Shakespeare's World | Patronage of the Arts
Had the young earl of Rutland leafed through the copy of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics bought for him at the close of 1599, he would have found a passage defining the lordly virtue of Magnificence as one's "suitable expenditure of Wealth in large amounts" not only on public objects but even "to furnish his house in a way suitable to his means, for that gives him a kind of distinction." Indeed, at that date the earl's expenditures were far outrunning his income. His entourage—the servants who attended his person, his castles, and his estates—numbered around 150. In his family's...
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