How to Talk About Your Kids, 1558

"You got a problem with my Momo?"
Paolo Veronese, Giuseppe da Porto with his
Son Adriano (1551-2)

"Those who are constantly talking about their children, their wives or their nursemaids, are equally at fault. 'Yesterday my boy made me laugh so much. Listen to this...You have never seen a more lovable son than my Momo...' No-one has so little to do that he has the time to answer or even to listen to such nonsense and so it irritates everyone." 

Giovanni della Casa, Galateo (1558)

History teaches us many timeless and important lessons. Chief among them: no one wants to hear about Momo.

How to Tell Jokes, 1558

Giovanni della Casa finds your jokes wearisome.
(Portrait by Wenceslas Hollar)

"Where your pleasantries are not rewarded with the laughter of listeners, cease and desist from telling jokes in the future. The defect is in you, not in your listeners... For these are movements of the mind, and if they are pleasant and lively, they are an indication and a testimonial of the nimble mind and the good habits of the speaker-- this is particularly liked by other men and endears us to them. But if they are without grace and charm, they have the contrary effect, so it appears a jackass is joking, or that someone very fat with an enormous butt is dancing and hopping about in a tight-fitting vest." 

Giovanni della Casa, Il Galateo overo de' costumi (1558)

Giovanni della Casa: skilled diplomat, astute social critic, fearsome heckler at Renaissance comedy clubs. 

How to Party Like a Scholar, 1558

"It is not fitting to be melancholy or distracted in the company of others. This may be accepted of people who have long pursued studies in the arts which, as I have heard, are called 'liberal arts,' but it should not, under any condition, be allowed of other people."  

Giovanni della Casa, Il Galateo overo de' costumi (1558)

They’re called liberal arts because they liberate you from the duty to socialize without weeping.

Domenico Fetti, Malinconia (c. 1620), Louvre

How to Blow Your Nose, 1616

Francesco Salviati, "Portrait of a Man,"
Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Blowing the nose. We must not blow our nose too lowde, nor open the hand-chercher at all to shewe any nasty filthinesse, nor lay it to the cuppe where another meanes to drinke..."

 Thomas Gainsford (?), The Rich Cabinet (1616)


Among the smart ideas introduced by the renaissance was the recommendation to not smear your snot on anyone else's drinking glass. Best practices, folks!