ABSTRACT
Mary Partridge’s well-grounded chapter reconstructs the fortune of Castiglione’s manual in Elizabethan England, and points out with historical accuracy the subterranean opposition that gradually arose against the Italian writer, contributing to the formation of an anti-courtier trend of Italophobic prejudice and satirical and parodic attitudes. By the turn of the century, Partridge shows, Il libro del Cortegiano’s reputation was suffering from its association with two widely reviled components of Italian culture: popery and Machiavellianism, both charged with hypocrisy and dissimulation. Marston’s Scourge of Villanie and satiric plays are rife with anti-courtier discourse and with parodic attacks against the Castiglionean model of the courtier-lover, while the association with Machiavelli’s political vision has hardly improved Castiglione’s reputation.
