Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/731

 NOTES TO THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER austere Syracusan philosopher who became an ardent disciple of Plato on the occasion of the latter's short residence at the court of Dionysius the Elder, and later induced the younger DIONYSIUS also to invite Plato to Syracuse, where, however, the philosopher was unable long to check the tyrant's profligacy. Note 473, page 287. Bembo was thirty-six years old at the date of the Courtier dialogues. Note 474, page 288. In Book III of Bembo's Gli Asolani {1505), a hermit dis- courses to Lavinello on the beauty of mystical Christian love. Bembo had a villa called Lavinello, near Padua. Note 475, page 288. Much of the following disquisition seems to be drawn from Plato and from Bembo's Gli Asolani. As Bembo is known to have revised The Courtier before publication, we may assume that he was con- tent with the form and substance of the discourse here attributed to him. Note 476, page 294. Stesichorus was a Greek lyric poet who lived about 630-550 B.C., and was supposed to have been miraculously stricken blind after writing an attack upon Helen of Troy. His true name is said to have been Tisias, and to have been changed to Stesichorus because he was the first to establish a chorus for singing to the harp. Fragments of his verse have survived. Note 477, page 294. These 'five other stars' are of course the five planets then known (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), in addition to the Sun and Moon, which were until long afterwards regarded as planets. "The sun, the moon and the five planets were always to be found within a region of the sky extending about 8° on each side of the ecliptic. This strip of the celestial sphere was called the Zodiac, because the constellations in it were (with one exception) named after living things (Greek fwov, an animal); it was divided into twelve equal parts, the Signs of the Zodiac, through one of which the sun passed every month, so that the position of the sun at any time could be roughly described by stating in what 'sign' it was." Arthur Berry's " Short History of Astronomy " (London, 1898), p. 13. Note 478, page 305. Castiglione here follows that version of the Hercules myth which represents the hero, tormented by the poisoned shirt sent him by the jealous Deianeira, as throwing himself upon a burning pyre on Mount CEta, whence he was caught up to heaven in a cloud. Note 479, page 305. Compare: Exodus, iii, 2; Acts, ii, 1-4; and II Kings, ii, 1 1-2. Note 480, page 307. This dialogue is by some represented as having actually taken place in the presence of Raphael.