Leveled Readings / Baldassare Castiglione: The Book of the Courtier (1528)
Baldassare Castiglione: The Book of the Courtier (1528)
Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, Book I (1528)
These are adaptations, not the original. The original wording is always shown first. Each adapted version restates the same passage at about a grade 4, grade 7, or grade 10 reading level without adding or removing ideas. Quote the original in student writing.
Original wording
“…to practise in everything a certain nonchalance that shall conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort and almost without thought.”
Adapted · about grade 4
Castiglione said a good courtier should make hard things look easy, as if he did them without trying.
Adapted · about grade 7
A courtier should do everything with an easy carelessness that hides the effort, so that what he does and says seems to come without work or much thought.
Adapted · about grade 10
One should practice in everything a certain nonchalance that hides design and shows that what is done and said is done without effort and almost without thought.
Used in: What was new about the Renaissance?