to induce his readers to join him in a search for truth. The ancient practice of exchanging questions in dialogue for the purpose of discovering truth was exemplified, for writers in Renaissance Italy, by the dialectical method of Socrates as described by Plato. In the Meno, in a conversation that begins with the question of whether virtue can be taught and ends with a discussion of how knowledge is acquired, Socrates, having established that knowledge is essentially recollection, says that “knowledge will not come from learning but from questioning.”204 On the foundation of this practice of dialectic, fifteenth-century Italian humanists, with dialogues such as Bruni’s Dialogi ad Petrum Paulum Histrum (1401–1406) and Bracciolini’s De avaritia (1428) preferred disputation as a means of access to the truth.
The intention of inviting the reader to join the author in a search for truth was made explicit later in the sixteenth century by Speroni and Tasso. In his Apologia dei dialoghi, Speroni explained that he chose the form “si accorgesse il lettore, che io in tal caso non sapiente o maestro, ma disputante più tosto e condiscepolo seco insieme volessi essere riputato” (to make it apparent to the reader that I did not want to present myself as an authority or master, but rather as a disputant, a fellow student, learning alongside him).205 In the preface to his dialogue La Cavaletta overo de la poesia toscana, Torquato Tasso said that of all the modes of exposition, he considered “questo usato nel dialoghi il più dilettevole e ’l meno odioso: perch’ altri non v’insegna il vero con autorità di maestro, ma il ricerca a guisa di compagno” (this one used in the dialogue to be the most delightful and the least irksome, because it does not teach you the truth with the authority of a master, but [rather, it teaches you] inquiry, after the manner of a friend).206
The friendly manner of the dialogue would have been particularly appealing to writers in an age when “truth” was generally held to be something that was difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to discover on his own. Dialogue, in literature as in life, was seen as a safeguard against error. Such was the view articulated by Baldassare Castiglione in his dialogue Libro del Cortegiano (1528). Castiglione’s belief in the practice of social dialogue as a path to a collective, if not universal and absolute, “truth” is evident in his introductory letter of dedication to Don Michel de Silva, where, in words that are reminiscent of Plato’s in the Meno, he suggests that “la moltitudine, anchor che perfettamente non conosca, sente però per instinto di natura un certo odore del bene e del male” (the multitude, although it does not understand perfectly, does have, by natural instinct, a sense of right and wrong).207
Besides the seemingly altruistic goal of engaging his readers in a search for truth, there is another, more selfish, motive that Taegio might have had for writing La Villa as a dialogue. In sixteenth-century Italy, authors used the dialogue form with the stated intention of accomplishing what we might call “public relations,” by advertising themselves and others in whose projected image they had an interest. It is reasonable to assume that public relations would have been an important goal for writers at a time when they depended for their livelihood on professional, social, and political connections more than on income from book sales. While the dialogue certainly is not unique among literary genres in its capacity to be used as a means toward such an end, it was commonly expected to facilitate the performance of a variety of functions related to advertisement. Castiglione, Sperone, Tasso, and other Italian authors of the period declared their intentions of advertising both themselves and their acquaintances in dialogues. Using the dialogue form, writers propagated fictitious images of themselves and others that served a variety of purposes, and these purposes were furthered by the special characteristics of the genre.
Authors of dialogues in sixteenth-century Italy typically contrived their self-images for both self-promotion and self-effacement. By virtue of its pretended artlessness and spontaneity, the genre of the literary dialogue helped writers to present themselves as accomplished amateurs. At a time when the widespread circulation of printed books was still a fairly recent phenomenon, and works in the vernacular were addressed to a newly literate public, most readers were more receptive than audiences even a century later would be to arguments structured according to the apparently unstructured patterns of everyday speech. Although a dialogue, like a monological treatise, could be used simply to display an author’s erudition, the exceptional capacity of the literary dialogue to imitate the impromptu character of spoken conversation could be exploited to create the impression that the author had not given much thought in advance to the shape his argument would take, thus publicizing his improvisational skill. This is what Castiglione called sprezzatura.208
The dialogue form offered Taegio opportunities not only for self-promotion but also for self-effacement, which could benefit a writer like Taegio in three ways: by diminishing his authority, by disguising his personal opinions, and by giving him a semblance of modesty. Sixteenth-century Italian writers had an incentive to renounce their authorial role, because audiences accustomed to being dominated by foreign powers tended to resist the potential “tyranny” of the authors of printed books. The dialogue form enabled the writer to diminish his authority when he presented himself as one of two or more interlocutors, as Taegio did, by juxtaposing his own voice with the voices of others. Speroni alluded to the diminuation of his authority where he said, in his defense of dialogues, that he wanted to present himself as a “fellow student,” and so did Tasso, where he spoke of joining “companionably” with the reader.
When the author of a dialogue did not present himself as an interlocutor, the dialogue form facilitated the author’s concealment of his true opinions by allowing him to create the illusion that the work is a record of a conversation that the author merely transcribed, rather than one in which he himself participated, thereby suggesting that the ideas contained in the work originated with someone else. In the cornice (the narrative that “frames” the dialogue) of book 1 of Libro del Cortegiano, Castiglione explained that he was going to recount
alcuni ragionamenti, i quali già passarono tra omini singularissimi a tale proposito: e, benchè io non v’intervenissi presenzialmente … avendogli poco apresso il mio ritorno intesi da persona che fedelmente me gli narrò.
(a few discussions that took place among men singularly qualified for such a purpose. And, although I did not participate in them personally … they were faithfully reported to me soon after my return by someone who was present.)209
The author’s pretense that he had no part in the dialogue other than to record the conversation was a way achieving self-effacement without presenting himself as an interlocutor, and it had the advantage of protecting him from official censure, or worse, if his opinions were unorthodox. Although this strategy might have been particularly useful in an age that was marked by a revival of the Inquisition, it was not new in the sixteenth century. As David Marsh has noted, the fifteenth-century humanists “exploited the form of the dialogue in order to avoid recriminations and reprisals from contemporary authorities.”210 Curiously, by identifying himself as Vitauro, Taegio declined to take advantage of an opportunity for self-concealment offered by the dialogue form.
Besides enabling the writer to diminish his authority and conceal his own opinions, the dialogue form helped instill in the sixteenth-century reader a false yet disarming sense of the author’s modesty, by making it possible for interlocutors to frame their speeches with elaborate protestations to the effect that they speak out of obligation or duty in spite of doubts about their competency to treat their subject. For example, in Libro del Cortegiano, when Emilia Pia asks Lodovico da Canossa to describe the perfect courtier, he replies,
Signora, molto volentier fuggirei questa fattica, parendomi troppo difficile e conoscendo … ch’ io non sappia quello che a bon cortegian si conveniene … Pur, essendo cosi che a voi piaccia ch’ io abbia questo carico, non posso né voglio rifiutarlo, per non contravenir all’ordine e giudicio vostro.
(Madam, I would very happily be excused from this labor, because it seems too difficult and because I know … that I do not know what befits a good
