DELLA CASA, Giovanni. — Born in Mugello on 28 June 1503, died at Montepulciano on 14 November 1556. He was buried in the church of S. Andrea della Valle. After various wanderings for the sake of study, he took up ecclesiastical life without any particular vocation, and from 1533 for several years he established his residence in Rome. Here he wrote some “capitoli” in terza rima not always restrained, in 1544 he was named clerk of the Apostolic Chamber, and in the same year was elected archbishop of the diocese of Benevento, which he administered, however, always from a distance. Later, Paul III sent him to Venice as apostolic nuncio. The Venetian period of D. C. was rich in political and literary activity. Even though he did not bring to a happy conclusion the various tasks entrusted to him by the Pope, it was nonetheless due to him that the tribunals of the Inquisition were introduced into the Venetian State, established with the purpose of repressing every heretical movement. In this role, D. C. showed great energy. Among others, the trial he promoted against Pier Paolo Vergerio, the young bishop of Capodistria, who, condemned, managed to escape by hurling against D. C. a libel full of grave and fierce accusations, is well known.
In his *Tractatus de officiis inter potentiores et tenuiores amicos*, D. C. reflects on the relationships between superiors and inferiors: the latter must know how to deal with the former, revere them, serve them, and not agree with them, and it is a grave and unbecoming thing, instead, “to revere and honor them would be more useful, as well as more proper,” where the meaning of this last adjective is to be understood rather in the sense of suitability, convenience, and competence than of morality. Mindful of the education of his nephews, D. C. did not fail to give them instructions and precepts, which, however, remain entirely alien 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, living with consideration and elegance. The *Galateo* was written at the suggestion of Galeazzo (from whom it takes its name) Florimonte, bishop of Sessa, and in it the author wishes to teach his nephew Annibale Rucellai to “be well-mannered and pleasant and of good manners,” so that in social intercourse and relationships with the world he never displeases others. “In all the actions of the well-mannered man, care for gracefulness and suitability”; vices are unseemly things and “therefore to be avoided.” One cannot say 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; yet one cannot say either that moral conduct is felt as a profound exigency of conscience.
After the death of Paul III (1549), D. C. left public life and retired into private life, living partly in Rome, partly in Venice, and in his villa at Nervesa sul 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, for the death of Orazio Farnese, and the poem *Ad Germanos*, in which he excuses himself for his past transgressions as well as for his “not entirely chaste” youthful verses.
After the very brief pontificate of Marcellus II, when Paul IV was elected pope, D. C. returned to Rome, perhaps in the hope of finally obtaining the longed-for cardinal’s hat, but such a nomination never came. Perhaps his “not entirely chaste” youthful verses prevented it; he was, however, named Secretary of State.