La «Cortegiania» e la «Cortesana Filosofia»: B. Castiglione e B. Gracián

Abstract

This article compares cortigian, that is polite men’s refined behavior philosophy proposed by Baldassare Castiglione Il cortigiano and courtesan philosophy which is present in Gracián’s work. Both writers, who lived in different countries and places, have very different philosophical, anthropological and religious principles. They are different either as literary the point of view or theoretical approach. The first offers a new social behavior model related to the private court structure in the beginning of modern era while the latter proposes explicitly to create a «prodigy», an «artificial man» who could face illusionary reality and could survive in a hostile world. Somehow, he announces the traditional order society transition in which each one has their own place since they are born to «abstract individuality»