Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/184

 Then messer Cesare Gonzaga said:

"This would give me little concern, for if a gentleman is of worth in other things, his attire will never enhance or lessen his reputation."

"You say truly," replied messer Federico. "Yet what one of us is there, who, on seeing a gentleman pass by with a garment on his back quartered in divers colours, or with a mass of strings and knotted ribbons and cross lacings, does not take him for a fool or a buffoon?"

"Neither for a fool," said messer Pietro Bembo, "nor for a buffoon would he be taken by anyone who had lived any time in Lombardy, for all men go about like that."

"Then," said my lady Duchess, laughing, "if all men go about like that, we must not cast it at them as a fault, since this attire is as fitting and proper to them as it is for the Venetians to wear puffed sleeves,169 or for the Florentines to wear the hood."

"I am not speaking," said messer Federico, "more of Lombardy than of other places, for both the foolish and the wise are to be found in every nation. But to say what I think is important in attire, I wish that our Courtier may be neat and dainty throughout his dress, and have a certain air of modest elegance, yet not of a womanish or vain style. Nor would I have him more careful of one thing than of another, like many we see who take such pains with their hair that they forget the rest; others devote themselves to their teeth, others to their beard, others to their boots, others to their bonnets, others to their coifs;170 and the result is that these few details of elegance seem borrowed by them, while all the rest, being very tasteless, is recognized as their own. And this kind of dress I would have our Courtier shun, by my advice; adding also that he ought to consider how he wishes to seem and of what sort he wishes to be esteemed, and to dress accordingly and contrive that his attire shall aid him to be so regarded even by those who neither hear him speak nor witness any act of his." 28.— Then my lord Gaspar Pallavicino said:

"Methinks it is not fitting, or even customary among persons of worth, to judge men's quality by their dress rather than by their words and acts; for many would make mistakes, nor is it