Sprezzatura
During my stay in Florence, dubbed centuries ago as the novel Athens and rightfully so may I add, I read The Book of the Courtier, penned by Baldassare Castiglione during the apex of the Renaissance in the 16th century. It is the perfect picture of the ideals, the aspirations and the codification of social behaviors to which each courtier, and in some extent each human being, should aim to relentlessly. Indeed, in that masterpiece, he coined the expression sprezzatura .
Fast forward to the present in my Torontonian journey. Not only am I a huge advocate of the timelessness of the sprezzatura concept but also its strength has been reinvigorated in my mind by two eye-opening documentaries that I saw recently about the Canadian version of sophistication disguised in improvisation or thoughtlessness and curated nonchalance.
The first one is The Gardener. It is about a man, Frank Cabot, who puts his intellect and soul to nurture and curate one of the most astonishingly beautiful garden on earth, Les Quatre Vents in Malbaie (Quebec). Any effort to describe it with my words would be vain. Therefore, it’s better to check it out.
The second one is The Integral Man. This nugget of documentary is about James Stewart, the author of numerous books on calculus, and its fingertips on Toronto’s landscape with The Integral House. The architectural artwork is the perfect combination of mathematical perfection and artistic sensibility. Just one word comes in my mind. Smooth.
It seems like some essential concepts are universal no matter the time or the space. Probably, sprezzatura is one of them. I guess Baldassare Castiglione would have been proud of Frank Cabot and James Stewart for carrying his torch to the next generation and being perfect gentlemen. They are the embodiment of striving for excellence effortlessly, at least before the public eyes.
