In the twentieth century, scholars usually situated
Galateo among the courtesy books and conduct manuals that were very popular during the Renaissance. In addition to Castiglione’s celebrated
Courtier, other important Italian treatises and dialogues include
Alessandro Piccolomini’s
Moral institutione (1560),
Luigi Cornaro’s
Treatise on the Sober Life (1558-1565), and
Stefano Guazzo’s
Art of Civil Conversation (1579). In recent years, attention has turned to the humor and dramatic flair of Della Casa’s book. It has been argued that the style sheds light on Shakespeare’s comedies. When it first appeared in English translation by Robert Peterson in 1575, it would have been available in book stalls in Shakespeare's London.
Stephen Greenblatt, author of
Will in the World, writes, "To understand the culture out of which Shakespeare is writing, it helps to read Renaissance courtesy manuals like Baldassare Castiglione’s famous Book of the Courtier (1528) or, still better, Giovanni della Casa’s
Galateo or, The Rules of Polite Behavior (1558, available in a delightful new translation by M.F. Rusnak). It is fine for gentlemen and ladies to make jokes, della Casa writes, for everyone likes people who are funny, and a genuine witticism produces “joy, laughter, and a kind of astonishment.” But mockery has its risks. It is perilously easy to cross a social and moral line of no return." Historians argue that
Galateo should be read in the context of international European politics, and some contend that the work expresses an attempt to distinguish Italian excellence. “During the half-century when Italy fell prey to foreign invasion (1494-1559) and was overrun by French, Spanish and German armies, the Italian ruling classes were battered by - as they often envisaged them - "barbarians". In their humiliation and laboured responses, Italian writers took to reflecting on ideals, such as the ideal literary language, the ideal cardinal, ideal building types, and the ideal general or field commander. But in delineating the rules of conduct, dress and conversation for the perfect gentleman, they were saying, in effect, "We are the ones who know how to cut the best figure in Europe". A skilled writer in Latin, Della Casa followed
Erasmus in presenting a harmonious and simple morality based on
Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics and notion of the mean, as well as other classical sources. His treatise also reveals an obsession with graceful conduct and self-fashioning during the time of
Michelangelo and
Titian: “A man must not be content with doing good things, but he must also study to do them gracefully. Grace is nothing other than that luster which shines from the appropriateness of things that are suitably ordered and well arranged one with the other and together.” The work has been edited in this light by Stefano Prandi, Emanuela Scarpa, and
Giorgio Manganelli among others. The work may be read in the context of what
Norbert Elias called the “civilizing process.” It is generally agreed that, given the popularity and impact of
Galateo, the cultural elite of the
Italian Renaissance taught Europe how to behave. Giulio Ferroni argues that Della Casa “proposes a closed and oppressive conformity, made of caution and hypocrisy, hostile to every manifestation of liberty and originality.” Others contend, on the contrary, that the work represents ambivalence, self-control, and a modern understanding of the individual in a society based on civility,
intercultural competence and
social networking. == Content ==