Il padre dorme, i figli parlano. La legge del padre riscritta nel "Cortegiano"

Abstract

The essay examines the birth of the fraternal order, that is ‘democracy’ in its widest sense, in a key text of the Renais-sance, Baldassarre Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. Here courtiers reunited one evening at the Urbino court steadily create a position of power for themselves by disposing of the father figure of Duke Guidubaldo while suppressing their own rivalries and fashioning a common ideal I. Just as patriarchy, however, this essay argues that the collaborative regime of the brother is constructed on the silencing of women—sis-ters, wives, and mothers—and not just the court ladies of the early 16th century.