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| Piero di Cosimo Misfortunes of Silenus ca. 1500 oil on panel Harvard Art Museums |
Here when the Lord Octavian had made a stay, the Lord Gaspar saide: "I had not thought our Courtier had beene so worthie a personage. But since Aristotle and Plato be his mates, I judge no man ought to disdaine this name any more. Yet wote I not whether I may believe that Aristotle and Plato ever daunced, or were Musitions in all their life time, or practised other feates of chivalrie."
The Lord Octavian answered: "Almost it is not lawful to thinke that these two divine wits were not skillful in every thing, and therefore it is to be presupposed that they practised what ever belonged to Courtlinesse. For where it commeth to purpose, they so penne the matter that the verie crafts masters themselves know by their writinges that they understood the whole, even the pith and innermost roots."
– from The Book of the Courtier (1528) by Count Baldassare Castiglione, done into English (1561) by Sir Thomas Hoby
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| Dosso Dossi Holy Family with St John the Baptist, a cat, and donors 1512-13 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Lorenzo Lotto St Jerome Penitent ca. 1513-14 oil on canvas Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania |
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| Cima da Conegliano Virgin and Child with St Catherine and St John the Baptist ca. 1515 oil on panel Morgan Library, New York |
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| Altobello Melone Road to Emmaus ca. 1516-17 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Giovanni Cariani A Concert ca. 1518-20 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
You may remember also the foolish matter that not long agoe the Duke rehearsed of the Abbot, that being present upon a day when Duke Fredericke was talking where he shoulde bestow the great quantitie of rubbish that was cast up to lay the foundation of this Pallace, working dayly uppon it, saide: "My Lorde, I have well bethought mee where you shall bestow it, let there be a great pitte digged, and into that may you have it cast without any more adoe."
Duke Fredericke answered him not without laughter: "And where then shall we bestowe the quantitie of earth that shall be cast out of that Pitte?" The Abbot saide unto him: "Let it be made so large, that it may wel receive both the one and the other." And so for all the Duke repeated sundrie times the greater the Pitte was, the more earth should be cast out of it, yet could he never make it sinke into his braine, but it might be made so large that it might receive both the one and the other; and he answered him nothing else, but, "make it so much the larger."
– from The Book of the Courtier (1528) by Count Baldassare Castiglione, done into English (1561) by Sir Thomas Hoby
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| Giulio Romano Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist ca. 1522-24 oil on panel Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Vincenzo Catena Holy Family with St John the Baptist ca. 1523-27 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Bonifazio Veronese Rest on the Flight into Egypt ca. 1525-30 oil on panel Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Sodoma Holy Family with St John the Baptist ca. 1525-27 oil on panel Fondazione Musei Senesi |
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| Andrea del Sarto Lady with a book of Petrarch's verses 1528 oil on panel Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence |
"The eyes therefore lye lurking like souldiers in war, lying in waite in bushment, and if the forme of all the bodie be well favoured and of good proportion, it draweth unto it and allureth who so beholdeth it a farre off: untill he come nigh: and as soone as he is at hand, the eyes shoote, and like sorcerers bewitch, and especially when by a right line they send their glistering beames into the eyes of the wight beloved, at the time when they doe the like, because the spirites meete together, and in that sweete encounter the one taketh the others nature and qualitie: as it is seene in a sore eye, that beholding stedfastly a sound one, giveth him his disease. Therefore me thinke our Courtier may in this wise open a great parcell of the love to his woman."
– from The Book of the Courtier (1528) by Count Baldassare Castiglione, done into English (1561) by Sir Thomas Hoby
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| Jacopo Bassano Adoration of the Kings ca. 1540-45 oil on canvas National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh |
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| attributed to Bernardino da Asola Death of St Peter Martyr ca. 1540-50 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Gaudenzio Ferrari St Andrew before 1546 oil on panel National Gallery, London |