This thesis argues that Raphael's portrait, Baldassare Castiglione, is three portraits in one: 1) a "speaking likeness" of the subject, 2) a portrait of the "perfect" courtier, and 3) a "shadow" portrait of the Court of Urbino in the early sixteenth century. The formal analysis of the painting is presented in the context of the paragone of word and image expounded by its subject in his masterpiece, Il Cortegiano. Both author and artist demonstrate the concepts of sprezzatura (an artful artlessness) and grazia (graceful elegance) in the creation of their portraits, as well as avoidance of affetazione (affectation). It is concluded that Raphael's response to the challenge of the text/image paragone in Il Cortegiano determined the formal choices he made as he painted his friend Baldassare Castiglione.

Följande uppsats behandlar fyra hovporträtt av konstnären Bronzino föreställande fursteparet Cosimo I de’ Medici och Eleonora di Toledo speglade mot de litterära källorna Machiavellis Fursten och Castigliones Boken om hovmannen. Uppsatsen empiriska material kommer således att bestå av ovanstående material placeras framför varandra för att belysa dess beröringspunkter, både i fråga om likheter och olikheter. Analysens teoriangrepp kommer med avstamp i Roland Barthes semiotiska bildanalys att närma sig porträttens denotativa men främst konnotativa uttryck. Vidare har Shearer Wests bok Portraiture använts för förståelsen kring porträttet som genre i dess historiska kontext. Undersökningens disposition består av två huvudrubriker varav den första behandlar den historiska kontexten och den sista delen själva bildanalyserna. Resultatet visar på att samtliga porträtt av Cosimo och Eleonora finner flera beröringspunkter i Machiavellis furstespegel som Castigliones hovmannaideal, men skiljer sig delvis beroende på porträtt. Vidare har undersökningen visat på att Cosimo i sina två utvalda statsporträtt – valde att i det senare gestalta sig själv i en måttfullare stil – inte helt olik den måttfullhet som skildras i såväl Castigliones litterära verk som visuella porträtt. Cosimos tidigare porträtt svarar dock bättre mot Machiavellis idé om imitering. De två porträtten av Eleonora finner även dom olika samband med textmaterial och där Eleonoras senare statsporträtt tycks besitta flera av hertiginnans drag – något som inte med samma tydlighet framträder i det tidigare porträttet. Gemensamt för alla porträtt är deras avsaknad av sprezzatura som den allra viktigaste egenskapen för en person vid hovet.

Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, weaves the courtier's strategy of sprezzatura throughout her public orations in order to help her identify with her audience of courtiers, scholars, and politicians. Through her use of sprezzatura, Elizabeth woos her audience and transcends the differences of opinion that lead to conflict between the Queen and her audience members. Using Kenneth Burke's theory of rhetoric as identification, this thesis employs rhetorical analysis in order to discover how Queen Elizabeth's use of sprezzatura enables her to portray herself as a humanist scholar, a political servant, and a dedicated defender of her country and thus, identify with her audience. Because these identities also have gender implications, this analysis of Elizabeth's rhetorical choices uses Judith Butler's theory of gender as performance in order to realize the ways in which Elizabeth assumes a masculine identity and also manipulates gender expectations. As Elizabeth uses sprezzatura to delight her audience, smoothing the way for her identification with their characteristics and values, she also reveals her need to transcend division and conflict through the use of her own language. In her 1564 speech at Cambridge, Elizabeth transforms the conflict surrounding her gender by acknowledging it and confronting it in a way that allows her to repudiate specific aspects of negative feminine constructions. When Parliament petitioned her once again to marry in 1576, the Queen moves the focus away from her marital status by turning the discussion into a review of her reign, so that in discussing her success so far, she changes the topic under negotiation to one that she and her audience could more easily agree on. Finally in 1586, after Parliament asked for Mary Stuart's execution, Elizabeth shifts the violence of their differences over what to do with Mary to a third party, emphasizing the dangerous divide between England and Mary's European supporters in order to represent her relationship with Parliament as a united effort to protect the country and its religion. In all three situations, Elizabeth introduces the conflict into her own language and then successfully transforms it, removing the violence.