In manners and their ethical analysis we have certainly gained nothing during the last three centuries.

The principle upon which these precepts of conduct are founded is not etiquette or fashion, but respect for the sensibilities of others.
It would be difficult to compose a more philosophical treatise on the lesser duties imposed upon us by the conditions of society--such minute matters as the proper way to blow the nose or use the napkin, being referred to the one rule of acting so as to cause no inconvenience to our neighbors.
In the opening of his 'Cortegiano' Castiglione introduces us to the court of Urbino--refined, chivalrous, witty, cultivated, gentle--confessedly the purest and most elevated court in Italy.

He brings together the Duchess Elizabetta Gonzaga; Emilia Pia, wife of Antonio da Montefeltro, whose wit is as keen and active as that of Shakespeare's Beatrice; Pietro Bembo, the Ciceronian dictator of letters in the sixteenth century; Bernardo Bibbiena, Berni's patron, the author of 'Calandra,' whose portrait by Raphael in the Pitti enables us to estimate his innate love of humor; Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, of whom the marble effigy by Michael Angelo still guards the tomb in San Lorenzo; together with other knights and gentlemen less known to fame--two Genoese Fregosi, Gasparo Pallavicini, Lodovico, Count of Canossa, Cesare Gonzaga, l' Unico Aretino, and Fra Serafino the humorist.

These ladies and gentlemen hold discourse together, as was the custom of Urbino, in the drawing-room of the duchess during four consecutive evenings.

The theme of their conversation is the Perfect Courtier.