Nostalgia for The Courtier? Francisco Rodrigues Lobo’s Cortena aldeia e noites de inverno (1619) and the Crisis of the Earlymodern Portuguese Court

Resumo

 Corte na aldeia e noites de inverno by the Portuguese intellectual Francisco Rodrigues Lobo (1619) is a stunningly original interpretation of Baldesar Castiglione’s treatise Il libro del cortigiano (The Book of the Courtier, 1528), which exerted a fundamental influence on early-modern European culture.
Following Gilles Deleuze’s reflections on the concepts of difference and repetition, this essay shows how the Portuguese text remains faithful to the spirit of the Italian classic but paradoxically subverts its ultimate message. Like The Book of the Courtier, Corte na aldeia reflects a historical moment of profound political crisis. The Portuguese tract is a text of political resistance and not, as it has been often said, a book of light entertainment. It is an act of remembrance and a project for a future civil rebirth founded on the court as a gathering of citizens of all social classes.