried woman. And though it seems straightforward enough, it
has a fairly distinguished literary pedigree. In a trope going back to
Ovid’s Amores, Iacintho presents himself as a victim, “wounded by
the cruel arrows of love.”10 Passionate as his feelings may be, they
are provoked in classic Platonic manner, described by Socrates in the
Phaedrus (250d–252b):11 Like Dante catching sight of Beatrice or
Petrarch of Laura, the source of Iacintho’s love is entirely visual—a
“secret glimpse” of his beloved—a glimpse of which the object of his
affections may well be entirely unaware. Smitten by the sight of such
beauty, he offers his devotion to the young woman, making clear that
she is a superior being: a “noble and sweet lady,” kind, gentle, and
pious. In the best traditions of courtly love, he begs to be her ser-
vant. Thus Iacintho’s letter, though simple and utterly conventional,
has a distinguished literary pedigree, combining tropes from classical
erotic poetry, Platonic philosophy, Petrarchism, and the medieval dis-

courses of courtly love.
In the practical world of Tagliente’s letter book, these ritual liter-
ary and philosophic gestures of suffering and submission work like a
charm: Overcome by the “sweetness of his eloquent letter,”12 which
she reads (weeping) several times, Cesarina replies that she shares his
passion and will always be his.
If it were not, gentle and noble Messer Iacintho, that I am certain to

find that you are faithful and discreet, I would never have dared to
answer the kind words of your sweet letter. I beg you not to laugh at
my ignorant and rough way of writing. I freely admit that my mind is
inexperienced and naive in matters of love. But I would have to have
a heart bound in chains not to love the sweetness of your eloquent
letter, which I read, truly, more than three times, and not without
many tears. My whole heart is most tender and inclinded to you, and
I feel some pity for the extent of your amorous torment. So, not to
be tedious, know that my soul, trembling with strong blows of love,
responds to your great strength and gentleness with the same feeling
as your most ardent thoughts. And thus now without delay I humbly
beg you to take me as your most faithful and secret servant. And you,
as my great patron and lord, hold me in the bottom of your sweet
heart, to whose grace I humbly submit myself.13
Always yours, Cesarina.
What better testimony to the power of eloquence? This first exchange

may seem conventional enough, but as we shall see, such positive
replies by women are rare in the polite discourse of the sixteenth-
century letter book.
In fact, Tagliente’s book is remarkably broad in the range of love
letters it includes. Most model love letters in other collections are
just like Messer Iacinto’s—written by an unattached, hopeful young
man to an apparently virtuous and virginal young woman. But in the
Opera amorosa there are letters wooing widows as well as married
women. There are letters like Messer Iacinto’s begging virgins for
their favors, and there are letters between couples who have been in
extramarital sexual relationships for many years. The volume is like a
small encyclopedia of possible relationships and attitudes.
Although, as was conventional, most of the exchanges in the vol-
ume begin with a letter written by a man, some are initiated by women.
For example, Cipriana, a Neapolitan maiden, writes to her secret lover
Hippolito, who has been unexpectedly sent off to University by his
father (sig. B2r). And Madonna Perpetua da Monserrato writes to
her lover Messer Gaspar Leonzo da Vercelli, complaining that he has

been sleeping around (sig. B6r).
Many of the exchanges reveal inequalities in age, wealth, or class.
Meser Massimo, Conte di Melfi writes to Madonna Vicenza, a 36-year-
old married woman, begging her to love him. She replies:
You are young, beautiful, rich, modest, virtuous, humane, filled with
good manners and all the other attributes one can think of, in hap-
piness and wealth of spirit and body. In me, truly, everything is the
opposite. I am now old, and those burning flames of false love that
used to have power over me now lie extinct. You see I am . . . unworthy
of such a man” (sig. B8v).14
Contrary to the high-flown diction of the opening exchange

between Iacintho and Cesarina, some of the letters are very frank in
tone. For example, 24-year-old Loigi from Ravenna, sends a series of
secret letters to Madonna Fabia di Rasponi, a beautiful 18 year old,
asking her to appear to him at her window at sunset (sig. D2v–D5v).
She eventually offers to let him into her house at night:
There is no tongue so eloquent that it can express my timidity, and

especially at night. . . . but your gentleness and my great love together
make me more daring than perhaps I ought to be. And if you are able
to come to the top of our garden I’ll make you understand tomorrow.
When you look up at the window of my room looking out on the
garden you will see the ends of two small ropes, one white, the other
green, which will be attached to the window. Know that you can only
conveniently come to me in the third hour of the night. Because you
are prudent I know you will come alone. For that reason from now
on do not write anything to me. Remember the sign of the cords. But
enough of this. I entrust myself entirely to you.
Your loyal Fabia.15
If Iacinto’s letter drew on the discourses of Petrachism, courtly

love, and their classical antecedents, this letter is the stuff of novelle,
and brings up the question, to which we will return, of the relation
between model letters and narrative fiction.
But other letters exhibit a practical awareness of sexual realities
that is a world away from the clichés of sixteenth-century love stories.
Messer Valentino, a 30-year-old gentleman from Parma writes to
Madonna Sabina, whom he has been wooing for some time. He asks
if he could visit her at home some evening, thinking she will accept
him because she is an orphan without a mother or father to protect

her.16 She is tempted, but politely refuses him:
On one hand the sweet pleasures and other lascivious little games of
Venus press me to accept you, not only under my roof, but also in my
breast, in my eyes, in my lap. But on the other hand I see a thousand
horrible frightening images, for I feel certain that the first time I lie
closely with you I will immediately become pregnant, something I
dread above anything. Not because I would regret carrying such a dear
weight for your love, but from my great fear of my old uncle and my
other relatives who would rather see me cast out in exile or dead and
buried. Now you know all my reasons.17
This letter is remarkable in its frank discussion of pregnancy and its

consequences for an unmarried woman. As such, it could not be more
removed from the elegant and abstract replies common in most letter
books, or even in early epistolary novels.
Practical concerns impinge on other letters in the volume: The
fictional correspondence between the rich, 40-year-old Siennese
merchant Clemente Vittorino and the married Madonna Ariana dem-
onstrates the persuasive power of money. On receiving Clemente’s
first letter, Ariana is incensed, and her first response harshly rebukes
him for wooing a woman who has been faithfully married for many
years:
It is twenty years since I was given in marriage to my husband and up

to now no one but you has ever dared sollicit me with amorous letters.
I beg you, live your life properly. It is a great sin to corrupt the chaste
minds of married women.18
But after a few more letters, and money given by Clemente to bail her
son out of jail, Madonna Ariana is more accommodating:
I would like, without sinning, to show gratitude to the incomparable

generosity of your spirit. If in the future you ever need to talk to my
maid, be sure to do it secretly, so that you are not seen by any of our
servants. I won’t say more. The time, love, the night and leisure are
well-known to be masters and counselors of all amorous works. So
there you have it. Well. Peace be with you.19
Perhaps the most Machiavellian correspondence is that of Messer

Luciano da Narni, a scholar from Perugia. Rejected by the married
woman he is wooing, he learns of the death of her husband and sends
letters of condolence. These do the trick. (sig. C4v). The right letter,
it seems, can be just as persuasive as money.
Most traditional love letters are letters of supplication—like
Messer Iacintho writing to Madonna Cesarina, the male lover begs
his beloved for her favor. But of course the supplication is often purely
rhetorical: The male speaker is usually in a superior social position—
certainly in terms of gender, often in terms of class, wealth or status
as well. He begs only because it is an effective rhetorical strategy to
get what he wants. In Tagliente’s volume, however, not all the letters
are written by wealthy, privileged young men. Instead, eloquent and
rhetorically effective letters become a means for socially inferior writ-
ers to gain the upper hand—to express their views and even to achieve
their goals.
The clearest indication in the Opera amorosa that love is seen as a
potentially ennobling emotion comes in a letter in which a common
man woos a noblewoman (sig. B4r). Sisto Barbiere, a 30-year-old,
handsome, articulate household servant 20 from Barletta, writes to
Madonna Vittorina, Contessa di Franchi. He begins by writing:
whoever would consider my lineage, illustrious and most wise

Countess, might find my condition to be humble. But truly, I know
the manly part of my spirit to be so great that I would judge myself to
be second to none. I was born beneath such a distinguished station,
and so in matters of love I find it impossible to love another object
than those forbidden to me and which I am not permitted to attain.21
She replies that his tender feelings show that he has an innate nobility:
That you love me so immeasurably, what is this if not a precious gift of

your gentility? I know very well that Eternal God, placing our divine
spirits in mortal bodies not infrequently gives persons of low estate the
gift of great strength and unsurmountable greatness of spirit.22
The double entendres in the Countess’ reply slyly suggest that social
mobility may be facilitated by sexual endowment as much as fine sen-
timent, but the general upward social trajectory comes through all
the same.
There are several other letters written by poor or low-status men
to women above their station. Martiano da Milano, an impover-
ished 24-year-old law student (but handsome and well mannered)
writes a love letter to Madonna Sabina, Countess of Chiari (C7v).
Messer Lissandro, a rich merchant from Lucca, tries to get the favor
of Madonna Daria, the wife of a great Cavalier—and though she dis-

dains him, when her husband is imprisoned for debt she nonetheless
asks him for a loan (C8v). And there is also a letter from Messer
Urbano, an impoverished gentleman from Viterbo, wooing Madonna
Portia, a wealthy Roman matron. All these letters suggest, either
openly or more discreetly, the power of eloquence to remove social
barriers. More significantly, they suggest that eloquence is not itself a
noble attribute, but—like Love—it is a discourse that can be learned,
even by merchants and servants.
Latin Letter Books: Erasmus

To understand the significance of Tagliente’s book, one must place
it in the broader context of early modern letter writing theory and
practice. Letter writing in Latin was seen as a formal skill, necessary
for legal and government functions, and as such it had long been
taught to school boys. Collections of model letters first appeared in
the twelfth century, 23 and the technique of proper Latin letter writ-
ing still formed part of the curriculum in most sixteenth-century
grammar schools. The medieval tradition of ars dictaminis [the art of
composition] drew on Ciceronian rhetoric, and was highly formulaic,
dividing letters into five parts, modeled on the division of a classi-
cal oration.24 Special stress was placed on proper forms of salutation
appropriate to the rank of the letter’s recipient. The ars dictaminis
was used primarily in the instruction of law students, and the letters
produced by this method were highly artificial. At times, indeed, they
verged on being mere “boilerplate”—with blanks to be filled in for
proper names—and in this (if in little else) they resemble the sort of
document that Mistress Quickly comically imagines Falstaff using in
a very different context.
Though the ars dictaminis tradition was still alive when the Opera
amorosa was published in the early sixteenth century,25 that tradition
was also challenged by popular humanist textbooks like Erasmus’s
De conscribendis epistolis [“On the Writing of Letters”] (1522), which
softened the rigid divisions of the ars dictaminis and encouraged a more
informal and “natural” style. As Eramus puts it, quoting St. Jerome:26
The wording of a letter should resemble a conversation between friends.

For a letter . . . is a mutual conversation between absent friends, which
should be neither unpolished, rough, or artificial, not confined to a
single topic, nor tediously long. Thus the epistolary form favors sim-
plicity, frankness, humor, and wit.27
This makes Erasmus’s ideal of letter writing sound quite down-

to-earth and, compared to the highly formal standards of the ars
dictaminis or of a classical oration, it was. But naturalness and infor-
mality are relative qualities. Erasmus’s preferred models for proper
correspondence are Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and Poliziano,28 and
examples from these writers, as well as others by Erasmus himself, are
provided to illustrate the various kinds of letters. A similar focus on
classical examples characterizes other humanist texts on letter writ-
ing, such as Juan Luis Vives’s De conscribendis epistolis (1534)29 and
Heinrich Bebel’s Commentaria epistolarum conficiendum (1500).
Conrad Celtis’s Tractatus de condendis epistolis (1492) uses more con-
temporary examples, but the fact that it first appeared as an addendum
to Celtis’s commentaries on Cicero’s De inventione and the rhetorical
treatise Ad Herrennium shows how close the connections remained
between letter writing and classical rhetoric.
Erasmus’s De conscribendis epistolis was an enormously popular
pedagogical text, published from one end of Europe to the other,
appearing in over 80 editions in the sixteenth century alone.30
Because of the volume’s popularity, Erasmus’s approach to letter writ-
ing is worth examining in detail. Despite his disdain for form letters,
Erasmus nonetheless sets forth in great detail the proper organiza-
tion, tone, and content for various kinds of letters. Though he stresses
the importance of proper salutation much less than earlier authorities
did, he still provides relatively lengthy lists of appropriate salutations
and epithets: a prince, for example, can be addressed as “‘August
Caesar,’ ‘invincible king,’ ‘valiant general,’ ‘most illustrious leader,’
‘most merciful prince,’ ‘most powerful, honored, distinguished,
renowned, best, and greatest,’” though Erasmus notes that “to call
kings ‘divine’ or ‘gods’ is a mark of pagan servility.”31 Young women,
on the other hand, should be called “‘pretty,’ ‘beautiful,’ ‘loveable,’
‘well-mannered,’ ‘chaste,’ ‘charming,’ or ‘sweet.’” And Erasmus notes
it is important not to mix up epithets, “transferring what suits one
group to another, such as calling a girl ‘venerable,’ an old man ‘charm-
ing,’ a king ‘modest,’ and a matron ‘invincible.’”32 This attention to
appropriate salutation demonstrates the extent to which humanist
letters—like their medieval antecedents—endorsed social hierarchies
and stereotypes. In contrast, as we have seen, Tagliente’s vernacular
letters arguably encourage the crossing of social barriers.
Although Erasmus rejects the notion that letters must be strictly
organized on the model of the classical oration, he is nonetheless
concerned to provide students with examples of smooth transitions,
so that “the letter will not ramble on in a disorderly fashion.”33 And
though he concedes that there is “an endless variety” of types of let-

ters, he nonetheless divides the different kinds, under the three tradi-
tional divisions of rhetoric: persuasive, descriptive, and judicial:
Under the heading of “persuasive” one usually places these subdivisions:

conciliation, reconciliation, encouragement, discouragement, persua-
sion, dissuasion, consolation, petition, recommendation, admonition,
and the amatory letter. In the demonstrative category belong accounts
of persons, regions, estates, castles, springs, gardens, mountains, prodi-
gies, storms, journeys, banquets, buildings, and processions. The judi-
cial class usually comprises accusation, complaint, defense, protest,
justification, reproach, threat, invective, and entreaty.34
He goes on to add a fourth category, “the familiar,” which includes

narrative letters, informative letters, congratulatory letters, mournful
letters, mandatory letters (telling someone to do something), letters
of gratitude, laudatory letters, obliging letters, and humorous letters:
This is a fairly complex taxonomy for someone who thinks dividing
letters into types is futile. Even the difference between a letter of
encouragement and a letter of persuasion is debated and defined.35
Though De conscribendis epistolis generally has little to say on the
subject of love letters, Erasmus places the “amatory” letter under the
category of “persuasive” letters,36 suggesting that the main purpose
of love letters is seduction, a point to which we’ll return later. He
discusses love letters in more detail under the rubric of “letters of
friendship,” saying, “I notice that some have divided this class into
two sections, honorable and dishonorable. I call the honorable kind
“conciliatory” and the other “amatory.”37 He gives no examples of
“amatory” letters, though he does briefly give the following prin-
ciples for their composition:
If we are seeking to arouse feelings of mutual love in a girl, we shall

make use of two main instruments of persuasion, praise and compas-
sion. For all human beings, but girls in particular, delight in praise,
especially of their beauty, on which they set the greatest store, and
also of their age, character, family, refinement, and similar matters.
Then, since that sex is tender-hearted and easily moved to pity, we
shall strive to be as supplicating as possible. We shall extol her merits
and belittle our own, or at any rate mention them with great modesty.
We shall demonstrate intense love joined to deep despair. We shall
try by turns moaning, flattery, and despair; at other times we shall
make skillful use of self-praise and promises; we shall employ prec-
edents of famous and honorable women who showed favor to a pure,
unfeigned love and to the devotion of youths far beneath them in
social condition. We shall attempt to show that our love is very hon-
orable. As a last resort, with great show of humility we shall beg that
if she can in no way deign to give her love in return, she will at least
resign herself to being loved without prejudice to herself; we shall add
that if this request is not granted, we are resolved to cut short a cruel
life by whatever means possible. Examples of these precepts may be
found in Ovid and the other poets who concern themselves with this
subject.38
Erasmus’s disapproval of such letters may lie behind the cynicism

with which he describes them. The psychological model he provides
for the standard love letter is straightforward and simplistic: Girls
are vain, so they should be praised; and they are sentimental, so the
lover should do his best to make his prospective beloved feel sorry for
him. (This is the same mixture of flattery and pathos that Equicola
praised in love poets in De Natura d’amore.)39 If all that does not
work, Erasmus adds, the lover should threaten to kill himself, with
the implication that the girl’s refusal of his advances is to blame for
his death. A love letter should thus appeal to vanity, pity, and guilt all
at once. As Erasmus indicates, the literary model for such letters is to
be found in Ovid, who in the Ars Amatoria discusses the usefulness
of letters in wearing down a woman’s resistance. Ovid recommends
flattery, entreaties, promises, a natural, conversational style, a trust-
worthy messenger, and above all persistence (1.437–486). There is no
pretense, either in Ovid or Erasmus, that such a letter would or could
or should represent the true feelings of its author. It is an entirely arti-
ficial production. No wonder a character like Hamlet—with his deep
concern for authenticity of feeling—has trouble writing one. His let-
ter to Ophelia fails on all counts: He undercuts his praise of her with
irony (“the most beautified Ophelia”), admits that he is incapable
of asking for pity (“I have not art to reckon my groans”) and makes
no threat of suicide—though the issue of “self-slaughter” seems very
much on his mind in other contexts.
The first letter in Tagliente’s Opera amorosa quoted above, how-
ever, fits the Erasmian model perfectly. Like Tagliente, whose volume
often stresses the socially transformative power of eloquence, Erasmus
too assumes that letters will be written primarily by lovers who are
lower in social status than the women they woo. Perhaps, if the man’s
status were equal or superior to the woman’s he would be able to
negotiate a marriage (or liaison) without the need of a supplicating
letter. But the larger assumption—in both Erasmus and the Opera
amorosa—is that letters are a way for people of lower status or class or
wealth to advance their position in the world.
Erasmus goes on to describe an “honorable” love letter—pursuing

a marriage rather than a mere seduction. Although the purpose is
more respectable, the form remains the same:
There is also a class of love letters which is free from immorality, as

when an honorable youth is desirous to take an honorable and well
brought up girl as his wife; though this too involves coaxing, tears,
complaints, sighs, dreams, and all the rest—things that are not so
much disgraceful as rather foolish, giving the appearance of immo-
rality, and therefore of doubtful propriety for setting before young
men. More difficulty and greater scope for the exercise of ingenuity is
afforded in the case of a poor youth seeking marriage with a wealthy
girl, one of humble birth with one nobly born, an ugly man with a
beautiful girl, or finally an old man with a young girl. Though all
these types belong to the persuasive class, there is much admixture of
the demonstrative because love is chiefly obtained by praise. In this it
will be intellectually challenging to devise methods of recommending
oneself without giving an appearance of arrogance or stupidity, unless
it is our aim to portray exactly this kind of person. Such is Virgil’s
Corydon, or Terence’s Thraso.40
Here Erasmus sees the writing of love letters not as the outpouring
of true feelings, or even as a necessary social ritual, but rather as an
intellectual exercise—a challenge. The goal is as much to create a
character as it is to communicate a desire.
The notion that letters are above all stylistic exercises designed
to create a convincing persona is consistent with Erasmus’s general
approach to letter writing. Although his own letters may have high-
lighted his individuality as a writer and humanist scholar,41 the exer-
cises that Erasmus recommends for students tend to be far removed
from everyday sixteenth-century life. Pupils should practice letter writ-
ing frequently and model their writings after “the stories of the poets
or the historians,” writing as “Nestor urging Achilles to bear nobly
Agamemnon’s seizure of Briseis” or “Cicero encouraging Milo to bear
exile with a brave heart.”42 Though Erasmus concedes that students
could also write on “some novelty . . . provided by contemporary events,”
the assignments all require the boys to write letters from a point of
view distant from their own lives and experiences. They are to imag-
ine themselves old men like Nestor, or learned politicians like Cicero.
Letters are literary compositions first and foremost. They should be
“conversational” in tone, but that does not mean they should be like
ordinary speech. And they should center on the creation of the persona
of the writer—which is not at all the same thing as self-expression.43
Erasmus’s suggestion that pupils should model their letters on

Ovid’s Heroides speaks volumes about the assumptions underlying
the humanist approach to letter writing. First of all, the Heroides are
not, strictly speaking, letters at all—they are verse epistles: elegant
poems written in the form of imagined letters from one mythological
character to another. Most of the Heroides are written from the point
of view of women writing to their lovers—often complaining of their
ill-treatment or neglect: Penelope writes Ulysses, Dido writes Aeneas,
Andromache writes Theseus, Medea writes Jason. Nothing could be
further from the day-to-day life of a sixteenth-century schoolboy.
Although Erasmus concedes that the Heroides “perhaps are not to
be recommended as classroom exercises for those of tender years,” he
concludes that
they are comparatively innocent, and there is nothing to prevent a

chaste and seemly treatment even in this kind of letter—for instance a
suitor seeking a girl in marriage with cajoling letters, or Helen restrain-
ing Paris from an illicit love. Penelope’s letter to Ulysses is perfectly
chaste, as is that of Acontius to Cydippe. Similarly one may compose
a letter from a wife to her husband who is tarrying abroad, telling him
to hasten home.
While writing letters from the point of view of a cajoling suitor might
be of some use to the boys later in life, practicality is clearly not the
issue here. Once again the boys are encouraged not to express their
own feelings, but to imagine the feelings of those far removed from
them—to write as older women facing situations schoolboys might
find hard to comprehend: Helen of Troy attempting to dissuade Paris
from carrying her off, or Penelope waiting 20 lonely years for Ulysses
to return.
It might be tempting to imagine that in recommending the
Heroides Erasmus wants the boys to contemplate what women feel,
but in general, the education of young men in early modern Europe
placed more stress on Latin eloquence than on understanding women’s
feelings. After all, the “women” here are not actual women, but char-
acters in poems by Ovid; and arguably what matters for Erasmus is
not understanding women, but understanding Ovid. All the same,
one marvels at the strangeness of a culture in which the first love
letter a person encounters (or writes!) is a poem in a dead language
written by a man pretending to be a woman. If this was the dominant
model for the love letter among the educated elite, it was an extremely
impersonal and artificial one.
Vernacular Letter Books

Despite the popularity of De conscribendis epistolis, it is unclear how
widely Erasmus’s precepts were followed in vernacular letter writing.
All the same, the Heroides were very popular in the sixteenth century
and had an enormous influence on the development of the literary
love letter in the vernacular, especially in France.44 And the Ovidian
topos of the abandoned woman, complaining of ill-treatment by her
absent lover, was fundamental to the developing genre of epistolary
fiction.45 Although it is difficult to say what relation the rhetorical
tradition of Latin letter writing had on everyday vernacular correspon-
dence, it is certain that most educated men would have been exposed
to this tradition in school.46 And many features of the Latin manuals
carried over into vernacular ones. Translations or adaptations of Latin
letters by ancient writers like Cicero and Renaissance humanists such
as Poliziano are ubiquitous in vernacular letter-writing manuals and
handbooks throughout the sixteenth century.47 Vernacular books
reiterated the Classical and Medieval notion that a letter was “nothing
else but an Oration written.”48 Ovid, along with Propertius, contin-
ued to be cited in vernacular manuals as the main authority on the
writing of love letters.49
Although they had a different audience and played a different
cultural role, vernacular letter books drew strongly on earlier Latin
manuals, and sometimes were little more than translations of them.
G. Guedet has shown, for example, that model letters from Francesco
Negro’s Opusculum scribendi epistolas, a Latin manual published in
Venice in 1488 were translated into French and published in 1521
by Pierre Fabri in a rhetorical handbook entitled Le grant et vray art
de pleine Rhetorique. Fabri’s French versions were republished in the
Prothocolle des Secretaires, an anonymous text printed in Paris, Lyon,
and Anvers in the 1530s. The same letters reappeared in the most
popular of sixteenth-century French letter books, Le Stile et manière
and again in its English translation, The Enemy of Idleness. So let-
ters which began in Latin in Venice in 1488 ended up in English in
London in 1568, and were still being republished as late as 1621.50
This consistency indicates not only how closely vernacular books fol-
lowed Latin but also suggests how formal model letters were and how
slowly styles changed.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, vernacular letter
books began to spread widely throughout the bookmarkets of west-
ern Europe. Italian models were adopted and adapted in France, as
French models were subsequently in England.51 In the early modern
period—indeed, in any period—most actual letters dealt with finan-

cial or legal matters rather than personal expressions of passionate
feeling.52 And so volumes like Tagliente’s consisting entirely of love
letters were relatively rare. Perhaps the most famous and influential
later volume of love letters was the Lettere of the actress Isabella
Andreini, published in the early seventeenth century, 53 and consist-
ing of short treatises on various aspects of love in the form of letters,
many written in a male persona, and none addressed to a particular
individual. Tagliente’s Opera amorosa remained in print into the sev-
enteenth century, but it was never translated out of Italian.
Nonetheless, as letter books spread throughout Europe in the
course of the sixteenth century, model love letters became a standard
and prominent feature of such collections. 54 A telling and intrigu-
ing example of this tendency is a collection of letters published in
Mantua in 1547, Delle lettere di diversi autori, raccolte per Venturin
Ruffinelli.55 Ruffinelli’s volume consists of letters to and from
various contemporary cultural, social, and literary figures, such as
Lodovico Dolce and Niccolo Franco. Although none of the letters in
the texts are love letters or have much to do with amorous issues, the
volume concludes with an “Oration to lovers” of almost 20 pages by
Gioanfrancesco Arrivabene, exhorting young men to stoically resist
sexual temptation. At the very end of this lengthy tract, there is a brief
paragraph suggesting that “wise Lovers” will love Platonically, seeing
the eyes of their beloved merely as shadows of the beauty of the stars,
and so on. This utterly conventional text is announced on the title
page as one of the selling points of the volume, as if it was expected
or logical to include such an oration in a collection of letters that had
nothing else to do with the subject of love.
The most widely circulated letter book, both in sixteenth-century
France and England,56 was probably Le Stile et Maniere de com-
poser, dicter, et escrire toute sorte d’Epistres [The Style and Manner of
Composing, Dictating, and Writing all kinds of Letters], first pub-
lished in1553 in Lyons and Paris, then reissued in an expanded edition
in Paris, 1556, by Jean Ruelle, and reprinted frequently thereafter. 57
The Stile et maniere was itself a composite volume drawing on earlier
texts, including Prothocolle des secretaires et autres gens désirans sçavoir
lart et maniere de dicter en bon françoys toutes lettres missives et epistres
en prose (Paris: Jehan Langis, early 1530s)58 and Jean Quineret’s La
maniere d’escrire par reponce (Lyon: Jacques Moderne, before 1548).59
It first appeared in English translation by William Fullwood in 1568
under the moralized title The Enemie of Idleness. Fullwood’s volume
appeared in ten editions between 1568 and 1621.
Unlike the Latin manuals, vernacular letter books were not designed
as school texts. They were aimed at a more general literate public:
merchants, artisans, even servants, and as such they were designed
above all to be practical. As the author’s note to readers in Le Stile et
manière puts it,
“I wanted [this volume] to be brief and succinct, because then it will be

easier to memorize, lighter to carry, and cost less than other works.”60
In his address “To the Reasonable Reader” in the English translation

William Fullwood describes the volume’s purpose and audience:
The cunning clarke hath small neede of a teacher. It is the unskilfull

scholar that wanteth instruction. Mine only intent therefore at this
instant is to place downe such precepts, and set forth such instruc-
tions, as may (in mine opinion) best serve to edifie the ignorant.61
In a prefatory verse Fullwood calls his book “a homly worke, /

whereat grosse heads may grope: / And finde therein some nedefull
thing, / for their behoofe” (sig. A2r).62
Despite the rhetoric about “gross heads,” the preface to the Enemie
of Idleness suggests that its intended readers also includes “Marchants,
Burgesses, Citizens, etc,” (sig. A7r). But other volumes were explic-
itly addressed to lower-class readers. Walter Darell’s Short discourse
of the life of Servingmen, published in London in 1578, is a conduct
book for servants, whose avowed purpose is “to counteract idleness”
(sig. A2v) and to defend “service” as an honorable calling. The vol-
ume provides a collection of “Certaine Letters verie necessarie for
Servingmen,” (sig. C3r–E4v), including one from a servant begging
his master to release him from prison (sig. C3r); another thanking
his mistress for procuring his release (sig. C4v); a more general let-
ter from a servant to his father (sig. D1r); and also some love letters
(sig. D2v–D3r, E2r).
Even Abraham Fleming’s much more upmarket Panoplie of Epistles
(London, 1576), a volume made up almost entirely of Latin letters
in translation, is subtitled “A Looking Glasse for the Unlearned.”63
Fleming’s address to the reader is a good example of the kind of cul-
tural assumptions underlying the teaching of letter writing through
learned authority and example:
It is not for any man, to tye the use of his penne, to the vanities of his
owne imagination, which commonly be preposterous & carelesse in
keeping order. . . . To write formally to persons divers in degree, thou

haste here ready to serve thy turne, many presidents and examples, not
broched in the seller of myne owne braine, but drawne out to the most
pure and cleare founteines of the finest and eloquentest Rhetoricians,
that have lived and flourished in all ages.64
It is hard to see how Cicero’s letters to Caesar could be of practical use

as a model for the correspondence of an “unlearned” Londoner in the
late sixteenth century, so perhaps it is not surprising that Fleming’s
text was never reprinted. But similar classical (or pseudoclassical)
models also featured prominently in frequently reprinted volumes like
Fullwood’s Enemy of Idleness and Angel Day’s The English Secretary.
Despite Erasmus’s championing of the Heroides, love letters had
played little role in Latin manuals, partly because of their focus on
classical models and on formal, legal, or diplomatic correspondence.
Except as literary exercises there was little practical use for a love letter
in Latin addressed from a man to a woman in the sixteenth century,
since few women were taught to read Latin. Model love letters in the
vernacular, however, might well be actually used—and not necessarily
as tactlessly as Falstaff uses his. So it is not surprising that love letters
quickly became a common feature of printed vernacular letter books.
For example, Cristofero Landino’s Formulario Ottimo et Elegante,
il quale insegna il modo del scrivere lettere messive & responsive [An
Excellent and Elegant Formulary that Teaches the Way to Write
Letters, Missives, and Replies] (Venice 1492),65 a volume of letters
on many subjects, opens with a “Letter sent to a Lady”66 —described
more effusively in later editions as “A very beautiful Love Letter to
write to one of your lovers to whom you have never written.”67 This
letter was translated into French and appeared in the Stile et manière,
and then into English in the Enemy of Idleness.68
One of the prefatory verses to the Enemie of Idleness suggests
that love letters were the books’ main selling points: “Each degree
doeth me frequent: / Both rich and poore, both high and low. / . . . /
But . . . the Lover chiefe of all.” (sig. A5r). Indeed, the fourth and final
section of that volume is entirely devoted to love letters—12 in early
editions, expanded to 16 in later editions. This is a change from the
earlier French Stile et maniere, which distributes love letters through-
out the book rather than calling attention to them by grouping them
together.
As we have seen, Erasmus assumed that love letters were “persua-
sive” letters—that is, letters of seduction, written by a male lover
trying to persuade a woman to accept his affections. And generally
speaking, this is the sort of love letter one finds in the model letter
books. Here is a typical exchange, found both in the Stile et manière
and Fullwood’s Enemy of Idleness (1568):
A Lover requesteth his Ladies love

Considering (my soverainge joy) the great vertues of nobilitie, beau-
tie, and curtesie, wherewith nature by superabundant measure hath
in such sort decored you, that above all other terrestriall bodies you
are judged by common voice to obtaine the Crowne and principali-
tie: And on the other side waying the want and insufficiencie of my
former services towards you, my trembling hande is scarce able to
holde the penne, neither dare my stammeryng tongue expresse that
which the afflicted heart through ardent appetite desireth to manifest
unto you. Yet Love (which above all animate creatures, holdeth in his
domination my inflamed mynd) doth so exceede, that it giveth me
doutfull boldnesse, to take in hande to open unto you the secrets of
my brest: which is to doe you to understand, that ever since mine eyes
did speculated & beholde your great beautie, my hart hath remained
so bound & intangled, that of it owne freewil it hath chosen to be
included in your swete prison. By reason wherof, & seing the vexa-
tions & grevous passions of my languishing corpse, caused through
the swete regard of your eyes, & augmented by the great eclipsa-
tion of your absence, I am constrained to implore & demaunde your
aide & succor. And bicause you are she, who only & none other, may
send remedie in this case, I therefore moste humbly pray and request
you, that even as in all other vertues you ar soverain, so like wise in
this matter you woulde shew your selfe charitable and pitifull. And
sith you are the cause of this so great and grevous martirdome, and
that you only may held and remedie it, extende therefore the true
remedie, by sendyng a beninge aunswere, the which I moste effectu-
ously desire and attende.69
This is not so different from the opening letter in the Opera amorosa.
Consciously or not, the letter follows all the precepts laid out for
such correspondence by Erasmus. There is little here that one would
mistake for personal sentiment. The tone is stilted, and the diction
pompous, but the narrative is clear enough: a young man has seen a
beautiful young woman; he is strongly attracted to her; he would like
to meet with her. The situation is described in all the terms of worn-
out courtly love and languishing Petrarchism: The lady is a sovereign
princess. The lover is a martyr to his lady’s love. His hand trembles,
his tongue stammers, his mind is inflamed.
The letter is correct, but not very eloquent, and perhaps the model
response it receives is not surprising:
The aunswere of his Lady.

My trobled thought so discordeth from your fonde affection, that
I cannot marvell inough to imagine what cause moved you, & gave
you such presumptuous boldnesse, as to trouble & interrupt the [?] of
mine accustomed reste, throughe your abhominable letters and wan-
ton wordes. Your saide letters (to the end that they shoulde not come
unto the handes of any other person) I have received: and behold-
ing the contentes therof, with great paine could I bridle mine Ire,
and witholde my selfe from tearing them in peeces: but considering
that such fault is not to be imputed unto the letters which are insen-
sible, but unto the composer and doer of them, I therfore restragned
my selfe from that purpsoe, willing to exercise that myne anger and
rigor upon the messanger: but likewise for reporte sake, I refrayned,
gyvyng hym speciall charge, not thenceforth to returne unto me with
any such message: And to the ende that you shall not presume to con-
tinue any longer in this sute, understande ye that I am not she, unto
whome such abusive letters should be sent. I have thought good (con-
trary to myne accustomed maner) to write unto you at this present,
which my spirits wyth much adoe can scarce abide to finish, through
the great offence that it feeleth: certifying you, that if you persever
any longer in this matter, you shall doe unto me a moste displeasant
thing, and unto youre selfe shall purchase great & evident damage.
Wherefore I praye you (for the avoyding of all these invonveniences)
that you wil condescende unto my request: and so doinge you shall so
me a singular pleasure.70
Though Fullwood’s anonymous young man writes another letter

back he gets no further in his fictional suit.
The 1599 edition of Angel Day’s English Secretary has a similar
exchange. The young man writes:
The long and considerate regarde, by which in deepe contemplation

I have eyed your most rare and singular vertues, joyned with so admi-
rable beautie, and much pleasing condition grafted in your person,
hath mooved me good Mistress E. among a number whome entirely
I knowe to favour you, earnestlie to love you, and therewith to offer
my selfe unto you. Nowe howbeit I may happilie seeme in some eyes,
the least in woorthines of a number that daylie frequent you, yet may
you vouchsafte in your owne private to reckon mee with the greatest in
willingness; wherein, if a setled and immooveable affection towardes
you, if fervent and assured love grounded upon the undecaiable stay
and proppe of your vertues, if continuall, nay rather inexterminable
vowes, in all perpetuitie addicted unto your services, if never ceasing
and tormenting griefe uncertainelie carried, by a hazardous expecta-
tion, closed in the circle of your gracious conceyte, whether to bring
unto the eares of my soule a sweete murmure of life, or severe sentence

of a present death, may ought at all prevaile either to moove, entreate,
sue, solicite, or perswade you, I then am the man, who shrining in my
inwarde thoughts, the dignitie of so woorthie a creature, and prising
in deepest weight (thought not to the uttermost value) the estimate of
so incoparable a beautie, have resolved living to honor you, and dying
never to serve other but you, from whose delicate looks, expecting no
worse acceptance, then may seeme answerable to so divine an excel-
lencie, I remaine.
Your most passionate, loyall, and
perpetually devoted &c.71
This is a bit more dignified, as well as more distant and abstract than
Fullwood’s model. It also hints at an actual social situation where
the beloved is being courted by a number of suitors, some perhaps
more attractive personally or socially than the lover. But the general
approach is the same as the letter in The Enemy of Idleness. And the
young woman’s reply is also in a similar vein:
That men have skill, and are by sundrie commendable partes enabled
to set foorth their meaning, there needeth, as I thinke, no other tes-
timonie then your presente writing, your eloquence is farre beyonde
the reach of my poore witte, and the multiplicitie of your praises fitter
for a Poeticall Goddesse, then to the erection of anies such earthlie
Deesse. For my parte, I houlde them as the fancies and toies of men,
issuing from the weakest of their humours, and howe farre my selfe can
deserve, none then my selfe can better conceive. Beeing one of good
sorte, as you are, I coulde doe no lesse then write againe unto you, the
rather to satisfie the importunitie of your messenger, wishing such a
one to your lot as wel might paragonize those excellencies you write of,
and answere everie waie unto the substaunce of all those inestimable
prayses. So having, your love and your writing, might (as I take it) bee
best suted together,
Yours, as far as modesty will, to aunswere your curtesies, &c
(sig. V2r–V2v)
Here too the lover fails in his entreaties.

These examples give an ample idea of how stilted, artificial, and even
dull many model letters are—or at least so they seem to many modern
readers. And yet, given the enduring popularity of both Fullwood and
Day’s collections, it seems clear that the letters were felt to be useful
in their time. And indeed some evidence of use survives: For exam-
ple, passages in the British Library’s copy of Andrea Zenophonte da
Ugubio’s 1531 Formulario Nuovo ad dittar Lettere Amorose, Messive, &
Responsive [A New Formulary for Writing Love Letters, Missives, and

Replies], are underlined, which suggests that that volume was studied
in some detail.72 Model love letters are similarly annotated in other
surviving texts, including the Folger Shakespeare Library’s copies
of Day’s English Secretary (London, 1599) and Vincent de Voiture’s
Letters of Affaires of Love and Courtship (1657).73 Someone, it seems,
was using the models.
In contrast to these largely generic letters, the courtship letters
in Walter Darell’s Short discourse of the life of Servingmen (1578) are
much more embedded in specific social circumstances. One, entitled
“T. B. to his loving friend M. D. declaring what love he beareth her”
makes it clear that this is not some Petrarchan love at first sight—the
couple has known each other for some time, and T. B. only writes
because his beloved has suddenly left on a trip. He too is often absent
on travel, and—though it is never mentioned explicitly in the letter—
these frequent absences reflect the reality of servants’ lives. When their
masters or mistresses travel they have to go along, however inconve-
nient or unexpected such trips may be to their own private lives:
F. S. as one not a little sorrowfull at your souden departure out of

towne, for that I had an earnest occasion to have spoken with you, hop-
ing to have renewed the familiaritie of our olde acquaintance, which is
almost forgotten, by meanes of my long absences, which if I had not
come at so unfortunate a time, might (no doubt) have beene somwhat
renewed. [marginal note: Long absence breedeth forgetfulnesse of
familiaritie] Notwithstanding, sith there is no remedie, I will arme my
selfe with patience, trusting hereafter we may meete againe, where (no
doubt) I may manifest unto you the good will I beare you, and utter
suche secretes as long time have lien hidden within the secrete closet
of my mind unuttered, which I onely referre to your maidenly judge-
ment. And surely, for the modestie, courtesie, and honest behaviour
which I see you indued withall, yeldes mee such good liking of you,
that if every pennie I have were worth a pounde, I coulde vouchsafe
to make you the maistresse of it, and as soone choose you for a wife
and spouse, as any creature on the earthe: [marginal note: He desireth
to be dealt withall as he deserveth] whose wordes, if hereafter they be
not agreeable to my deedes, then let my good will be rewarded with
floutes. (sig. E2r)74
The tone throughout is more bluff and down-to-earth than in the

more courtly examples from standard letter books like Fullwood’s
and Day’s. T. B. makes sure to mention that he will have enough
money to support his future wife, even if his modest assets are likely
to be measured in pennies rather than pounds. And as the marginal
note suggests, though T. B. is wooing, he does not assume a posture

of inferiority. Rather than offering eternal service to his beloved, “He
desireth to be dealt withall as he deserveth.” In exchange, he prom-
ises (as more courtly letters do not) that his wooing words will be
matched with deeds. The overall tone is one of plain-dealing mixed
with defensive self-assertion. The letter gives the impression that dur-
ing his time as a servant T. B.’s good will has often been rewarded
with “floutes.”
Another letter, “A. D. to his friend M. B. that he would procure
her fathers good will” deals with the practical details of arranging
a marriage. A. D. assures his beloved that he will get his friends to
petition her father on his behalf. As the printed marginal annotation
notes, this submission to the will of friends and family shows wisdom
on his part, duty on hers.
I received your letters, giving you a thousande thankes for your wise
and courteous answere: advertising you, that I meane to procure my
friendes, which shall (I doubt not) but according to my expectation,
move your father of the excellent love & singular affection which I
beare towardes you. [marginal note: Duetie in the one, wisdome in
the other] And for as much as duetie bindeth you to obey your par-
ents: so likewise wisedome warneth mee, not onely to obey, but also
to indevour my selfe to be at the will and disposition of my friendes.
For sure, your godly bringing up, and your vertuous disposition, hath
so bewitched my understanding, that will I or nil I, my heart honours
you. [marginal note: Patheticall phrases] And if all the friends I have
would hinder my desires, yet are they not able to quench the fervent
flame which tormeneth my fancie, and bereth the lively spirits of my
mind. Therefore, I shall desire you from the bottome of my hearte,
that when soever my suite shalbe heard, or that by the meanes of my
friendes, the effecte of my love shalbe opened unto your parents, you
will remaine a just and stedfast friend towards mee, who hath alreadie
yelded him selfe, his life, and all that he hath into your handes. If you
seeme to judge otherwise, unhappie wretch that I am, you thrust me
downe headlong from the topp of all hope and comfort, into the bot-
tomlesse pitt of cruell despaire, where I shall as one bereft of a heavenly
joy, torment my selfe with a hellishe care. [marginal note: To be thrust
downe from the toppe of hope, to the bottom of despaire] But when I
call to mind the sundrie vertues that God and Nature hath indued you
withall, I fully persuade my selfe, that such crueltie cannot harbour in
so gentle an heart. And thus I cease, &c. (sig. D2v–D3r)
Ironically, given this prudent and considerate example of proper

courtship, the examples Darrell provides for correspondence between
husbands and wives are all harsh letters dealing with the wife’s sup-
posed infidelities (sig. D1v–D4r).
Despite this dark view of marriage, and a pervasive sense that
women are not to be trusted, Darell’s Short discourse of the life of
Servingmen takes for granted that servants can and should be in love.
This view, along with the enduring and widespread popularity of
more general letter books like Fullwood’s and Day’s, offers evidence
of the ways in which the new market in printed books disseminated
discourses of love to a wide and socially varied audience. Here love
was the province of actual servants, not just noblemen pretending to
serve their mistresses. And it aimed not just at courtly dalliance but
at respectable marriage.
Letters and Narrative Fiction

There has been much speculation on who the audience for model let-
ter books was and how that audience used the books. In the medieval
period, texts on the ars dictaminis were used to train law students and
other officials how to write formal, legal, or diplomatic Latin letters
in a culture where “letters were the primary medium . . . of commu-
nication, administration, and propaganda.”75 Humanist manuals like
Erasmus’s De conscribendis epistolis were used as texts for teaching
boys how to write Latin letters.76 But vernacular volumes were not
used as school texts in any kind of formal sense.
Return to Tagliente’s Opera amorosa. Like many other, more
broadly based, collections of letters, the Opera amorosa is not much
use to anyone who really has no idea how to write a letter. Given
the letters’ specificity, none of them could serve as straightforward
models—all would have to be substantially altered to be used by
readers in their own love affairs.
And so it is worth asking what lessons model letters are designed
to teach. Unlike most letters in Tagliente’s book, none of the love let-
ters in Fullwood or Day’s volumes get a positive response. If they are
ineffective, why include them as models? Is it that love letters sent to
respectable and marriageable women are supposed to be unsuccess-
ful? Perhaps even though one should not expect a positive reply to the
first letter, such a letter needs to be sent to initiate the conversation.
Or perhaps the letters are negative examples, slyly showing the sort of
letter not to write. This last hypothesis, however, runs counter to the
customary tone of the volumes, which is generally helpful, optimistic,
and devoid of irony. Although they may be discouraging to young
men, the exchanges potentially offer useful models to young women
of ways to politely refuse unwanted solicitations. And yet to judge by

the rhetoric of their prefaces and their overall tone, the volumes are
directed more at male than female readers. In any case the most effec-
tive response to an unwanted love letter may well be to ignore it and
not write back at all.
It has been suggested that collections of model letters may have
been read vicariously, not as models for actual practice, but as a win-
dow on to social worlds the reader could not participate in directly.
Certainly this must have been true of certain portions of Tagliente’s
first letter book, the Componimento di parlamenti. That collection
moves systematically up the social scale—starting with domestic let-
ters by merchants and ending with a letter from the Apostolic Nuncio
to the Pope and an exchange of letters between the Kings of England
and Spain.77
Vicarious observation of the life of the rich and powerful was
crucial to the appeal of perhaps the most successful publication of
vernacular letters in the sixteenth century, the six volumes of Pietro
Aretino’s Lettere (1538–1557).78 Aretino was the first person in
Europe to publish a collection of his vernacular correspondence, and
the letters were the most successful of his many publishing ventures:
over three thousand copies were printed, similar in number to the
print runs of Erasmus’s Latin epistles.79 Like Erasmus, Aretino used
his letters to create a powerful public persona. But unlike Erasmus’s
epistles, Aretino’s letters, written in earthy idiomatic Tuscan, were
addressed not to an educated elite but to a broad common readership.
And, as Raymond Waddington has noted, Aretino took great care to
engage his readers with vivid, detailed first-person description: his
“letters constantly describe the trivial, while resounding with the
vocabulary of the marvellous.”80 He brings his readers into a luxuri-
ous, heightened world of perfect wines, succulent food, magnificent
palaces, sumptuous clothes, and gorgeous sunsets. Here is Aretino
describing a wine glass:
The goblets which you sent me—and they are more like crystal in their
purity than like transparent glass—have stems and calyxes so beauti-
ful of shape, and glitter so resplendently, that even if there had never
been such a thing, they would make thirst come to rivers flowing with
abundant water.81
Claudio Guillén has rightly pointed out the similarity in tone between
Aretino’s letters and contemporary novelle and comic drama.82
Vernacular letters, fictional or not, drew on the language and narrative
techniques of prose fiction and stage plays. Tagliente’s model love let-
ters are not as eloquent as Aretino’s personal correspondence, but they
are engaging nonetheless. So it is possible that volumes like the Opera
amorosa may have had more appeal as narrative than as pedagogical
texts.83 The notion that books of model letters are a halfway point
between novelle and epistolary novels is intriguing, and certainly the
fictional letters in Tagliente’s volume have an entertaining quality—
more so than the love letters in more conventional letter books like
Le Stile et manière. In some sense, after all, love is, at its most basic, a
fictional narrative—an idealized, hyperemotional state of high drama.
Letters exchanged between lovers play a large role in popular
early Spanish novels such as Diego de San Pedro’s Arnalte y Lucenda
(1491) and Cárcel de amor [The Prison of Love] (1492) and Juan de
Flores’s Grimalte y Gradissa (1495). These texts were internationally
popular: Cárcel de amor was translated into Catalan, Italian, French,
English, and German, and was published in over 65 editions in vari-
ous languages in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including at
least 10 Italian editions and over 26 editions of two different French
translations.84 An English translation by John Bourchier, Lord
Berners, appeared in 1548.85 Both Arnalte y Lucenda and Grimalte
y Gradissa went through multiple French editions.86 And Arnalte y
Lucenda appeared in English in 1543 in a version translated from the
French.87
The first epistolary novel in any language is Juan de Seguera’s Processo
de cartas de amores [A Series of Love Letters] (1548), which begins
with a young man sending a letter to an attractive young woman,
and follows their unconsummated affair to its tragic conclusion. At
first the young woman resists the man’s advances, but soon confesses
herself smitten (Letter 10).88 Their contact is almost entirely through
letters—though at one point he contrives to hold her hand in church
(Letter 24). Just as she agrees to marry him, one of his letters falls
into the hands of her brothers, who place her in a convent (Letter
29). He continues to write, and to send gifts, and serenade her, but
eventually these communications too are detected, and the brothers
intervene again to remove their sister to an undisclosed location. Her
last letter threatens suicide, but it is unclear whether she acts on her
impulse (Letter 40). Her lover is left to lament their cruel fate, and to
cherish a bloodstained handkerchief that is her final gift to him.
The epistolary novel eventually spread to other countries and
other languages; Luigi Pasqualigo published Lettere amorose in 1563,
though it was not until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth cen-
tury that the form attained its greatest popularity and complexity.
The early development of the epistolary novel, especially in Spain, is

precisely contemporary with the spread of collections of vernacular
letters in the mid-sixteenth century. Indeed, in 1553 the Venetian
printer Gabriele Giolito published Juan de Segura’s Processo de cartas
in the same volume as a collection of Italian verse letters, demonstrat-
ing that within the publishing industry the two genres overlapped.89
And texts like Nicholas Breton’s A Post with a Mad Packet of Letters
(1602) provide a selection of fictional letters and replies without any
narrative thread, but also without any hint that they should be used
as models for practice.
Love letters feature prominently in English stage plays and narrative
fiction from the late sixteenth century onward. They play a pivotal role
in such English prose narratives as George Gascoigne’s Adventures of
Master F. J. (1573), John Lyly’s Euphues and His England (1580), and
romances by Robert Greene such as Mamillia (1583) and Never Too
Late (1590).90 They also appear frequently as props in plays: Letters
play a large role in Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594),
as well as Shakespeare’s early plays Love’s Labors Lost (c.1588–1589)
and Two Gentlemen of Verona (c.1590–1594), to say nothing of the
examples from Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives
of Windsor, and Twelfth Night discussed earlier. As we have seen, Two
Gentlemen of Verona is particularly inventive in its use of letters as a
source of stage business: one is torn to pieces and reconstructed (1.2),
and in an ironic bit of comedy Silvia makes her suitor Valentine write
a letter to himself (2.1). Letters also play a role in later plays—a forged
love letter appears in Webster’s The White Devil (1612), and letters to
a wife and a mistress are confused in Brome’s A Mad Couple, Well
Matched (1639?).
But although letters were common devices in drama and narrative
fiction, there is reason to question whether the primary appeal of
Tagliente’s collection was a narrative one. Unlike later collections of
letters, such as the eighteenth-century French volume La Secrétaire de
la mode (1730),91 the love letters of Tagliente’s Opera amorosa do not
constitute a continuous narrative. Most of Tagliente’s volume consists
of paired letters, one initiating the correspondence, the other replying,
either positively or negatively. And while the exchanges have some nar-
rative momentum, their interest is primarily stylistic and rhetorical—
they are fictional examples of how a particular person in a specific
social setting might express themselves. Whatever its narrative appeal,
the Opera amorosa presents itself to its reader as book of model letters,
and as a sequel to Tagliente’s more conventional letter book. And it
was written by a practical man who never wrote narrative fiction.
Other collections of model love letters offered even less narrative:

Andrea Zenophonte da Ugubio’s Formulario Nuovo ad dittar Lettere
Amorose, Messive, & Responsive, [A New Formulary for Composing
Love Letters, Missives, and Replies] also known as the Flos Amoris,
published in Venice in 1531, is a much more conventional collection
of love letters than Tagliente’s. Almost all the letters are from men
to women; there are no introductions or replies. The octavo volume
doesn’t even have a preface, though a 1539 edition does conclude
with two pages of model superscriptions, signature lines for aspiring
lovers: “Your most perfect servant on the fourth day of April 1539
in Venice”; “She who places her life and death in your hands offers
you this present”; and so on.92 The 1586 edition of Angel Day’s
English Secretary concluded with a series of love letters linked in a
narrative93 —but later editions replaced this with a shorter exchange
of letters, without any narrative link. While model letters may have
had a narrative or dramatic appeal, they seem to have still, in many
cases, remained models, designed for practical use.
Actual Letters
Few actual sixteenth-century English letters survive between unmar-
ried women and men outside their families. Love tokens, like those
Ophelia suggests she has received from Hamlet, were much more
commonly exchanged than love letters in early modern England.
Rings, gloves, broken pieces of gold, knives, handkerchiefs, coins,
even food were given by men to women as a common and accepted
part of courtship at almost all social levels.94 In Diana O’Hara’s
study of courtship gifts mentioned in the 26 volumes of ecclesi-
astical court depositions in the diocese of Canterbury between
1542 and 1602, written material, including letters and notes was
exchanged in only 3.2 percent of cases, whereas money was given in
39.4 percent and clothing and leather goods in 32.0 percent.95 The
giving of letters, though statistically marginal, does increase over
time, becoming more prevalent in the later years of the century. While
it seems likely that letters were more common among the social
elite or educated classes, people not sufficiently literate to write
a letter themselves could hire the services of professional writers.
The letters mentioned in the Canterbury ecclesiastical court depo-
sitions tend to come from the diocese’s larger population centers:
Canterbury, Dover, Sandwich, and the market towns of Rye and
Faversham, suggesting that letter writing was more an urban than
rural phenomenon.96
Though the writing of love letters was by no means a majority

practice, after the mid-seventeenth century there is ample evidence
of love letters written and exchanged by both men and women. The
Derbyshire yeoman Leonard Wheatcraft (1627–1707), for example,
began the wooing of his future wife Elizabeth Hawley in the mid-
1650s by sending her love letters strongly influenced by written
models, several of which are reproduced in his diary.97 He also sent
verse acrostics, one of which contains the line, “thou’rt the wise
MinervA / whom in my heart I ever wait to servA,” a passage which
perfectly balances Wheatcroft’s desire to appear courtly (swearing
service to his lady) and learned (wise Minerva) with charmingly ama-
teur diction.98 Hamlet could not have put it better himself. Elizabeth
wrote letters in reply, though less ostentatiously literary in tone than
Leonard’s.99 Also in the 1650s, Samuel Woodford, a student at the
Inner Temple, wrote a series of love letters to his cousin Elizabeth
Pike; she replied once, but that relationship went nowhere.100 And
then there is the lengthy correspondence of Dorothy Osborne and
Sir William Temple—of which only Dorothy’s letters survive.101
Daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, and wooed at one point by Oliver
Cromwell’s son Henry, Dorothy was an articulate, witty, and inde-
pendent-minded woman whose letters bear no trace of model books.
Although most correspondence between courting couples was ini-
tiated by men, James Daybell’s study of women’s letter writing in
early modern England cites several examples of unmarried women
writing to men, including a 1565 allegation that a woman named
Thomasyn Lee sent a man named Thomas Sething of Sandwich a let-
ter along with a handkerchief “wrought with black works,” and the
case of musician Thomas Wythorne, who found a love letter from a
young girl placed in the strings of his lute.102
As in the case of Thomasyn Lee’s handkerchief, letters sometimes
accompanied love tokens—in 1626 Susan Hills was said to have
received “a gold ring with a redd stone in it” along with a letter from
Robert Lowther, who was away at sea. Robert’s letter, in fact, was
used as evidence in a legal dispute over their courtship, a practice that
became more common in the later seventeenth century.103
In marked contrast to the conventional nature of most model let-
ters, O’Hara notes that the Canterbury court records “provide no
evidence to suggest that there were standard written forms of pro-
posal or courtship,”104 but even if precise terms and phrases were not
repeated, sixteenth-century love letters are nonetheless marked by
common tropes and rhetoric. Henry VIII’s letters to Anne Boleyn
are anything but normative, but they nonetheless offer an extant
sixteenth-century example of passionate correspondence that is at the

same time highly stylized. The first letter of the collection, written
in French, accompanied a miniature portrait of Henry that he sent
Anne as a love token. The letter is elegantly written, with plays on
the parallels between Henry’s likeness and Henry himself, as well as
wordplay on “hands”—hands that write, hands that hold, hands that
offer and receive gifts.105 Meditating on absence (that necessary con-
dition of letter writing), Henry introduces a metaphor drawn from
astronomy: just as the sun in hotter in tropical lands, though it seems
farther away, so the further he is from Anne the more he burns for
her. (Although the astronomy is bad, the psychology is good, even if
the expression of the idea a bit abstruse):
My mistress and Friend, I and my Heart put our selves in your Hands,
begging you to recommend us to your Favour, and not to let Absence
lessen your Affection to us. For it were great pity to increase our Pain,
which Absence alone does sufficiently, and more than I could ever
have thought; bringing to my Mind a Point of Astronomy, which is,
That the farther the Mores are from us, the farther too is the Sun, and
yet his Heat is the more scorching; so it is with our Love, we are at a
distance from one another, and yet it keeps its Fervency, at least on my
Side. I hope the like on your Part, assuring you that the uneasiness of
Absence is already too severe for me, and when I think of the continu-
ance of that which I must of necessity suffer, it would seem intoler-
able to me, were it not for the firm hope I have of your unchangeable
Affection for me; and now to put you sometimes in mind of it, and
seeing I cannot be present in Person with you, I send you the nearest
thing to that possible, that is, my Picture set in Bracelets, with the
whole Device, which you know it already, wishing my self in their
Place, when it shall please you. This from the Hand of
Your Servant and Friend,
H. Rex106
In other letters, Henry picks up on familiar tropes of the genre:

Although he is Anne’s sovereign he constantly refers to himself as her
“servant,” and he is wounded with “the dart of love.”107 Recounting
his exploits hunting, he puns on “hart” and “heart,”108 and even signs
some letters with a roughly drawn outline of a heart.109
Henry wrote to Anne in both French and English: the English let-
ters are less flowery and more down-to-earth:
Myne awne Sweetheart, this shall be to advertise you of the great ell-
ingness [loneliness] that I find here since your departing, for I ensure
you, me thinketh the Tyme longer since your departing now last then
I was wont to do a whole Fortnight; I think your Kindness and my
Fervence of Love causeth it, for otherwise I wolde not thought it pos-
sible, that for so little a while it should have grived me, but now that
I am comeing toward you, me thinketh my Pains been half released,
and also I am right well comforted, insomuch that my Book maketh
substantially for my Matter, in writing whereof I have spent above
IIII Hours this Day, which caused me now write the shorter Letter to
you at this tyme, because of some Payne in my Head, wishing my self
(specially an Evening) in my Sweet-hearts Armes whose pritty Duckys
I trust shortly to kysse. Writne with the Hand of him that was, is, and
shall be yours by his will. (E3r–E3v)
Although seemingly simple and straightforward, this letter is subtle

and sophisticated in its manipulation of the rhetoric of love and court-
ship. Drawing on the tradition of poetic blazons, Henry focuses his
description of Anne on discrete, sexualized body parts: arms and breasts
(“duckys”).110 More generally, the letter plays off the dichotomy of pain
and pleasure: the great loneliness that has beset Henry since Anne left
is assuaged by the comfort he takes in compiling his book—The Glasse
of Truth—a collection of theological arguments gathered to support
the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon.111 When too
much work on the book gives him a headache, he consoles himself with
the imagined pleasure of kissing Anne’s breasts. Thus, although it is
devoid of overt Petrarchan rhetoric, the letter is structured by a familiar
bipolar Petrarchan emotional dynamic. And the final sentence perfectly
articulates the paradox at the heart of the discourses of courtly love:
Henry is Anne’s servant, but he is hers, “by his will”—that is, his sup-
posed subjugation is a result of his own sovereign power. He chooses to
be hers. Anne—as events would grimly prove—has little control over
any of this. That Henry’s letters, despite his unique position as sover-
eign, draw so strongly on conventional discourses both of letters and of
love, demonstrates the abiding cultural power these formulations had,
even at the highest levels of power and authority.
For obvious reasons, more letters between husbands and wives
have survived than those between courting couples. As we have
already noted, most letter writing in early modern England was of
a practical rather than a social nature. Most extant correspondence
between married couples deals far more with day-to-day issues of
household management than with expressions of passionate or even
affectionate feeling. The division between business letters, often del-
egated to secretaries, and personal correspondence was less distinct
in the sixteenth century than in later periods. For one thing, writing
letters often involved more than one person—the wealthy often used
secretaries and amanuenses; the poor or illiterate often paid a scribe
to write on their behalf.112 In Gascoigne’s Adventures of Master F. J.
the protagonist realizes by differences in style that a letter refusing his
advances was written not by the woman he is wooing, but by a male
secretary.113
As well, as many early modern letters make clear, the bearer often
took a much more active role in communication than modern postal
employees or couriers ever would. The bearer of a letter was often a
trusted servant or colleague, someone who would in many cases know
the contents of the letters they carried, and might also give a verbal
message from the writer beyond what was written on paper.114 In a
letter to Anne Boleyn, for example, Henry VIII tells her his note is
“only to Advertise you, that this Bearer, and his Fellow, be dispatched
with as many Things to compasse our Matter, and to bring it to
passe as our Wits could imagine or devise.”115 In another he refers to
“Things as your Brother shall on my part declare unto you, to whom
I pray you give full Credence, for it were too long to write.”116
A letter of October 24, 1560, from Sir William St. Loe in London
to his wife Bess of Hardwick at her country estate of Chatsworth117
provides a typical example of surviving sixteenth-century marital cor-
respondence. It begins with his complaint that the linens Sir William
has rented in London are too rough. He asks his wife to send some
from home—in the meantime his servants “hath neyther schurtt or
eynye other thyng to schyft them.” He goes on to recommend which
men to send with the clothes, and how their horses should be fed:
“One handesfull of otes to everye one off the geldyngs att a wateryng
wylbe suffysyent”; in any case, he warns, the horsekeeper is a lazy
fellow and not to be trusted. Sir William then proceeds to the court
news—Queen Elizabeth is angry with him for never being at court,
and refuses to let him kiss her hand. After detailing some financial
business, he ends by complaining of a persistent toothache—“I have
had exstreme payne in my teeth sythens sondaye dynar”—and laments
having to remain in London. He signs himself “yowre loving husband
wyth a kend hartt untyll we mete.”
Since most surviving letters are from wealthy couples, whose estates
and property required a good deal of day-to-day management, it is
not surprising that such letters mix expressions of affection with busi-
ness concerns. In the absence of one spouse—usually the husband—it
was necessary for the couple to communicate frequently about house-
hold affairs. Some letters were more affectionate. Daybell’s study of
Elizabethan women’s correspondence demonstrates that “husbands’
letters often reveal an unrestrained tenderness of emotion.”118 He

cites in particular the mid-sixteenth-century correspondence of John
Johnson, a Staple merchant, and his wife Sabine: In Calais on busi-
ness John writes Sabine that he is “in hast going to bed at x of the
clocke at nyght and wold ye were in my bed to tary me.”119 Sabine
wrote that she also looked forward to being in bed with John on
“cold nyghtes” after his return.120
It is not until the seventeenth century that one finds spousal let-
ters written primarily as declarations of love.121 Interestingly, Daybell
contends that husbands’ letters tend to be more effusive and affec-
tionate than wives’ do.122 The reasons for this are unclear—it may be
that social pressure for women to be more chaste in their comport-
ment than men had some effect, or perhaps, writing less often than
men, women were more formal in their diction and sentiments.
Conclusion: Courtesy Books

By the mid-seventeenth-century books providing advice for the con-
duct of love affairs had gone well beyond collections of model letters.
A new genre of “complement” books gave models not only for let-
ter writing, but also for speech and conduct. Edward Phillips’s The
Mysteries of Love & Eloquence, or the Arts of Wooing and Complementing
(1658), for example, contains:
Addresses, and set Forms of Expressions for imitation; Poems, pleasant

Songs, Letters, Proverbs, Riddles, Jeasts, Posies, Devices, A la mode
Pastimes, A Dictionary for the making of Rimes, Four hundred and
fifty delightful Questions, with their several Answers. As also Epithets,
and flourishing Similitudes, Alphabetically collected, and so properly
applied to their several Subjects, that they may be rendred admirably
useful on the sudden occasions of Discourse or Writing. Together, with
a new invented Art of Logick, so plain and easies by way of Questions
and Answers, that the meanest capacity may in a short time attain to a
perfection in the wayes of Arguing and Disputing.123
With all this to cover, it is not surprising the volume is over three
hundred pages long. Letters have become a very small part of a much
larger discourse of amorous self-help.
Take John Gough’s Academy of Complements, first published in
London in 1639 and frequently reprinted over the next 40 years.124
Gough’s volume is a handbook for responding politely to one’s social
superiors. But it also provides lots of models of supposedly eloquent
phrases to be used in courtship by both men and women, thus
juxtaposing actual service to one’s master with rhetorical service to

one’s mistress.
The volume opens with a lengthy list of compliments—polite
phrases to be used in conversation.125 At their simplest, these comple-
ments are merely tags of respectful speech:
Suppose not I use the Court language, when I assure you I am more
than any man living, Sir, Your most humble servant. (sig. B3r)
Or, more elaborately:
Sir, When I forget to confesse my selfe yours, you may justlie suppose
I suffer a perpetuall silence, since whil’st I have a tongue, I protest my
selfe to bee your affectionate servant. (sig. B3r–B3v)
Or more bluntly:
The contemplation of your vertues amaze mee. (sig. B7v)
Others are meant to be used to woo women rather than to flatter men:
Madam, Your goodly stature, well proportioned body, the bright

colour of your face, the lively port and grave carriage of your person;
all of these speake you to be a regall branch, sprung from some royall
stemme. (sig. C4v)
Madam you are the Saint to whose shrine I daily offer up my scalding
sighs. (sig. A11v)
And so on.
Still others are to be used by women rejecting unwelcome advances:
Sir, I am a mortall foe to affection, and now to vow my service to Venus

is unpossible, since I have already addicted my selfe to Diana. (sig. B2v)
Or the following example, which—consciously or not—takes us back

to the abandoned women of Ovid’s Heroides:
Sir, Whosoever readeth the records of the faithlesse protestations of

men, their perjur’d promises and fained loves, cannot but view a poore
Ariadne abused, a Medea mockt, and a Dido deceived. (sig. B2v)
The elaborate, stylized diction and alliterative mythological references

both point to the social pretensions lying behind “complements” as
a genre.
Indeed, many of the stilted, empty, and fawning phrases in the

volume end up being unintentionally comic. Take the following dec-
larations of intimacy:
That my desires to injoy you are more then to live, proceeds from the
effects of my affection, the efficient cause being your excessive beauty.
(sig. B5v–B6r)
Fairest, Our breasts shall be ever interchangeably transparent. (sig. C5r)
One is, at times, sorely tempted to read the entire enterprise ironi-
cally, but the generally serious tone and the long-term popularity of
the volume (and genre) suggest that to do so would be to misunder-
stand the importance of such texts in a highly class conscious society
with limited educational opportunities.
This opening collection of brief phrases is followed by a selec-
tion of longer passages: (sig. C6r–G1v) many on how to tender one’s
service to a lord (sig. D5r–D7r). Then comes a series of dialogues
on more amorous themes, including one entitled “To entertaine a
Gentlewoman at your Chamber” (sig. D9r–D10r), another on how
“To contract privately ones selfe, and tye the knot of Marriage,”
(sig. E1r–E1v) and also a “merry Discourse” between two servants,
Rowland and Susan “sitting up late together.” (sig. E11v–E12v)
Rowland begins by declaring his affections:
Row. It is time, Susan, that I should now discover my minde unto you,
we have beene long servants together, and ever since my first com-
ming, I have borne you good will, which I would desire you to accept,
and to grant me your love.
Susan. For that you must pardon me, for I doe not intend to marry, and
therefore let that serve for an excuse, since I would be loth to discourage
you, and say, I cannot love you.
Rowland insists, Susan remains firm—he suggests she loves someone

else; she denies it. He attempts to kiss her, and she resists, and says she
must leave “least [her]absence out of [her] Mistresses Chamber might
breed some suspition.” Rowland presses further, but finally backs off,
saying, “Pardon me, if love hath made me offend in some boysterous
actions.” Despite this apology, he concludes by hoping he will have
more success at their next meeting.
As this dialogue between servants suggests, books of comple-
ments, like earlier letter books, were marketed at a literate but not
particularly sophisticated audience. Although excerpts like these have
some narrative momentum, this is not the primary interest of the

volume; such books are openly designed to help “rustic” or unsophis-
ticated men and women act and speak in a more “polished” manner.
And their lessons were not lost on members of what might be called
the middle class. Leonard Wheatcroft, a Derbyshire tailor and parish
clerk, in his account of the courtship of his wife, recounts that one
night he was chatting with his beloved Elizabeth at her uncle’s house.
Trying to get her to sit on his knee, he (apparently) said,
Pray therefore pardon my uncivility in taking you on my knee, for it is

you alone which have made a breach into the bulwark of my heart, so
that I cannot look upon your face but must needs resign myself up to
you as a rich wreath of victory.
To which she replied, “I wonder where you have been that you have
learned all these fine complements.” They continued to banter in the
same vein. He concludes his description of the evening by saying,
“These and many more expressions were used of us at that time,” as
if he is eager to record that he and Elizabeth were courting by the
book, using the correct phrases.126 What they actually said to each
other is impossible to tell, but it is clear that when he came to leave
a written record of their courtship, Wheatcroft wanted to show he
could complement as well as another.
Sixteenth-century letter books like Tagliente’s had obliquely sug-
gested that eloquence could lead to social mobility; in seventeenth-
century complement books, this point was made much more explicitly.
One of the first of these volumes in English, Cupid’s School (1632),127
opens with a lengthy passage outlining “The Character and Description
of a Complement” (sig. A2r–A3v). A Complement is “an effable and
courteous manner of speech, [which] is now growne so necessary, that
nothing can be done without them.” Such artificial eloquence is crucial
in all fields of life, “For men now a-dayes regard not vertuous quali-
ties, but onely a pleasingnesse of nature and condition, so that hee that
speaketh best, speeds best, and shall be sure to be preferred before the
plaine meaning man.” Complements are, apparently, needed in every
social interaction:
A man can prevaile in nothing without Complements: your friend will

not thinke you his friend, without you salute him with a Complement:
you cannot invite one home, nor entertaine him afterward, without
Complements: neither can you keepe company, or be sociable, without
the mutual enterchanging of Complements.
But as the volume’s title suggests, complements are especially neces-

sary in matters of courtship or seduction:
In love, he that thinkes to winne affection by telling a Mayd in plaine

tearmes that hee loves her, is much deceived, for when she heares you
begin so plainly, she will start backe from you, and think you to be
some ignorant Coridon, that know not Cupids language: when on the
contrary, hee that can deliver his minde in amorous words, doth seeme
to keepe the keyes of their Maydenheads, of which he can take posses-
sion when he list, for their hearts are at his devotion.
The notion that eloquence is a masculine key that opens all feminine
locks is reiterated more than once:
Such is the power of Complements, that it breakes lockes, opens doores

at mid-night, and will give you accesse to the mistresse of your heart,
if you can but handsomely complement with the Maid, and come over
her with melting language; onely you must remember to line her Apron
with gold, and then you may be sure to obtaine your owne desires.
This passage also equates eloquence with money, an equivalence

found in Tagliente’s Opera amorosa over a hundred years earlier.
And although complements are presented primarily as masculine
language—“a Complement is the language of Gallants, the Conqueror
of Mayden-heads,”—the volume aims at a female readership as well:
I hope younge men will imbrace and love this Booke, which teacheth
them how to obtain their love. And I hope young Mayds will lay it
under their pillow, and read it when they goe to bed, since, it will
instruct them how to give an Answer to their amorous Sutors. And
so wishing to all young men and Maydes the accomplishment of their
desires, I leave these complements to their perusall. (sig. A2r–A3v)
Cupid’s School contains general wooing speeches and women’s

responses, as well as instructions on how to get a letter to a lady via
her maid, and how to ask a father for his daughter’s hand. There
are speeches of a servant wooing a chambermaid, a young man woo-
ing a country girl, and another complementing a widow. There are
also speeches for more general social occasions, such as greeting a
bride and bridegroom, bidding a friend farewell, asking a favor from
a stranger, thanking someone for their courtesy, toasting someone’s
health, and asking for lodging in a gentleman’s house. There are even
satirical or parodic speeches, such as the sixth: “Master Braineless his
wooing of Barbara,” in which the clumsy wooer is a little too explicit

about the nature of his affections:
I feele the mouth of my affection begin to water at thee, so that there

must be some speedy remedy found out to allay my burning heat, for
if I looke but at your pretty foot, I feele my heart begin to rise beneath
my girdle. (sig. A8v–B1r)
The final exchange in the volume is between a smooth-talking

Courtier and “Country Maid.” Though many women’s replies in
the volume are polite refusals, the Country Maid joyfully accepts the
Courtier’s offer of marriage:
Alas, Sir, doe you thinke we country Maids are such harmelesse inno-
cent fooles that we are taken with fine faire words which you Courtiers
call complements? alas no, you may goe use them to Ladies; yet I know
not how methinkes your words come from you with such a fervancy
of affection that I could find in my heart to answer you in your owne
phrase, for you must know we country Maids can complement as well
as you: know therefore that if your former words doe proceed out of
a chaste desire to marry mee, and if your heart hath been so long a
servant of mine I will not detaine your waies, but will pay you love
for love againe, and that I know is the payment you expect. But I pray
boast not that you overcame me with a complement though indeed
I like your complements very well, which being set forth with a lan-
guishing behaviour did become you so well, that I am content to yeeld
my selfe to your disposing, and to make my selfe an example to shew
what great power a Complement delivered in due time and place may
have over a Maids affection, and so without further ceremony, pray let
our banes be bidden, let the Fidlers be hired to play upon our wedding
day, and let the Maids strew the way to Church with flowers, for your
Complement hath overcome me. (sig. C7r–C7v)
Unlike the relatively chaste English letter books in which men’s

advances are all politely declined, complement books—like Tagliente’s
much earlier Opera amorosa—unabashedly celebrate the persuasive
power of eloquence.
Chapter 4
Jacqu es Fe r r a n d’s O N L OV E S I C K N E S S :
L ov e a n d M e dic i n e
“Medicine may be described as the science of what the body loves”

—Plato, Symposium, 186c
I n Plutarch’s Life of Antony, when Antony first meets Cleopatra, she

appears seated on a golden barge with purple sails. The oars are made
of silver, flutes play, boys and girls dressed like Cupids and Nymphs
attend her, and “perfumes diffused themselves from the vessels to
the shore.”1 When Shakespeare adapted the passage for Enobarbus’s
magnificent reminiscence of the meeting in Antony and Cleopatra,
he significantly increased the erotic charge of the description: He also
infused the passage with ominous suggestions of disaster.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne

Burn’d on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them. (2.2.196–200)2
The gold and the incense are present in Plutrarch, but Shakespeare’s
description associates them not only with opulence and splendor, but
with fire and disease. In Shakespeare the gilded barge metaphorically
burns (beautifully reflected in the “burnish’d” throne), and the winds
are sickened by the sails’ perfume. It is too much of joy. This will not
end well. There will be blood.
Lovesickness is everywhere in Shakespeare, from Venus the “love-
sick queen,” pining for Adonis (Venus and Adonis, line 195), to Romeo
sick for Rosaline, and Orsino groaning for Olivia in Twelfth Night.3
Helena in Midsummer Night’s Dream is “fancy-sick” with love for
Demetrius (3.2.96). In All’s Well that Ends Well Helen’s “eye is sick”
with love for Bertram (1.3.120). Bertram in turn is tormented with
“sick desires,” (4.2.36) but unfortunately not for Helen. . . . In The
Merchant of Venice, Portia jokes about women who died of sickness
when their love was denied (3.4.70). In Sonnet 147 the speaker’s
“love is as a fever, longing still / For that which longer nurses the dis-
ease” (lines 1–2). Polonius is sure that Hamlet is lovesick for Ophelia,
though the accuracy of the diagnosis, as always with Hamlet, is
somewhat uncertain. Most of these lovers will never attain the object
of their passion—the most pathetic may be Roderigo in Othello, a
“sick fool” whom, as Iago observes, “love hath turn’d almost the
wrong side out” (2.3.44–45). But on the other hand, in Much Ado
about Nothing the sensible Benedick falls “sick in love with Beatrice”
(3.1.21), and they end by being married.
Lovesickness is part of the literary tradition Shakespeare inher-
its, from Virgil’s “love sick Dido,” mentioned in passing in Titus
Andronicus (5.3.81), to “the lover, sick to death” in the fashionable
lyric that Dumain composes in Love’s Labor’s Lost (4.3.103). Such
tropes are so common that it is easy to dismiss them as empty literary
clichés, but to do so would be a mistake. The notion that love was an
illness was ubiquitous, echoed in a wide variety of early modern texts,
from sonnets to sermons. But this does not mean that such a view of
love was merely conventional or ironic.
Lovesickness was also part of a serious intellectual tradition dat-
ing back to classical antiquity. Medical and philosophical texts from
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century frequently describe
romantic love as both a physical disease and a mental illness. We
have already encountered Equicola’s treatment of the subject in
Book 4 of De Natura d’amore. The French moralist Pierre Boaistuau,
translator of an influential version of the Romeo and Juliet story,4
addressed lovesickness as part of his enormously popular 1558 cata-
logue of earthly miseries Le théâtre du monde. The physician François
Valleriola took a neoplatonic and philosophic approach to lovesick-
ness in Observationum medicinalium libri sex [Medical Observations
in Six Books] (Lyons, 1588). André Du Laurens, doctor to Marie de
Médicis and Henri IV, expounded a more materialistic and Galenic
model in his treatise Des Maladies Melancholiques (1594), published
in English in 1599 as On Melancholicke Diseases. Robert Burton was
primarily interested in the psychological aspects of the disease, and his
magisterial Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) devotes almost a third of its
J a c q u e s F e r r a n d ’s O N L O V E S I C K N E S S 147
length—over three hundred pages—to a discussion of the symptoms,

causes, and cures of love melancholy.5
But of all the early modern treatments of the subject, the text
that focused in most detail on love as a physical ailment was Jacques
Ferrand’s medical treatise, De la maladie d’amour ou melancholie
erotique [On Lovesickness or Erotic Melancholy] (1610;1623), which
appeared in English translation in 1640 under the splendid title
of Erotomania.6 Ferrand was a doctor who practiced medicine in
southern France, near Toulouse. In 1620, the first edition of his text
was condemned both by the Catholic church and the Parliament of
Toulouse, in part because Ferrand provided recipes for aphrodisiacs
and discussed physical methods of increasing sexual pleasure.7 The
rewritten 1623 edition was more discreet on such matters, and was
more soberly addressed to “the Gentlemen Students of Medicine”
at the University of Paris, rather than to young lovers, as the first
had been.
By the time Ferrand wrote, the traditional Galenic medical ideas he
supported were about to be eclipsed by empirical advances in medi-
cal science and new Cartesian notions of the relations between mind
and body. But his treatise provides an unparalleled summary of ideas
about the physical nature of love in the early modern period. While
medical texts like Ferrand’s are not necessarily indicative of actual
social practices, they nonetheless reveal much about ways of think-
ing about the physical aspects of love. They document in great detail
that love was often considered a troubling affliction, rather than a
vital part of a healthy emotional and physical life. And they posit that
love was a material condition with physical causes, rather than an
eruption of the passions or an ecstasy of the spirit. Such a materialist,
medical approach to desire was often at odds with both theological
notions of love as a moral choice, and the popular sentiment that love
was primarily emotional. It also foreshadows modern debates about
whether sexual preference is a matter of choice or of biology. “Even
so quickly may one catch the plague?” says Olivia in Twelfth Night at
the onset of her strong, unforeseen, and overwhelming passion for
Cesario (1.5.265). Catching the plague is an unbidden physical afflic-
tion, not a conscious moral choice.
Love in the Material World

The idea that romantic love was a physical condition and thus sub-
ject to physical intervention and cure appears in Western thought as
early as the speech of the physician Eryximachus in Plato’s Symposium
(186a–188e).8 When it is his turn to speak in praise of love, Eryximachus

defines eros extraordinarily broadly. Rather than seeing love as the
attraction of one person for another, he speculates that love has a pri-
marily regulatory function, maintaining a healthy balance between
contrasting principles: heat and cold, sweet and sour, wet and dry.
This balance of contrasting desires is analogous to harmony in music,
or maintaining a balanced diet of various foods. The perfect physician
would be able to distinguish perfectly between harmful and beneficial
desires, and be able to “replace one desire with another, and produce
the requisite desire when it is absent, or, if necessary, remove it when
it is present” (186d).
Though Plato does not stress the point, the implication of
Eryximachus’s speech is that love is primarily a material phenome-
non. Instead of seeing love as a god, or a spiritual impulse, the physi-
cian believes love is a question of chemistry. In the preceding speech,
Pausanias, the lover of Agathon, the banquet’s host, had argued that
love was of two kinds: heavenly love, a positive, spiritual attraction,
seen by Pausanias as fundamentally masculine; or common love, a
corrupting physical attraction, seen as feminine and effeminizing.
Eryximachus seems at first to deny this dichotomy, asserting that
love’s influence can be found “in every form of existence,” even
in animals and plants (186b). Yet he returns to it at the end of his
speech, claiming that heavenly love leads to harmony and common
love to chaos: “When the seasons are under the influence of [common]
love, all is mischief and destruction, for now plague and disease of
every kind attack both herds and crops” (188b). But for the physician
Eryximachus, “heavenly” love consists of natural harmony and mate-
rial balance, not a spiritual rejection of the physical world.
Eryximachus ends apologetically, and indeed there is reason to
believe that his entire speech is parodic—it contradicts several points
later made by Socrates and is in many ways antithetical to the general
tenets of Platonic philosophy. But, as we have seen already, most early
modern readers of the Symposium considered all the speeches equally
valid statements of Plato’s own views. And in any case, Eryximachus
has briefly put forth a philosophical basis for seeing love as a physi-
cal rather than spiritual force. And by seeing physical, material love
as positive as well as negative, he has contradicted the notion that
so-called “heavenly” love is fundamentally spiritual. This approach
opens a space for medical thinking about love: misguided or diseased
attraction can be corrected on a physical level by a skilled practitioner—
a doctor of love.
The notion that love was in some sense a physical ailment appeared
as a common trope in the poetry of Sappho, Virgil, Ovid, and oth-
ers. The idea was taken up and developed in the writings of Classical
medical authorities like Galen,9 and codified and elaborated by Arab
physicians in the Middle Ages.10 It reentered European intellectual
discourse in the twelfth century through the most widely reproduced
medical handbook of the period, the Viaticum of Constantine the
African.11 Lovesickness played a fundamental role in both popular
and intellectual notions about love in early modern Europe. Though
early modern medical discourse may stray at times into what would
now be considered nonscientific realms like astrology, it nonetheless
insists on the materiality of love. It assumes that love has physical
causes and can be treated by physical means: diet, physical therapy,
medicine, and surgery. It is a powerful counter-discourse both to the
idealization of Platonic love and to the romantic mythologies inher-
ited from the courtly love tradition. Rather than spiritual rapture or
emotional devotion, love is imagined as a harmful physical imbalance—
and as with any disease, the best course is to avoid infection in the
first place.
If pressed, most medical early modern medical writers on love
would insist that they were only concerned with physical love, and
that although physical love was a disease, spiritual love was a noble
sentiment. But as we have suggested elsewhere, the theoretical dis-
tinction between physical and spiritual love is difficult to maintain
in practice. It is often impossible to distinguish between material and
spiritual affection, if only because human beings have bodies, and if
a person is beloved, their physical being plays some role in that rela-
tionship. A smile, for example, is a physical action. A mother’s arms
holding her child are physical too. Sight and hearing, the senses most
frequently seen as pure or spiritual are nonetheless physical senses
that operate in the material world, for all the idealization of Plato
and Ficino. Indeed, as we shall see, the infection of lovesickness was
often said to physically enter the body through the eye. In addition,
much of the vocabulary used to describe spiritual love draws on the
discourses of physical love. In medieval devotional and theological
texts, the passionate language of the Song of Songs is frequently used
to describe spiritual longing, with the result that the tropes and terms
used to describe secular and sacred love are often identical.12
Although traditional religious thought had long subordinated
the physical to the spiritual, for many people who lived in the physi-
cal world and desired or cherished physical things this theoretical
solution was not entirely satisfying. Was any physical beauty virtuous?
Were any physical desires?
The definition of love in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
reflects this pervasive uncertainty about the moral status of the mate-
rial world and its beauties. Like Pausanius in the Symposium, Burton
attempts to neatly separate wicked lust from virtuous love: “One
beauty arises from God,” he asserts, “another from His creatures:
there is a beauty of the body, [and] a beauty of the soul” (3.13). This
seems clear enough: spiritual beauty provokes spiritual love, physical
beauty provokes physical love. But the division soon becomes much
more complicated. Bodily beauty, Burton explains, arises from “ges-
tures, speeches, several motions and proportions of creatures, men
and women.” Thus physical beauty comes not only from objects
themselves, but from their movement, their sound, even the math-
ematical relations of proportion underlying their form. Burton goes
on to specify that the physical love provoked by these many beauties
is called different things depending on its object, “as love of money,
covetousness, love of beauty, lust, immoderate desire of any pleasure,
concupiscence, friendship, love, good will, etc.” The mixture of posi-
tive and negative categories in this list suggests a certain ambivalence
about the moral status of physical love: The generally positive “Love
of beauty” is immediately followed in Burton’s catalogue by the nega-
tive term “lust”; the pejorative term “concupiscence” is succeeded by
the positive category of “friendship.” After all the talk of beauty of
gesture and proportion, it is jarring to see that Burton’s first example
of a physical attraction is “love of money.” For although one may love
money for its beauty of form or material—and early modern gold
coins could be strikingly beautiful—love of money is more complex
than that. However remarkable the coins look, however bright their
jangling sound, people love money for more abstract reasons as well—
in particular for the purchasing power it brings.
Burton goes on to explain that physical love is morally ambivalent:
It is “either virtue or vice, honest, dishonest,” excessive or deficient,
and “may be reduced to a twofold division, according to the principal
parts which are affected, the brain and liver.”
Thus, whether physical love is virtuous or vicious ultimately
depends entirely on material, physical issues, specifically on which
organ of the body is provoking the emotion. Good feelings are
located in the brain, the seat of reason; bad ones come from the liver,
the seat of physical desire. In either case, spirit or will has nothing to
do with it. What matters is whether the emotion arises from the brain
or the liver. All earthly love, from the love of money to love of one’s
children, is located in specific parts of the body. As Burton later says,

“The rational resides in the brain, the other in the liver . . . ; the heart
is diversely affected of both, and carried a thousand ways by consent”
(3.18). Human love, in this view, is a result of physical processes in
physical organs.
Burton is not consistent in this materialist focus. Elsewhere he falls
back on a more conventional division between spiritual and physi-
cal love (3.14). The heavenly and earthly Venuses are cited; Lucian
is quoted: “One love was born in the sea, . . . and causeth burning
lust: the other is that golden chain which was let down from heaven”
(3.14). Such inconsistency is not surprising. Few in the early modern
world would have accepted the notion of a purely material existence.
But the material body was the physicians’ area of expertise, and in
writing and thinking of its processes, they put aside spiritual concerns
as being out of their field. In On Lovesickness Ferrand makes the stan-
dard distinction at the outset:
There are two loves . . . divine love and common or vulgar love.
Metaphysicians and theologians discourse of the essence and prop-
erties of the first, while physicians deal with ordinary physical love,
which is either honest or dishonest. They teach the means for preserv-
ing the former in marriage, and they prescribe the sovereign remedies
for healing and preserving men from that lascivious, unchaste love that
so often carries away base and corrupted souls. (225)
Spiritual love is left to philosophers; doctors deal only with the phys-
ical. But whether the physical is “honest” or “dishonest” depends
on social factors rather than physical evidence. If you lust after your
spouse, your physical desires are positive; if not, negative. But the
physical processes of desire, arousal, and obsession are the same in
either case.
In a passage copied almost verbatim by Ferrand (252), André Du
Laurens’s Of Melancholike Diseases gives a detailed and suggestive
account of how love works as a physical series of material events:
Love therefore having abused the eyes, as the proper spyes and por-
ters of the mind, maketh a way for it selfe smoothly to glaunce along
through the conducting guides, and passing without any perserver-
ance in this sort through the veines unto the liver, doth suddenly
imprint a burning desire to obtaine the thing, which is or seemeth
worthie to be beloved, setteth concupiscence on fire, and beginneth
by this desire all the strife and contention: but fearing her selfe too
weake to incounter with reason, the principal part of the minde, she
posteth in haste to the heart, to surprise and winne the same: whereof
when she is once sure, as of the strongest holde, she afterward assaileth
and setteth upon reason, and all the other principall poweres of the
minde so fiercely, as that she subdueth them, and maketh them her
vassals and slaves.13
Love here is imagined as a physical agent that enters through the eye
and systematically proceeds to conquer the three “principle mem-
bers” of the body, as understood in Galenic medicine: the liver, seat of
desires; the heart, seat of emotions, and the brain, the seat of reason.14
Love first passes along the veins to the liver,15 where, like a branding
iron on dry wood, it simultaneously “imprints” its form on that organ
and kindles a fire. This burning, which Du Laurens says is the source
of “all the strife and contention” was thought to dry up the liver’s
black bile. This “adust” bile was the physical cause of melancholy—a
Greek term literally meaning “black bile.”
Once the liver has been set afire, Du Laurens’s metaphor shifts,
and Love becomes an Amazon warrior. Too weak to immediately
attack the brain, which is the seat of reason, she races instead from
the liver to the heart, seat of emotions. Only once the fortress of the
heart has been conquered does love move to subdue the brain and
take reason captive. The gendering of love as feminine in the early
modern English translation is more pronounced than in the original
French, where “love” is a feminine noun and thus always takes a femi-
nine pronoun. In English, Du Laurens’s translator Richard Surphlet
could have said “it,” but he chooses, not once, but repeatedly, to refer
to love as “she.” Love then, is imagined here as a effeminizing invader
that begins by provoking lust; she then conquers and controls emo-
tion, and finally overwhelms the body’s rational faculties.
Once enslaved by this feminine force, man is reduced to a “silly
loving worm”—fearful, alienated, tearful, and listless.16 All the func-
tions of the body are “perverted”:
Then is all spoyled, the man is quite undone and cast away, the sences
are wandring to and fro, up and downe, reason is confounded, the
immagination corrupted, the talke fond and sencelesse; the sillie lov-
ing worme cannot look upon any thing but his idol: al the functions of
the bodie are likewise perverted, he becommeth pale, leane, souning,
without any stomacke to his meate, hollow and sunke eyed. . . . You
shall finde him weeping, sobbing, sighing, and redoubling his sighes,
and in continuall restlesnes, avoyding company, loving solitarines, the
better to feed & follow his foolish imaginations; feare buffeteth him
on the one side, & oftentimes dispayre on the other; he is (as Plautus
sayth) there where indeed he is not; sometime he is hot as fire, and upon
the sudden he findeth himselfe as colde as ice: his heart doth alwaies
quake, and his pulse keepeth no true course, it is little, unequall, and
beating thicke, changing it selfe upon the sudden, not only at the
sight, but even at the name of the object which he affecteth.17
Once infected with love, there are, according to Du Laurens, only

two courses of action: “the one is, the injoying of the thing beloved:
the other resteth in the skill and paines of a good Phisition.”18 In
many cases, however, the first option—sexual intercourse with the
beloved—is impossible:
But this course of cure being such, as neither ought nor can alwaies be
put into practise, as being contrary unto the lawes of God and men, we
must have recourse unto the other which dependeth on the industrie
of the good Phisition.19
Ferrand’s O N L OV ESICK NESS

Little is known with any certainty about Jacques Ferrand’s life. He
was born in Agen, a town in southwestern France near Toulouse.20
His birthdate has been estimated to be 1575, 21 though in the dedica-
tory letter to the 1610 edition of On Lovesickness he says the volume’s
lack of eloquence reflects his “young age”—an odd phrase to take
literally if he were 35 at the time.22 All the same, Ferrand claims
elsewhere to have begun practicing medicine in Agen in 1604, 23 so a
birthdate after 1580 seems unlikely.
The first edition of Ferrand’s On Lovesickness was published in
Toulouse in 1610, under the title of Traité de l’essence et guérison de
l’amour ou de la mélancolie érotique [A Treatise on the Essence and
Cure of Love, or, On Erotic Melancholy].24 The text was addressed
to refined young lovers (beaux esprits) taken with the beauty of their
ladies (5), and is divided into 26 chapters. The volume was dedicated
to Ferrand’s patron, Claude of Lorraine, the Duke of Chevreuse, a
member of the powerful Guise family, and Ferrand also makes a point
of praising the Duke’s sister, Madame Jeanne de Lorraine, Prioress of
the Monastery of Prouillé (4). The Duke himself had a reputation as
a lover at court, and the mention of his pious sister may have been a
way of asserting a high moral tone. If so, it was ultimately unsuccess-
ful, as we shall see.25
According to the dedicatory letter, Ferrand served as Claude of
Lorraine’s physician-in-ordinary, and the dedication has a dateline of
Castelnaudary in Lauragais, a small city in southern France between

Toulouse and Carcassone, where the Duke lived as governor of
Provence, and where Ferrand also resided for several years; he served
as second Consul of Castelnaudary in 1612 and first Consul in 1618.26
The title page of the 1610 volume identifies Ferrand as a doctor of
laws and a member of the faculty of medicine, although no institution
is identified. It seems most likely he was affiliated with the University
of Toulouse, but no record of any such affiliation survives.
In 1620 the Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Toulouse formally con-
demned and banned the 1610 edition of On Lovesickness saying that
the book was “most pernicious and impious and secretly advocates
judiciary mathematics”—that is, astrology.27 A second document
elaborates:
Although it nominally condemns magic in some places, it supports it

in general and provides damnable remedies for making oneself loved
by ladies, teaches means of abomination and provides remedies that
cannot be practiced without corruption and is reminiscent of the most
damnable books and damnable inventions that have ever been writ-
ten for lubricity and love magic, all of which is even more dangerous
because it is written in the vernacular. 28
The volume was thus seen as dangerous on two counts: first, in advo-
cating occult practices such as astrology and magic, and second, in
describing seduction techniques and corrupt sexual practices. In the
most recent French edition of Ferrand’s 1610 text, Gérard Jacquin
speculates in detail on which specific passages of the volume might
have provoked the censors’ condemnation: references to erotically
explicit Classical and modern texts, including the satires of Juvenal
and Aretino’s I modi; the mention of erotic relations in the Bible,
including King David’s son Amnon’s passion for his half sister Tamara;
and the detailed description—albeit in a skeptical or disapproving
tone—of magic charms, philters, and potions to attract love.29 The
Tribunal was especially upset that, because the book was published in
French rather than Latin, it might be read by the general public rather
than by elite specialists and professional men. Booksellers were for-
bidden to sell the text, and existing copies were ordered to be burnt.
The severity of the penalty was underlined by including Ferrand’s
book in a document prohibiting the sale or printing of texts by Giulio
Cesare Vanini, a freethinker and professed atheist whose works openly
advocated astrology. Vanini had been arrested by the Tribunal and
condemned to death in Toulouse in 1618. On the February, 9, 1619,
his tongue was cut out, he was garroted to death, and his body was
publicly burned.30 Equating Ferrand’s book with Vanini’s carried an

ominous and unmistakable message.
And yet, in 1623, three years after his work had been condemned,
Ferrand published a reworked and expanded version of his treatise.
The second edition was given a new title, De la maladie d’amour
ou mélancholie erotique [On Lovesickness or Erotic Melancholy],
and it was published in Paris, presumably a more congenial environ-
ment than the conservative provincial city of Toulouse. Despite the
condemnation of the first edition by the Tribunal of Toulouse, the
second edition was legally published, with royal sanction and license
(“privilege du Roy”). Official permission for publication was given
on May 28, 1623, and reproduced in the volume.31 That the official
notice of permission refers to the work by its earlier title (Traité de
l’essence et guérison de l’amour ou de la mélancolie érotique) suggests
that the authorities considered the two editions to be essentially the
same, despite Ferrand’s substantial revisions to the second edition.
The original 26 chapters were expanded to 39, and the total length of
the text from 222 to 270 duodecimo pages.32
While the second edition of On Lovesickness contains most of the
same material and information as the first, the focus of the volume has
changed. The earlier edition, dedicated to an aristocratic patron and
addressed to noble young lovers, had a courtly tone. The 1623 edition
was more focused on medical issues, quoted Arabic medical sources
much more frequently, and is clearly a vernacular medical treatise rather
than a courtly conduct book or Ars amatoria. Some slang terms for
female genitalia are removed, as is all mention of Pietro Aretino. There
are frequent statements of fidelity to Catholic doctrine and submission
to the judgement of the Church on moral and theological matters.33
Claims for the superiority of medicine to spiritual knowledge have
been softened or removed. The original third chapter,34 which insists
that love is a physical affliction, claims that only “idiots” believe dis-
eases are divine punishments,35 and quotes Hippocrates to the effect
that “a philosophic doctor is like a god,”36 has been cut altogether.
References to sexual activity as a cure for erotic melancholy are accom-
panied by the explicit specification that all such relations must occur
within the bounds of wedlock.37 And Ferrand defends his detailed and
explicit references to female genitalia by saying that
the words themselves cannot be objectionable, . . . because the parts

they stand for are natural, useful, and necessary—parts, moreover that
are now dissected and demonstrated in public in order to understand
their substance, number, figure, placement, connection, action, and
function. (332)
It is as if the medical practice of public dissection erases the genitalia

as erotic organs, making them public sites of knowledge rather than
private sites of pleasure.
The second edition of the treatise was addressed not to young lov-
ers but to “Gentlemen Students of Medicine in Paris.” This may sug-
gest that in later life Ferrand had some connection with the University
of Paris or that he lived in the capital, but there is no hard evidence
for either conjecture. Similarly, no record has been found indicat-
ing whether Ferrand married, had children, or bought property. The
date of his death is unknown. The 1623 edition of the text seems to
have circulated more broadly than the 1610 edition did. It was the
later edition that was translated into English by Edmund Chilmead in
1640. It also the edition translated in a brilliantly annotated modern
edition by Donald A. Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella in 1990. The
banned 1610 edition has never been translated into English.38
Ferrand gives little specific information about his life in either ver-
sion of his text, though in a chapter on “Diagnostic Signs of Love”
that appears in both he tells a story about treating a lovesick young
scholar in 1604 in his home town of Agen:
I saw before me a young man, sad without any reason. . . . I saw his pale,
lemon-yellow, and wan face, his hollow-set eyes, noting that the rest of
his body was in rather good condition. I began to suspect some passion
of the spirit vexed his soul, and in light of his age, his sanguine tem-
perament, and his occupation, I concluded . . . that he was lovesick. As I
pressed him to reveal to me the external cause of his disease, an attrac-
tive girl of the house came in with a lamp as I was taking his pulse,
which from that moment went through a series of changes. (273)
Ferrand correctly diagnoses from the changes in the young man’s

pulse rate that he is in love with the servant girl. They try to arrange
for the student to marry her, but with no success. After this the young
man’s disease worsens—he has a fever and vomits blood. Frightened,
he turns to Ferrand, who cures him through unspecified “medical
remedies” (273). In the 1610 edition Ferrand claims this was his first
case as a practising physician.39
Despite the specific details of time and place—Agen, 1604, a
patient from Le Mas d’Agenais—this is a deeply conventional account
of a diagnosis of lovesickness. It is, in fact, a variation on the iconic
story of Antiochus and Stratonice that was popularized in the first
century BCE by Valerius Maximus and included by Plutarch in his
Life of Demetrius. Prince Antiochus, son of King Seleucus, falls in love
with his beautiful young stepmother Stratonice. He is deeply ashamed
to be in love with his father’s wife, and resolves to hide his feelings and
say nothing. This leads him to fall ill, and no one can find the cause of
his malady, which threatens to be fatal. Erasistratus, his doctor, notices
that Antiochus would alternately turn pale and blush when Stratonice
entered his sickroom. He takes the young man’s pulse and determines
that his pulse rate rises when his stepmother is present—he must be in
love with her. The doctor tells the young man’s father, and Seleucus
resolves to divorce Stratonice and betroth her to Antiochus, as a mag-
nanimous reward for his son’s strength of character.
The story was widely popular and was interpreted in many ways—
as an example of filial duty and parental selflessness, but most
importantly in this context, an argument that observation of physi-
cal changes in the body could reveal physiological and psychological
truths that the subject himself would or could not. The patient may
lie; the body does not. Galen took up the story from Plutarch, and
Avicenna took it from Galen, and it became a key narrative in medical
thought, proving the value of observing pulse rates to detect agitation
or ill-health, and also making the medical professional the ultimate
arbiter of the truth of the patient’s body. Ferrand himself cites the
story of Antiochus and Stratonice in support of his contention that a
physician can accurately diagnose lovesickness without a confession of
love by the patient (266).
Symptoms of Lovesickness
In medical discourse, lovesickness was divided into two major forms:
love melancholy, a wasting disease, and love mania, characterized by
hyperactivity. Both involved fixation on one unattainable object of
desire. Excited by sexual desire for an impossible partner, patients
of both genders were understood to be suffering from an excess of
sperm (327)—since early modern medicine knew little of ovaries and
assumed women had seed like men did. Sperm (in both men and
women) was understood to be produced by heating of the blood.
Once concocted, if sperm was not evacuated from the body through
sexual activity, it could accumulate and fester, with dangerous con-
sequences. Along with the corruption of sperm, love melancholy was
also believed to be caused by excessive heat in the liver, the organ that
was thought to be the seat of natural appetites. The liver’s heat dried
out the black bile, and turned it to dust. The dust ascended to the
brain (and perhaps also to the heart) and caused the patient to have
depressive, obsessive thoughts, in this case, thoughts of inexpressible
love and frustrated sexual desire.
Related to lovesickness, and often conflated with it, was the prob-
lem of excessive sexual desire, called satyriasis in males and uterine
fury or hysteria in females. Unlike love melancholy or love mania,
uterine fury and satyriasis were not focused on any one beloved object
of desire. They were instead characterized by an indiscriminate and
insatiable desire for intercourse that would eventually drive the patient
mad. Their cause was not adust humors infecting the brain, but was
instead rooted in the genital organs themselves. A good deal of the
confusion and contradiction in the discourses around lovesickness
comes from the blurring of love melancholy, love mania, and excessive
desire in general. Ferrand’s treatise discusses and at times conflates all
three conditions. At one point he goes so far as to claim that “uterine
fury . . . [is] a true species of erotic melancholy” (353). Thus the confu-
sions over whether lovesickness is caused by an imbalance or infection
in the brain, the genitals, the heart, or the liver.
In Galenic thought, the brain was the seat of “animal virtues”—
that is, qualities relating to the soul or anima, including thought,
movement, and sensation. Thus any disease that caused insanity or
irrational thought must obviously affect the brain. The heart, on the
other hand, was believed to be the seat of the “vital virtues,” bodily
functions like heartbeat, pulse, and respiration that are fundamental
to maintaining life. It was also thought to be the seat of emotions
(which quickened the pulse), and so a disease characterized by strong
emotional distress must involve the heart. The liver was understood
to be the seat of “natural virtues”—nutrition, growth, and reproduc-
tion, so an illness affecting sexual desire must be rooted in the liver.40
And of course, the genitals were also implicated in lovesickness, since
they were the organs excited.
There were many conflicting theories about exactly which parts of
the body were affected, how they were affected, and in what order.
In the passage quoted from Du Laurens above, as we have already
noted, love enters through the eye, then infects the liver, the heart,
and finally the brain, with no mention of the genitals. But there were
other models too. In Chapter 8 of On Lovesickness, Ferrand insists
that “the liver is the hearth of this fire and the seat of love” (253).
Chapter 9, however, is devoted to the question “Whether in erotic
melancholy the heart or the brain is the seat of the disease” (256–257).
And in Chapter 30, Ferrand suggests in passing that the heart can be
infected by words heard through the ear (324). True to form, Ferrand
attempts to reconcile the issue by saying that love melancholy is a
disease of the brain, caused by an infection in the heart, and that love
itself (as distinct from love melancholy) has its causes in both the liver
and the genitals. Of course, fear, one of the symptoms of love melan-
choly, is also located in the stomach—especially in children, as Galen
and Nemesius (a fourth-century authority) agree. (257).
For a modern reader who is aware that the Galenic, humoral body
is a largely fictional and metaphoric construct that bears little rela-
tion to the actual workings of the body, these distinctions between
one sort of lovesickness and another can seem insignificant and eso-
teric. The significance, once again, is in their very confusion. Just
as there was no clear understanding of whether love was spiritual or
carnal, so too there was no clear diagnosis of the physical mecha-
nisms, either real (like a rapid pulse) or imagined (like adust black
bile), that caused lovesickness. In medicine, as in philosophy, ethics,
and psychology, love was primarily characterized by contradiction,
confusion, and paradox. Like Equicola (whom he read closely and
often drew on)41 Ferrand was a conciliator who sought to incorpo-
rate and reconcile as many different strands of thought in his treatise
as possible.42
What is significant, therefore, is not Ferrand’s final opinion on
where the disease is located, but the fact that, being a physician, he is
intellectually committed to locating emotions and desires in particular
physical organs, rather than seeing them as fundamentally spiritual or
intellectual. Sexual desire in this view is not a temptation to sin, but a
physical function of bodily organs. Ferrand is one of the few medical
authorities who conflates lovesickness focused on one object of desire
with hysteria and satyriasis, excessive and uncontrolled sexual desire
in general. For a moralist, it makes a great deal of difference if a person
is devoted to one person or indiscriminately desires anyone in sight.
But from a purely physical point of view, the mechanisms of desire are
the same whether the patient desires one or many. Clinically speak-
ing, Ferrand would see little difference between Petrarch longing for
Laura and Chrysanthus the old lecher from Petronius’s Satyricon who
copulates with anything in the room—men, women, boys, girls, even
the dog.43
The predominant model for understanding human physiognomy
in the early modern period remained the humoral model estab-
lished in antiquity by Galen. In this Galenic model, bodily health
was maintained by a temperate balance of four natural bodily flu-
ids, known as humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.44
Each humor was associated with a particular temperament: A person
whose dominant humor was blood would have a sanguine, or cheer-
ful character. If phlegm was dominant, then the person would be
phlegmatic—slow and lethargic. A quick temper indicated a choleric
temperament—caused by an excess of yellow bile. And if black bile

was predominant, the person would be melancholiac—thoughtful,
moody, depressive.
The humors were understood to be characterized by mixtures of
the fundamental qualities of matter: heat, cold, wetness, and dryness.
Thus phlegm was cold and wet, blood was hot and wet, yellow bile
was hot and dry, and black bile was cold and dry.
The mixture of humors that defined a person’s temperament was
different in each individual, but a person’s humoral makeup was also
thought to be determined by age, gender, and climate: Younger peo-
ple were more likely to be sanguine, older people to be phlegmatic.
Men were thought to be hot and dry, women cold and wet. Southern
climates led to hot, dry temperaments, northern climates to cold and
wet ones.45
Ferrand also considers “external” causes for lovesickness—that is,
factors beyond the body itself that might lead someone to contract
the disease if their temperament and humoral makeup already predis-
poses them to it. In contradiction to Plato, Ferrand says that all five
senses can provoke love. And although he concedes that sight is in
many ways crucial, he nonetheless claims the greatest danger comes
from the taste “of hot, spicy, flatulent, and melancholy meats” (244).
Those in hot climates are more at risk than those in cold or temperate
regions, but again, such factors are not entirely determinative,
otherwise all Egyptians, Italians, Spaniards, and Africans would be las-

civious of necessity, though in truth these climes have produced saintly
individuals surpassing the English, the Scythians, the Muscovites, and
the Poles in chastity. (246)
Edmund Childmead’s 1640 English translation prudently removes

“the English” from this list.46 One of the commendatory verses in the
same translation praises Ferrand for his subtlety on the issue, but ends
by reaffirming the common ethnic stereotypes of the period:
The Judgement’s subt’ler here; and hath allow’d

Some parch’d Moores, chast: light, wrap’d in that black clowd.
Yet still he grants, these Flames may sooner grow,
In Easterne sulphur, then in Northerne snow:
And, that chast thoughts in Italy are rare:
And, that each Turtle, proves a Phoenix there.47
Though the workings of the Galenic system can be rigorously logical,

it was frequently deployed in illogical ways to reinforce commonly held
views and prejudices. Any characteristic of any temperament could be

read either positively or negatively: a hot dry temperament could be seen
as energetic and dynamic, or dangerously overwrought and unstable.
A wet, cold temperament could be seen as calm and stable, or sluggish
and indolent. Southern Europeans were said by Northerners to be too
hot and dry and thus unable to control their tempers, passions, and
lusts. At the same time, it was a medical commonplace that men’s hot
and dry temperament made them naturally superior to women, whose
temperament was cold and wet. Medical discourse was as open as any
other to manipulation for ideological reasons. The logic of humoral
diagnosis also often led to courses of treatment that in reality were
bound to have devastating results: tobacco smoking, for example, was
often prescribed as a cure for coughs and chest congestion. Surely
the hot, dry fumes of tobacco would temper the excessive chill, wet
humors that caused the condition we still refer to as “a cold.”48
Lovesickness was often understood as a subcategory of melan-
choly—and this is how Robert Burton classifies it in The Anatomy
of Melancholy. Melancholy was understood as a disease of the body
and mind whose physical cause was dried up black bile, known as
“melancholy adust” in the medical terminology of the period. There
was some confusion in accounts of the etiology of the disease as to
whether bile became adust though excessive heat or cold. Melancholy
was generally characterized by excessive cold and dryness, so some
authorities attributed love melancholy to the same combination. But
sexual passion was traditionally believed to involve excessive heat, and
other authors favored that interpretation.
But there was general agreement that, however the black bile came
to be dried up, the adust humor would release vapors that would
corrupt the brain, leading to depressive and fixated thoughts. Pierre
Boaistuau, a sixteenth-century French moralist (and translator of the
Romeo and Juliet story) claimed to have seen evidence of such desic-
cation in the dissected corpse of a dead lover:
I have seen a Natomie made of some of those that have dyed of this
malady, that had their bowels shrunke, their poore heart all burned,
their Liver and Lightes [lungs] all vaded and consumed, their Braines
endomaged, and I thinke that their poore soule was burned by the
vehement and excessive heat that they did endure, when that the rage
of love had overcome them.49
Some authorities also believed that the brain itself could descend into
a melancholy state through excessive concentration and fixation on
certain thoughts. Sleeplessness could acerbate the condition. Whatever

the etiology of the disease, treatment of love melancholy would thus
attempt to counteract the drying of the black bile through diet, physi-
cal therapy, medicine, or surgery.
Love melancholy was characterized by despair, and could lead to
suicide. Erotic mania, on the other hand, resulted in frenzy, and in
the worst cases, the patient could be transformed into a bestial state;
bizarre as it may seem, there was a persistent linkage in medical thought
between love mania and lycanthropy. Lycanthropy—that is, transfor-
mation of the patient into a werewolf—had been seen as a disease of
melancholy since the Classical period, and Arab authorities such as
Avicenna saw a connection between lycanthropy and fatal or incur-
able cases of love melancholy.50 The great tenth-century Arab physi-
cian Abu Bakr Muhammed ibn zakariya al-Rasi, known in Europe
as Rhazes, wrote that extreme cases of lovesickness would end with
the patient wandering through cemeteries at night howling like a
wolf 51—a conflation of the Classical notion that werewolves haunted
cemeteries and the fact that in ancient Rome cemeteries were also
common sites of prostitution and other illicit sexual encounters. 52
The symptoms of lovesickness were clearly defined in a tradition
that can be traced back all the way to the poetry of Sappho in the
sixth-century BCE. The key text is one of Sappho’s few complete
surviving poems—a brief lyric that describes how the speaker feels
looking at her beloved sitting next to a man at a table:
He seems to me like a god,

That man across from you
Sitting and answering your
sweet speech
your magic laughter. I swear
it shivers my heart in my breast.
For when I look at you I
cannot speak.
My tongue snaps. A light
fire races instantly through my body.
My eyes cannot see. My
ears buzz.
Sweat trickles down. A tremor
seizes my whole being. I am pale
green as dry grass. I think I am
about to die.53
Seeing her beloved laughing with another, the speaker’s heart trem-
bles, she cannot speak, her body feels like it is on fire, she cannot see
or hear, she is pale (“green as grass” in the original Greek) and cov-
ered in sweat. This lyric was famous in antiquity, commented on by
Longinus (who preserved it by quoting it at length),54 and translated
into Latin by Catullus.55 Medical tradition considered literary texts
like this not as hyperbole or as literary convention, but as case studies.
Ferrand quotes from the poem in his chapter on “Diagnostic Signs of
Love Melancholy,” saying,
Does it not appear that Sappho was as wise and experienced in this
art as our Greek, Latin, and Arab physicians in light of the fact thay
they mentioned no indisputable signs that this lady did not already
know? (272).
Besides Sappho, in his chapter on “Diagnostic Signs of Love

Melancholy” Ferrand also cites Virgil, Ovid, and Statius. Despite
their lack of professional medical training, poets were nonetheless
believed to be experts on love. Recall that Equicola devotes a full half
of his discussion on how to incite love in others in the fifth book of
De Natura d’amore to summaries of poetic texts.
Despite Ferrand’s ringing endorsement of Sappho’s diagnostic skill,
there were other symptoms associated with love melancholy beyond
those described in her influential poem, chief among them “a desire
for solitariness, sighing, hollow eyes, sleeplessness, loss of appetite,”56
as well as talkativeness, abrupt shifts of mood, and general agitation
of the body and the pulse (269–270). Ferrand allows that lovers may
cry a lot, but tears in themselves have so many possible causes they are
not a necessary diagnostic sign of lovesickness (279).
Shakespeare’s many references to lovesick characters are remark-
ably detailed in the description of their symptoms. In Midsummer
Night’s Dream, Helena is “fancy-sick” with love, and her sighs make
her pale with loss of blood (3.2.96–97). In As You Like It, Rosalind
diagnoses Orlando as suffering from the “quotidian,” or recurring
fever “of love” (3.2.330–331). In Twelfth Night, Olivia compares
love to the plague, and feels the image of her beloved “to creep in
at mine eyes” (1.5.264–67), just as Ferrand and Du Laurens say
it will.
As these Shakespearean examples attest, lovesickness could strike
both men and women. In fact, though the descriptions of patients
and cases in most texts routinely assume a male patient, Ferrand
outrightly states that “women are more frequently and more griev-
ously troubled by these ills than are men” (229). And again later,
without doubt the woman is more passionate in love and more frantic
and rash in her folly than man. . . . This opinion is confirmed by daily
experience, which reveals to us a greater number of women witless,
maniacal, and frantic from love than men.
Though he immediately adds a caveat: “unless [men] are effeminate

courtiers, nourished on a life of riot and excess and on the breast
of courtesans” (311). As so often in early modern culture, love and
sexuality are seen as fundamentally female; if men suffer from love-
sickness, it is because they are effeminate.
Along with lovesickness, in the case of women there was also what
the English called the “greensickness”—a general sense of unease,
restlessness, and weakness felt by pubescent women who had not
yet engaged in sexual intercourse.57 The primary cause of green-
sickness was thought to be a lack of regular menstrual flow—it was
believed that if menses and female seed were not naturally released
they would stagnate within the body and putrefy, causing a range
of physical symptoms, including paleness, puffiness, nausea, diffi-
culty breathing, and a rapid pulse.58 The description of the disease
originates with Hippocrates: Ferrand quotes from On the Diseases of
Young Women:
The acute inflammation drives them out of their wits, the putrefac-
tion makes them homicidal, the blackness of the condition causes
frights and starts, and the pressure around the heart brings on a
desire to strangle themselves. The most inward reason, troubled and
anguished by the corruption of the blood, in turn becomes per-
verted. (264)59
Some of these symptoms were the same as those of love melancholy,

though the two ailments were technically believed to be separate. It
is significant in the poem that lays out the basic symptoms of love-
sickness, Sappho says she “is pale green as grass.” (lines 14–15). The
pallor associated with lovesickness was often seen in terms of a green-
ish tinge to the skin. Ferrand discusses the various possible shades of
discoloration at some length, noting,
these terms not only signify green, but also pale, and the color that
appears in wheat when excessive heat and winds from the south cause
it to mature too rapidly. (274)
He relates this green pallor to the yellow skin tone common in liver
diseases such as jaundice, positing that in both cases “the skin denotes
the corruption of humors standing stagnant within the body” (275).
The association of greenness with liver disorders, heat, and southern
climate is typical of the logic of early modern medical thinking in that
it relates a single traditional symptom (drawn ultimately from lyric
poetry) to various factors and attributes already associated with the
disease—the liver as seat of physical desires, heat, and the south wind
from Africa or other alien territories.
Another symptom of greensickness or hysteria more broadly was
female masturbation: As Ferrand explains, pain in the genital area
caused “women so afflicted [to] touch these areas with their hands
without any sense of shame or bashfulness” (263).60 Ferrand argues
that such depraved activity must indicate an infection of the brain as
well as the genitals because no sane person would act in such a shame-
less fashion. Though this passage appears in the vernacular in both
French editions of Ferrand’s treatise, the entire discussion of female
masturbation was prudently printed in Latin in Childmead’s English
translation of the volume.61
Like lovesickness, greensickness is commonly mentioned in
Shakespeare. Polonious chides Ophelia for being a “green girl”
(Hamlet 1.3.101), and both her bawdy speech after her father’s death
and the possibility that her drowning was a suicide fit the progno-
sis. Capulet calls his daughter Juliet a “greensickness carrion” for
resisting the marriage with Paris he has arranged for her (Romeo and
Juliet 3.5.156). Greensickness is also imputed to weak or effemi-
nate men— Falstaff says that men who drink no wine suffer from
“a kind of male greensickness” (2 Henry IV 4.2.84), and the politi-
cally impotent Lepidus in Antony and Cleopatra is said to be simi-
larly afflicted (3.2.6). In The Winter’s Tale, a furious Paulina says
Leontes’s groundless jealousy is “too green and idle / For girls of
nine” (3.2.179).
In a comic verse on greensickness, preserved in early seventeenth-
century manuscript miscellanies, the oracle of Apollo offers the cure
in the form of an acrostic:
A maiden faire of the greene sicknesse late

P itty to see perplexed was full sore
R esolving how to mend her bad estate
I n this distresse Apollo doth implore
C ure for her ill. The oracle assignes
K eep the first letters of these several lines.62
Paradoxically, it was believed that sexual intercourse would release

pent-up menstrual fluid and reestablish regular flow.
As in medieval Arabic medical texts, the most effective cure for
love may be sex. But of course, you can’t always get what you want—
especially if you are a teenage Elizabethan girl. As Lesel Dawson
points out, greensickness is one of the rare early modern discourses
that sees female virginity as a negative state—physically dangerous
and unhealthy if maintained too long.63
Cures for Love: Therapy, Diet,

Medicine, Surgery
In Rabelais’s Tiers Livre (1546), Pantagruel’s friend Panuge consults
one authority after another asking if it is possible to get married with-
out being cuckolded. (Everyone agrees that his future wife is certain to
cheat on him). When it comes time for a medical opinion, Rondibilis,
the Doctor, agrees with all the other authorities that cuckoldry is
inevitable, in part because of the alleged physical insatiability of the
female genital organs. But in addition, he tells Panurge that there are
five remedies for lovesickness: (1) intemperate consumption of wine,
which leaves the patient too drunk to have sex; (2) drugs and herbs,
including mandragora and hippopotamus skin, said to cause impo-
tence; (3) hard labor, which leaves the patient too tired to have sex;
(4) diligent study, which draws blood to the brain and away from the
genital region; and finally, (5) having sex, which removes the disease
by removing its cause.64 These answers are parodic, but nonetheless
parallel much serious medical discourse on the subject, discourse that
Rabelais, as a physician himself, knew quite well. Ficino, for example,
agrees that wine can be of use in purging corrupted humors, recom-
mending that “a clear wine is to be used, sometimes even with intoxi-
cation, in order that when the old blood has been evacuated, new
blood may approach.”65 Ferrand, following Hippocrates, recommends
mint as an herb that will cause sterility in males (321). Although doc-
tors resisted recommending physical labor to their wealthy patients,
Ferrand says, “The lover must be kept occupied with serious activities
according to his profession and abilities” (323). Hunting and vigorous
exercise were encouraged—a tradition going back to Ovid’s Remedia
Amoris.66 As Ferrand says, “The weariness that follows brings on a
gentle sleep that prevents our stricken lover from meditating on his
wild desires” (353). Excessive study was seldom recommended, since
it was seen as one of the most common causes of melancholy in the
first place, but Ferrand does say that “those who take pleasure in
the study of letters, . . . and managing a household are not subject to

the treacheries of love” (323). And the idea that sex was the cure
for lovesickness was a commonplace of Classical and Arabic medical
thought, as we have seen.67
Like Rabelais’s fictional doctor, but at much greater length,
Ferrand discusses measures to prevent lovesickness, as well as rem-
edies for the disease. He also devotes considerable space to a discus-
sion of how to identify those who might be particularly at risk for the
disease. Unsurprisingly “those with hot, dry complexions, or simply
hot temperatures are the most inclined to love” (283). Young people
are at more risk than the old. Hirsute men are considered naturally
lustful: Aristotle says, “Hairy men have more sperm and are therefore
more given to venery than smooth men” (284).68 Ferrand claims that
“a man’s race and extraction are very important” for determining
whether or not they are at risk for lovesickness, but after running
through the standard ethnic stereotypes of the time (“Neapolitans,
Egyptians, Asiatics, and Africans [are] bawdy and inclined to lust”),
he ultimately rejects them because there are always exceptions to such
general rules: “all these signs are uncertain, indeed pure conjecture”
(284–285). Ferrand is more credulous regarding the widely held
belief that a person’s character was fundamentally determined by that
of the person (or animal) who nursed them as an infant.
Ferrand denies that astrology can help predict whether or not an
individual is inclined to lovesickness (288–291). He is also skepti-
cal about chiromancy, or palm-reading. Magic spells and dream-
interpretation are similarly debunked (298–300). He also rejects
philters and love potions (342–346). While some substances may
increase or decrease sexual desire, they are purely physical in their
action and are not specific to any one person: “I deny,” Ferrand says,
“that any can be found that will make John love Jean rather than Jill,
much less make anyone fall into passionate love” (345). For Ferrand,
the efficacy of any potion or recipe depends on the material proper-
ties of its ingredients (understood as heating or cooling, moistening
or drying) rather than any symbolic resemblance or mystical affinity.
For example, he is contemptuous of the idea, mentioned by Arnold
of Villanova, that placing the right testicle of a wolf under the right
testicle of a lecherous man will reduce sexual desire (332).
Ferrand does believe, however, that one can judge a person by their
physical appearance. Like Bembo in Castiglione, he suggests that
attractive people are bound to be good: “the face is like a minature of
the soul” (292). He quotes Hippocrates and Galen to assert that lean
people are clever and fat people are stupid (293). He evinces some
skepticism, noting that Alcibiades was beautiful and wicked, whereas

Socrates was ugly and wise. But as a physician he is bound to trust
physiognomy in most cases, because his profession depends on it:
For if the habits of the soul in no way depend on the complexion of

the body, Aristotle says, then the physician would never be able to heal
love folly by his medications. (294)
In chapters 29 to 34, Ferrand deals with measures that can be taken

to prevent the disease, and then in chapters 36 to 39, ways to cure
the disease once it is present. The first step in treatment is to remove
external factors that incite the disease (313). For Ferrand, this mostly
involves evoking disgust or hatred for the person beloved. As he puts
it (without a trace of irony), “there is much to be gained by convert-
ing love into hate or jealousy” (317). The patient—presumed here
to be male, though it is frequently asserted that women suffer from
lovesickness more than men—should “meditate on the imperfec-
tions and impurities of women” (318), in particular on menstrual
blood as a sign of the fundamental filthiness of the vagina. Ferrand
cites a story of the learned Alexandrine woman Hypatia, who alleg-
edly showed an unwanted suitor a cloth stained with her menstrual
blood, “which served to cool his ardor” (318). But for his own part,
Ferrand makes it clear that such traditional cures are ineffective: He
turns instead to “more sound and profitable remedies to be found in
the three fountains of medicine: dietetics, surgery, and pharmaceu-
tics” (319).
In Galenic medicine and humoral theory, “all diseases are to be
cured by their contraries” (350).69 Lovesickness was said to be a hot,
dry condition, and so should be treated with cooling and moisture
(320). Ferrand first reviews dietary remedies. Foods should gener-
ally be mild in flavor and promote a cooling and moistening of the
body; So for prevention, Ferrand recommends “lightly nourishing”
and cooling foods: lettuce, chicory, and other “refrigerative” herbs.
The diet should be light, because hunger itself is a way of avoiding
the disease: “Love never lodges in an empty belly” (321). For those
patients already wasting away with the disease, however, fasting can
do more harm than good (353–354).
Spicy and sharp tasting foods such as ginger, onions, and arug-
ula are to be avoided. Salt is particularly bad, as are “meats that are
highly nourishing, hot, flatulent, and melancholy, such as soft egges,
partridge, pigeon, sparrow, quail, young hare, and especially goose”
(322–323). In their commentary on this passage, Beecher and Ciavolella
demonstrate that the foods forbidden to those suffering from lovesick-

ness are the same as those recommended to cure sterility.70 For treat-
ing those already afflicted with lovesickness, Ferrand recommends a
more esoteric diet: “turtledove, heart of wolf, baby horned owls or
great owls boiled in marjoram juice, rat’s meat and the like” all have
particular “occult properties” that may be beneficial (350).
As well as dietary recommendations, Ferrand discusses therapeu-
tic methods that may have some efficacy in either protecting against
infection or in treating the disease. We have already seen that vig-
orous exercise, especially hunting and riding, was thought to have
therapeutic value. Other therapeutic remedies include baths in cold
water, listening to calming music (348), and travel (350). Beyond
these relatively sensible recommendations, Ferrand also lists some
more extreme measures:
Athenaeus reports of Thersites that he gave wine in which someone

has suffocated a mullett or seabarbell. . . . Or else urine can be used
in which a lizard has been drowned. Equally great claims have been
made for the wax of the left ear, for pigeon dung steeped in ordinary
oil, and for the urine of the billy goat mixed with Indian or Celtic
spikenard. (348)
Ferrand also mentions that Giovanni di Vigo, surgeon to Pope Julius

II, recommended collecting the excrement of the beloved and then
burning it: “such perfume has the singular virture of breaking the
ties of illicit love if the lover breathes the stinking odor” (348–349).
Unlike the presentation of menstrual blood, this remedy would pre-
sumably work whether the beloved was male or female. But Ferrand
is ultimately skeptical, saying that Aristophanes the comic dramatist
called physicians like these “urine drinkers and shit eaters” (349).
Ferrand also disapproves of those, like the fourteenth-century
Montpellier physician Bernard of Gordon, who think lovers should
be physically punished:
Gordon goes too far, I think, when he says the lover should be spanked
and whipped . . . until he begins to smell bad all over. (325)
Gordon was not the only one to suggest such harsh measures. Valesco
de Taranta, a fifteenth-century Portuguese physician, also active at
the venerable medical school of Montpellier, had a similar prescription:
“If [the lover] is in early youth, let him be beaten, and imprisoned,
and there fed only bread and water until he begs for mercy.”71 More
attuned perhaps to the sexual tastes of the lovesick, Ferrand disap-

proves of this therapy because some patients will become even more
aroused when beaten. Rather than speculate on master-slave psychol-
ogy, however, Ferrand, as is his habit, attributes a physical cause to
what would later be called masochism:
It is indeed true that the blood is heated by whipping and pounding

the back and flanks, in turn stirring up the flatulant vapors that can
fill the fistular nerve and bring on the disease physicians call satyriasis.
(354–355)
In the later seventeenth century, as Sarah Toulalan has shown, beating

was similarly thought to increase fertility by warming the blood.72
Though he disapproves of beating, Ferrand does endorse the prac-
tice of penile infibulation—he cites an epigram of Martial (7.82) and
the first-century encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus as evidence
that in ancient Rome young men were discouraged from excessive
sexual activity by having a ring or clasp attached to their foreskin
(325). The late sixteenth-century medical authority Laurent Joubert
describes the practice in more detail:
Thus they practiced infibulation or buckling in ancient times, as Celsus

relates, so that boys would not abuse women before they were of age.
They pulled the foreskin up, he says, and passed a threaded needle
through the end. The thread remained there, and they rubbed it every
day till holes wore through and a light scar developed around the hole.
Then one could insert a buckle that could be removed and replaced
without pain.73
Besides suggesting useful therapies for combatting lovesickness,

Ferrand also suggests activities that should be avoided, chief among
them artistic diversions that may have a strong emotional impact, like
reading, music, and theater:
There are, nevertheless, certain activities that are extremely danger-

ous, such as reading dirty books, listening to music, playing viols,
lutes, and other instruments, and even more, going to plays and
farces, balls and dances, for such exercises open up the pores of the
heart no less than those of the skin. And then if some serpent comes
breathing into the ears a few tempting words, proposes some dalli-
ance or other, with her coaxings and wheedlings, or some basilisk
comes along casting lascivious looks, winking, and making sheep’s
eyes, those hearts very quickly allow themselves to be seized and
poisoned. (324)
The etiology described here contradicts the theory of infection of the

liver through the eye that Ferrand shares with Du Laurens and other
authorities. Here the heart (the seat of emotion) is the vulnerable
organ, due to overstimulation that renders it more porous. And the
infection can enter the body through the ears as well as through the
eyes. What both narratives have in common is the gendering of
the infectious agent as female, more proof, if any were needed, of the
persistent connection between lovesickness and effeminacy.
When all else fails, Ferrand recommends surgery. In simple cases,
all that would be required was drawing blood—a standard early mod-
ern treatment for almost any ailment. Since sperm was believed to be
produced by a purification and heating of the blood, bleeding seemed
a logical way to reduce levels of sperm. As a precautionary measure
against the possible onset of lovesickness, Ferrand recommends draw-
ing blood from the “liver vein” of the right arm three or four times
a year (327), again logical, since the “liver vein” was believed to take
blood directly from the reproductive system. If this does not suf-
fice, additional blood can be taken from the back of the knee or “on
the thighs near the genitals with the requisite scarification” (327).
Ferrand also discusses an ancient story from Herodotus that claims
the Scythian men—thought by the Greeks to be particularly wild
and barbaric—cut blood vessels behind their ears, which made them
impotent and effeminate (327–328). Although Ferrand thinks this
might potentially be of use to clergy who have taken vows of chastity,
he does not recommend it, because the operation was also believed to
impair intelligence.
In extreme cases of love melancholy, more radical intervention was
thought necessary—especially for women:
If the clitoris, by its excessive length, is the cause of this furious desire
and raging disease, as is often the case, it should be cut in the manner
taught by the Greek Moschion and the Arab Albucasis. (357)
Albucasis, or Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahawārī Khalaf Idn Abbās, a tenth-

century medical writer, was the most renowned Arab authority on
surgery. His Methoda medendi certa [Sure Methods of Healing], pub-
lished in Basel in 1541 gives specific direction:
It is therefore necessary that you hold the superfluous part of the clito-
ris in your hand, or with a small hook, and cut it short, but do not cut
too deeply, especially not to the bottom of the root, to avoid a great
flow of blood.74
There is not much evidence that such procedures were often carried
out, but the notion that the best way to deal with sexual desire is to
mutilate the sexual organs demonstrates the logical conclusion of a
purely materialist approach to the regulation of sexual desire. Cut out
the offending matter.
Given the traditional male biases of early modern medical dis-
course, it is not surprising that Ferrand gives his endorsement to
female genital mutilation but balks at cutting veins that might make
men effeminate and foolish. Beyond the passage we have already cited
recommending the purported Roman practice of discouraging desire
by inserting a ring or clasp on the foreskin (325), Ferrand has little to
say on the subject of male genital mutilation. Castration is nowhere
mentioned, though one assumes that by the logic of early modern
medicine it would have been an effective cure for some of the ail-
ments under discussion.
If genital mutilation does not do the trick, additional steps may be
taken:
If the condition grows worse in a way suggesting that the erotic mel-
ancholy could turn into lycanthropy, then the veins in the arms must
be bled until the patient faints or until there is a total failure of the
heart, and in spite of this one must continue by cauterizing the front
of the head with a searing iron, or if he refuses or cannot bear it, with
a caustic compound applied to the same place. (118–119)
Not everyone believed in such things: In his discussion of lycan-

thropy in the Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton sagely notes,
“some do make a doubt of it whether there be any such disease.”
Indeed, Burton’s extensive treatment of love melancholy barely men-
tions surgical remedies for love. In his three hundred page discus-
sion of cures for melancholy he devotes only two pages to surgical
remedies—primarily bloodletting. He is dubious as to its efficacy,
in part because bleeding dries the body, and melancholy is a dis-
ease characterized by excessive dryness (2.234–237, 2.254–255). He
much prefers diet, exercise, and various medicines.
Ferrand is exhaustive in his description and listing of various
forms of treatment for lovesickness, whether drawn from history
and mythology or from the medical tradition. As a practicing physi-
cian, however, he puts his faith primarily in pharmaceutical remedies.
The disease can be most effectively treated with the right medicines.
Since melancholy comes from adust black bile, medicines should be
administered both to humidify the dried out body and to purge or
otherwise remove the corrupted humor (358).
Humidifying is done primarily through bathing in cool water, per-

haps with the addition of cooling herbs. Ferrand provides a recipe for
simples to be added to the bath:
Take 4 large handfuls each of marsh mallows using the entire herb,
blue mallows, wild lettuce [green endive], borage, white pond lily,
pumpkin seeds, fumatory, hops, and sharp-pointed dock. Add in
2 large handfuls each of glaswort and tendrils of the grapevine. Put
in ½ large handful each of water lily, sweet violet, borage, sweetbrier
[eglantine], and marigold. Add 2 ounces of chaste tree seeds, hemp
seeds, and the heads of two wethers [castrated rams]. Make a decoc-
tion using river water, in which the patient will sit for about one hour
a day for four days. (363)
Say what you want about early modern medical practice: Sitting in a
bath of cold river water for an hour with two ram’s heads, and handfuls
of herbs, flowers, and pumpkin seeds (not to mention sharp-pointed
dock) does seem likely to cool any sort of ardor you might be feeling
before entering the tub. Ferrand recommends that during the bath
people should come and entertain the patient with jokes, songs, and
stories. The Arlesian physician François Valleriola, Ferrand’s source
for this particular recipe, recommended that such pleasing discourse
be alternated with scolding and admonition of the patient by some
wise older person.75
For women, Ferrand recommends douches and vaginal supposito-
ries, several of which involve lentils, willow flowers, and camphor—
all substances believed to have a cooling effect. (331–332, 364). He
also relates that Cleopatra, sister of Arsinoës, “Queen of Physicians,”
told her daughter Theodota to put a root wrapped in a rag in her
vagina, and when it was removed she would find that the rag was full
of little worms (331–332). A misogynist loathing of female genitalia
permeates this passage—Ferrand even uses the euphemism “the pig-
sty of Venus” to refer to the vagina. And yet paradoxically, along with
his praise of Sappho’s skill in diagnosis it is one of the only points in
Ferrand’s text that acknowledges women’s medical knowledge and
experience. This same Cleopatra is the only female authority included
in the list of experts on lovesickness that Ferrand used as sources in
the 1623 edition of the text.76
Ferrand stresses several times that purgation should not be too
violent, for violent medicines are heating, and may thus exacerbate
the disease. He concurs with Arnold of Villanova that emetics, which
promote vomiting, are to be preferred to purgatives in warding off
the disease, in part because he believes that strong medication will
cause “excrements to descend toward the lower organs and spermatic

vessels,” thus exacerbating the condition (329). A similar belief that
the pressure of excrement held in the lower bowels could stimulate
the genital areas lies behind the nineteenth-century notion that con-
stipation provoked masturbation—an indirect factor in the develop-
ment and popularity of high-fiber breakfast cereal. As John Harvey
Kellogg, inventor of corn flakes put it, “If the stomach contains undi-
gested food, the sleep will be disturbed, dreams will be more abun-
dant, and emissions [of semen] will be frequent.” 77
Once a patient has contracted lovesickness, however, Ferrand
prefers laxatives to emetics (359). After purgation, he recommends
that the patient rest and recover for several days before the medica-
tion is repeated (360). Like other medical authorities on the cure of
melancholy, Ferrand takes it for granted that the treatment will take
some time, perhaps a period of months, before it is complete and the
patient is cured.
Theory and Practice

The relation of medical theory to lived experience in the early mod-
ern period is difficult to speak of with any precision. But given such
a lengthy course of treatment, the medical cure for lovesickness was
clearly only available to the leisured classes. Indeed, in the Medieval
period it was widely believed that only the nobility were susceptible
to lovesickness.78 And into the early modern period, as we have seen,
popular prejudice suggested it was primarily idle and effeminate court-
iers who suffered most from this particular ailment. As Beecher and
Ciavolella point out, it is no coincidence that in his emblematic nar-
rative of the cure of love melancholy, François Valleriola spoke of his
treatment of a rich merchant of Arles.79 In any case, the care of a physi-
cian was beyond the financial means of the vast majority of people in
early modern Europe. They would have received care from empirics,
wise women, or family members instead.80
It is likely that the main cultural impact of the notion of love-
sickness was not in the number of patients treated, but rather in the
widespread notion that love was a physical disorder. Culturally, the
situation is analogous to that of Freudian analysis in the twentieth
century. Many wealthy patients in cosmopolitan centers like New
York, London, and Vienna did indeed pursue Freud’s “talking cure,”
but the cultural impact of Freudian ideas was much greater and more
pervasive than the number of practicing Freudian analysts or the num-
ber of patients in treatment would indicate. Notions of sublimation,
the unconscious, and the oedipal complex were ubiquitous in both

high and popular culture, from Lawrence Olivier’s film version of
Hamlet to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. They appeared in pulp fiction
detective stories, romance novels, and situation comedies on TV. The
subtleties of Freudian thought were often lost in such representations,
but the general ideas were there all the same—mocked, celebrated,
criticized, and accepted. Notions of the humoral body and the mel-
ancholy lover were similarly ubiquitous in sixteenth-century culture.
Not everyone who referred to lovesickness understood the technicali-
ties of the diagnosis, or the nuances of the debate over whether the
disease originated in the liver, heart, or brain. But they knew that
love was an infection; they knew that like the plague to which it was
compared it came unbidden and unsought; and they knew that it was
something to be avoided if possible and suffered if not.
One powerful argument for seeing lovesickness as a general cul-
tural discourse rather than a systematic area of scientific inquiry
is that the discourse on lovesickness never connects with the most
catastrophic site of the intersection of sexuality and disease in the
sixteenth century—the epidemic spread of the disease known as the
pox or French Disease, now often identified as syphilis. At a time
when sexual activity was leading to actual deaths by disease, no one
connected the traditional discourse of lovesickness with the new
reality of widespread and often fatal sexually transmitted disease.
It is something of a misnomer to refer to the French Disease or
pox as syphilis.81 Although the modern term “syphilis” comes from
a 1530 Latin poem entitled Syphilis sive morbus Gallicus [Syphilis or
the French Disease] by the Veronese physician Girolamo Fracastoro,
the word syphilis was seldom used as a name for the disease in the
sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. And the condition known as the
French disease or pox included a range of ailments, including what we
now call gonorrhea, that are distinct from the infection that modern
medicine identifies as syphilis.82
The pox first appeared in epidemic form in Europe in the 1490s.
The first major outbreak occurred in Italy in 1496—a time of warfare,
famine, and general social breakdown. Both lay and medical commen-
tators assumed that the new disease had been brought to the penin-
sula by the French invasions in 1494—thus it came rapidly to be called
the Mal Francese or Morbus Gallicus: the French disease. The French
concurred that their invasion had witnessed the first outbreaks, but
understandably preferred to blame the Italians—thus in France the
pox was known as the Neapolitan Disease.83 Jews, Arabs, and other
outsiders or alien groups were also blamed as being the source of the
affliction.84 Fracastoro’s poem Syphilis put forward a mythical origin

for the disease: A West Indian shepherd named Syphilis was so furious
at a summer drought that he blasphemed against the sun god, who
punished him with this new ailment. In Fracastoro’s poem, Spaniards
venturing into the New World come in contact with Syphilis’s people,
with predictable results for the spread of the disease.85 The New World
origins of syphilis have been questioned by recent scholarship, but in
the early modern period, they were widely accepted by both medical
authorities and lay people: after all, where would a new disease come
from if not the new world?
One reason that the pox and lovesickness were not connected in lay
or medical thought was because their symptoms were so dissimilar.
As its name suggests, the primary visible symptoms of the pox were
skin lesions and ulcers.86 Whatever lovesickness might have been, it
was not a skin disease, and so, though both were related to sexual
desire, they were not seen as remotely analogous in the classification
systems of the period. And indeed, though it was recognized fairly
early that the pox was transmitted through sexual relations, it was
also believed the disease could be acquired in other ways—through
the air, or through eating and drinking.87
Ferrand barely mentions the pox at all. It appears in the 1610 chap-
ter on the physical basis of disease cut from the 1623 edition in which
Ferrand argues that “new diseases, like whooping cough, the pox,
and others” have a physical cause just like all other diseases, and thus
doctors will someday find a way to cure them through physical inter-
vention.88 He certainly makes no effort to connect this new disease to
the old one of lovesickness. Despite their connection to sexuality, the
two exist in separate worlds of thought and experience.
Reception
Besides the dedicatory epistle to Claude of Lorraine, and the author’s
address to his readers, the 1610 edition of Ferrand’s text was accom-
panied by a series of five commendatory verses in Latin, French, and
Greek, mostly written by relatives of the author or local authorities
from the area of Agen.89 The common theme is that as a doctor who
can cure lovesickness, Ferrand is more powerful than the gods them-
selves. Jupiter and Apollo bow to him; he has broken mankind free
from Cupid’s chains:
If love is powerful, Ferrand, you are more powerful;

If he wounds, you know how to cure the ulcer;
If he throws his torches, you extinguish his fires;

And master the father of our passions.90
Such hyperbole is common in dedicatory verses, but given the charges

leveled at Ferrand’s volume by the Tribunal of Toulouse it is remark-
able that the very same verses appear in the 1623 edition. Ferrand
may have cut the chapter that compared wise doctors to gods, but in
these introductory texts the comparison remains. The Latin verses
from Ferrand’s brother Jean even mention love potions:
By means of herbs Phoebus was carried away by incurable love;

the skilled originator [of medicine] was tricked by his own art.
Since his young brother [Ferrand] cures love with his potions
Will he not, when he is older, be called greater than Phoebus?91
The term Jean uses to describe Ferrand’s “potions” is “pharmaciis”—

an ambivalent term that can refer to medicine, but also to potions,
poisons, and philters, even charms and spells. One would think that
anyone wanting to mollify the censors in 1623 would have removed
this particular verse from the opening of the volume.
Both editions of Ferrand’s treatise have lists of authorities cited
and tables of contents listing chapter titles. There is no index in the
1610 edition. The 1623 edition, however, has an eighteen-page index
of “the most remarkable things contained in the present book.”92
Like the indices to Equicola’s De Natura d’amore, the index to On
Lovesickness often reads like a cabinet of curiosities, drawing attention
to odd or arresting facts in the text. There are several entries for exam-
ple attesting to famous men who sired children in advanced old age:
“Cato the Censor had a child at age 82,” and similar claims.93 There
are odd precepts: “Lovers shouldn’t eat grapes”;94 “Turquoise reveals
amorous passions”;95 “Sleeping on the back promotes lascivious-
ness.” 96 There are entries pointing to exotic sexual knowledge: “The
Clitoris and its synonyms”;97 “What kind of women Fricatrices are”;98
“What kind of women Tribades were”;99 “The affections of some for
inanimate objects.”100 There are monsters and marvels: “Adam was
created male and female”;101 “Courtesans transformed into wolves
and pigs”;102 “A child nursed by a sow.”103 Penile infibulation is high-
lighted: “The prepuce buckled to prevent lust.”104 And national ste-
reotypes are reinforced with statements of dubious veracity: “Kisses
cause love. Used more in Spain and Italy than in France.”105
Just as Equicola’s index calls attention to the many contradictions
of the text, so too does the index to Ferrand’s volume. There are
entries asserting in turn that the brain, the liver, and the heart are
the seat of lovesickness.106 The index entry for “love” could stand as
an epitome of the confused ideas surrounding the term in the early
modern period:
Love divine or vulgar; cause of all good; profits no one; thought to

be a poison; how taken by the Author; origin of all perturabtions of
the spirit; changes women into men; diverse definitions; that of the
author; has been painted blind, ibid. depraves the imagination; comes
from the sight; its generation; a hereditary illness; cannot be hidden;
overcomes Pan in its cradle; how it makes itself from fascination; its
diversity prevents Erotic melancholy; forgetful or lethean.107
The conflict between moral precepts and medical knowledge is clear

in the entry on orgasm: “Orgasm the sovereign remedy for love (205);
is illicit, impious and wrong (208).”108 And as we have already seen
in the case of Castiglione and Equicola, some entries flatly con-
tradict the arguments of the text itself. Though Ferrand explicitly
rejects Bernard of Gordon’s notion that whipping is an effective cure
for lovesickness, the index simply says, “The whip is prescribed by
Gordon as a medicine for love,”109 implying that the idea has merit
and authority.
Flying in the face of the condemnation of the previous edition,
the index calls repeated attention to love magic, potions, and sorcery:
There are entries for, “Various kinds of magic”;110 “Occult methods
to know if a person is in love”;111 “Oneiromancy, or the interpretation
of dreams”;112 and “Precious stones show a person’s love.”113 Most
remarkable is the entry on philters or love potions:
Love philters have some virtue. Poisonous for the most part. Take away
good judgement. Numbered among the poisons.114
Whoever compiled the index (and it may not have been Ferrand)
surely was not trying to placate the Tribunal of Toulouse. The phrase
“have some virtue” is ambiguous, and could mean either that love
philters are powerful or that they are effective or even that they are
good. The most Ferrand himself says is that there are indeed “medi-
cations, foods, and poisons capable of inciting sexual desire” (344).
As we have seen, he steadfastly denies that any such potion can focus
desire on a particular person, or arouse “passionate love” as opposed
to increased sexual desire in general. And, in view of the prevailing
views of the Church on this matter, he prudently concludes that “the
truest and most effective philters are beauty, grace, and gentle civility”
(345). But the index suggests otherwise.
The dedicatory verses prefacing Edmund Chilmead’s 1640 English
translation of On Lovesickness are much lengthier and more elaborate
than those in the French editions.115 There are eight poems instead of
five, and whereas the French verses are brief and epigrammatic, most
of the English ones are several pages long. The authors are all affiliated
with Christ Church College, Oxford. Though all nominally praise
“the author,” most focus not on Ferrand’s merits as a physician or
author, but on a satirical image of the sort of lovesick fop who would
in theory profit from the volume. Some suggest this imaginary young
man should fall in love with the book itself rather than his mistress:
Cease then t’adore thy Celia’s fading Looke,

And only fall in Love and Court this Booke.116
One poem in particular is clearly comic in its hyperbolic imagin-

ing of the changes that will occur in English society as a result of
Ferrand’s eradication of love; F. Palmer’s poem opens by mocking the
materialism of Ferrand’s text:
Fie, I’me halfe Atheist now: sure vertues are,

Only well-temperd bodies kept with care.
. . . I see this Passions seat i’th’heart:
And a receipt against all Cupids art.117
If passions are located in a particular organ (the heart) and can be

manipulated by “receipts” (recipes for preparing medicines), then
chastity and sexual continence become matters of physical health
rather than moral choice. No wonder Mr. Palmer feels “half atheist.”
Palmer goes on to suggest that Ferrand’s book is a source for love
potions and techniques of seduction:
Lov’s arrowes so to th’publike view displaid

That we can see which burnes, which dulls a Maid;
And how: what is the Poison he does give,
And then againe what’s the restorative.118
Armed with Ferrand’s receipts for manipulating and controlling pas-

sion, Palmer feels ready for anything:
Sweet Mistresse pray put on. I am resolv’d

To laugh, being safe amongst these leaves involv’d.
Whilst I doe read and Meditate this book,

I dare the utmost Charmes of any Look.119
As the poem proceeds, Palmer begins to imagine a world where

everyone has read and profited from Ferrand’s book—a world with
no lovesickness:
. . . e’re long Women will cease to beare.

The World will all turne Stoicks, when they find
This Physick here: think only with the mind
T’engender, alwaies judging th’issue foule,
Which did not owe its birth to th’purer soule.
...
Shortly to Church to see a wedding goe,
Shall to the People prove a Lord-Majors show.
Men, as in Plagues, from Marriage will be bent:
And every day will seem to be in Lent.
...
The Priest will loose his fees, and lacke; for all
He getts will be at some mans funerall.120
Human sexuality will grind to a halt—marriages will be as rare as

civic pageants, and Priests will only get fees for funerals. Taking up
the same trope we have encountered in the other English commenda-
tory verses, Palmer suggests that the only thing left to love will be
Ferrand’s book:
Sure I have humane Nature quite forsooke:

Nothing can take me now, except this book.121
A pair of poems by Richard West are more serious in their praise

of Ferrand and his achievement. West contrasts the curative powers
of Ferrand’s text to the licentiousness of plays written for the public
theaters: “Playes are the sores of Love, this Book the Cure,”122 and
praises Ferrand in the same terms that the French dedicatory verses
did—as a godlike conqueror of Venus and Cupid:
If those were Heroes thought that kil’d one Beast;

The Author of this Booke’s a God at least.123
West chides lovesick men for their effeminacy:
Being All things, but your selfe; Now that, then this
Acting ’ore Ovids Metamorphosis.
Who, although Woman’s from and for Man made,

Her Creature art, more plyant than her shade.124
West ends by praising the volume for its accessibility and the wide
audience of readers it ought to attract:
Poetry candies the Philosophy,

Like Galen mixt with Sydnies Arcadye.
Which (like two Starres conjoyn’d) are so well laid,
That it will please Stoicke, and Chambermaid.125
Philip Sidney’s Arcadia was the most popular and widely read English
prose romance of the period.
It is unclear whether or not any chambermaids actually read Ferrand’s
treatise. And the English version, with its untranslated passages in
Latin and occasional terminology in Greek would have been partially
inaccessible to anyone without a grammar school education or better.
But the text’s accessibility, decried as a great danger by the Tribunal of
Toulouse in 1620, was praised in England in 1640. Richard West of
Christchurch College imagines chambermaids reading On Lovesickness
and learning from it. And the potential for such wide readership is
presented not as a threat but as a great accomplishment.
C onc lusion: Rom eo + Ju l i e t
The four books that form the focus of this study all demonstrate
the extent to which culturally elite ideas about romantic love were
spreading to a broader reading public throughout the sixteenth cen-
tury. Conduct books, philosophical treatises, letter-writing manuals,
and medical texts were all appearing in the vernacular, and their
specialized knowledge was being made even more accessible through
editorial apparatus such as indices, detailed tables of contents, and
printed marginal annotations.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the notion that the noble
passion of love was available to common people had spread widely
throughout literate culture. The time was ripe for Shakespeare’s trag-
edy of urban love, Romeo and Juliet—in which a pair of children from
a non-courtly background are celebrated for defying their parents and
following their passions. Shakespeare took a story from the middle-
class genre of the novella, gave it tragic dignity, and reconfigured
passionate disobedience as an idealized emotion that can redeem the
entire city of Verona.
Over time, Romeo and Juliet have become iconic figures.1 The play
is often performed, frequently adapted for film, and widely taught in
schools. Indeed, the phrase “Romeo and Juliet” is familiar to millions
of people all over the world who have never read the play, seen a staged
production, or watched one of the many film versions or adaptations.
Romeo and Juliet are Young Lovers—rebellious and pure, driven,
idealistic, and doomed. They’re good kids, innocent teenagers who
refuse to conform to the corrupt adult world that awaits them. They
break the rules and follow their hearts. And they go out in a blaze of
glory, lit by a thousand candles, martyrs canonized for love.
Like much early modern literature, Shakespeare’s writing generally
tends to be pessimistic about the possibility that long-term happi-
ness can arise from passionate relationships between men and women.
Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet and Ophelia, Othello and Desdemona,
Antony and Cleopatra: there is much love in these relationships, but
much more misery. In the comedies Beatrice and Benedick seem
well matched, as do Viola and Orsino, but these are exceptional
couples who must experience extraordinary circumstances for their

relationships to be successful. These relationships succeed by chal-
lenging traditional gender roles in ways possible on stage but less so
in real life. The comedies end with multiple weddings, but for every
well-matched Rosalind and Orlando there is a parodic Touchstone
and Audrey. More disconcerting are the many couples in which the
male partner is clearly unworthy of the female: Antonio and Jessica
in Merchant of Venice, Angelo and Mariana in Measure for Measure,
Bertram and Helena in All’s Well that Ends Well. And then there are
the women coerced to marry powerful men: Hippolyta defeated by
Theseus in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Isabella ordered to marry the
Duke of Vienna in Measure for Measure. The sonnets and narrative
poems are, if anything, even bleaker about the possibility that love
has anything to do with happiness. As we remarked earlier, there are
few happy couples in Shakespeare. 2
Because Romeo and Juliet has been so influential in the formation
of modern ideologies of romantic love, there is a tendency to project
modern assumptions about love back on Shakespeare’s text. Rather
than representing a consensus about romantic love in the literary dis-
course of the early modern period, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is
engaged in a broader cultural debate about the nature of love—one we
have seen in all four of the emblematic books discussed in this study.
The cultural transmission of the Romeo and Juliet story provides a
useful index to the ways in which the understanding of romantic love
was being transformed in the sixteenth century.
The Romeo and Juliet story is a very old one—similar stories, like the
myth of Pyramus and Thisbe parodied in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
go back to classical antiquity. The specific story adapted by Shakespeare
can be traced back to a collection of stories called Il Novellino, written
by an Italian nobleman, Masuccio of Salerno (c. 1420–c. 1474). This
version is set in Siena, and has no feuding families. Much closer to
the version familiar from Shakespeare’s play is Luigi da Porto’s Istoria
novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti (1530). Da Porto’s story
was elaborated by Bandello in his Novelle (1554); Bandello was trans-
lated into French by Pierre Boaistuau (1559), and then Boaistuau was
twice translated into English—in verse by Arthur Brooke (1562) and in
prose by William Painter in his Palace of Pleasure (1567). In the 1590s,
Shakespeare dramatized Brooke’s poem. The story later formed the
basis of at least two Spanish plays.3
In most of the earlier versions, the story of Romeo and Juliet is
a simple moral tale, warning parents to beware of the danger that
romantic love and sexual desire pose to their adolescent children. The
Conclusion 185
remarks to the reader prefacing Brooke’s poem, the Tragicall Historye

of Romeus and Juliet (1562) are typical:
And to this ende (good Reader) is this tragicall matter written, to

describe unto thee a coople of unfortunate lovers, thralling themselves
to unhonest desire, neglecting the authoritie and advise of parents and
frendes, conferring their principall counsels with dronken gossyppes,
and superstitious friers (the naturally fitte instrumentes of unchastitie)
attemptyng all adventures of peryll, for thattaynyng of their wished
lust, usying ariculer confession (the kay of whoredome, and treason)
for furtheraunce of theyr purpose, abusyng the honorable name of
lawefull mariage, the cloke the shame of stolne contractes, finallye, by
all means of unhonest lyfe, hastyng to most unhappye deathe.
Brooke was a pious man, whose only other work, The Agreement of
Sondry Places of Scripture (1563), is an attempt to explain and reconcile
107 pairs of contradictory Biblical passages. Although his introduction
suggests his poem will be harshly moralistic, Brooke’s treatment of the
story itself is relatively free of this kind of heavy-handed commentary
and is in fact somewhat sympathetic to the lovers. The ambivalence
one finds in Brooke about whether the lovers should be pitied or chas-
tised is a persistent feature of the Romeo and Juliet story as it develops
and is disseminated through sixteenth-century Europe.
Shakespeare’s play shows less ambivalence. Despite many indications
of their immaturity and rashness, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are
sympathetic characters from beginning to end. The Prologue to the
Second Act (not present in the first quarto), seems somewhat criti-
cal of Romeo’s “young affection,” but as Shakespeare tells the story,
we do not strongly question Romeo and Juliet—we sympathize with
them. This is, in part, because Shakespeare always presents their illicit
relationship in the context of the irrational feud between their fami-
lies, a connection not made as strongly in earlier versions of the tale.
Bandello’s 1554 novella, for example, is much more cynical about the
reconciliation of the feuding families. His version concludes:
Amid the marked sadness of the Montagues, the Capulets, and the
city in general their funeral was held with the utmost pomp. The Duke
commanded that the two lovers be buried in the same tomb. This
led to the establishment of peace between the Montagues and the
Capulets, although it did not last very long.4
In Shakespeare, on the other hand, the lovers’ senseless and pas-

sionate deaths lead, paradoxically, to an outpouring of fellow-feeling.
Romeo and Juliet’s tragic end becomes a warning that parents should
put aside their petty squabbles, not that they should keep a closer eye
on their children and protect them from meddling friars and lascivi-
ous nurses. In Shakespeare, the Prince of Verona explicitly sees the
lovers’ deaths as heaven’s punishment for the feud, and Juliet’s father
agrees (5.3.295).
Despite the fact that passionate, romantic love leads Romeo and
Juliet to their deaths, the play seldom questions its ultimate value.
Even Mercutio’s biting wit is unable to cast a pall over Romeo and
Juliet’s passion. Love in Romeo and Juliet is powerful and terrible, but
beautiful, and ultimately socially useful. It prefigures in some ways
later notions of the sublime, and this is, in part, why the play was so
popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the Symposium
Socrates asked Diotima, “What good can love be to humanity?”5 In
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s answer is that romantic love can
bring peace to a warring community. It can be a source of concord
and order—not chaos and discord. The rest is history.
That’s written history, printed, bound, and sold. Even Romeo and
Juliet learn how to love by reading about it: As Juliet says to Romeo,
“You kiss by the book” (1.5.107).
No t es
Introduction: Love, the Book Market,

and the Popularization of Romance
1. “Maxume autem admonendus est, quantus sit furor amoris. omni-
bus enim ex animi perturbationibus est profecto nulla vehemen-
tior, . . . perturbatio ipsa mentis in amore foeda per se est.” Cicero,
Tusculan Dispuations. Book 4.35. My translation.
2. Jacques Ferrand, A Treatise on Lovesickness, ed. and trans. Donald A.
Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University
Press, 1990), 217.
3. “Non si trovara in Venere, & Cupido che ordinatamente senza
confusione parlasse.” Mario Equicola, De Natura d’amore (Venice,
1536), sig. I6v. My translation.
4. A song with this title was written by Boudleaux Bryant in 1960 and
was recorded by the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, Gram Parsons,
Nazareth, and others, with great commercial success.
5. Thomas M. D. Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon, A General
Theory of Love (New York: Random House, 2000), viii. This book,
coauthored by three psychiatrists, argues that “new research in
brain function has proven that love is a human necessity” (Publishers
Weekly review).
6. Jacques Ferrand, Erotomania, or a treatise discoursing of the essence,
causes, symptomes, prognosticks, and the cure of love, or erotique mel-
ancholy, trans. Edmund Chilmead (Oxford, 1640), sig. B6r–B7r.
7. David Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and
the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997). Guido Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales
of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
8. Alan Bray, The Friend (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003).
Gail Paster, Katherine Rowe, and Mary Floyd-Wilson, eds., Reading
the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion
(Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Shadi
Bartsch and Thomas Bartscherer, Erotikon: Essays on Eros, Ancient
and Modern (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2005).
9. Though mentioned in the list of Shakespeare’s plays in Frances
Meres’s Palladis Tamia in 1598, Two Gentlemen was not published
188 Notes
until the First Folio of 1623. Its simplicity of style and structure,
as well as its fondness for wordplay reminiscent of the works of
Lyly, have led most scholars to speculate on a very early date for the
play. See Jean E. Howard’s introduction to the play in The Norton
Shakespeare (New York: Norton, 1997), 77–83.
10. The corresponding figures for Romeo and Juliet are: love (94),
loves (2), love’s (12), loved (3), loving (6), lovest (2), and lover etc.
(10). All tallies taken from the Open Source Shakespeare Concordance
(http://www.opensourceshakespeare.com/).
11. All references to the works of Shakespeare are to The Norton
Shakespeare, 2nd ed., ed. Greenblatt et al. (New York: Norton,
2008).
12. Montaigne, essay 1.28 “On Affectionate Relationships” (“De
l’amitié”); Lyly’s Euphues. All references to Montaigne’s Essays are
to Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. A. Screech
(New York: Penguin, 1987). See Laurie Shannon, Sovereign Amity:
Figures of Friendship in Shakespearean Comedy (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2002), 17–53.
13. Similarly, in 2.4.194–196 the word “love” is used both to describe
Proteus’s feelings for Valentine and for Sylvia.
14. Shakespeare only uses this term three times, twice in Two Gentleman,
and then a direct reference to the Metamorphoses in Titus (4.1.41).
In manuscript poetry from the period the term is sometimes asso-
ciated with effeminacy and loss of manly vigor. See Ian Frederick
Moulton, Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early Modern
England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 69–71. It is
also used in this context in a dedicatory verse to Jacques Ferrand’s
Erotomania, sig. b2v.
15. On the Ovidian nature of Love in the play, see William C. Carroll,
“‘And Love You ’gainst the Nature of Love’: Ovid, Rape, and The
Two Gentlemen of Verona,” in Shakespeare’s Ovid: The Metamorphoses
in the Plays and the Poems, ed. A. B. Taylor (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 49–65.
16. There are some exceptions: Hercules (9.239–272), Romulus
(14.805–828), and Julius Caesar (15.843–851) become gods; but
they are not the norm and their metamorphoses are not provoked
by sexual desire.
17. Prominent throughout the love poetry of Ovid (for example, Ars
Amatoria 1.35), and memorably reprised by Shakespeare at the
opening of Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.16–17.
18. John Donne, The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne,
ed. Charles M. Coffin (New York: Modern Library, 2001), “Elegy
17,” line 4.
19. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138 has a similar notion of the relationship
between love and lying.
Notes 189
20. Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare. The Major Works, ed.

Donald Greene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 429.
21. Authorities tend to recommend turning love to hatred by disparag-
ing the beloved rather than mocking the affliction of the melancho-
liac him or herself; see Ferrand, A Treatise on Lovesickness, 317–318.
22. Frederick Kiefer, “Love Letters in The Two Gentlemen of Verona,”
Shakespeare Studies 18 (1986): 65–85.
23. Besides Kiefer, see also Jonathan Goldberg, Voice Terminal Echo:
Postmodernism and English Renaissance Texts (London: Methuen,
1986), 68–100; Jeffrey Masten, Textual Intercourse: Collaboration,
Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 40–45.
24. On letter writing practice, see Alan Stewart and Heather Wolfe,
Letterwriting in Renaissance England (Washington, DC: Folger
Library, 2004).
25. At 1.1.130 Speed the servant jokes that Proteus should give Julia
“no token but stones” (“stones” was a slang term for “testicles” in
the period). Among courtship gifts mentioned in the 26 volumes
of ecclesiastical court depositions in the diocese of Canterbury
between 1542 and 1602, written material, including letters and
notes was exchanged in only 3.2% of cases, whereas money was
given in 39.4% and clothing and leather goods in 32.0%: Diana
O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of
Marriage in Tudor England (New York: Manchester University
Press, 2000), 69.
26. Stephen Guy-Bray. “Shakespeare and the Invention of the
Heterosexual,” Early Modern Literary Studies, Special Issue 16
(October, 2007): 12.1–28.
27. Ferrand, A Treatise on Lovesickness, 357. Ferrand’s text postdates
Two Gentlemen, but summarizes medical thinking common in the
sixteenth century.
28. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Book 3 Love Melancholy,
ed. Holbrook Jackson (New York: New York Review Books, 2001),
3.228–257. Ferrand, A Treatise on Lovesickness, 333–341.
29. See, for example, Pope Benedict’s Encyclical Deus Caritas Est: On
Christian Love, delivered in Rome, December 25, 2005. Text from
Libreria Editrice Vaticana. See esp. paragraph 2.
30. These distinctions postdate the Classical period, when philia could
be used to describe sexual relations and even agape could have sexual
connotations. See K. J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 49–50.
31. Shakespeare, Sonnet 116.
32. Francis Bacon, “Of Love,” in Francis Bacon: A Critical Edition of the
Major Works, ed. Brian Vickers (New York: Oxford University Press,
1996), 358. All references to the works of Bacon are to this edition.
190 Notes
33. For example, Bray, The Friend. See also Madhavi Menon, ed.,
Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).
34. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1978, revised
ed. (New York: Ashgate, 1994), 157.
35. On aristocratic notions of love in the Middle Ages, see C. Stephen
Jaeger, Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).
36. “Vomer,” Capellanus’s word for “plough,” also means “penis.” J. N.
Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1982), 24.
37. Andreas Capellanus, De Amore in Andreas Capellanus on Love. Ed. and
trans. P. G. Walsh (London: Duckworth, 1982), 1.11. My translation.
38. Lines 1932–1937. Guillaume de Loris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman
de la Rose, ed. Armand Strubel (Paris: Librairie Général Français,
1992), 136–137.
39. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 56.
40. See, for example, many of the stories in Giovanni Boccaccio’s
Decameron, Ed. Johnathan Usher. Trans. Guido Waldman (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 2.10; 4.5; 5.2; 7.10; etc.
41. Carlo M. Cipolla, Literacy and Development in the West (Baltimore:
Penguin, 1969), 49–50, mentions developments in ballistics, navi-
gation, clock-making, and mapmaking in this context.
42. David Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing
in Tudor and Stuart England (New York: Cambridge, 1980), pro-
vides detailed analysis of data on the proportion of the English pop-
ulation who could sign their names in the early modern period. See
Heidi Brayman Hackel, Reading Material in Early Modern England:
Print, Gender, and Literacy (New York: Cambridge, 2005), 55–68,
on the limitations of this data for measuring literacy.
43. Burke, Popular Culture, 250–251.
44. On the effect of printed material on popular culture, given what
is known about early modern literacy, see Burke, Popular Culture,
250–259.
45. Brayman Hackel, Reading Material, 55–68.
46. Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500–1700 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 19.
47. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture, 311–324.
48. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture, 128–130, on the mix of popular
and learned material in sermons.
49. Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance
Italy (New York: Cambridge, 1999), 112.
50. Brayman Hackel, Reading Material, 43–52.
51. Cipolla, Literacy and Development, 50–51. Cressy, Literacy and the
Social Order, 46–50, addresses the limitations of the argument that
more books is in itself evidence for more readers.
Notes 191
52. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, 1939, trans. Edmund Jephcott
(Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1978), 117–131.
53. On changes in table manners, see Elias, Civilizing Process, 68–105.
54. Giovanni Della Casa, Galateo, ed. Saverio Orlando (Milan: Garzanti,
2003), 7.
55. Elias, Civilizing Process. See also Burke, Popular Culture, 23–29,
270–281.
56. Paradiso 1.38; Della Casa, Galateo, 62.
57. Galateo of Maister Iohn Della Casa, Archebishop of Beneuenta. Or
rather, A treatise of the ma[n]ners and behauiours, it behoueth a
man to vse and eschewe, trans. Robert Peterson (London, 1576).
STC 4738. Galateo was also published as an appendix to Walter
Darrell’s conduct book for servants, A Short Discourse of the Life of
Servingmen (London: Ralphe Newberrie, 1578). STC 6274.
58. Giovanni Della Casa, La Galatée. Premierement composé en Italien
par I. de la Case & depuis mis en François, Latin, Allemand &
Español (Geneva: Jean de Tournes, 1609).
59. See Moulton, Before Pornography, esp. 3–15.
60. Alvin Kernan, The Cankered Muse: Satire of the English Renaissance
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), 54–63.
61. Pascal Pia, ed., L’École des filles ou la philosophie des dames (Paris:
L’Or du Temps, 1969). English translation: The School of Venus, ed.
and trans. Donald Thomas (New York: Panther, 1971).
62. “Sotadic” refers to Sotades, a Greek sodomite and poet mentioned
in the epigrams of Martial.
63. Nicholas Chorier, Aloisiae Sigeae Tolentanae Satyra Sotadica de
Arcanis Amoris et Veneris, ed. Bruno Lavignini (Catania: Romeo
Prampolini, 1935). No modern or complete English translation
exists. Modern French translation: Satire sotadique de Luisa Sigea
de Tolède, trans. André Barry (Paris, 1969). On early modern
English adaptations see James Grantham Turner, Schooling Sex:
Libertine Literature and Erotic Education in Italy, France, and
England, 1534–1685 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003),
335–343.
64. B. V., ed., Vénus dans le clôitre. Réimpression de l’édition de Cologne,
1719 (Paris: Coffret du Bibliophile, 1934). No modern English
translation.
65. On libertine culture see Turner, Schooling Sex.
66. Lewis’s view, expounded in The Allegory of Love (London: Oxford
University Press, 1936) is well refuted by Henry Ansgar Kelly, Love
and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1975), though Kelly goes too far, in my view, in his claim that
Ovid is primarily a poet of married love.
67. David R. Smith, Maskes of Wedlock: Seventeenth-Century Dutch
Marriage Portraiture (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1978),
145.
192 Notes
68. The literature on early modern marriage is vast. Major studies on

marriage practices in England include: Lawrence Stone, The Family,
Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York: Harper and
Row, 1977); Alan Macfarlane, Marriage and Love in England:
Modes of Reproduction 1300–1840 (New York: Blackwell, 1986);
and Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death; and O’Hara, Courtship and
Constraint.
69. Michel de Montaigne, Essay 3.5 On Some Lines of Virgil in The
Complete Essays, 959.
70. George Whetstone, Heptameron of Civil Discourse (London, 1582),
sig. E3r–F2r. See also, Thomas Heywood, A Curtaine Lecture
(London: John Aston, 1637), sig. E12v–F3r.
71. Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, 255–260.
72. For example, William Davenant’s play The Platonick Lover (London,
1636). See Lesel Dawson, Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern
English Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008),
138–139, 154–162.
73. Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier: European Reception of
Castiglione’s Cortegiano (University Park, PA: Penn State University
Press, 1995), 158–162, lists all 125 editions.
74. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 163–178, identifies 328 individuals
known to have read the Courtier before 1700.
75. For example, John Wolfe’s London 1588 multilingual edition with
parallel text in Italian, French, and English. STC 4781.
76. Stephen Kolsky, Mario Equicola: The Real Courtier (Geneva:
Librairie Droz, 1991), 320–321, lists all 14 Italian editions.
1 Baldassare Castiglione’s B OOK OF THE

C OURTIER : Love and Ideal Conduct
1. Neoplatonism refers to the elaboration of Platonic philosophy,
beginning with Plotinus in the third century AD, that stresses
the distinction between a timeless spiritual realm and the mutable
world of material reality. It is used here to distinguish early modern
elaborations of Platonic theory from the works of Plato himself.
2. The relationship between the four poems is more complex than this
brief summary would suggest. See Robert Ellrodt, Neoplatonism in
the Poetry of Edmund Spenser (Geneva: Droz, 1960).
3. Ovid, Heroides and Amores, ed. Grant Showerman (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), 1.2.
4. All references to Spenser’s Fowre Hymnes are to Edmund Spenser,
The Shorter Poems, ed. Richard A. McCabe (New York: Penguin,
1999), 451–489.
5. On the cultural evolution of the contradictory figure of Cupid,
see Jane Kingsley-Smith, Cupid in Early Modern Literature and
Culture (New York: Cambridge, 2010), 5–17.
Notes 193
6. On Ficino’s methodology see Jayne, “Introduction,” to Marsilio

Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, ed. and trans.
Sears Jayne (Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1985), 8–18.
7. As if to underline the shift in context, the Fowre Hymnes are dedi-
cated to not to a male scholar but to two prominent noblewomen.
8. For a list of the most important Italian prose treatises on Neoplatonic
love, see Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, 20.
9. Lorenzo Savino, Di alcuni Trattati e trattatisti d’amore italiani
della prima meta del secolo XVI, Vols. IX and X of Studi di lettera-
tura italiana (Naples: N. Jovene, 1909–1915), 322–325. He lists
22 Italian editions to 1593 as well as a 1551 Spanish translation and
a 1545 French translation that ran to 8 editions by 1572.
Librairie Droz, 1991), 320–321, lists all 14 Italian editions.
11. Ellrodt, Neoplatonism, 108.
12. Nesca A. Robb, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, 1935 (New
York: Octagon, 1968), 176.
13. Robb, Neoplatonism, 180.
14. Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier: European Reception of
Castiglione’s Cortegiano (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1995), 41.
15. STC 4781. Burke 108. All references to editions of the Courtier give
edition numbers from Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, Appendix 1,
158–162.
16. Lyon, 1579/1580 (Burke 96); Paris 1585 (Burke 103).
17. Unless otherwise indicated, all English quotations from the
Courtier are from Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier,
ed. Daniel Javitch, trans. Charles Singleton (New York: Norton,
2002). Because of the multiplicity of editions, references to the text
of the Courtier are to book and section number.
18. See Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 73–75.
19. Robb, Neoplatonism, 190, claims the Courtier, “is not, strictly
speaking, a ‘trattato d’amore’; . . . the topic of love is incidental.”
John Charles Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love: The Context of
Giordano Bruno’s Eroici furori (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1958), 116, states outright that the Courtier “is not a treatise
on love.”
20. J. R. Woodhouse, Baldesar Castiglione: A Reassessment of the
Courtier (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978), 137,
contends that to find the “true meaning” of Book 4 one must ana-
lyze Bembo’s speech separately from the rest, and sees the speech as
a Platonic digression in an otherwise Aristotelian text.
21. Attilio Momigliano, Storia della letteratura italiana dalle origini
a nostri giorni, 8th ed. (Milan: G. Principato, 1968), 147; “The
Courtier is essentially a decorative and idyllic book: [Guicciardini’s]
Ricordi and [Machiavelli’s] Prince are realistic and dramatic books,
194 Notes
which adhere to the essence of life, in all its complexities and ugli-
ness.” (Translation in Virginia Cox, “Castiglione and His Critics,”
in Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 409–424, ed.
Virginia Cox, trans. Thomas Hoby (London: J. M. Dent, 1994),
416. Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love, 119, claims the Courtier
is characterized by “un-Machiavellian . . . unpracticality, . . . social, if
not moral isolation, [and] unwillingness to investigate deep moral
problems.”
22. In recent years the texts have been seen as sharing some similar
concerns. Brian Richardson, “The Cinquecento,” in Cambridge
History of Italian Literature, ed. Peter Brand and Lino Pertile
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 181–232, 207,
not only acknowledges the traditional critical opposition between
the Prince and the Courtier, but also discusses their similarities.
Guido Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love: Sex, Self, and Society in the
Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2007), 191–205, gives a convincing reading of the centrality of
Machiavellian virtù in the discussions of the Courtier.
23. The passage is crossed out by hand in Aeillo’s copy of the 1528
Aldine edition, now in the Houghton Library (*IC5 C2782C
1528), sig. e4v.
24. As a rhetorical strategy, Castiglione’s reticence was arguably more
successful than Machiavelli’s plain speaking. The Prince was banned;
the Courtier was widely disseminated in a multitude of languages:
see Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier.
25. Perhaps the most extreme of the many arguments that Machiavelli
was writing in bad faith is reported by Reginald Pole who claimed
Machiavelli’s defenders argued that The Prince was meant as bad
advice that would lead to the downfall of the Medici to whom it
was dedicated: Pole Apologia, 1:151. Quoted in English in Niccolò
Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. and trans. William J. Connell (New
York: Bedford, 2005), 164–165.
26. See Chapter 15 of Francesco De Sanctis, “Storia della letterature
italiana,” in Opere, ed. Niccolò Gallo (Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1961),
501; also Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love, 119.
27. On the gender dynamics of The Prince, see John Freccero, “Medusa
and the Madonna of Forlì: Political Sexuality in Machiavelli,” in
Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature, ed. Albert Russell Ascoli
and Victoria Kahn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993),
161–178. Unless otherwise indicated, all English quotations from
the Prince are from Connell. Because of the multiplicity of editions,
references to the text of the Prince are to chapter number.
28. Joan Kelly-Gadol, “Did Women Have a Renaissance,” in Becoming
Visible: Women in European History, ed. Renate Bridenthal and
Claudia Koonz (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), 148–161,
famously called attention to the subordinate role and enforced
Notes 195
silence of women in the Courtier. Her influential reading is chal-

lenged by David Quint, “Courtier, Prince, Lady: The Design of
the Book of the Courtier,” Italian Quarterly 37, nos. 143–146
(Winter–Fall 2000): 185–195. Claudio Scarpati, “Osservazioni sul
terzo libro del Cortegiano,” Aevum 66 (1992): 519–537, forcefully
argues that in the context of his culture, Castiglione was in fact an
advocate for women.
29. Pietro Bembo, “Gli Asolani,” in Prose e Rime, ed. Mario Fubini
(Turin: UTET, 1966), 311–504, 458. My translation.
30. Woodhouse, Baldessare Castiglione, 66–72, addresses the rejected
topics in the course of his commentary on the entire text.
31. On the role of games in the Courtier, see Thomas M. Greene, “Il
Cortegiano and the Choice of a Game,” Renaissance Quarterly 32,
no. 2 (1979): 173–186.
32. See, for example, Ortensio Lando, Quattro Libri di Dubbi (Venice,
1552), published in many editions in Italian, French, and English.
See also Bertusi’s dialogue Il Raverta in Trattati d’amore del cinque-
cento, 1912, 1st ed., ed. Giuseppe Zonta (Bari: Laterza, 1967).
33. On the ubiquity of male homosexual relations in Renaissance
Florence, see Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality
and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996).
34. Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, 199–200, argues that the anxieties
about effeminacy in the Courtier are directly related to a fear of
homoeroticism—and homoerotic networks of power and patron-
age, especially among young male courtiers.
35. My translation. Singleton’s reading, “gracious exercises that give us
pleasure,” seems to weaken the force of the original: “tutti gli eser-
cizi graziosi e che piaceno al mondo.”
36. See Marc Schachter, “Louis Le Roy’s Sympose de Platon and Three
Other Renaissance Adaptations of Platonic Eros,” Renaissance
Quarterly 59 (2006): 406–439.
37. In early drafts, books 3 and 4 were one book: Baldassare Castiglione,
La Seconda redazione del “Cortegiano” di Baldassarre Castiglione,
ed. Ghino Ghinassi (Florence: Sansoni, 1968).
38. Kelly-Gadol, “Did Women Have a Renaissance,” 157, perceptively
argued that Castiglione “used the love relation as a symbol to con-
vey his sense of political relations.” While I disagree with some of
her analysis of how the discourse of love functions in Castiglione’s
text, her central insight that love and politics are intimately inter-
related in the Courtier remains a powerful one. Carla Freccero,
“Politics and Aesthetics in Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano: Book III
and the Discourse on Women,” in Creative Imitation: New Essays
on Renaissance Literature in Honor of Thomas M. Greene, ed. David
Quint and Thomas M. Green (Binghampton, NY: Medieval and
Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995), 259–279, 265, contends that
196 Notes
the Courtier portrays “a world of political struggle” and develops

Kelly-Gadol’s insight that the definition of the court lady in Book 3
is a displacement of the Courtier’s own dilemma.
39. See Ian Frederick Moulton, Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in
Early Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),
70–79, on the perceived effeminacy of sexual activity in early mod-
ern culture.
40. On the relations between the Courtier and De oratore see Daniel
Javitch, Poetry and Courtliness in Renaissance England (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 18–49, esp. 27, on the
relative role of women in each text. More recently, see Jennifer
Richards, “Assumed Simplicity and the Critique of Nobility: Or,
How Castiglione Read Cicero,” Renaissance Quarterly 54 (2001):
460–486, 43–64, though she has little to say about gender.
41. Machiavelli does deal with the social performance of sexuality in
Mandragola, but that play is much more concerned with sexual
pleasure than with love.
42. My translation: Singleton’s “boorish” mutes the reference to class.
Hoby translates “rustico” as “one of the Countrey.” Original is: “la
voce bona, non troppo sottile o molle come di femina, né ancor
tanto austere ed orrida che abbia del rustico, ma sonora, chiara,
soave, e ben composta.”
43. On Hoby’s fidelity to the Italian text, see Massimiliano Morini, Tudor
Translation in Theory and Practice (New York: Ashgate, 2006), 79.
44. For an outline of the argument, see Nelson, Renaissance Theory of
Love, 116–119; and more briefly, Robb, Neoplatonism, 190–192.
Bembo’s theory of love ultimately derives from the speech of Socrates
in Plato’s Symposium, as elaborated by Ficino in his De Amore, and
also set out in the third book of the real Bembo’s Asolani.
45. Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love, 119, concludes that “from a
doctrinal standpoint Castiglione offered nothing that had not
already been said by Ficino, his primary source, and Bembo.”
46. Hoby’s translation for both: The original phrases are “amar fuor
della consuetudine del profano vulgo,” and “fuggire ogni bruttezza
d’amor vulgare.”
47. This is a direct quote from Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s
Symposium, 58 (speech 2.9): “Amor enim fruendae pulchritudinis
desiderium est.” In a manuscript note, Ficino himself suggested the
parallels between his phrase and a poem by Cristofero Landino.
(Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, 61, n. 52). Landino’s poem says
good things are beautiful, and bad things are ugly. This is not quite
the same as Bembo’s claim that beautiful things are good, and ugly
things bad.
48. This definition of beauty is discussed at length by Ficino, Commentary
on Plato’s Symposium, 45–62, 83–106 (speeches 2 and 5).
49. See Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, 4 (speech 1.4).
Notes 197
50. See, for example, Dover’s harsh dismissal of Plato’s metaphysics of

Eros in his Introduction to the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics
edition of Plato’s Symposium, ed. Kenneth Dover (Cambridge Greek
and Latin Classics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980):
“To the extent to which we share Plato’s assumptions, his account
will seem attractive to us. If we do not share his assumptions, we
may not find any part of his account even momentarily plausible. Do
not expect him to ‘prove’ that his account is true; he made no seri-
ous attempt, at least in his extant works, to convert his assumptions
into logically demonstrable propositions” (8).
51. Piero Floriani, Bembo e Castiglione: Studi sul classicismo del
Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1976), 169–186, points out the ways
in which Castiglione strengthens Bembo’s speech in the published
text of the Courtier. Earlier drafts had more serious and sustained
objections to Bembo’s argument.
52. Like Andrew Marvell’s “vegetable love,” but without the irony.
53. Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, 135.
54. Castiglione reminds his readers of Diotima by having the Magnifico
Giuliano mention her after Bembo has finished speaking (4.72).
55. Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love, 204–205, argues that Bembo’s clos-
ing vision is practical, in that it places individual “virtù in the service
of love and rule.” I’m not sure that Bembo’s speech retains sufficient
focus on advising the Prince to successfully unite the active and con-
templative lives. In any case, Bembo’s vision is clearly utopian.
56. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, Appendix 1, 158–162, lists 125
in the first hundred years following the text’s first appearance in
1528.
57. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 40–45.
58. For example, the 1552 editions by Giglio (Burke, Fortunes of the
Courtier, 56) and Giolito (Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 58).
59. Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice: Giolito, 1556), sig.
*2r–*2v. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 59*.
60. Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice: Giolito, 1556), sig.
*3r–**5v. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 59*.
61. For example, Giolito, 1560 (Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 67);
Lyon: Rouille, 1562 (Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 72); Venice:
Domenico Farri (Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 74?), copy in
Houghton Library, *IC5 C2782C 1562c.
62. Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice: Giolito, 1552), sig. A3v–
A4r. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 58.
Se’l Cortegiano vecchio deve essere innamorato
Qual sia quel felice amore; che non habbia seco biasimo, dispi-
acer alcuno
Che cosa e amor & in che consiste la felicità, che possono
havere gli innamorati
Che cose è bellezza
198 Notes
In qual sorte di mal incorrano gli amanti, che adempiono le loro

non honeste voglie con le donne amate
Conditioni, che si dicono convenir a g’i amanti
Accidenti che si c usano dall bruttezza, & da la bellezza
Se la bellezza delle donne è causa di tanti male, come si dice
Qual Donne sono piu caste o le belle, o le brutte
I giovani innamorati di che maniera si hanno di governare in
loro amore per evitare i pericoli
Il bascione congiungimento de l’animo, & del corpo
Donde procedono le lachrime, i sospiri, & gli affani de gli amanti
Sottile contemplatione & argumento dell’amor & bellezza
corporale a l’amor & bellezza divina & unione con la natura
angelica
Effeti de l’amor divino
Se le donne sono cosi capaci de l’amor divino, come glihomini.
63. “Capit. vi. Trata como el cortesano siendo viejo puede ser enamo-
rado sin afrenta.
Capitulo vii. Trata como el perfecto cortesano ha de amar muy al
contrario del amor lo que el vulgo sigue.” Baldassare Castiglione,
El Cortesano, trans. A. J. Boscan (Salamanca, 1581), sig. A4v. Burke,
Fortunes of the Courtier, 97.
64. Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Florence, 1531). Burke 6. British
Library C.28.a.4.
65. “Da ogni sorte d’huomini è letto con incredibil gusto, & traportato
anchora in molte altre lingue.” Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano
(Venice, 1584), sig. A2v. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 98.
66. “Nel margine del quarto libro si notassero quelle parti, nelle
quali l’Autore non secondo il parer proprio, ma secondo la scuola
Platonica ragionasse.” Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice,
1584), sig. A3v. Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, 98.
67. Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice, 1584), p. 206r. Burke,
68. “Sincera, pura, intiera, semplice, non contaminata da carne ò da
color humano, ne d’altra sorte di mortal sordidezza macchiata.”
Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice, 1584), sig. Dd2r. Burke,
69. “Qui si biasma con efficaci parole l’amore sensuale, si come anco
ciò si fa in molte altere parti di questo Dialogo. Questo istesso
concetto è stato spiegato da Giovan Boccaccio nel suo labirinto
dicendo. Vedere adunque dovevi Amare essere una passione
ad-ceccatrice dell’animo disviatrice, dell’ingegno, ingrassatrice,
anzi privatrice della memoria, dissipatrice delle terrene facultati,
guastatrice delle forze del corpo, nemica della giovannezza, & della
vecchiezza morte, generatrice de’vitii, habitatrice de vacui petti,
cosa senza ragione, & senza ordine, & senza stabilità alcuna, vitto
delle mente non sano, & sommergetrice dell’humana libertà: Vien
Notes 199
teco medesimo le historie antiche, & le cose moderne rivolgendo, &

guard di quante morti, di quanti disfacimente, di quante ruine, &
esterminationi questa dannevole passione sià stata cagione.”
Baldassare Castiglione, Cortegiano (Venice, 1584), p. 199r. Burke,
70. STC 4778, 4781, 4780.
71. STC 4782, 4783, 4784, 4785, 4786, 4787. One of the 1577 edi-
tions not in STC.
72. Baldassare Castiglione, Balthasaris Castilionis comitis de curiali siue
aulico libri quatuor, trans. Bartholomew Clerke (London, 1571),
sig. Oo2v.
73. Castiglione, Balthasaris Castilionis comitis de curiali, sig. A4v–B1r.
74. See Kenneth R. Bartlett, “The Courtyer of Count Baldasser Castilio:
Italian Manners and the English Court in the Sixteenth Century,”
Quaderni d’italianistica 6, no. 2 (1985): 249–258.
75. Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster (London, 1570), sig. G4v. STC
832.
76. All listed in Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier, Appendix 2, 163–178.
77. Ellrodt, Neoplatonism, 121–151.
78. Philip D. Collington, “’Stuffed with All Honourable Virtues’:
Much Ado About Nothing and the Book of the Courtier,” Studies
in Philology 103, no. 3 (2006): 281–312.
2 Mario Equicola’s D E N ATUR A D’A MORE :

Love and Knowledge
1. Lorenzo Savino, Di alcuni trattati e trattatisti d’amore italiani
della prima metà del secolo XVI, Studi di Letteratura Italiana IX–X
(Naples: Nicola Jovene, 1915), X. 2, n. 1.
2. “L’amore per [Equicola] è un fatto naturale, per cui la migliore delle
teorie è lasciarli il libero corso della natura.” Savino, Alcuni trattati,
X. 66.
3. On Equicola’s learning, see Savino, Alcuni trattati, X. 90–93.
Librairie Droz, 1991), 18–22.
5. Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 22–24.
6. Ingrid Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients
and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 10–16.
7. Equicola praised Leto in two of his published works: De Mulieribus
(c. 1501), the Chronica di Mantua (c. 1521), as well as in the man-
uscript Genealogia de li Signori da Este (c. 1516). Kolsky, Mario
Equicola, 39.
8. Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 47.
200 Notes

12. Savino, frequently dismissive of Equicola, refers to him disparag-
ingly as a “feminist”: Alcuni trattati, X. 72, and elsewhere.
13. Conor Fahy, “Three Early Renaissance Treatises on Women,”
Italian Studies, 11, no. 1 (1956): 30–55.
14. Fahy, “Three Early Renaissance Treatises on Women,” 37.
15. “Eodem enim femine corpus nascitur, alitur, crescit, senescit,
moritur”: Mario Equicola, De Mulieribus (Ferrara, 1501) f. a5v.
Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 72.
16. Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 291–318, provides a bibliography of
Equicola’s surviving letters from 1501–1524.
17. Genealogia delli Signori da Este (1516), Annali della Città di
Ferrara (n.d.), Iter in Narbonensem Galliam (c. 1519–1520).
18. “Multo iova in farne amare il sapere accomodarne alli studii, actioni,
et exercitii di coloro dalli quali desyderamo essere amati; laudemo
in loro le parti laudabili, le vituperabili sforzemone redurle ad virtù,
laudemoli nel publico, admoniamoli nel secreto, habiamo di loro
bona speranza che habiano ad deventare excellenti, il che li serà
urgentissimo sperone, et ad noi li farrà benivoli” MS f. 227v–228r;
Laura Ricci, ed., La Redazione manoscritta del Libro de nature
de amore di Mario Equicola (Rome: Bulzoni, 1999), 477; see also
Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 259.
19. Mario Equicola, De Natura d’Amore. Libro Quarto, ed. Enrico
Musacchio and Graziella Del Ciuco (Bologna: Capelli, 1989),
sig. D5r. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to the Libro de
natura d’amore are to the 1536 Venice edition published by Pietro
di Niccolini di Sabbio, available online through Google Books. All
translations from Equicola are my own.
20. “Falli violenza, et forza, che quella violentia, & forza li è grata”
(sig. Y6r–Y6v). See Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 269. The passage is a
part of a lengthy paraphrase of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria. In the 1587
Bonfandino edition, this sentence is glossed by a marginal note:
“Donna voie essere sforzata” [Lady wants to be raped] (sig. X11v).
21. “Creò Dio la donna non altronde, che dal huomo, ne d’altra natura
la fece che di quella dell’huomo: scrive esser la donna docile & molto
meglio che l’huomo recordarse & esser buona in consegli: Sono /
rationali, sono di animo immortale, sono capaci de beatitudine: atte
a tutte virtù, non altrimenti che l’huomo le donne come Galeno
mostra Aristotele invidiose, di liti cupide, il loro consiglio non valer
per esser inconstante & inferme, & male da esse reggersi citta scrisse:
esse il medesmo Aristotele piu ingenuosamente che l’huomo imitar
non nega, & tutta la economia le comette. . . . & Platone li medesmi
esserciti et arti alla donna che a l’huomo concede nelle leggi: & di
trattar arme le vol perite: & di animo bellicoso & sapemo esser reli-
giosissime. Qui non diremo di loro laude altro, havendone, quanto
Notes 201
ne è parso il vero scritto nel nostro libro periginecon” (Equicola,

De Natura, sig. DD2r–DD2v).
22. Ricci, La Redazione, 18–21. Savino, Alcuni trattati, 10.2–3.
24. Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 208–206, 219–220, 225–226.
25. Kolsky, Mario Equicola, 320–321, lists all 14 Italian editions.
27. Traiano Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso, cent II, rag. xiv, quoted
in Savino, Alcuni trattati, X.99.
28. Michel de Montaigne, Essay 3.5, “On Some Verses of Virgil,” in
The Complete Essays, trans. M. A. Screech (New York: Penguin,
1987), 988–989.
29. Mario Equicola, La Natura d’amore. Primo Libro, ed. N. Bonifazi
(Urbino: Argalia, 1983). Equicola, De Natura.
30. Ricci, La Redazione.
31. “Androcle scrisse ad Alessandro magno il vino esser sangue della
terra, se a lui obedito havesse non seria traboccato in si fieri homi-
cidii di amici, che’l vino non li haria la prudentia tolta” (1554
Q10v).
32. An apocryphal story recorded in Pliny’s Natural History, 9 vols., ed.
and trans. H. Rackham et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1938–1962), Book 35, chapter 36.
33. “E laudato Alessandro magno che l’amata Campapse al preclaro
Apelle dona. O Alessandro di animo grande in fatti d’arme, ma mag-
gior per sapere, & poter commandare a te stesso” (1554 Q11r).
34. “Adunque, o amici lettori, alliquali m’affatico opponere cibi eletti,
accio in simil vitio non incorra, sappiate che quanto vi apparecchio,
è stato ne campi di philosophia, & theologia con diligenza per me
raccolto; & secondo le mie picciole forze ornato di varietà, nelli ora-
torii prati, & Poetici boschetti investigata. Perlaqual cosa spero non
serà senza dilettatione tal horto: nel quale (come che poco culto fa) da
buono Agricola pero buona semanza vi su sparsa, & li arbori furono
per buona mano di migliore piante adottati. Ma perche meglio sia
ciascun certo, che fra tanta promissione non se gli ha a porgere ne
mosto, ne acqua per pioggia radunata, m’è parso d’alcuni scrittori
d’Amore, liquali al publico sono usciti, le opinioni referire, & de
le loro opere il succo espresso prima farvi gustare: non con animo
tale, qual si legge appo Platone la oratione di Lisia, per far manifesti
li errori di quella: ne come in Aristotele si vede le opinioni di molti
isposte per reprenderle. Ma perche non sia alcuno di sua laude privo,
& io faccia secondo la mia natura, dalla quale malinvolenza, & invidia
furono sempre lontane” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. A3r–A3v).
35. “Et se per caso nelli predetti non antiqui scrittori alcune opinioni
seran diverse da quello che nel mio libro si troveranno, niun giudichi
questo, ne per cupidità di contradire, ne perche io voglia in alcuna
cosa dannarle, esser stato da me fatto, ma solamente per dir quello
202 Notes
che a me pare piu si simigli al vero: oltra che ancho a niuno fin qui è
stata si benivola la fortuna, che dalle opinioni sue molti non habbian
dissentito, & che non trovi chi contra lui dica: donde vedemo philo-
sophice sette, medici, historici esser fra se contrarii, & li Theologi
istessi in alcune cose non concordi, ne da altro (come credo) questo
procede, se non da soverchio amore che alla verità si porta; & cias-
cuno spera la verità trovare” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. A3v).
36. John Milton, “Areopagitica,” in Complete Prose Works of John
Milton, Vol II, 1643–1648, ed. Ernest Sirluck (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1959), 486–575, 549.
38. Dante, Purgatorio, 26.117.
39. Ricci, La Redazione, 47.
40. “Definimo semplicemente amor esser disiderio del bene, il qual vor-
remo sempre havere” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. E7v).
41. “Essendo questo amore universale, se non se dice ogni huomo
amare avien che la cupidita è moltiplice, & corpo di molti capi, che
secondo li affetti muta nome. Circa li cibi & vino si chiama gulosita,
& ebrieta.” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. E7v).
42. “Se non volemo dissimulando cavillare, confesseremo noi pre la
maggior parte amar altri per lamor & benivolentia che havemo a noi
medesmia” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. F8r–F8v).
43. “Amore di noi stessi, è non solamente di ogni disiderio, ma di ogni
moto, et attione padre, et genitore, authore, & creatore” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. K3v).
44. “Niuna cosa accrebbe tanto la religione de falsi dei, & che dal
vero ci facesse rebelli, se non il cieco amor dell’huomo a se stesso.”
(Equicola, De Natura, sig. F8r).
45. “Chi ama se stesso, è amatore di Dio” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. G5r).
46. On Augustinian concepts of self-love, see Oliver O’Donovan, The
Problem of Self-love in St. Augustine (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1980). O’Donovan begins by noting the contradictory nature
of Augustine’s statements on the subject (1).
47. “Se da qui inanzi quanto è detto vorrà alcuno chiamar senza ordine,
io non repugno: percio non si trovara in Venere, & Cupido che
ordinatamente senza confusione parlasse” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. I6v).
48. León Hebreo, The Philosophy of Love (Dialoghi d’amore), trans.
F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes (London: Soncino Press,
1937), 7.
49. “La loro differentia e questa, che disiderio è solamente nelle cose
non havute, amore nelle cose possedute” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. K3v).
50. “Obietto dal disiderio e il bene, come si trovarno diverse specie di
beni, cosi sono diverse specie di disideri, come amore e una specie
Notes 203
di disiderii, circa il bene che si chiama bello” (Equicola, De Natura,

sig. K3v).
51. Hesiod, “Theogony,” in Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, ed.
and trans. Glenn W. Most (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2006), 2–85, line 120.
52. “Aristotele quella primamente movere il tutto per amor crede,
havendo detto Hiarca ad Apollonio il mondo essere animale,
dimandò / se era maschio o femina, risponde essere maschio, &
femina, il quale copulandosi con se medesmo, parturisce, & con-
serva ogni cosa, inamorandosi di se stesso molto piu fecondamente
che non vivo huomo con donna” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. L4r).
53. The idea that the four classical virtues have their roots in love is
attributed to an unspecified passage in Augustine by Jacques
Ferrand, who drew strongly on Equicola. See Jacques Ferrand,
A Treatise on Lovesickness, ed. and trans. Donald A. Beecher and
Massimo Ciavolella (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990),
367, n. 2.
54. “Devemo intendere nella natura di Dio esser amore” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. 5v).
55. Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.9, 1074b.
56. “d’ogni ottima attione madre” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. N3r).
57. “Ama prima adunque l’huomo se stesso, per proprio ben de se stesso:
per la fede poi comincia ad amar Dio, non per esser Dio, ma per se
stesso: poscia leggendo, meditando, orando, contemplando, ama
Dio, & per Dio ama se stesso” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. N5v).
58. “Amiamo Dio, come l’huomo ama la sua vita, havendo da lui
l’essere: e non solo l’essere, ma lo bene essere. Amesi come lo amico,
non havendo mai noi havuto maggiore amico perche ha esposta per
noi la sua vita: & questa è la maggior charità. Amesi come padre per
esser nostro genitore, /amesi come sposa” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. N6v).
59. Leone Ebreo, Dialoghi d’amore, ed. Santino Caramella (Bari:
Laterza, 1929), 45. See also John Charles Nelson, Renaissance
Theory of Love: The Context of Giordano Bruno’s Eroici furori (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 94–95, though he down-
plays the eroticism of the term “copulative” to describe the ecstasy
of union with God.
60. “In Mattheo chiaramenti Christo ne dechiari quando alla inter-
rogatione de pharisei, qual fosse il gran mandato delle legge, ris-
pose, il primo & massimo essere, amare Dio: il secondo amar il
prossimo; per il primo se genera l’amor del prossimo: & per questo
se nutrisce l’amor di Dio. Chi non ama Dio, no sa amar il pros-
simo: che chi non ama il prossimo, qual vede, come amarà Dio
qual non vede? Il primo è segno & fisso termine alquale l’anima
aspira: l’altro è grado & mezzo di pervenire al fine” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. N7v–N8r).
204 Notes
61. “Il mio Giesu commando non habbiate charità inordinata. Questo
mandato osservaremo se prima amaremo, & piu che ogni altra
cosa, quel che sopra noi poi quel che semo noi medesimi, in terzo
luogo, quel che è propinquo a noi, appresso quel che è sotto a noi”
(Equicola, De Natura, sig. O2v).
62. “Dissero alcuni l’amori esser quattro, del marito, & moglie de geni-
tori a figliuoli, dell’amante all’amato, il quatro maggior di tutti del
corpo all’anima, cioè amor di se stesso. Amamo li genitori, come
secondi authori di noi, amamo li fratelli come quasi altri noi, li fig-
liuoli, come parte di noi, non men che fratelli molte volte li amici,
percio che non potemo esseguire ogni cosa per noi medesimi: l’uno
in qualche cosa è piu utile che l’altro. Si acquistano amicitie per gov-
ernare con mutui /officii in communi nostri commodi” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. O3r).
63. See, most famously, Montaigne, Essay 1.28, De l’amitié [On
Friendship].
64. “Fermo stabilmento di amicitia è la equalità, conformita de volonta,
et d’honesti costumi, benche para ogni amicitia ha ver origine, et
augmento perservante, non da simili, ma / da contrari, vedemo il
povero amico al ricco, l’infermo al medico, l’ignorante al dotto:
Euripide afferma la terra quando è secca amare l’humido, il freddo
lo caldo, l’amaro lo dolce, il vacuo lo pieno” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. O6r).
65. “E natural l’amore, è contra natura l’odio” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. T8v).
66. On the ubiquity of homoerotic relations between men in early
modern Florence, See Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendships:
Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
67. All references to Book 4 of De Natura d’amore are to the 1989 edi-
tion: Equicola, De Natura.
68. “Volupta crudelissima immane, & effera, dice Aristotele esser quella
di quelli, che usano, & si dilettano di Venere mascula, mangiar fig-
liuoli & altre scelerita” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. BB4v).
69. “Vedemo di Venere mascula esser proprio acto, vergogna che da
omo femina se devene; et, quello amore esser tiranno, che a gioveni
li amanti per intemperanzia portano, è certo. Perche, como il re sec-
ondo le legi domina, cosi il tiranno contra legi, per propria utilita,
non per la publica” (Equicola, De Natura, 33).
70. See Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives, Life of Solon, trans. John Dryden
(New York: Modern Library, 2001), 1.109.
71. “‘Chi ama non pate che lo amato giovene sia pare or superiore a
se,’ ma molto di sè inferiore lo disidera, li piace che sia ignorante,
timido, grosso d’ingegno. Et se tal naturalmente non è, se sforza et
fa ogni opera che sia così; chè, altramenti, se reputa privo del desi-
ato piacere. Removelo da ogni studio et consuetudine donde possa
Notes 205
devenire excellente, lontanandolo da la ‘filosophia divina’ per dubio

che, facto savio et prudente, non lo sprezi. Procura finalmente che
sia inertissimo et che di lui solo se admiri. Desidera che sia ‘de corpo
molle, enerve, et delicato, a l’ombra, non al sole nutrito, da periculi,
fatighe, et sudori alieno.’ Tra femminili cibi, odori et ornamenti lo
alleva. Oltra questo, desia che sia privo de amici et consanguinei in
chi si fida, pensando quelli averli ad esser impedimento. Similmente,
povero lo vole per più facimente retenerlo. . . . Spirto gentil se mai
questo legi, fugi tal tiranno amore, dove non è segno alcuno di
pietà.” (Equicola, De Natura, 34). Passages in quotations are para-
phrased from Plato, Phaedrus, 139a–d.
72. Rocke, Forbidden Friendships.
73. Plato, Laws, 636b–c.
74. Aristotle, Politics II.10, 1272a.
75. See Marilyn B. Skinner, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture
(New York: Blackwell, 2005), 197–200.
76. Paul, Epistle to the Romans 1.26–27. St. Augustine, Confessions, ed.
and trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961),
8.6 and elsewhere.
77. In the Huntington Library copy of the 1554 Giolito edition (call
number 350124) there is a hand drawn in the margin pointing
approvingly at this sentence.
78. Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones, Books 1–3, ed. and trans. Thomas
H. Corcoran (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971),
Book 1, chapter 16.
79. “De’ sensi, alcuni credono principe il tacto. Ha, ciascuno senso,
suo proprio elemento: viso, acqua; audito, aere; olfato, foco; gusto,
terra. Se me fosse licito (ché la arroganzia di quelli che le parole
più che altro notano, non me retenesse), diria il tacto essere di
tutte quelle parti celesti, da Platone ‘etere,’ da Aristotile ‘quinto
elemento’ nominate. Ma, perché non voglio dar causa a’ maledici di
dimostrare loro maligna natura, dirò (secondo la commune opin-
ione) il tacto essere di terrea crassitudine; et con sua laude, lui solo
credemo essere necessariamente dato per il vivere. Vedemo li altri
sensi esser dati da natura per ornamento de la essenzia. Questo è
dato necessario per lo essere” (Equicola, De Natura, 38–39).
80. Plato, Phaedo, 65c.
81. Plato, Phaedo, 66a.
82. Plato, Phaedo, 65b.
83. Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, ed.
and trans. Sears Jayne (Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1985), 41.
Speech 1.4.
84. “Caetero vero sensus non eodem modo animalibus conferunt ut
sint sed modo quodam meliore sint,” Latin translation of Gerolamo
Donato (Brescia 1495), from the chapter De tactu. See Equicola,
De Natura, 106, n. 29.
206 Notes
85. Aristotle, De Anima, 421a, 20–26.

86. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 4.595–705.
87. Aristotle, (De Anima, 423b). But see earlier, De Anima, 422a,
“Touch means the absence of an intervening body.”
88. For example, all the Italian authors on love Ferrand refers to in his
treatise are among those discussed in Book 1 of De Natura d’amore.
See Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 101.
89. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 242. He is quoting Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics, Book 9, chapter 5, 1167a.
90. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 244.
91. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 245.
92. Plato, Timaeus, 58d.
93. Aristotle, De Caelo, Book 1.3.
94. Aristotle, De Caelo, Book 1.2, 269a 30.
95. “Corrupti li altri sense, non pate corrupzione tutto lo animale; cor-
rupto il tacto, manca la vita, ché senza quello, non pò esser né con-
sistere lo animale. Senza tacto la spezie umana et animali perfecti
cessariano. In questo senso è summo, precipuo et veementissimo
piacere, maximo et sopra li altri voluptuosissimo. Del tacto è figliol
il coito, nel quale voluptà vi nascose natura, acchioché amore quasi
ne sforze al procreare” (Equicola, De Natura, 42–43).
96. “Noi grazia, colore, et proporzione di membra dilecta” (Equicola,
De Natura, 39).
97. “Il tacto è dato a quelli per generare prole et in quella multiplicare;
a noi, sì como loro, per augmentare, conservare, et mantenere la
umana spezie; et che avessemo vario, multiplice et continuo piacere.
Li bruti como irrazionali ne sono participi a certi tempi . . . , noi ad
nostro arbitrio in ogni tempo potemo usar coito. Ma tener modo
in la voluptà, et ponerli termine, cosa laudibile et utile existimamo”
(Equicola, De Natura, 39). See Aristotle, Problems, 8, 7 (950a).
98. “Et, quando è concocto, vien bianco. Et, quando è inconcocto et se
emitte violentemente, esce et vien fora sangue puro. Il che accade ad
usar troppo Venere” (Equicola, De Natura, 41).
99. “Laudaria l’asbstinenzia et castità como è sempre in ogni età lauda-
bile et cosa sanctissima. Ma, scrivendo, non posso dire se non quel
che’l loco richiede. Et così, dico che, per l’abstinenzia et retenzione
troppa, se genera mestizia et infermità. . . . Filisofi dicono alle donne
venire molti accidenti se, quando la lor parte genitale desidera con-
cepere, non hanno esse donne lor intento. Dicono obfuscare li sensi,
et tutto ‘l corpo corromperse. . . . Legemo Diogene (severissimo omo
et contentissimo) aver più volte usata Venere, sentendo nocerli la
retenzione del seme” (Equicola, De Natura, 41–42).
100. Donald A. Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand and
the Tradition of Lovesickness in Western Culture,” in Ferrand,
Beecher, and Ciavolella, Treatise on Lovesickness, 65–67.
101. Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 124–125.
Notes 207
102. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 334, n. 12.

103. Savino, Alcuni trattati, X. 75–85. Kolsky, Mario Equicola,
253–269.
104. “Noi in questo nostro libro concludemmo la modestia, la mansue-
tudine, & urbanità essere le prime virtu che’l cortegiano ornano.
Hora parimente dicemo che le tre medesme sono gran causa di farci
le persone benivole” (Equicola, De Natura, V3v).
105. “L’odio piglia tosto vigore, & tosto cresce, ne facilmente in amore si
converte. La pianta d’amore tardi si corroborra, tosto si svelle, & in
odio facilmente si muta” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. T8v).
106. “Virtù, Diligentia, Modi, et Arte, di Conciliarci Benevolentia”
(Equicola, De Natura, sig. V1r).
107. “Esser formoso & bello non è nostra laude, come l’essere deforme
non è nostro mancamento. Dalli moti del animo siamo guidicati”
(Equicola, De Natura, sig. V2r).
108. “Ogni laude in tre cose consiste, la prima è di speculare le cose di
natura, cause, passioni, moti, magnitudine: & quantità discreta &
continua, contemplando come ultimo fine de tutti gli studii essa
divinità. La seconda . . . è refrenare li moti, perverbationi & appetiti:
constringendoli sotto la ragione. La terza è sapere conversare con
li huomini conciliarsi gli animi di quelli, ridurli a nostro uso dis-
porre loro opere studii, & volontà per nostri commodi. Lasciate
le due prime, l’ultima sera nostro campo” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. V2r–V2v).
109. “Humanità hora intendemo, non eruditione, & letteratura degna
di huomini liberi, ma quella facilita di amabili costumi, laqual in
niuno altro animale ecceto che in l’huomo si ritrova” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. V3r).
110. “In tre modi humanità si essercita (secondo Platone) in salutare
volentieri porgendo le man soccorendo a chi / ha di noi bisogno,
celebrare convivii tra compagni con giocondita. A nostri tempi se vi
aggiunge l’honorare col capo discoperto li superiori” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. V3r).
111. “Molte cose facciamo per concessione di leggi, come e il dare opera
a generare figliuoli, pur quel atto nominandolo è dishonesto, &
dishonesta nel nostro ragionare, deversi fuggire, verecondia della
modestia figliuola, ne insegna” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. V4r).
112. “Non scorra il mio amante in maledicentia scurile, habbia in memo-
ria, la verità (come è proverbio comico) parturire odio” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. V5v).
113. “Non proponemo hora di Xenofonte il Ciro, meno di Aristotele il
Re, ma amante informami” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. V6r).
114. Pietro Aretino, Aretino’s Dialogues (1971), trans. Raymond
Rosenthal (New York: Marsilio, 1994), 135–136, 256–257. See also
Ian Frederick Moulton, Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early
Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 134.
208 Notes
115. Margaret Rosenthal, The Honest Courtesan: Veronica Franco,

Citizen and Writer in Sixteenth-Century Venice (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1992), 6, 73.
116. “Se forsi alcuno che troppo di se prosuma istima tal cose frivole, &
noi reputa in questa parte haver piene le carte di ciancie, & percio
crede noi havere errato, in non have ben discernuto quel al tal luogo
si conviene, dicoli, se errore vi è, che erro con Platone, Aristotele,
M. Tullio, & Quintiliano, di quali le sententie ho qui volentieri
esposte, non come ad ingenuamente educate necessarie, ma a coloro
utili, liquali quasi fongi in una notte nati, di lettere nudi, tra amanti
eleganti come se elegantissimi fussero compareno. Cosi habitu-
ato il mio giovene si sforze esser con la amata signora in ossequie
diligente, tanto che in servitù voluntaria se stesso constituisca, &
prevenga il suo servire al disio di quella cui serve. Antiveda suoi pen-
sieri: che niuna cosa piu in amore vale quanto li servitù” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. X3v).
117. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 86–88. On the prosecution of
love magic by the Holy Office in late sixteenth-century Venice, see
Guido Ruggiero, Binding Passions: Tales of Magic, Marriage, and
Power at the End of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1993), 88–129.
118. “Non è parte alcuna utile scrivere note in dodeci foglie di lauro, &
quelle fare mangiare con radici di oliva, & di dittamo misti con
genital seme” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. X4r–X4v).
119. “Vi prego che siate honeste, & vergognose” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. X5v).
120. “A chi vi dispiace, date con modestia repulsa, non con sdegno”
(Equicola, De Natura, sig. X6r).
121. “Fuggite li troppo ardite, li astuti & sospettosi, & non men li
troppo creduli & altieri, quelli che di servir se sedegnano, perche
villani sono, ne giudicio hanno che considerare sappiano il servire a
donne esser libertà, & cortesia, non servitu: chi non sa amare non
puo servire” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. X7v).
122. “Come Latini et Greci poeti, ioculari Provenzali, Rimanti Francesi,
dicitori Thoscani, & trovatori spagnoli habbiano loro amate lodate, &
le passioni di loro stessi descritte” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. Y7v).
123. “Il modo di descrivere loro amore fu novo, & diverso da quello di
antichi latini, questi senza rispetto, senza riverentia, senza timore
di infamar sua donna / apertamente scrivevano, quel loro parea.
Et dove il desio lo spingea: Provenzali gentilmente con dissimula-
tione nascondevano ogni lascivia di affetti. Et nelle loro carte disio
di honorare piu che altro mostravano, dicendo Amor vuol castità,
e per castità benevole, senza questa non è amore, quando senza
legge, & modo perde suo nome, che niuna cosa risguarda amore, se
non amor da lei voglio solazzo, & honore, & seme da saver di amor,
è per merce non per dovere, amor non fa se non con honestade, &
Notes 209
fede, & tal amor non passa in alcun tempo. Loro amore era in
persone grandi degni di honore, non come quelle de poeti nostri
antichi, liquali da essi medesimi sono come avare, come ad altrui
volontà esposte, & quasi meretrici notate” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. Z5v).
124. “La vita humana è triplice: l’una sotto l’arte si regge, & governa.
Diceseli effettiva: a la seconda la prudentia, & le virtu morali
dominano, in la terza quelli ponemo, che sono dediti alla scien-
tia, ornati de sapientia, conoscitori della eccellentia dell’intelletto.
Della prima è fine utile, & dell’altra honore, & reputatione:
dell’ultima contemplatione di cose honeste & divine. Di tutte è
fine volupta, laquale è da artefici politici, & contemplativi abbrac-
ciata” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. BB3v).
125. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1153b.
126. “& di tali disii, & operationi qualunche nega esser fine volupta,
questo senza dubbio e huomo stupidissimo, che ne se, ne altri
conosce” (BB4r).
127. “Adunque concludemo l’huomo in tutti suoi effetti, & attioni non
pensare, ne operare altro, che amor se stesso, & di questo amare
dicemo esser ultimo fine la volupta. (Ilche cosa sia in effetto)
volemo per nostra satisfatione di questa volupta far parole, non per
demostratione della / verità, per esser chiara, aperta, & manifesta,
ma perche speramo per si ampia strada poter pervenire all’amor
divino, delquale termine, & meta è beatitudine stato perfetis-
simo, & ultima perfettione dell’huomo” (Equicola, De Natura, sig.
BB4r–BB4v).
128. “. . . la volupta in due parte dividemo: dell’anima l’una, del corpo
l’altra. Aristotele tre generationi di volupta pone: la prima in con-
templatione, l’altra in attione, nelli sensi la terza. Alcune volupta
sono necessarie, et naturali, alcune naturali, & non necessarie.
Necessarie, & naturali quelle dicemo, che riprimeno il dolore per-
tinente al corpo, come in gran sete, bere. Naturali non necessarie
sono magnar cibi pretiosi, per maggior volupta. Quelle necessa-
rie, ne naturali chiamono, lequale sono circa cose di non molto
momento, come è poner statue. Volupta crudelissima immane, &
effera, dice Aristotele esser quella di quelli, che usano, & si dilet-
tano di Venere mascula, mangiar figliuoli & altre scelerita. Alcune
volupta sono pure, & integre di cose divine. Alcune medie che par-
ticipono di virtu, & letitia causata da buoni effetti. Alcune sone
vere, alcune false: le vere si istimano quelle dell’animo, delle scien-
tie, & delle discipline: le false procedono delli sensi” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. BB4v).
129. “Alcune corporali, che’l corpo parimenti, & l’anima l’usa, come è
magniare, & dar opera a far figlioli: lequali volupta non possono
essere del corpo solo, che ogni / tal volupta è col senso, & il senso
non opera se non per l’anima” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. BB5r).
210 Notes
130. “Amesi Dio, percio che è sommo bene & sommo bene non è altro
che somma volupta” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. BB7v).
131. “Magnesi per vivere, non se viva per magnare. Alla gola sempre
dedito di gran pensieri non è capace. Il tatto in tanto devemo fre-
quentare, quanto alla natura se renda il debito della obligatione
con lei nascendo contratta. Altrimenti li forti, & robustissimi
esfemmina, & enerva. Per laqual cosa se amamo noi medesimi, &
se dell’amore è fine volupta abbracesi la temperantia, & mediocrità
conservatrici / di sanita, datrici della disiderata voluptà. Fine del
vero amore, & d’ogni amore, & d’ogni attione, & d’ogni operatione
de mortali, deve essere tal termine, che ne induca a considerare, che
per beneficio di essa sanità potemo usar longamente, la voluptà delli
sensi integramente, & in piacere honestissimo con gloria, & honore
tradurre la vita” (Equicola, De Natura, sig. CC5r).
132. “Sono alcuni nelliquali nova generatione di pazzia si ritrova.
Questi simulatori con ineptissimi modi persuadere alli sciocchi
se sforzano, che nulla curano la bellezza del corpo, ma solamente
della beltà dell’animo accesi, del solo vedere, & del solo odire si
pascono: non considerano, che disio humano non po terminare,
se non in quel ultimo che si po appetere, dove la mente oltra non
si estenda ne possa piu avanti procedere: però fermarsi disio amo-
roso in viso & odito soli è impossibile, perche amor è dell’animo /
corpo: & le operationi dell’animo dal corpo dependeno, & quelle
dle corpo dall’animo; onde l’uno a l’altro ministra voluptà, &
l’uno senza l’altro non si puo dilettare” (Equicola, De Natura,
sig. CC6r–CC6v).
133. “Non esser altro huomo, conclude Platone, che anima rationale,
laqual usa il corpo . . . per laqual cosa chi vuol conoscere se medesmo,
conosca l’anima . . . parte divina in noi (Equicola, De Natura, sig.
DD6r). La via della voluptà delli sensi primo facile & piana: poi in
prerutti precipitii, profondità oscura & eterna oblivione te conduce”
(Equicola, De Natura, sig. DD7r).
134. “Se di lieto vivere in lei in corte tua speranza reponi, pensa li invidi &
delatori & detrattori in quella vivere & calumniatori senza fine: & per
brevemente comprendere tutte le adversità & infelicità che in corte
sono, adverti che de signori la maggior parte con le orecchie, & spesso
non piu merita & serve, ma chi piu pace è rimunerato” (Equicola,
De Natura, sig. EE1r–EE1v).
135. “Il respiro di soddisfazione che ha tirato a questo punto il lettore è il
miglior commento del libro dell’Equicola.” Savino, Alcuni trattati,
X. 90.
136. 1584 edition D4v (Huntington 215382) Marginal gloss: “Natura
delle donne”; text reads: “la natura delle donne è instabile.”
137. “Essendo; gia molti anni sono, il presente libro di Mario Equicola
di natura d’Amore, stato publicato dal suo Autore, per essere opera
piena di bella è varia dottrina, benche scritta non cosi politamente,
Notes 211
come si ricerca alle regole et alla vaghezza della lingua Thoscana,

dolendomi, che ella fosse quasi morta, per esser (forse per cagion
della stampa, nella quale scoretta e molto male acconcia si leg-
geva) poco letta, e conoscuita dal mondo; ho voluto facendo
emendar molti errori, & aiutarla in / alcune cose, ristamparla.
E, perche ciascuno possa cavarne quell’utile, ch’egli ricerca, senza
fatica veruna, oltre alla Tavola fatta dal suo autore delle cose gen-
erali, io ve n’ho fatta agguingere un’altra di ogni particolaritàche
nell’opera si tratta, in guisa, che mostrando questo huomo dotto
nella fronte, tuttoquello, di che egli scrive, gli studiosi divengano
piu vaghi di leggerlo, e ne ricevano ancora il frutto maggiore”
(sig. *iiR–*iiV).
138. “LIBRO / DI NATURA / D’AMORE DI MARIO /
EQUICOLA. / DI NUOVA CON SOMMA / DILIGENZA
RISTAMPATO, E / corretto da M. Lodovico Dolce. / [ornament] /
CON NVOVA TAVOLA DELLE / COSE PIV NOTABILI,
che nell’Opera si contengono / [ornament—includes text DELLA
MORTE ETERNA VITA I DIVO / SEMPER EADEM /
G G / F] / IN VINEGIA APPRESSO GABRIEL / GIOLITO
DE FERR ARI ET / FR ATELLI. M D L IIII.”
139. William H. Sherman, Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance
England (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2009), 146, and Ann Moss, Printed Commonplace Books and the
Structuring of Renaissance Thought (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996), 194.
140. “Color negro bono augurio”; “Due donne morirono di allegrezza.”
141. “Rimedii à fuggire l’amor lascivo”; “Rimedii contra l’amor lascivo.”
142. “Donna è origine all’huomo di ogni atto laudabile”; “Donne sono
la causa de i peccati.”
143. “Fortuna fu nominata mascula”; “Fortuna fu nominata muliebre.”
144. “Amore è naturale”; “Amore non viene de natura.”
145. “Adone secondo gli Assiri significa il Sole”; “Africani perfidi”;
“Astinencia del coito ha causato in alcuni il vomito”; “Egittii pro-
hibirno la musica”; “Greci vietarono à servi la pittura”; “Parole
non doversi mutare”; “Un fanciullo di Xenophonte fu amato da un
Cane”; and “Piedi piccioli denotano amanti.”
146. Equicola, De Natura, 14–21.
147. Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 100–101.
148. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Book 3 Love Melancholy,
ed. Holbrook Jackson, 3.1.1.1 (New York: New York Review Books,
2001), 4.
149. Robert Ellrodt, Neoplatonism in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser
(Geneva: Droz, 1960), 108–110.
150. Equicola, De Natura, sig. V2v.
151. “What is love? Five theories on the greatest emotion of all.”
Guardian.co.uk. Thursday, December 13, 2012, 07.18 EST.
212 Notes
3 Antonio Tagliente’s O PER A A MOROSA :

Love and Letterwriting
Shakespeare, 2nd ed., ed. Greenblatt et al. (New York: Norton,
2008).
2. Lynne Magnusson, Shakespeare and Social Dialogue: Dramatic
Language and Elizabethan Letters (New York: Cambridge, 1999),
explores the ways in which sixteenth-century letters provide models
of social exchange and interaction for Shakespearean drama. She
argues that letters provide “relational scripts for friendship and ser-
vice” that help establish “the repertoire of available personal rela-
tionships” (1). Her main focus is on administrative letters, not love
letters.
3. On Tagliente’s life and publications, see Esther Potter, “Life and
Literary Remains,” in Splendour of Ornament: Specimens Selected
from the Essempio di recammi, the First Italian Manual of
Decoration, Venice 1524 by Giovanni Antonio Tagliente, ed. Stanley
Morison (London: Lion and Unicorn Press, 1968), 29–43.
4. On the Libro Maistrevole, see Anne Jacobson Schutte, “Teaching
Adults to Read in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Giovanni Antonio
Tagliente’s Libro Maistrevole,” Sixteenth Century Journal 17, no. 1
(Spring 1986): 3–16.
5. Potter, “Life and Literary Remains,” 31.
6. “. . . alchune lettere amorose con le risposte di vari & diversi casi
intervenuti in certe citta d’Italia tro molti amanti d’ogni condi-
tione.” All references to the Opera amorosa are to the Venice, 1533
edition.
7. Schutte “Teaching Adults,” n. 20, p. 7, claims five editions between
1527 and 1552; editions from 1533, 1535 and 1537 are in the
British Library. The Marciana Library has two separate editions
from 1533 (one from Venice, one from Bressa [Brescia]), and one,
entitled Lettere amorose, from 1608.
8. “Messer Iacinto da Rimino Giovane de anni xx innamoratosi di
Madonna Cesarina Donzella bellissima, di eta di anni xxiii allaqual
esso Iacintho per non poter piu avanti sopportar gli amorosi tor-
menti, scrisse la qui sottoposto espistola” (sig. A2r).
9. “Ferito son io si acerbamente dalle crudeli saette d’amore nobilis-
sima, & dolcissima Madonna, che sa con queste poche parole io
non havessi mandata fuori, la mia ardentissima passione, senza dub-
bio l’empia morte s’appropinquava per troncar il filo de mia misera-
bile vita. O quanto forte, quanto potente, & quanto amara in me
conosco la legge severa & aspra d’amore. Pero che per un solo &
secreto sguardo ch’io gittai nel sereno volto vostro & dilicatissimo
petto, si duramente mi legassi il core, che certamente gli sentimenti
miei il spirito mio, il pensier mio insieme uniti in voi, & con voi di
Notes 213
& notte si vivono. Ne mai d’altre ricchezze, ne d’altro tesauro me si

rigira per la memoria se non della belta vostro, & leggiadria, O mio
ardentissimo desiderio da gliocchi miseri nato a miei perpetui
danni, conciosia che la mia vita infelice tra lagrime e sospiri assidosi
si pasca miserabilissimamente. Per laqual cosa Madonna humanis-
sima, se per mia sorte io tengo voi per la mia luce, mio sovengo,
mia vita, mio conforto, & caro nudrimento delli miei affannosi
pensieri, vogliatemi per vostra gentilezza & pieta pigliar in servo
fedelissimo, & secretamente giudicarmi degno d’una sua gratissima
risposta” (sig. A2r).
10. See, for example, Amores 1.1, 1.2, 1.9, etc.
11. All references to the works of Plato are to The Collected Dialogues of
Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1961).
12. “La soavita delle ornate lettre vostre. Iacintho il vostro aterrato &
servidore indegno” (sig. A2r–A2v).
13. “Se non fusse gentil, & nobil Messer Iacintho, che io m’affidassi
di trovar in voi fede, et taciturnita per modo niuno haverei preso
ardimento di risponder alle benigne parole delle vostre dolcissime
lettre: Vi prego non habbitate a ridere di cotesto mio inculto &
rozzo modo di scrivere. Confesso liberamente lingegno mio esser
mal atto e simplicetto alle cose di amore. Ma pur parebbemi haver
il cuor cinto di ferro se non amassi la soavita delle ornate lettre
vostre, lequali piu di tre vole veramente furono da me lette, & non
senza mie abondevolissime lagrime. Ho io d’ogni parte il cuore
tenerissimo, & inchinevole verso voi, et pietoso assai all gradezza
degli amorosi tormenti vostri, hora per non esse[r]e tediosa nel
dire sepiate che a tanta vostra virtu & gentilezza l’anima mia per
fieri colpi d’amor gemante risponde a par a paro verso il vostro
ardentissimo pensiero. Il perche al presente senza indugio humil-
mente vi prego pigliatemi per vostra fedel e secretissima serva”
(sig. A2v).
14. “Voi siete giovane, bello, ricco, modesto, virtuoso, humano, &
ornatissimo di costumi, & di tutte quell’altre parti, che sono com-
putate, si nella felicita di beni dell’anima, come del corpo. In me
di vero tutto il contrario. Vecchia horamai son io, & quelle ardenti
fiamme del fallace amore, le quai furono in me gia possenti, hora
extinte si giacciono. Veggiomi fanticella indegna di tant’huomo.”
15. “Lingua non e alcuna cosi faconda, che potresse isprimer la timid-
ita mia, & specialmente di notte. Ma . . . la gentilezza vostra, & lo
grande amor insieme faranommi audace forse piu di che a me si
convenga. Et quando pure havete a venir al capo del nostro giardino
io vel faro intendere il giorno alla notte susseguente, mentre nella
finestra della mia camera guardante sul horto, vedrete posti due capi
di cordela, un bianco, l’altro verde, li quai saranno appicati ed essa
finestra. Et habbiate a sapere che non potrete commodamente per
214 Notes
me venire se non alla terza hora di notte. Et perche fece prudente so

che verrete solo. Per laqual cosa da quinci innanzi non mi scriviate
cosa alcuna. Il segno delle dette cordele vi sia nella memoria: Ma
di cio basti: a voi grandissimamente mi raccomando. Fabia vostra
leale” (sig. D5r–D5v).
16. “Messer Valentino gentilhuomo di Parma, & giovane di trent’anni
innamoratosi di Madonna Sabina donzella bellissima, & havendo
consumato lungo tempo con seco nell’amore allei manda queste let-
tere pregandola, che una sera voglia riceverlo in casa non havendo
ne madre ne padre, che cio impedisca” (sig. A5v).
17. “Pero che da una parte le care piacevolezze & altri lascivetti giuochi
di Venere me spingono ad accetarvi non solamente nel tetto nos-
tro, ma nel seno, ne gliocchi, nel grembo. Dal l’altra parte dis-
cerno mille imagini di horribile paura, percio che istimo per certo
che nella prima giacitura ch’io stessi istrettamente con vo, disubito
vederestemi fatta pregnente, cosa che senza parangone me spav-
enta. Et cio non gia, che per amor vostro mi rincrescesse portar nel
ventre un si soave peso, ma per la gran temenza del Zio vecchio, &
altri parenti nostri, i quali mi vorrebono piu presto veder in essilio,
o da cruda morte sepolta. Intendete andunque la cagione del tutto”
(sig. A6r).
18. “Ha gia venti anni ch’io fui data in moglie a mio marito, et infin a
qui niuno fuori che voi hebbe ardimento mai con amoroe lettre sol-
lecitarmi. Pero vi essorto, attendiate a ben vivere. Grande peccato e
contaminar le casti menti delle maritate donne” (sig. C1v).
19. “Vorrei poter senza peccato usar gratitudine verso l’ampiezza di
vostra mente incomparabile. Se nel futuro haverete mai a favellar
con la mia balia, siate accorto a farlo tacitamente, accio non siate
veduto dalli dimestichi nostri: Non diro altro, il tempo, l’amor, la
notte, & l’otio sono maestri & consiglieri saputi di tutte l’opere
amorse: ultimamente, & ben, e pace sia con voi” (sig. C3v).
20. “Dimestico di casa, & di buon aspetto, huomo di trent’anni, &
parlatore accorto.”
21. “Chi volesse considerarmi nel sangue, Illustre & savissima Contessa,
humile forse troverrebbe la mia conditione: Ma veramente nelle
parti dell’animo virile si grande mi conoscerebbe, che a niuno farei
giudicato essere lo secondo. Io naqui sotto cosi fatto distino, che
nelle cose d’amore per nessun modo posso amar altri obietti, se non
quei, alliquali m’e vietato, & non licito poter arrivare.”
22. “[B4v] Dove se tu smisuratamente mi ami, che cosa e altro questo
se non un precioso dona di tua gentilezza? Ottimamente so io, che
l’eterno Iddio ponendovi ne corpi nostri mortai gli animi divini
non rade volte etiando alle persone di basso nido suol donar vigor
mirabile & altezza d’animo insuperabile: Ma per me, nacqui di cosa
fatta complessione, che a qualunque ama con fedelta sempre huma-
namente volli respondere nell’amore. Pretermetto di dar risposta a
Notes 215
molte altri bellissime ragioni vostre, perche tempo niuno m’avanza.

Iddio con voi.”
23. See Alain Boureau, “The Letter-Writing Norm, A Medieval
Invention,” in Chartier et al., Correspondence, 24–58.
24. On the ars dictaminis see James J. Murphy, “Ars dictaminis: The
Art of Letter-Writing,” in Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of
Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1974), 194–268; and William D. Patt,
“The Early ‘Ars dictaminis’ as Response to a Changing Society,”
Viator 9 (1978): 133–155, and more briefly Charles Fantazzi,
“Introductory Note” to Erasmus, On the Writing of Letters, Collected
Works of Erasmus, Vol. 25, ed. J. K. Sowards (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1985), 7.
25. See, for example, Francesco Negro, Opusculum scribendi espisto-
las (Venice, 1488), and the Novum Epistolarium (Basel: Johann
Amerbach, 1489), of Giovanni Mario Filelfo (1426–1480), both
criticized by Erasmus (Epistle 117).
26. The reference is to St. Jerome, The Letters of St. Jerome, trans. Charles
Christopher (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963), 8.1. Jerome
himself is quoting remarks attributed to the comedian Turpilius, a
contemporary of Terence. See also Lisa Jardine, Erasmus: Man of
Letters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 150.
27. Erasmus, On the Writing of Letters, 20.
29. J. L. Vives, De Conscribendis Epistolis, ed. Charles Fantazzi (New
York: Brill, 1989).
30. F. Vander Haeghen, ed. Biblioteca Erasmiana (1893, repr.; Ghent:
Nieuwkoop, 1961), 55–59, lists 28 editions in Erasmus’s lifetime
and 60 more during the rest of the century. And that list is not com-
plete. See Introduction to Erasmus, On the Writing of Letters, lii.
36. Erasmus’s primary example of a persuasive letter is his Encomium
matrimonii—a controversial letter persuading a young man to
marry that also advocates a married clergy. Erasmus, On the Writing
of Letters, 129–145, 528–529.
39. Mario Equicola, De Natura d’amore (Venice, Pietro di Niccolini di
Sabbio, 1536), sig. Y8r.
40. Erasmus, On the Writing of Letters, 204–205.
41. Jardine, Erasmus, 149–153.
42. Erasmus, On the Writing of Letters, 24–25.
216 Notes
43. Jardine, Erasmus, is a detailed study of the ways in which Erasmus

created a literary persona for himself—in large part through his let-
ter writing.
44. Bernard A. Bray, L’Art de la lettre amoureuse: Des manuels aux
romans (1550–1700) (The Hague: Mouton, 1967), 14–15. He
asserts that “the three principal sources that one may attribute to
the love letter in its conventional form in the first half of the sev-
enteenth century are Ovid’s Heroides, the letters of Heloise and
Abelard, and Italian letters, especially those of Isabella Andreini.
Ovid represents by far the most abundantly used source” (14). See
also Claudio Guillén, “Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance
Letter,” Harvard English Studies 14 (1986): 70–101, esp. 86–91.
45. Fay Bound, “Writing the Self? Love and the Letter in England,
c. 1600–c. 1760,” Literature and History 11, no. 1 (2002): 1–19,
esp. 7.
46. Alan Stewart and Heather Wolfe, Letterwriting in Renaissance
England (Washington, DC: Folger Library, 2004), 21.
47. For example, in French, Le Stile et Maniere de composer, dicter,
et escrire toute sorte d’Epistres (Lyons and Paris, 1553), by Pierre
Durand, and many subsequent editions; and the English translation
of the same, William Fullwood, The Enemy of Idleness (London,
1568) and ten subsequent editions to 1621; as well as Abraham
Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles (London, 1576).
48. “And to describe the true definition of an Epistle or letter, it is noth-
ing else but an Oration written, conteining the mynde of the Orator or
wryter, thereby to give to understand to him or them that be absent,
the same that should be declared if they were present, whereof /
there be three principall sortes, for some are addressed to our supe-
riours, as to Emperors, kings, princes &c, Some to our equalles as
to Marchants, Burgesses, Citizens &c. Some to our inferiors as to
servants, laborers, &c.” Fullwood, Enemy of Idleness, sig. A7r–A7v.
49. Fullwood, Enemy of Idleness, sig. B5v.
50. G. Gueudet, “Archéologie d’un genre: Les premiers manuels français
d’art épistolaire,” in Mélanges sur la littérature de la Renaissance à la
mémoire de V-L Saulnier (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1984), 94–96.
51. On the spread of letter books in France, especially those with love
letters see Bray, L’Art de la lettre amoureuse, 7–12.
52. Roger Chartier et al., Correspondence: Models of Letter-Writing
from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, trans. Christopher
Woodall (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1997), 16–22, 68–70;
Stewart and Wolfe, Letterwriting, 79.
53. Isabella Andreini, Lettere della signora Isabella Andreini padouana.
(Venice, 1607, 1617, 1627).
54. Almost all letter books published in England in the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries contain some love letters: See: STC
(2nd ed.) 545; 3637; 3638; 3638.5; 6274; 6401; 6402; 6403; 6404;
Notes 217
6405; 6406; 6406.5; 6407; 11476; 11477; 11479; 11480; 11481;

11482; 11482.4; 11483; 11523; 17360; 17360a; 19883; 19883.5;
20432; 20433; 20584; 20585; 24909; and 24909.5.
55. Delle lettere di diversi autori, raccolte per Venturin Ruffinelli.
Libro Primo. Con una oratione a gli Amanti per M. Gioanfrancesco
Arrivabene. 8° (Mantua, 1547). Four copies in Marciana Library,
including MISC 2340. 006.
56. Chartier et al., Correspondence, 63 on the French version. The
English text, The enemie of idleness appeared in at least eight edi-
tions between 1568 and 1621.
57. Full title: Le Stile et Maniere de composer, dicter, et escrire toute sorte
d’Epistres, ou lettres missives, tant par response que autrement. Avec
epitome de la ponctuation, et accentz de la langue Françoise pub-
lished 1553 by Jean Temporal in Lyons and Maurice Menier in
Paris. The volume is sometimes attributed to Pierre Durand. See
Chartier et. al., Correspondence, 63. G. Gueudet, “Archéologie d’un
genre,” 87–98, provides a list of editions, 88–89.
58. [A Protocol for Secretaries and Others Wanting to Know the Art of
Writing all Letters and Prose Epistles in Good French]. Gueudet,
“Archéologie d’un genre,” 90, lists three editions, the first with no
date, the second dated 1534, the third probably between 1542 and
1563.
59. [A Method for Writing by Answers] Gueudet, “Archéologie d’un
genre,” 91, lists two editions, the first with no date, the second
1548.
60. “‘L’autheur aux lecteurs.’: j’ay voulu estre brief & succint: car d’autant
il en sera plus facile à rememorer, plus leger à transporter, & de moin-
dre coust que les autres oeuvres” (A2v).
61. Fullwood, Enemy of Idleness, sig. A3v. Treatises of ars dictaminis
were also designed to be useful even to the least intelligent stu-
dents, but were nonetheless directed at those literate in Latin, not a
broader public. See Patt, “The Early ‘Ars dictaminis,’” 147.
62. All references are to the 1568 edition.
63. The volume’s preface is addressed to unlearned as well as learned
readers. Fleming, Panoplie of Epistles, sig. ¶5r.
64. Fleming, Panoplie of Epistles, sig. ¶5r–¶5v.
65. Bartolommeo Miniatore, Formulario Ottimo et Elegante, il quale
insegna il modo del scrivere lettere messive & responsive, con tutto le
mansioni sue a li gradi de le persone convenevoli. Et oltra di cio alcune
nuove & brevissime Orationi a diversi Ambasciatori, de Prencipi
attissime & necessarie, & di nuovo corrette (Venice, 1492), British
Library IA 23908. The volume was frequently reprinted: British
Library 1084 d 1 3, is the Venice 1544 edition.
66. “Littera missiva a una donna.”
67. “Littera d’amore e bellissima da scrivere ad una tua amorosa, laquale
tu non havessi piu scritto” (Venice 1544 edition).
218 Notes
68. This letter appears in 1556 Stile et manière on pp. 53v–54r; in 1568
Enemy of Idleness on sig. S3r–S3v.
69. Fullwood, Enemy of Idleness, sig. S3v–S4r.
70. Fullwood, Enemy of Idleness, (London 1568), sig. S4v–S5r.
71. Angel Day, The English Secretary (London, 1599), sig. V1r.
72. BL 1084 d 1 2 (bound in same volume with Tagliente’s letter book
and other similar texts). Andrea Zenophonte da Ugubio, Formulario
Nuovo ad dittar Lettere Amorose, Messive, & Responsive composto
per Opera Nuova, intitulatoa Flos Amoris (Venice: Marchio Sessa,
1531), 80.
73. Stewart and Wolfe, Letterwriting, 80.
74. All references are to Walter Darell, A Short discourse of the life of
Servingmen, plainly expressing the way that is best to be followed, and
the meanes wherby they may lawfully challenge a name and title in
that vocation and fellowship. With certaine letters verie necessarie for
Servingmen, and other persons to peruse. With diverse pretty inven-
tions in English verse. Hereunto is also annexed a treatise, concerning
manners and behaviours (London: Ralphe Newberrie, 1578), STC
6274. The “treatise concerning manners” is a translation of Della
Casa’s Galateo.
75. Patt, “The Early ‘Ars dictaminis,’” 135, see also148–155.
76. Fantazzi, “Introductory Note,” 2–3.
77. Potter, Life and Literary Remains, 36–37.
78. Aretino’s notion of what a letter should be may have been greatly
influenced by Erasmus’s De conscribendis epistolis. See Raymond B.
Waddington, Aretino’s Satyr: Sexuality, Satire, and Self-Projection
in Sixteenth-Century Literature and Art (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2004), 49–54.
79. Waddington, Aretino’s Satyr, xxii.
80. Waddington, Aretino’s Satyr, 51.
81. Pietro Aretino, The Letters of Pietro Aretino, ed. and trans. Thomas
Caldecott Chubb (New York: Archon, 1967), 261.
82. Guillén, “Notes,” 92.
83. See Raffaele Morabito, “Giovanni Antonio Tagliente e l’epistografia
cinquecentesca,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale 33 (1986): 37–53;
and more generally Bray, L’Art de la lettre amoureuse, 21–29.
84. Diego de San Pedro, Prison of Love, ed. and trans. Keith Whinnom
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), vii–ix; Joyce
Boro, ed., The Castell of Love: A Critical Edition of Lord Berner’s
Romance, MRTS 336 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval
and Renaissance Studies, 1997), 14–15.
85. Diego de San Pietro, The castell of loue, translated out of Spanishe
into Englyshe, by Johan Bowrchier knyght, lorde Bernis, at the instance
of lady Elizabeth Carew, late wyfe to Syr Nicholas Carew knyght. The
which boke treateth of the loue betwene Leriano and Laureola doughter
Notes 219
to the kynge of Masedonia (London, 1548), STC 21739.5. A second

edition appeared in 1552.
86. See Introduction to Juan de Segura, A Critical and Annotated
Edition of this First Epistolary Novel (1548) Together with an
English Translation, ed. and trans. Edwin B. Place (Evanston IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1950), 12.
87. Diego de San Pietro, A certayn treatye moste wyttely deuysed orygy-
nally wrytten in the spaynysshe, lately traducted in to frenche enty-
tled, Lamant mal traicte de samye (London, 1543), STC 546. An
English translation by John Clerk of Nicolas de Herberay’s French
translation.
88. All references are to Segura, Processo de cartas de amores, ed. and
trans. Edwin B. Place (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press, 1950).
89. Guillén, “Notes,” 93.
90. See Robert White, “The Rise and Fall of an Elizabethan Fashion:
Love Letters in Romance and Comedy,” Cahiers Elisabethains 30
(1986): 37–47.
91. Roger Chartier, “Secrétaires for the People,” in Chartier et al.,
Correspondence, 59–111, 98–99.
92. Andrea Zenofonte da Ugubio, Formulario nuovo da dittar lettere amo-
rose messive et responsive. Composto per Andrea Zenophonte da Ugubio.
Opera nuova intitola Flos Amoris. MDXXXIX (Venice: Bindoni and
Pasini, 1539). Sig. C7v–C8r. Newberry Library Case Y 9935 .995.
93. Day, English Secretary, 1586 edition, 232–251, sig. Q2v–R4r.
94. For examples, see David Cressy, Birth Marriage, and Death: Ritual,
Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 237–255.
95. Diana O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making
of Marriage in Tudor England (New York: Manchester University
Press, 2000), 69.
96. O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint, 70.
97. George Parfitt and Ralph Houlbrooke, eds., The Courtship Narrative
of Leonard Wheatcroft, Derbyshire Yeoman (Reading: Whiteknights
Press, 1986), 42–51, 67–81. Cressy, Birth Marriage, and Death,
243.
98. Parfitt and Houlbrooke, Courtship Narrative, 47.
99. Parfitt and Houlbrooke, eds., Courtship Narrative 22.
100. Lori Anne Ferrell, ed., “An Imperfect Diary of a Life: The 1662
Diary of Samuel Woodforde,” Yale University Library Gazette 63
(1989): 143–144. Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, 244–245.
101. Kenneth Parker, ed., Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple,
1652–54: Observations on Love, Literature, Politics and Religion
(New York: Ashgate, 2002). Dorothy’s 77 letters survive in British
Library ADD. MS 33975.
220 Notes
102. James Daybell, Women Letter-Writers in Tudor England (New York:

Oxford University Press, 2006), 225.
103. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early
Modern London (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 160.
On the use of letters and other writings as evidence in ecclesias-
tical courts, see Henry Consett, The Practice of the Spiritual or
Ecclesiastical Courts,1681 (London, 1708), 146–151. On the sev-
enteeth century; see Bound, “Writing the Self?” 2–3.
104. O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint, 16.
105. On the symbolic significance of hands in this letter, see Seth Lerer,
Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts
of Deceit (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 95–103.
106. Henry’s letters to Anne were first printed in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Letter 1. Henry VIII, King of England. Love-letters from King
Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn: Some in French, and some in English.
To which are added, translations of those written in French. With an
appendix, . . . (London, 1714), sig. B1v–B2r.
107. Henry VIII, Love-letters, sig. C1v (letter 4); sig. D3v (letter 11).
108. Henry VIII, Love-letters, sig. D1r–D1v (letter 9).
109. Henry VIII, Love-letters, sig. C2v (letter 5), sig. D3r (letter 11).
110. Lerer, Courtly Letters, 101–102.
111. Jasper Ridley, The Love Letters of Henry VIII (London: Cassell,
1988), 65.
113. George Gascoigne, “The Adventures of Master F. J.” in An Anthology
of Elizabethan Prose Fiction, ed. Paul Salzman (New York: Oxford,
1987), 1–88, 8–9, 15.
115. Henry VIII, Love-letters, sig. E2r (letter 14).
116. Henry VIII, Love-letters, sig. E2v (letter 15).
117. Folger MS X.d.428 (77).
118. Daybell, Women Letter-Writers, 222.
119. Daybell, Women Letter-Writers, 59. The original letter is in the
National Archives at Kew: State Papers Domestic Supplementary
46/5/139.
120. Daybell, Women Letter-Writers, 223. See also Letters and Papers,
Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer,
et al. (London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1862–1932),
Vol. 20 (ii) 855:23/11/1545.
123. Edward Phillips, The Mysteries of Love & Eloquence, or the Arts of
Wooing and Complementing (London: N. Brooks, 1658), title page.
Two editions published in 1658, a third in 1685.
124. Full title is, John Gough, The Academy of Complements, Wherein
Ladyes, Gentlewomen, Schollers, and Strangers may accomodate their
Notes 221
Courtly Practice with most Curious Ceremonies, Complementall,

Amorous, High expressions, and formes of speaking, or writing. A
work perused and most exactly perfected by the Author with Additions
of witty Amorous Poems, And a Table expounding the hard ENGLISH
words (London, 1539). STC 19882.5. Subsequent editions include
STC 19883, 19883.5, Wing G1401, G1401A, G1401B, G1401C,
G1402, G1404, G1405, G1405A, G1405B, G1406: 12 editions
between 1639 and 1685.
125. Gough, Academy, sig. A10r–C5v. All references are to the expanded
second edition: (London: Humphrey Mosley, 1640).
126. Parfitt and Houlbrooke, Courtship Narrative, 62–63.
127. W. S., Cupids Schoole: Wherein Yong men and Mayds may learn
diverse sorts of new, witty, Amorous Complements. Newly written,
and never any written before in the same kinde (London: Richard
Cotes, 1642).
4 Jacques Ferrand’s O N L OV ESICK NESS :

Love and Medicine
1. Plutarch, “Antony,” in Plutarch’s Lives, Volume 2, trans. John
Dryden, ed. Arthur Hugh Clough (New York: Modern Library,
2001), 496.
Shakespeare, 2nd ed., ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (New York:
Norton, 2008).
3. On the ubiquity of the discourse of lovesickness in early mod-
ern England, see Lesel Dawson, Lovesickness and Gender in Early
Modern English Literature (New York: Oxford University Press,
2008).
4. Boaistuau translated, adapted, and moralized Bandello’s 1554
novella on Romeo and Juliet in his additions to Belleforest’s Histoires
Tragiques extraites des Ouevres italiens de Bandel (Paris, 1559). It
was Boaistuau’s translation that was in turn the main model for the
story in English; it was translated into English in William Painter’s
Palace of Pleasure (London, 1567) and adapted by Arthur Brooke
in his poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (London,
1562).
5. On the relation of Burton’s Anatomy to medical texts in Latin
and the vernacular, see Mary Ann Lund, Melancholy, Medicine,
and Religion in Early Modern England: Reading the Anatomy of
Melancholy (New York: Cambridge, 2010), 77–111.
6. Jacques Ferrand, Erotomania, or a treatise discoursing of the essence,
causes, Symptomes, Prognosticks, and the cure of love, or erotique mel-
ancholy, trans. Edmund Chilmead (Oxford: L. Lichfield, 1640).
The English text was reprinted in 1645.
222 Notes
7. Donald A. Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand and

the Tradition of Lovesickness in Western Culture,” in A Treatise on
Lovesickness, ed. and trans. Jacques Ferrand, Donald A. Beecher,
and Massimo Ciavolella (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press,
1990), 1–201, 26–38.
8. Plato, “Symposium,” in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith
Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, trans. Michael Joyce (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 526–574.
9. Mary Frances Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: The Viaticum
and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1990), 6–18; Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,”
62–70, 39–54.
10. On Arab medical writing on lovesickness, see Beecher and Ciavolella,
“Jacques Ferrand,” 62–70.
11. See Wack, Lovesickness.
12. Wack, Lovesickness, 22–27.
13. André Du Laurens, A Discourse of the Preseruation of the Sight: Of
Melancholike Diseases; of Rheumes, and of Old Age, trans. Richard
Surphlet (London, 1599), sig. R3v. STC 7304.
14. Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An
Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1990), 107–109.
15. This formulation is based on Ficino, De Amore, Speech 7, chapter 5,
and derives ultimately from Plato’s Phaedrus and Lucretius De rerum
natura.
16. The term “silly . . . worm” is an addition by the translator Surphlet—
the French simply has “le pauvre amoureux.” See Ferrand, Treatise
on Lovesickness, 416, n. 1.
17. Du Laurens, Melancholike Diseases, sig. R3v.
18. Du Laurens, Melancholike Diseases, sig. S1r.
19. Du Laurens, Melancholike Diseases, sig. S1v.
20. Jacques Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour ou de la
mélancolie érotique (1610), ed. Gérard Jacquin and Éric Foulon
(Paris: Anthropos, 2001), 74–75.
The title page of the 1610 edition of Treatise on Lovesickness identifies
Ferrand as being from Agen, (M. Jacques Ferrand, Agenais). The com-
mendatory verses in Latin, Greek, and French are from lawyers who
were friends and relatives of Ferrand from Agen and the surrounding
area. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 1, 6–8.
21. Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 25, 171, n. 32.
22. “Il soit dénué de toute éloquence et . . . il ressente mes jeunes ans.”
Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 5. It is also odd
that this reference to Ferrand’s supposed youth comes in an epistle
addressed to his patron Claude of Lorraine, born in 1578, who would
have been younger than Ferrand if he was indeed born in 1575.
Notes 223
23. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 74–75. Ferrand,

Treatise on Lovesickness, 273.
24. All references to this text are to the modern French edition: Ferrand,
Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour.
25. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, XI.
26. Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 26.
27. “Maxime perniciosum et impium et mathematicae judiciariae occul-
tum fautorem damnavimus et prohibuimus.” This Latin document
from the Archbishopric of Toulouse is dated July 16, 1620, and is
signed by J. Rudèle, the vicar general. It is reproduced in Jacques
Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 219–220.
28. “Et bien qu’il improuve de parole la magie en quelque lieu, il la
relève par son discours et donne des remèdes damnables pour
se faire aimet des dames, enseigner des outils d’abomination et
donne des mémoires des plus damnables livres et des plus dam-
nables inventions qui aient été écrits et donnés pour la lubricité
et pour les sorcelleries d’amour, ce qui est d’autant plus périlleus
qu’il est écrit en langage vulgaire.” Like the Latin text quoted in
note 27 above, this French document from the Archbishopric of
Toulouse is also dated July 16, 1620, and signed by J. Rudèle,
the vicar general. It is reproduced in Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et
guérison de l’amour, 222.
29. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, VIII–X.
30. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, XIV. Beecher and
Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 28.
31. “Par grace & privilege du Roy, il est permis à Denys Moreau,
Marchand Libraire à Paris, d’imprimer, ou faire imprimer, ven-
dre & distribuer un Livre intitulé, Le traicté de l’essence & guerison
de l’Amour ou de la Melancholie Erotique: Composé par Jean [sic]
Ferrand Docteur en Medecine. Et defences à tous autres Libraires &
Imprimeurs de ce Royaume, de faire le semblable, aux peines por-
tées par lesdites lettres. Donné à Paris le 28. Jour de May, 1623. Par
le Conseil. BRIGAND.” Jacques Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour
ou mélancholie erotique (Paris: Denis Moreau, 1623), sig. ĩ8v.
32. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, XVI; Beecher and
Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 34.
33. See, for example, Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 290–291, where
astronomy is rejected as a source of truth.
34. Entitled “Pourquoi peu de médicins ont enseigné la guérison
d’amour et de la mélancolie érotique” [Why few doctors have taught
the cure of love and erotic melancholy]. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence
et guérison de l’amour, 23–30.
35. “Les idiots disent les maladies et leurs causes, divines.” Ferrand,
Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 24.
36. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 28.
224 Notes
37. On the differences between the two editions, see Ferrand, Traité
de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, XVI–XIX, 213–217; Beecher and
Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 21–23, 34–38.
38. All my subsequent references to Ferrand’s text are to the 1623 edi-
tion unless otherwise noted.
39. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 74.
40. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 107–109.
41. See, for example, Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 100–101;
Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 390, n. 20.
43. Petronius, “Satyricon,” in Petronius, Satyricon; Seneca Apocolocyntosis,
ed. E. H. Warmington and W. H. D. Rouse (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1975), section 43: “adhuc salax erat. Non
mehercules illum puto in domo canem reliquisse.”
44. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 104–106. Gail
Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of
Shame in Early Modern England (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1993), 6–14.
45. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 101–104.
46. Ferrand, Erotomania, sig. D4r.
47. Dedicatory poem by Martin Lluellin of Christ Church college.
Ferrand, Erotomania, sig. b2r.
48. Nicholas Monardes, Joyfull Newes out of the New Found Worlde
(London, 1577), sig. I3r. C. T. An Advice How to Plant Tobacco
in England (London, 1615), sig. B4v–C4v, sig. C4r–C4v. Tobias
Venner, A Briefe and Accurate Treatise concerning the Taking of the
Fume of Tobacco (London, 1621), sig. B3r, C2v–C4v.
49. Pierre Boaistuau, Theatrum Mundi, The Theatre or rule of the world,
wherein may be seen the running race & course of every man’s life, as
touching miserie and felicitie, wherein be contained wonderfull exam-
ples and learned devises to the overthrow of vice and exalting of virtue.
(London, 1581), sig. O1r. This is a translation of the 1558 French
edition, a very popular text, reprinted over 20 times in France, and
published in Spanish translation in 1574.
50. Avicenna, Liber canonis, trans. Gerard of Cremona (Venice, 1555),
book III, fen 1, tr. 5, ch. 23. “Fortasse necessarium erit, ut isti
reganter regimine habentium melancholiam, et maniam, et alcutu-
but” (Arabic cuturub—i.e., lycanthropy). Haly Abbas’s medical epit-
ome, al-Kit āb al-m ālik ī (Pantegni) in Opera Omnia Ysaac, trans.
Constantius Africanus (Lyon, 1515), chapter 7, treatise 9 (c. 950 AD)
is entitled “De malinconia et canina et amore causisque eorum et
signis” [on the causes and signs of melancholy, lycanthropy and love-
sickness]. See Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Book 3 Love
Melancholy, ed. Holbrook Jackson (New York: New York Review
Books, 2001), 1.1.1.4, p. 141.
Notes 225
52. See Petronius, Satyricon, section 62.

53. My translation. Poem 31: Sappho, Greek Lyric: Sappho and Alcaeus,
ed. David A. Campbell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1982), 78–81.
54. Longinus, “On the Sublime,” in Aristotle: The Poetics; Longinus: On
the Sublime; Demetrius: On Style, ed. and trans. Donald A. Russell
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 10.2.
55. Catullus, Carmina, 51. The last of Sappho’s four stanzas is replaced
by Catullus with a stanza of his own.
57. Dawson, Lovesickness and Gender, 49–60.
59. Hippocrates, “On the Diseases of Young Women,” in Oeuvres
Complètes, ed. Littré (Amsterdam: Adolf Hakkert, 1978), 8.469–471.
Quoted in Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 377, n. 17.
60. This passage is quoted directly from the sixth-century AD trea-
tise On the Diseases of Women by Muscio, a Latin translation of
Soranus’s Gynaecology, wrongly attributed in the early modern
period to the ancient Greek physician Moschion. A Greek ver-
sion of the text was published in Basel in 1566, and this is likely
Ferrand’s source: Moschion, De morbis muliebribus liber, Graece
cum scholiis et emendationibus Conradi Gesneri (Basel: Th. Guarin,
1566), p. 28.
61. Ferrand, Erotomania, sig. F8r–F8v.
62. Egerton MS 2421 (f. 46). British Library. Manuscript is dated mid
seventeenth century; 12mo; compiled by Francis Norreys (name
on cover) and Henry Balle (name on f. 1). Contains poems from
1625–1645, including songs from The Tempest (f. 6v) and pieces
by Ben Jonson, John Donne, Thomas Cary, Sir William Davenant,
and Sir John Denham.
64. François Rabelais, Le Tiers Livre (Paris, Garnier, 1971), 160–164
(chapter 31).
65. Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love, ed. and
trans. Sears Jayne (Dallas, TX: Spring Publications, 1985), Speech 7,
chapter 11, p. 168. Ferrand rejects drunkenness as a therapy. Various
authorities came down on opposite sides of the issue, see Ferrand,
Treatise on Lovesickness, 320–321, 538, n. 9.
66. Ovid, Remedia Amoris, lines 119–213; see Ferrand, Treatise on
Lovesickness, 608, n. 21.
67. Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 52–53, 66–69.
68. Quoted by Ferrand from Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals,
4.6 (774b).
69. Ferrand cites Ficino and the doctor François Valleriola of Arles on
this point.
70. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 544, n. 30.
226 Notes
71. “Si sit in adolecentia prima, cedatur virgis, et incarceretur, atque

illic nutriatur pane et aqua donec veniam petat.” Valesco de Taranta,
Epitome operis perquam utilis morbis curandis in septem congesta
libros (Lyon: Joan Tornaesium and Gulielmum Gazeium, 1560),
36. Ferrand, Treatise on Lovesickness, 549 n51.
72. Sarah Toulalan, Imagining Sex: Pornography and Bodies in Seventeenth
Century England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 93.
73. “Ainsi faisoit on anciennement l’infibulation ou boucleure, comme
Celse le recite, afin que les garçons n’abusassent des femmes, avant
l’aage competant. On tire avant le prepuce, dit il, ou bout duquel
on passe une esguille enfilee. Le fil demeure, qu’on remue tous les
jours pour frayer les trous, jusques à tant qu’il se face une legiere
cicatrice à l’entour. Puis on y met un boucle que l’on peut oster et
remettre sans douleur.” Laurent Joubert, La premiere et seconde par-
tie des erreurs populaires touchant la médicine et le régime de santé
(Paris: Claude Micard, 1587), Book 4, Chapter 4, 215. Ferrand,
Treatise on Lovesickness, 549 n52.
74. “Oportet ergo ut teneas superfluitatem tetiginis manu, aut uncino,
et incidas, sed ne altius seces praecipue in profundo radicis, ut
non accidat fluxus sanguinis.” Albucasis, Methodus medendi certa
(Basel: Henricum Petrum, 1541), 118–119. Ferrand, Treatise on
75. François Valleriola, Observationum medicinalium libri sex (Lyons:
Antonium Candidum, 1588), 216–217. Ferrand, Treatise on
76. Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ã6v–ã7v.
77. J. H. Kellogg, Plain Facts for Old and Young (Burlington, IA:
Segner and Condit, 1891), 302. Both Slyvester Graham (1794–1851),
inventor of the Graham cracker, and John Harvey Kellogg, inven-
tor of corn flakes (1852–1943), were extremely concerned to elimi-
nate masturbation as a threat to public health, and both advocated
a “purifying” vegetarian diet high in fiber to encourage regular
evacuation of the bowels. See also Jayme A. Sokolow, Eros and
Modernization: Sylvester Graham, Health Reform, and the Origins
of Victorian Sexuality in America (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 1983), 77–126.
78. Wack, Lovesickness, xi–xii.
79. Beecher and Ciavolella, “Jacques Ferrand,” 133. The case of the rich
merchant is described in Valleriola, Observationum medicinalium.
80. For England, see Margaret Pelling, The Common Lot: Sickness,
Medical Operations and the Urban Poor in Early Modern England
(New York: Longman, 1998) and Medical Conflicts in Early Modern
London: Patronage, Physicians, and Irregular Practitioners 1550–1680
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
81. On issues of historical classification of disease, see Jon Arrizabalaga,
John Henderson, and Roger French, The Great Pox: The French
Notes 227
Disease in Renaissance Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University

Press, 1997), 1–19.
82. Kevin Patrick Siena, Venereal Disease, Hospitals, and the Urban
Poor: London’s “Foul Wards,” 1600–1800 (Rochester, NY: University
of Rochester Press, 2004), 15–29.
83. On the appearance of the pox in Italy and reactions to it, see
Arrizabalaga, Henderson, and French, The Great Pox, 20–25.
84. Arrizabalaga et al., The Great Pox, 13–14.
85. Johannes Fabricius, Syphilis in Shakespeare’s England (Bristol PA:
Jessica Kingsley, 1994), 1–3.
86. Arrizabalaga, Henderson, and French, The Great Pox, 25–27; Siena,
Venereal Disease, 15–22.
87. Arrizabalaga, Henderson, and French, The Great Pox, 34–37.
88. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 24–25.
89. The authors are Ferrand’s cousin, Le Blanc, counsellor to the presi-
dent of Agen, Guy-Noël Ouradou, doctor of law and lawyer to the
president of Lauragais, and Ferrand’s brother Jean, lawyer to the
King and the elected chamber of Agen. Ferrand, Traité de l’essence
et guérison de l’amour, 6–8.
90. “Si l’amour est puissant, Ferrand vous l’êtes plus;
S’il blesse, vous savez comment guérir l’ulcère;
S’il jette ses brandons, vous éteignez ses feux;
Et de nos passions vous maîtrisez le père.”
Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 7.
91. “Herbis fertur Amor Phoebo immedicabilis, auctor
Fallitur et prudens artis ab arte sua.
Pharmaciis curet juvenis cun frater Amorem,
Nonne senx Phoebo nomine major erit?”
Ferrand, Traité de l’essence et guérison de l’amour, 8. Ferrand, De la
maladie d’amour, sig. ã8v.
92. “Table des choses plus remarquables contenuës en ce present Livre.”
Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē4v.
93. “Caton le Censeur eut un enfant à 85 ans.” Ferrand, De la maladie
d’amour, sig. ē3r.
94. “Amans ne doivent manger des raisins.” Ferrand, De la maladie
d’amour, sig. ē3r.
95. “Turquoise decouvre les passions amoureuses.” Ferrand, De la mal-
adie d’amour, sig. ĩ3r.
96. “Dormir sur le dos provoque à luxure.” Ferrand, De la maladie
d’amour, sig. ē5v.
97. “Clitoris & ses synonymes.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour,
sig. ē4v.
98. “Fricatrices qu’elles [sic] femmes.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour,
sig. ē6r.
99. “Tribades quelles femmes estoient.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour,
sig. ĩ3r.
228 Notes
100. “Affections d’aucuns à des choses inanimées.” Ferrand, De la maladie

d’amour, sig ē3r.
101. “Adam crée masle & femelle.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour,
sig. ē3r.
102. “Courtisans metamorphorsez en loups & pourceaux.” Ferrand,
De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē 5r.
103. “Enfant nourry par une Truye.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour,
sig. ē5v.
104. “Prepuce boucle pour empescher la luxure.” Ferrand, De la maladie
d’amour, sig. ĩ1v.
105. “Baisers causent l’amour. plus usitez en Espagne & Italie qu’en
France.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē4r.
106. “Cerveau siege de la maladie en l’amour,” “Coeur siege de la mala-
die en l’Amour,” “Foye est le siege d’amour.” Ferrand, De la mala-
die d’amour, sig. ē4v, ē6r.
107. “Amour divin ou vulgaire, 2. cause de tout bien, 1. ne profite à per-
sonne, 7. estimé un venin, 10. comment pris par l’Autheur, 3. origine
de toutes les perturbations de l’ame, .change les femmes en hommes,
10. ses diverses definitions, 23. 24. celle de l’Autheur, 26. a esté
peint aveugle, ibid. deprave l’imagination, 27. 29. vient de la veuë,
35. sa generation, 54. maladie hereditaire, 69. ne peut estrs celé, 82.
estant au berceau surmonte Pan, 16. comment se faict par fascina-
tion, 55. sa diversité empesche la melancolie Erotique, 195. oublieux
ou lethean, 233.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē3v.
108. “Jouïssance souverain remede d’amour 205 / est illicite, impie, &
eronnee 208.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē6v.
109. “Fouët prescrit par Gordon pour medecine à l’amour.” Ferrand,
De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē 6r.
110. “Magie & ses especes.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē7r.
111. “Moyens occulte pour cognoistre l’amour des personnes.” Ferrand,
De la maladie d’amour, sig. ē8v.
112. “Oniromance ou divination des songes.” Ferrand, De la maladie
d’amour, sig. ē8v.
113. “Pierres precieuses monstrent l’amour des personnes.” Ferrand,
De la maladie d’amour, sig. ĩ1v.
114. “Philtres amoureux ont quelque vertu, 221. venimeux pour la plus
grande part, 224. ostent le bon jugement, 225. nombrez parmy les
poisons. 10.” Ferrand, De la maladie d’amour, sig. ĩ1r.
115. The prefatory materials from the1645 English edition are missing
author’s note and first three dedicatory poems—all from signature
a. The rest of the prefatory materials are identical to the first edi-
tion, even printed from the same plates. And no new materials are
added.
116. Poem by Sam Everard of Christ Church college. Ferrand, Erotomania,
sig. b4r.
117. Ferrand, Erotomania, sig. b4v.
Notes 229

120. Ferrand, Erotomania, sig. b6r–b6v.
125. Ferrand, Erotomania, sig. c1r.
Conclusion: Romeo + Juliet

1. On the play’s popularity on stage see William Shakespeare, Romeo
and Juliet, The Oxford Shakespeare, ed. Jill. L. Levenson (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 69–70.
2. The Capulets are one of the only households Shakespeare stages in
which a child has both parents living. And Juliet’s mother and father
are not necessarily a model of wedded bliss. See Sasha Roberts,
William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (Plymouth, UK: Northcote
House, 1998), 28–31.
3. Lope de Vega’s Castelvines y Monteses, and Francisco de Rojas’s Los
Vandos de Berona, both of which give the play a happy ending. A
seventeenth-century adaptation of the Shakespeare’s play by James
Howard apparently also gave the play a happy ending. See John
Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, or an Historical Review of the Stage
from 1660 to 1706, (London, 1708), 22.
4. Matteo Bandello, Novelle, ed. Luigi Russo and Ettore Mazzali
(Milan: Rizzoli, 1990), 315: “. . . con particolar dolore dei Montecchi
e Capelletti e general di tutta la città, furono fatte l’essequie con
pompa gradissima; e volle il signore che in quello stesso avello gli
amanti restarono sepolti. Il che fu cagione che tra i Montecchi e I
Capelletti si fece la pace, ben che non molto dopo durassi.”
5. Plato, Symposium, ed. Kenneth Dover, Cambridge Greek and Latin
Classics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 204c. Unless
otherwise indicated, all references to the works of Plato are to The
Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington
Cairns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961).
Bi bl iogr a ph y
Because of the multiplicity of editions, references to the works of Plato,

Aristotle, and other classical or canonical texts are given by traditional sec-
tion numbers; by book and line numbers in the case of poetry; and act,
scene, and line numbers in the case of drama.
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Index
Abrabanel, Judah, 14, 33, 60, 76, Bible, The, 62, 154, 185
78, 103 blood, 4, 12, 89, 156, 157, 159–60,
Academy of Complements, The, 163–4, 166, 168–72
138–40 Boaistuau, Pierre, 146, 161, 184
Alcibiades, 30, 33, 83, 168 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 18, 57, 72
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 86 Boleyn, Anne, 134–7
Andreini, Isabella, 121 book market, 2–3, 13–14, 16–17,
Antiochus and Stratonice, 156–7 19, 23, 33, 120, 129
Aretino, Pietro, 92–3, 130–1, 154–5 brain, the, 75, 150–2, 157–8, 161,
Ariosto, Ludovico, 18, 25 165–6, 175, 178
Aristotle, 62, 66–7, 69, 71, 72, 74, Brooke, Arthur, 184–5
77, 80, 83, 85–9, 93, 96–7, Bruno, Giordano, 33
104, 167, 168 Burke, Peter, 18, 53–4
Arnold of Villanova, 90, 167, 173 Burton, Robert, 12, 16, 59, 103,
ars dictaminis, 114–15, 129 146, 150–1, 161, 172
Aschem, Roger, 59
astrology, 14, 76, 149, 154, 167 Cantelmo family, 63–6
Augustine, St., 74, 76, 77, 84 Capellanus, Andreas, 16–17
Avicenna (Abu Ali Husayn Abdullah Castiglione, Baldassare, 3, 18,
ibn Sina), 4, 68, 74, 90, 157, 22, 27–60, 62, 66, 74, 86,
162 90–1, 93, 96, 97, 100, 101,
167, 178
ballads, 15, 18 Book of the Courtier, 3, 18, 22–4,
Bandello, Matteo, 184–5 27–61, 86, 90, 93, 96
beauty, 4, 21–2, 28–33, 35, 38, publication history, 23, 53–60
48–52, 54–5, 57–8, 69–70, Cortegiano, Il (see Book of the
72, 74, 76, 83–4, 86, 89, 91, Courtier)
98, 100, 109, 115–18, 121, Courtier, The (see Book of the
123–6, 130, 140, 150, 153, Courtier)
156, 168, 179, 186 Catullus, 94, 95, 96, 163
Bebel, Heinrich, 115 Cavalcanti, Guido, 72–3
Bembo, Pietro, 23, 27–8, 33, 38–9, Celtis, Conrad, 115
42–4, 48–60, 62, 67, 72–3, censorship, 39, 54, 56, 154, 177
86, 91, 97, 103, 167 chastity, 37, 47, 50–1, 55, 83, 89,
Asolani, Gli, 23, 33, 42, 49, 72 112, 115, 119, 138, 143,
Bernard of Gordon, 169, 178 160, 171, 179
Betussi, Giuseppe, 33 Chilmead, Edmund, 156, 179
246 Index
Cicciarelli, Antonio, da Fuligni, 56–8 Equicola, Mario

Cicero, 1, 4, 46, 56, 71, 74, 93, 114, biography, 64–7
115, 118, 120, 123, 187 Mulieribus, De, 64–6
Oratore, De, 46 Natura d’amore, De, 1, 3, 23–4,
Clerke, Bartholomew, 58–9 33, 59, 61–104, 117, 146,
court culture, 16, 18, 22–3, 27–60, 159, 163, 177–8
62–7, 90–6, 99, 137, 155, publication history, 23–4,
164, 174 99–104
courtesans, 33, 83, 93, 164, 177 Erasmus, Desiderius, 18, 24, 114–20,
courtesy books, 138–43 123, 124, 129–30
courtiers. See court culture De conscribendis epistolis, 114–20,
courtly love. See love, courtly 129
courtship, 5, 17, 19, 22, 33, 36, ethnicity, 160, 167
126–9, 133–8, 141–3
Cupid, 1, 2, 29, 73, 74, 76, 142, Fanny Hill, 20
145, 176, 179–80 femininity, 41–52, 64–5, 82, 84,
Cupid’s School, 141–3 142, 148, 152
Ferrand, Jacques
Dante, 19, 72–3, 95, 109 biography, 153–7
desire, 2, 4–5, 9, 14–15, 21–2, 25, Erotomania (see Treatise on
29–36, 45, 49, 51–2, 54, Lovesickness)
57–8, 65–6, 74–6, 80–2, Maladie d’amour, De la (see
86–9, 93–4, 96–8, 102, 109, Treatise on Lovesickness)
118, 146–52, 157–9, 163–7, On Lovesickness (see Treatise on
171–2, 176, 178, 184–5 Lovesickness)
diet, effect on love, 13, 87, 98, Treatise on Lovesickness, 1, 3, 4–5,
148–9, 152, 160, 162, 12, 24–5, 87, 103, 145–81
166–9, 172, 176 publication history, 24–5,
Dolce, Lodovico, 54–6, 58, 100–1, 176–81
121 Ficino, Marsilio, 4, 27–8, 30, 33,
Donne, John, 2, 9 43, 49–50, 52, 60, 61, 67,
Du Laurens, André, 146, 151–3, 72, 73, 86, 97, 149, 166
158, 163, 171 Formulario Nuovo ad dittar Lettere
Amorose, 126, 133
Ebreo, Leone. See Abrabanel, Judah friendship, 6–15, 31–2, 46, 75,
editing, 23–4, 36, 53–60, 66–8, 78–80, 114, 116, 150
99–104, 153–6, 165–8,
177–80, 183 Galateo, 19, 23
effeminacy, 23, 45–8, 58, 98, 148, Galen, 4, 25, 89–90, 98, 146–7,
152, 164, 171–2, 174, 180 149, 152, 157–60, 167–8,
Elizabeth I, 33, 59, 137 181
Enemy of Idleness, The, 120–1, gender equality, 42, 64–5
123–6 gender identity. See effeminacy,
English Secretary, The, 123, 125–7, femininity, masculinity
133 gender relations, 7, 36–7, 41–9,
epistolary novels, 112, 120, 131–2 113, 184
Index 247
generation of children, 31, 69, 77, letterwriting manuals

88–9, 92, 97 English, 121–9
genital organs, 16, 52, 75, 84, 89, French, 120–2, 127, 132
155–6, 158, 165–6, 168, Italian, 108–14, 121, 123, 133
170–4 Latin, 114–20
Giolito, 54, 100–1, 132 literacy, 16–18, 23
God, love of. See love, spiritual liver, the, 75, 150–2, 157–8, 161,
greensickness, 162–6 165, 171, 175, 178
Guittone d’Arezzo, 72–3 London, 35, 120, 137, 174
Lorraine, Claude of, 153, 176
Haly Abbas (Ali al-Abbas love
al-Majusi), 90 courtly, 13, 16, 20, 33, 49–51,
heart, the, 2, 3, 8, 12, 29, 51, 75, 73, 109–11, 124, 149
106, 109, 110, 124, 128, definition of, 3–5, 7, 10, 13–15,
134, 135, 141–3, 151–3, 27, 44, 49–51, 74–5, 86,
157–8, 161–4, 170–2, 104, 148, 150, 178
175, 178–9, 183 medical discourse about, 3, 5–6,
Henry VIII, 135–7 12–13, 17, 24–5, 62, 70, 80,
Heptameron of Civil Discourse, 21 85, 87, 89–90, 145–81, 183
Hesiod, 77 parental, 8, 12, 13, 20–1, 29, 31,
Hippocrates, 98, 155, 164, 166, 167 70, 76, 79, 157, 183–6
Hoby, Sir Thomas, 48–9, 58–9 platonic, 22–3, 27–35, 38, 44,
homoeroticism, 1, 7, 15, 33, 43–4, 48–60, 62, 73–7, 80, 82,
52, 62, 80–4, 177 86, 91, 97–9, 109–10, 121,
Horace, 74, 94, 95 146–9
humors, 14, 72, 90, 158–61, 165, remedies for, 12, 25, 102, 124,
166, 168, 172, 172 143, 151, 154, 156, 166–74,
178
indexing, 23, 24, 25–6, 53–5, 58–9, rhetoric of, 2, 6, 9–13, 24, 47,
67, 99–104, 177–9 49–51, 96, 109, 114–16,
Isabella d’Este, 61, 63–7, 71, 73, 96, 134, 136, 139
99–100 romantic, 1–2, 6–24, 27–8, 35,
146–7, 149, 183–6
Jean de Meun, 66, 72–3, 95 self-, 62, 70, 74–80, 84, 97
Jerome, St., 114 sexual, 3, 5, 8, 12, 14–15, 21–4,
29, 31–5, 43–4, 46–9, 51–2,
kissing, 16, 51, 54–5, 57, 59, 87, 54, 57–8, 70, 77–8, 81–2,
136–7, 140, 177, 186 84–5, 94, 110–11, 136, 147,
Kolsky, Stephen, 71 157–9, 164, 166, 180, 184
(see also desire)
Leto, Pomponio, 63–4 spiritual, 2–4, 15, 21–4, 28–35,
letters 49–54, 57, 74, 76, 79, 97–8,
love, 3, 11–12, 24, 64, 105–43 148–51, 155, 159
in drama, 11–12, 105–7, 132 love magic, 14, 25, 93–4, 154, 162,
English examples, 133–8 167, 178
model, 3, 24, 105–43 love mania, 157–8, 162–4
248 Index
love melancholy. See melancholy Panoplie of Epistles, 122

love potions, 93–4, 154, 167, 177–9 Paris, University of, 69, 147, 156
love tokens, 12, 105, 133–5 passion, 4–5, 8, 15, 16, 20, 22, 23,
lovesickness. See love, medical 52, 57, 91, 94, 95, 106, 109,
discourse about 110, 121, 135, 136, 147, 149,
Loyola, Ingatius, 34 154, 156, 161, 164, 167, 177,
Lucretius, 87 178, 179, 183, 186
lust, 16, 29, 84, 86, 150–2, 161, Paul, St., 84
167, 177, 185 Petrarch, Francesco, 13, 17, 24, 28,
lycanthropy, 162, 172 33, 72–3, 95, 109–10, 124,
127, 136, 159
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 39–44, 47–8, Triumph of Love, 28, 73
50, 74, 80, 112 Philostratus, 77, 81, 88
Prince, The, 39–41, 47, 53 Pico dell Mirandola, Giovanni, 33,
Marlowe, Christopher, 10 72, 103
marriage, 1, 4, 5, 7, 15, 17, 20–2, 78, plague, 147–8, 163, 175, 180
112, 117–19, 128–9, 136, Plato, 15, 21, 23, 29–33, 62, 66,
140, 143, 151, 165, 180 68, 69, 72, 73–4, 77, 82,
Martial, 170 85–90, 92, 93, 98–9, 103,
masculinity, 9, 23, 27, 31–2, 39–52, 145, 147–9, 160, 166
56, 64, 81, 84, 102, 142, 148 Phaedrus, 82, 109
masturbation, 165, 174 Symposium, 15, 21–3, 29–34, 37,
medecine, 3, 24, 149, 162, 168, 43, 49, 62, 72, 76, 83, 86,
172–3, 177–9 145, 147, 148, 150, 186
melancholy, 11, 12–13, 16, 87, pleasure, 4, 20, 29, 31–2, 36, 42,
106, 146–7, 152, 153, 155, 47–50, 62, 69–70, 76–7,
157–66, 168, 171–4, 178 81–2, 84, 86, 88–9, 93,
Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 106–7, 96–9, 112, 136, 147,
132 150, 156
Milton, John, 70–1 Pliny, the elder, 71, 94
Miseries of Enforced Marriage, The, 21 Pliny, the younger, 115
misogyny, 31, 37, 57, 66, 100, 173 Plutarch, 4, 82, 103, 145, 156–7
Montaigne, Michel de, 21, 67, 103 Poliziano, 115, 120
music, 43, 87, 93, 103, 148, 169, 170 pornography, 18–20
pox, the, 175–6
Neoplatonism. See love, platonic pregnancy, 112
novelle, 16–18 Proceso de cartas de amores, 131–2
prostitutes, 84, 96, 162. See also
orgasm, 32, 88, 178 courtesans
Ovid, 2, 8, 9, 28, 33, 66, 68, 74, Prothocolle des Secretaires, 120–1
90, 94, 95, 96, 109, 117–20, purgation, 173–4
139, 149, 163, 166, 180–1
Amores, 28, 72, 109 Rabelais, François, 166–7
Ars Amatoria, 66, 90, 94, 117, rape, 8, 9, 47, 66
155 Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammed ibn
Heroides, 119–20, 123, 139 zakariya al-Rasi), 162
Index 249
Robb, Nesca, 33–4 Spenser, Edmund, 28–30, 60, 103–4

Roman de la Rose, Le, 16, 66, 72 Fowre Hymnes, 28–9, 60, 104
Ruffinelli, Venturin, 121 sperm, 89, 94, 157, 167, 171, 174
sprezzatura, 37, 39
Sappho, 83, 149, 162–4, 173 Stile et manière, Le, 120–4, 131
Savino, Lorenzo, 61, 62, 99 surgery, 149, 162, 168, 170–2
Seneca, 4, 84 syphilis. See pox, the
senses, the, 4, 24, 50, 62, 69–70,
80, 85–90, 97–8, 149, 160 tables of contents, 54–9, 99, 101,
servants, 3, 6–8, 13, 40, 45–7, 50–2, 177, 183
65, 81, 93, 99, 106, 108–14, Tagliente, Giovanni Antonio
122, 127–9, 135–7, 139–43, biography, 108
156, 181 Componimento di parlamenti,
service, 27, 28, 30, 39, 48, 50, 62, 108, 130
64–6, 82, 90, 93–4, 122, Opera amorosa, 3, 24, 107–14, 117,
128, 134, 139–40 121, 124, 129, 131–2, 142–3
sexual desire. See desire publication history, 24, 108
sexuality, 15, 20, 23, 32–3, 35, 41, temperance, 48, 50, 68, 77–8, 97–8,
43–4, 46, 48–9, 84–5, 88–9, 159–61
164, 175–6, 180 tobacco, 161
Shakespeare, William, 5, 6–13, 35, touch, sense of. See senses, the
60, 105–7, 132, 145–6, 163, Toulouse, 24, 147, 153–5
165, 183–6 Toulouse, Ecclesiastical Tribunal of,
Antony and Cleopatra, 145, 165, 154–5, 177–8, 181
183 Tullia d’Aragona, 33
Hamlet, 105–7, 117, 132, 133–4,
146, 165, 175, 183 Urbino, 22, 37, 40, 43, 49, 51
Much Ado About Nothing, 106,
132, 146 Valleriola, François, 4, 146, 173, 174
Romeo and Juliet, 6, 10, 21, Vanini, Cesare, 154–5
145–6, 161, 165, 183–6 Venus, 3, 16, 19, 74, 76, 81, 89,
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 5–13, 112, 139, 145, 151, 173, 180
15, 35, 132 Viaticum, The, 149
Short Discourse of the Life of Virgil, 83, 94, 95, 118, 146, 149, 163
Servingmen, 122, 127–9 violence, 9, 41, 44, 47–8, 52, 66, 89
Sidney, Sir Philip, 181 Vives, Juan Luis, 115
social performance, 36–48
Socrates, 21–3, 29–35, 52, 82–3, 85, Wolfe, John, 35, 58
109, 148, 168, 186
sodomy, 62, 83 Xenophon, 56, 93, 103

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E a r ly Mode r n C u lt u r a l St u di es

Jean Howard and Ivo Kamps, Series Editors

Idols of the Marketplace: Idolatry and Commodity Fetishism in English Literature,

Ian Frederick Moulton

1. Love in literature. 2. Love—Early works to 1800. 3. Books—

Introduction: Love, the Book Market, and the

Preliminary research for the project was facilitated by a Huntington

and Spain (Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2010),

of innovation in both research and pedagogy. It is a pleasure to work

It is not that . . . I think to have arrived at a true and perfect

I n our own culture, the value of romantic love is largely settled.

Every book, if it is anything at all, is an argument: an articulate arrow of

speeding through paragraphs to its shimmering target. This book—

on the “strangeness” of love in the early modern period, this study

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is less reticent. Love is “that

The Naturalist defines it otherwise then the Supernaturalist: the

Despite feeling that love is ultimately subjective, and thus, definition is

Now, no discourse except it be of love.

. . . our day of marriage shall be yours,

Nonetheless, despite the fact that “love” is used to describe rela-

I leave myself, my friends, and all, for love.

“Metamorphised” is a key term here14 —and it obviously recalls

Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words

That man that hath a tongue I say is no man

Take no repulse, whatever she doth say:

Proteus: Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers;

romantic affection in much the same way. The terrifying irrationality

processes are disturbed by the sad and obsessive thoughts associated

You have learned . . . to wreath your arms, like a malcontent; to relish

Speed ends his diagnosis with a particularly vivid medical image.

the models for their characters. Print revolutionized the discourses

changeable and culturally specific. From a biological point of view,

The “Popularization” of Romantic Love

Capellanus explicitly excludes common people from the discourses

increased education; increased economic activity in general, which

printed word. It was scarcely possible to function in society without

Methods of Exclusion: Politesse and

Book Named the Governor (1531), Giovanni Della Casa’s Galateo

At its origins, libertinism was a largely aristocratic phenomenon

Methods of Control: Marriage and

In marriage, alliances and money rightly weigh at least as much as

taught to him by the learned woman Diotima, of transforming the

Four Books on Love

a bewildering variety of theoretical and epistemological perspectives.

and elaborated by Arab physicians in the Middle Ages. By the time

The Enchanted Palace

captivity and illusion, Ruggiero (a virtuous Saracen) and Bradamante

Ba l da ss a r e C a st igl ion e’s

Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier was quite possibly the

to be inherent in the love of women. The Neoplatonic theory of love

The Uses of Renaissance Platonism

LOVE, that long since hast to thy mighty powre

As in Ovid, the speaker is a helpless captive, subdued and wounded

Diotima’s account in Plato’s Symposium (203b–d), Spenser asserts

Aristophanes the comedian recounts a fanciful myth explaining that

Socrates then raises an important question: What use is love to

to focus not on one person but on the contemplation of all manifesta-

Although its logic is often hazy, the argument’s aspirations are

d’amore’ become so immensely popular in the early part of the six-