As in Castiglione’s original text, the speakers now move on to a discussion of the ‘donna di palazzo’, here literally translated as the ‘gentilwoman of the palaice’. The courtier’s ‘certain manlinesse full and steadye’ is contrasted with her ‘tendernes, soft and milde, with a kinde of womanlie sweetnes in everye gesture of herres’. The stress on beauty (as a reflection of a woman’s inner virtue) is clearly rendered: ‘for (to saye the truth) there is a great lacke in the woman that wanteth beawtie’.

Thomas Hoby (trans.), The Courtyer of Count Baldessar Castilio (London: William Seres, 1561), 2B3^r. Cambridge University Library, LE.6.88.