Giovanni Della Casa
| Giovanni della Casa | |
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Portrait of Giovanni della Casa by Jacopo Pontormo
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| Born |
28 June 1503 Florence or Borgo San Lorenzo |
| Died | 14 November 1556 (aged 53) Rome |
| Occupation | poet, author, Bishop of Benevento, diplomat, inquisitor |
| Nationality | Tuscan |
Giovanni della Casa (28 July 1503 – 14 November 1556), was a Florentine poet, writer on etiquette and society, diplomat, and inquisitor. He is celebrated for his famous treatise on polite behavior, Il Galateo overo de’ costumi (1558). From the time of its publication, this courtesy book has enjoyed enormous success and influence. In the eighteenth century, influential critic Giuseppe Baretti wrote in The Italian Library (1757), "The little treatise is looked upon by many Italians as the most elegant thing, as to stile, that we have in our language."
Della Casa was born into a wealthy Florentine family near Borgo San Lorenzo in Mugello at Villa La Casa which can be visited. His early education took place in Bologna, his native Florence, and Padua, under the guidance of such distinguished men of letters as Ubaldino Bandinelli and Ludovico Beccadelli. An important year in Della Casa’s life was 1526, which he spent at the villa of his family in Tuscany, reading and translating the Latin classics and, especially, the works of Cicero.
Counseled by Alessandro Farnese, Della Casa eventually followed his friend Pietro Bembo in pursuing a prestigious career in the Church. He rose to become Archbishop of Benevento in 1544 and in the same year, Pope Paul III nominated him Papal nuncio to Venice. It was in a palace on the Grand Canal that he encountered the poets, artists, and nobility of Venice. With the death of his protector Farnese and the election of Pope Giulio III, Della Casa left Rome and, disappointed at not having been elevated to Cardinal, retired to a reflective life of writing and reading.
It is during this period – sometime between 1551 and 1555 – that he conceived and drafted his Galateo, in the Abbey of Nervesa near Treviso. He died a year later, probably in the Farnese palace in Rome, and is buried in the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, Rome.
His most famous work, and the most celebrated etiquette book in European history, Galateo proposes a series of rules and restrictions that consent one to live a life of simple dignity and harmony.
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