DELLA CASA, GIOVANNI. - Born in Mugello on June 28, 1503, died at Montepulciano on Nov. 14, 1556. He was buried in the church of S. Andrea della Valle. After various wanderings for reasons of study, he devoted himself without any particular vocation to the ecclesiastical life, and from 1533, for some years, he established his residence in Rome. Here he wrote some "capitoli" in terza rima, not always chaste, in 1544 he was appointed cleric of the Apostolic Chamber, and in the same year was then elected archbishop of the diocese of Benevento, which however he always administered from afar. Later Paul III sent him to Venice as apostolic nuncio. The Venetian period of D. C. is rich in political and literary activity. Although he did not bring to a happy conclusion the various assignments entrusted to him by the Pontiff, it is nevertheless to him that the introduction into the Venetian State of the tribunals of the Inquisition, instituted for the purpose of repressing every heretical movement, is owed. In this office D. C. showed tact and energy. Among others, the trial he promoted against Pier Paolo Vergerio, the young bishop of Capodistria, is famous; the latter, having been condemned, managed to flee, hurling against D. C. a libel full of grave and ferocious accusations.
In his Tractatus de officiis inter potentiores et tenuiores amicos D. C. reasons about the relations between superiors and inferiors: the latter must know how to deal with the former, revere them, serve them, protest; and not to be in accord with superiors is a grave and unbecoming thing, whereas "to revere and honor them would be more useful, as well as more honorable," where the meaning of this last adjective is to be understood rather in the sense of expediency, of propriety and composure, than of morality. Solicitous about the education of his nephews, D. C. did not fail to give them teachings and precepts, which remain, moreover, all extraneous to conscience, aiming more at appearing than at being. The work to which D. C. owes his fame is the one entitled Galateo. A mirror of a refined and cultured society, all good manners and tact, even if morally skeptical and superficial, the Galateo reflects good courtesy and good behavior, a considerate and elegant way of living. The Galateo was written at the suggestion of Galeazzo (from whom its name derives) Florimonte, bishop of Sessa, and in it the author wishes to teach his nephew Annibale Rucellai to "be well-mannered and pleasing and of fine manners," so that in community and in relations with the world he may never displease others. "In all actions the well-mannered man must take care for gracefulness and propriety"; vices are an unseemly thing and "therefore to be shunned." It cannot be said that in the Galateo, as a representation of a clean and elegant society, entirely external, as De Sanctis says, every moral vision of life is absent; but nevertheless it cannot be said either that moral conduct is felt as a profound demand of conscience. After the death of Paul III (1549) D. C. left public life and retired to private life, living partly in Rome, partly in Venice and in a villa of his at Nervesa on the Montello. Here he wrote the life of Cardinal Bembo, that of Contarini, the invective against Vergerio, some of his Latin lyrics in praise of the sister of the king of France, on the death of Orazio Farnese, and the carmen Ad Germanos in which he excuses himself for his past transgressions as well as for his youthful verses "not most chaste." After the very brief pontificate of Marcellus II, when Paul IV was elected pope, D. C. returned to Rome, also in the hope perhaps of being able finally to obtain the coveted cardinal's hat, but such an appointment never came. Perhaps his "not chaste" youthful verses prevented it; he was, however, appointed Secretary of State.