Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THE INHERITED PAST
- Prologue
- 1 The Historical Context
- 2 The Elizabethan World Order: From Divinity to Dust
- 3 Sin, Death and the Prince of Darkness
- 4 The Seven Cardinal Virtues
- 5 Kingship
- 6 Patriarchy, Family Authority and Gender Relationships
- 7 Man in His Place
- 8 Images of Disorder: The Religious Context
- PART II THE JACOBEAN PRESENT
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Kingship
from PART I - THE INHERITED PAST
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THE INHERITED PAST
- Prologue
- 1 The Historical Context
- 2 The Elizabethan World Order: From Divinity to Dust
- 3 Sin, Death and the Prince of Darkness
- 4 The Seven Cardinal Virtues
- 5 Kingship
- 6 Patriarchy, Family Authority and Gender Relationships
- 7 Man in His Place
- 8 Images of Disorder: The Religious Context
- PART II THE JACOBEAN PRESENT
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Now what shall I say about the courtiers? For the most part they are the most obsequious, servile, stupid and worthless creatures, and yet they're bent on appearing foremost in everything.
(Erasmus, 176)… the aim of the courtier is to make his prince virtuous.
(Castiglione, 320)They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin.
(Pericles, 1.2.39– 40)Volpone, of course, is not a king. Nor is he a governor. He has no public role
to play in Venice, is not a senator or magistrate. But he is a magnifico (a member of the better sort), a member of the leading rank, the governing class and therefore, though he only has responsibility for the governance of his household, should act and be seen to act as an example to other citizens of the Republic. He has no trading links or other ‘common way’ of making money:
………………. I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with ploughshare; fat no beasts
……………………………. Have no mills ……
…………………………………………………
I blow no subtle glass; expose no ships
………………………………
I turn no moneys, in the public bank;
Nor usure private – (1.1.33– 40)
He is then simply a man of inherited wealth who is not involved in any of the usual commercial ventures for which Venice was famous and which enriched her fabulously. The leading families of the city often had landed estates on the mainland of the Veneto and made money by selling farm produce in the city's markets. They did not, of course, get their own hands calloused by such work. They had stewards and tenant farmers to do that. They owned olive oil mills and glass factories, and were presidents of banking concerns, much as English aristocrats were beginning to do as land values dropped throughout the seventeenth century. Volpone does none of this. He is a decadent, idle libertine who indulges in a series of confidence tricks to enrich himself. He shows no inclination to do public work of any sort. He festers in his palazzo letting his servant do the work of luring in his prey. In this he reflects the idleness and corruption of many of the better sort in Renaissance Europe.
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- Information
- Volpone' in ContextBiters Bitten and Fools Fooled, pp. 105 - 122Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2016