Conduct Books in the Renaissance

This book accompanies the reader for an adventurous imaginary journey from the Renaissance Urbin in Italy to the Puritan era in England. The reader can observe the process under which Castiglione’ perfect Courtier evolves into an English gentleman. Indeed the topic of this book is the transformation of Castiglione’s book in English literature, the amusing development by which Castiglione’s book became a classic English volume and how Castiglione’s perfect Courtier became a model for centuries to European nobility. The author analyzes the original Italian book, Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del cortegiano and Sir Thomas Hoby’s translation The Book of the Courtier which had a crucial role in this transformation. The topics of the second part of this volume are the pioneering conduct books in the English Renaissance, those of Roger Ascham’s The Schoolmaster and Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Book named the Governor. After these two volumes the author explores the development of this genre in the seventeenth century analyzing the volume of Henry Peacham The Compleat Gentleman and that of the puritanical Richard Brathwait The English Gentleman.