Abstract

Castiglione's Courtier has often been considered a series of conversations based on classical imitation, especially of Cicero. However the writer carefully stages a scholastic-style debate on women in Book III in order to demonstrate the limitations and lack of relevance of such a genre for court society. He purposely omits the inclusion of the Master who should have pronounced the correct solution to the problem. This opens the way to an interpretation of the Courtier as a sceptical investigation of fundamental aspects of the court seen from the perspective of Cicero's Academica. Castiglione does not take an extreme sceptical position but one that is concerned with probable answers.

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