'Keeping up with Castiglione': Renaissance Italy's courtly life as seen in Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier

While the modern social media craze has made it far easier to see, judge, and comment on the lives of others (especially celebrities), this obsession with 'the good life' and those living it is not new. 

Italy during the Renaissance was an affluent and vibrant society much like today's, with political scandals, theological debates and family squabbles raging in both Italy and the larger European world, manifesting themselves in everything from gossip to all-out wars. 

         

Through literary, artistic, and scholarly analysis, some realities of the Italian court scene during Italy's rise to prominence can be examined. Sources such as Baldassare Castiglione's The Courtier, the example that will be analyzed with this blog, provide valuable insights into what it meant to live the Renaissance high life.