Detail, portrait of conte Baldassarre Castiglione (c. 1514) attributed to Raphael. The Book of the Courtier by Castiglione (1528). Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Novillara (1478-1529) popularized the term sprezzatura, which translates roughly as "nonchalant mastery", an ideal of effortless grace befitting a man of culture. The following two notes from The Book of the Courtier are clearly not about Freemasonry, but should be of interest to freemasons in placing two "masonic" symbols as similes in a non-masonic context. That point within a circle.... Therefore in this as in other things one must know and govern one's self with that prudence which is the necessary companion to all the virtues; which, being at the midpoint; are equally distant from the two extremes, which are the vices; and thus an undiscerning man easily incurs them. For just as with a circle it is difficult to find the point of the center,which is the mean, so it is difficult to fint the point of virtue set midway between the two extremes... [p. 323] The square Therefore the prince ought not only to be good, but also to make others good, like that square used by architects, which not only is straight and true itself, but also makes straight and true all things to which it is applied.[p. 307] The Book of the Courtier, Baldesar Castiglione, trans. by Carles S. Singleton. Garden City, New York : Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959. [published, 1528]

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