La Villa. Bartolomeo Taegio

“tyranny” of the authors of printed books. The dialogue form enabled the writer to diminish his authority when he presented himself as one of two or more interlocutors, as Taegio did, by juxtaposing his own voice with the voices of others. Speroni alluded to the diminuation of his authority where he said, in his defense of dialogues, that he wanted to present himself as a “fellow student,” and so did Tasso, where he spoke of joining “companionably” with the reader.

      When the author of a dialogue did not present himself as an interlocutor, the dialogue form facilitated the author’s concealment of his true opinions by allowing him to create the illusion that the work is a record of a conversation that the author merely transcribed, rather than one in which he himself participated, thereby suggesting that the ideas contained in the work originated with someone else. In the cornice (the narrative that “frames” the dialogue) of book 1 of Libro del Cortegiano, Castiglione explained that he was going to recount

      alcuni ragionamenti, i quali già passarono tra omini singularissimi a tale proposito: e, benchè io non v’intervenissi presenzialmente … avendogli poco apresso il mio ritorno intesi da persona che fedelmente me gli narrò.

      (a few discussions that took place among men singularly qualified for such a purpose. And, although I did not participate in them personally … they were faithfully reported to me soon after my return by someone who was present.)²⁰⁹

      The author’s pretense that he had no part in the dialogue other than to record the conversation was a way achieving self-effacement without presenting himself as an interlocutor, and it had the advantage of protecting him from official censure, or worse, if his opinions were unorthodox. Although this strategy might have been particularly useful in an age that was marked by a revival of the Inquisition, it was not new in the sixteenth century. As David Marsh has noted, the fifteenth-century humanists “exploited the form of the dialogue in order to avoid recriminations and reprisals from contemporary authorities.”²¹⁰ Curiously, by identifying himself as Vitauro, Taegio declined to take advantage of an opportunity for self-concealment offered by the dialogue form.

      Besides enabling the writer to diminish his authority and conceal his own opinions, the dialogue form helped instill in the sixteenth-century reader a false yet disarming sense of the author’s modesty, by making it possible for interlocutors to frame their speeches with elaborate protestations to the effect that they speak out of obligation or duty in spite of doubts about their competency to treat their subject. For example, in Libro del Cortegiano, when Emilia Pia asks Lodovico da Canossa to describe the perfect courtier, he replies,

      Signora, molto volentier fuggirei questa fattica, parendomi troppo difficile e conoscendo … ch’ io non sappia quello che a bon cortegian si conveniene … Pur, essendo cosi che a voi piaccia ch’ io abbia questo carico, non posso né voglio rifiutarlo, per non contravenir all’ordine e giudicio vostro.

      (Madam, I would very happily be excused from this labor, because it seems too difficult and because I know … that I do not know what befits a good courtier…. Still, since you want me to have this task, I neither can nor will refuse it, in order not to go against the rules and your judgement.)²¹¹

      By comparison to those in Libro del Cortegiano and most sixteenth-century dialogues, Vitauro’s protestations in La Villa seem weak. Late in the dialogue (p. 159) Vitauro says, “But I am a farmer of little esteem, and I cannot satisfy your desire well.”

      Taegio did not take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the dialogue form’s inclusion of multiple voices to diminish his authority or conceal his opinions, nor did he use a cornice to project an appearance of modesty, even though that device was a characteristic feature of sixteenth-century dialogues. Although modestà was a trait generally admired as much in gentlemen as in courtiers in Taegio’s day, it is possible that his esteem for it was not especially high; of the more than two hundred villa owners flattered by Taegio in La Villa, only two are praised for their modesty.

      Taegio did capitalize on another capabilitiy of the dialogue form. The value of the opportunity afforded by the dialogue form to praise acquaintances, and to invent flattering portraits of those presented as interlocutors, was attested by several sixteenth-century Italian writers. Sforza Pallavicino, in his Trattato dello stile e del dialogo (1662) wrote,

      [Il Dialogo] si col divisato colloquio di moderni Letterati, si col premesso racconto della lor condizione, apre un’ illustre campo ad onorar le memoria di quei defonti a cui dottrina onorò il secol nostro mentre fur vivi.

      (As an imagined conversation between modern men of letters, prefaced by an account of their circumstances, the dialogue offers a splendid opportunity for honoring the memory of those men, now deceased, who honored the world with their learning while they were alive.)²¹²

      Giovanni Fratta, in 1590, said that the dialogue is a way “ampliar la riputatione a gli amici” (to increase the fame of our friends).²¹³ In a letter to Curzio Ardizio dated 27 June 1584, where he described his project for a commemorative dialogue to be set in the court of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Torquato Tasso wrote that “il buon duca Guidobaldo … in guisa col suo testimonio m’onorò, ch’io al valor di lui non debbo alcun testimonio negare” (the good duke Guidobaldo so honored me with his testimony that I cannot grudge him any testimony I can give his valor).²¹⁴

      The literary dialogue provided the cultural elite of a society that was in an almost continual state of political siege with a means of satisfying a deeply felt need for self-definition. In Italy generally and particularly in Milan, a series of foreign occupations and economic upheavals in the sixteenth century resulted in a loss of distinct identity for the old aristocratic orders of society, which was just as serious as the erosion of their political control. One reaction to this loss was an increased demand for the kinds of self-images that literary dialogues can supply. In response to this demand, authors of dialogues in the sixteenth century often presented acquaintances as interlocutors. In his dialogue on horsemanship, Il Cavallarizzo (1562), Claudio Corte stated that one of his reasons for using the dialogue form was “per nominare alcuni patroni, e amici” (to name a few patrons and friends).²¹⁵ Because positive self-images had commercial value, an author like Corte could expect to profit from their publication. In exchange for favorable publicity and perhaps a chance of gaining literary immortality, he might have received patronage, political protection, or even something more tangible. Pietro Aretino, in his Lettere, wrote that to be portrayed as an interlocutor in one of Sperone Speroni’s dialogues was “un tesoro che per sempre spenderlo mai non iscemerà” (a treasure that one can keep spending forever, without it ever running out).²¹⁶

      The expectation of reward may have motivated Bartolomeo Taegio to honor villa owners who were contemporaries of his by mentioning them, and by praising them for their virtue and erudition, in La Villa.²¹⁷ Many of those Taegio mentioned were his “patrons,” thirteen were friends to whom he addressed Le Risposte, and one, Alessandro Castiglione, had been his schoolmate at the University of Pavia. The names of at least two members of the Academy of the Shepherds of the Agogna, Giovanni Pietro Testa and Giovanni Iacopo Torniello, appear in La Villa. It is possible that other “shepherds” known only by their pseudonyms in the Academy are also named.

       Taegio’s Dialogue with His Sources

      La Villa can be read not only as a conversation between interlocutors but also as a dialogue between the author and his literary sources. The arguments on both sides in La Villa rely heavily on the accepted authority of sources cited, and they are supported almost exclusively with references to ancient and Renaissance philosophical writings. In this respect too Taegio departed from the tradition of Italian Renaissance dialogues based on the model of Cicero, who wrote, “Non enim tam auctores in disputando quam rationis momenta quaerenda sunt” (indeed, in discussion the weight of reason rather than authority is sought).²¹⁸ In La Villa, Vitauro’s proposition is demonstrated to have more validity than Partenio’s, not because it is reasoned better, but because it is represented as having more authority. Taegio argued from the authority of Greek writers such as Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and Hesiod, as well