NOTES TO THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER Note 439, page 264. Clearchus, (died 353 B.C.), was for twelve years a cruel tyrant, not of Pontus, but of Heraclea (the modern Eregli), a city on the Black Sea about 140 miles east of Constantinople. He is said to have been a pupil of both Plato and Isocrates, the latter of whom represents him as a gentle youth. Note 440, page 264. Of the dozen or more ancients known to have borne the name Aristodemus, none seem to fit precisely the description given in the text, which is taken from a passage in Plutarch's " On the Ignorant Prince." Plutarch may have had in mind a certain tyrant of Megalopolis in the 3d century B.C. Note 441, page 269. The reference here is to Book V of "The Republic." Note 442, page 270. Fregoso here declares for what has been called "that Utopia of the i6th Century — the Governo Misto — a political invention which fascinated the imagination of Italian statesmen much in the same way as the theory of perpetual motion attracted scientific minds in the last cen- tury." (Symonds's " Renaissance in Italy," i, 306.) In this regard the men of Castiglione's time, men like Machiavelli and Guicciardini, were only following Plato and Aristotle. Note 443, page 270. The reference here is to the Cyropcedia, i, 6. Note 444, page 270. Castiglione seems to have in mind the game oi fattola reale, which is similar to our backgammon. Note 445, page 273. Circe's transformation of some of Ulysses's companions into swine is narrated in the tenth book of the Odyssey. In Castiglione's day the term " King of France" was used to signify the acme of royal power. Note 446, page 274. Gianfrancesco — more commonly called Francesco — GONZAGA, (born 1466; died 1519), was the eldest son of the Marquess Fede- rico of Mantua and Margarita of Bavaria, and a brother of "my lady Duchess." Having succeeded his father in 1484, he married (1490) Isabella d'Este, to whom he had been betrothed at the age of sixteen. Like his ancestors and most other petty Italian rulers of his time, he was at once condottiere and sovereign prince. He commanded the Italian troops against Charles VIII, and although with an overwhelmingly superior force he failed to block the retreat of the French at Fornovo, he treated that disgraceful affair as a glori- ous victory, and even caused it to be commemorated by Mantegna in a votive picture now in the Louvre. He served successively as captain of the imperial troops in Italy, as commander of Duke Ludovico Sforza's army, as viceroy of Naples under Louis XII, etc. He joined the League of Cambray and was taken prisoner by the Venetians. In the general disorders that filled the period of his reign, he and his more brilliant wife had the address to protect 409
