Le regole della conversazione del gentiluomo nella moralistica del Cinquecento

The gentleman was a key figure in the social and cultural life of the 16th century and was the subject around which there developed and spread a precise code of conversation. This was not merely a petty, meticulous set of rules to follow in a wide variety of situations; in fact, many different authors put forth explanations to justify why such norms were so important and outlined the general principles that should dictate verbal exchange. This article focuses on the main speech ‘flaws’, which are useful for defining such ‘virtues’ of conversation as affability, urbanity and veracity. From this approach, the idea of disciplined discourse falls within the context of courtesy, and more generally, within that of relational ethics; in short, we are dealing with good and bad manners in conversation. This question clearly played a central role in the interactions between gentlemen in the overall framework of cultural, economic and power relations that characterized 16th-century society.