trition abounded: St. Peter shedding tears after having de-
nied Jesus; St. Mary Magdalene’s remorse for her earlier
life. To encourage the Catholic viewer to share the tears
and agonies of Christ on the cross as well as the martyr-
doms of the saints, these scenes were pictured in grue-
some detail: St. Agatha having her breasts torn away; St.
Edward with his throat cut. Death became as much a pre-
occupation as it had been in the 14th-century plague years
and quite unlike the halcyon days of the Renaissance
when the epitaph on a cardinal’s tomb (1541) read, “Why
fear death, which brings us rest?” Now, the typical
Counter-Reformation tombstone might read, “Ashes,
ashes, nothing but ashes.”
Triumphalism was an aspect, one could argue, of the
psychology of the Counter-Reformation. However, it is
distinct enough to be discussed separately. The Counter-
Reformation Church was on the march in several regards.
First, every attempt was made to enrich the ceremonial
and feasts of the Catholic Church. The consecrated Host
was displayed on feasts, proclaiming the Catholic doctrine
of TRANSUBSTANTIATION, as opposed to the Protestant de-
nials of this doctrine by ZWINGLIand others. The feast of
Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ), although observed
from the late 13th century, usually with public proces-
sions, was in its most developed form a child of the
Counter-Reformation and served triumphantly to under-
line the Eucharistic doctrine of the Roman Catholic
Church. Frescoes in St. Peter’s, Rome, showed Peter walk-
ing on water and healing the sick, asserting artistically the
primacy of Peter and his successors against the Protestant
denials of the authority of the pope. In New Spain the
Church adopted an assertive posture, trying to make up
for the falling away of Protestants from the Catholic fold
in Europe by bringing new, native American members into
the Roman communion. And the churches of the New
World were decorated just as lavishly as in Europe. In
sum, the Counter-Reformation had succeeded in halting
the victories of Protestantism and had begun to turn them
back. The observer in 1540 might well have thought all of
Europe would soon become Protestant. However, a few
decades later, the same observer attending the triumphant
polyphonies of PALESTRINAin the Jesuit church of Gesù in
Rome would see the Church once more sure of itself doc-
trinally and psychologically.
Mysticism was at the heart of Counter-Reformation
religious emotion. In few other periods have there been
such attractive mystics as at this time. Of these the two
most prominent were St. TERESA OF ÁVILAand St. JOHN OF
THE CROSS. As individual as these two visionaries and re-
formers were, they are completely in harmony with the
general qualities of Counter-Reform and the Council of
Trent. One reason for their appeal is the harmony between
the Tridentine doctrinal decrees and the assumptions of
mysticism. Mystics such as Teresa and John believed that
men and women, with the help of God’s grace, could grad-
ually perfect themselves and briefly unite with God. Mys-
ticism is totally unlike the assumptions of classical Protes-
tantism (as exemplified by Luther and Calvin), for it is
optimistic about man and God. In the mystics’ planned
and ordered meditations, spiritual exercises, and rigorous
training of the will, 16th-century Roman Catholic mysti-
cism complemented a theology which affirmed the free-
dom of the will, man’s ability to cooperate in his own
salvation, and the efficacy of good works and charity.
See also: PILGRIMAGE AND PILGRIMAGE SHRINES
Further reading: Robert Birely, The Refashioning of
Catholicism, 1450–1700: A Reassessment of the Counter-
Reformation (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of
America Press, 1999); Nicholas S. Davidson, The Counter-
Reformation (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 1987); Henry Out-
ram Evennett, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1968;
Notre Dame, Ind. and London: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1970); Michael Mullett, The Catholic Reformation
(London: Routledge, 1999).Courtier, The (Italian Il cortegiano; 1528) The book by
Baldassare CASTIGLIONE, describing the accomplishments
of the ideal courtier and portraying the court of Urbino
shortly before the death of Duke Guidobaldo da Montefel-
tro in 1508. Written and gradually expanded between
1508 and 1524, the work, following Plato and Cicero’s De
oratore, is cast in dialogue form as the lively informal con-
versations of a group of courtiers and ladies. Popularizing
humanist (Aristotelian and Ciceronian) ideals of the
model citizen, Castiglione depicts the courtier, though
necessarily of noble birth and trained in arms, as a gentle-
man, learned, a connoisseur, of cultivated tastes and sen-
sibility, excelling at a variety of civilized pursuits but
always with effortless grace (SPREZZATURA).
Following its first publication in 1528, Il cortegiano
very rapidly reached an audience all over Europe through
versions in Spanish (1534), English (1561), Polish
(1566), and Latin (1571). The English translation by Sir
Thomas HOBY, entitled The Book of the Courtier, struck a
chord with the aspirational gentry of Elizabethan England
and was the forerunner of a whole genre of “courtesy”
books explaining how to behave like a gentleman; a recent
appearance of Hoby’s text is in an edition by Virginia Cox
(London and Rutland, Vt., 1994). George Bull, retaining
Hoby’s title, made a 20th-century version for the Penguin
Classics series (Harmondsworth, U.K., rev. ed., 1976).
Further reading: Peter Burke, The Fortunes of The
Courtier:The European Reception of Castiglione’s Corte-
giano (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1996).Couto, Diogo do (1542–1616) Portuguese historian
Born in Lisbon and educated at the Jesuit college there, do
Couto sailed to India (1559), where he spent virtually all112244 CCoouurrttiieerr,, TThhee