The Economy of Human Relations

Contents: The Epistle to Henry VII and Tirsi . Forming the Perfect Courtier. The Perfect Court Lady. Forming the Perfect Prince. Il Cortegiano and the Path of Virtue. The Lesson of Writing. Forming with Words a Happy Nation.

The Author: Joseph D. Falvo is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. in Italian from the Johns Hopkins University. He has published articles on Dante, Machiavelli, Castiglione, and Della Casa. He has received several honors including an Award from the Graduate Research Board of the University of Maryland and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Falvo's volume is part of a recent and most interesting trend in Castiglione scholarship that questions traditional and still current readings that unduly emphasize both idealism and aestheticism in the 'Book of the Courtier'. His analyses of the rhetorical strategies at work in the treatise are very effective in demonstrating Castiglione's concern with the nature of power and the way it manifests itself aesthetically in a given historical society. (Eduardo Saccone, Johns Hopkins University)Joseph Falvo's study of Castiglione's 'Book of the Courtier' is a clear indication of the special relationship that courtesy books have to the age which produces them. They provide a privileged entree into the complex socio-political and intellectual structures of the past. In 'The Economy of Human Relations', in which Professor Falvo masters a large and diverse body of materials and does an admirable service in amassing recent scholarship on Castiglione, 'The Courtier' is read essentially as a means of discovering the ideology and mentality of an age when behavior begins to be monitored, corrected and punished... The thorny issues discussed include: the articulation of a new elite, the new art of conduct and Renaissance despotism, the tilt toward 'civility' still shared by us in the modern world, and the debate on feminism. Falvo's monograph on 'The Courtier' is certainly of great worth and will indeed be of great value to those who are interested in early modern literature and culture. (Albert N. Mancini, Ohio State University)

"Dr. Falvo's volume is part of a recent and most interesting trend in Castiglione scholarship that questions traditional and still current readings that unduly emphasize both idealism and aestheticism in the 'Book of the Courtier'. His analyses of the rhetorical strategies at work in the treatise are very effective in demonstrating Castiglione's concern with the nature of power and the way it manifests itself aesthetically in a given historical society." (Eduardo Saccone, Johns Hopkins University)
"Joseph Falvo's study of Castiglione's 'Book of the Courtier' is a clear indication of the special relationship that courtesy books have to the age which produces them. They provide a privileged entreé into the complex socio-political and intellectual structures of the past. In 'The Economy of Human Relations', in which Professor Falvo masters a large and diverse body of materials and does an admirable service in amassing recent scholarship on Castiglione, 'The Courtier' is read essentially as a means of discovering the ideology and mentality of an age when behavior begins to be monitored, corrected and punished... The thorny issues discussed include: the articulation of a new elite, the new art of conduct and Renaissance despotism, the tilt toward 'civility' still shared by us in the modern world, and the debate on feminism. Falvo's monograph on 'The Courtier' is certainly of great worth and will indeed be of great value to those who are interested in early modern literature and culture." (Albert N. Mancini, Ohio State University)