Research Paper on:
High Renaissance Manners in Vasari's Life of Giotto and Castiglione's The Perfect Courtier

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
manners and social conditions or ideals. These works tell of a culture and a time in terms of social expectations and social realities, much like any novel or story today  does the same in presenting modern conditions. With that in mind the following paper examines Castigliones "The Perfect Courtier" and Vasaris "Life of Giotto" as they illustrate the manners and  social realities of the High Renaissance period. The Perfect Courtier In this particular work we see a great deal defined in relationship to what was expected of ones  social manners and training. One author notes that, "Renaissance Humanism became increasingly concerned with the self and the fashioning of the self. In Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), published in 1528,  Conte Baldassare Castigliones ideal courtier is an exponent of the latter" wherein we see how "education or the self-fashioning of the courtier involves almost everything under the sun" (Mukherjee). We  note that, for example, "as the courtier must learn the proper skills of war, he must also learn how to love. Love, the deportment of the courtier towards court-ladies, keeps  recurring in the conversation in the court at Urbino during the discourses of all four nights and the many controversies generated by Gaspar Pallavicino, Lord Julian, and Bernard Bibiena all  involve love and culminate ultimately in Pietro Bembos inspired Platonic exposition" (Mukherjee). Life of Giotto In this relatively simple biography of Giotto we note that he possessed many  qualities that were considered noble in his time. There is strength and honor which seem important, as noted in the following: "There in a little time, by the aid of  nature and the teaching of Cimabue, the boy not only equaled his master, but freed himself from the rude manner of the Greeks, and brought back to life the true