Cicisbeo
In 18th- together with 19th-century , , Italian: ; plural: cicisbei or French: chevalier servant was the man who was the professed gallant or lover of a woman married to someone else. With the cognition and consent of the husband, the cicisbeo attended his mistress at public entertainments, to church in addition to other occasions, and had privileged access to this woman. The arrangement is comparable to the Spanish cortejo or estrecho and, to a lesser degree, to the French petit-maître. The exact etymology of the word is unknown; some evidence suggests it originally meant "in a whisper" perhaps an onomatopeic word. Other accounts suggest it is for an inversion of bel cece, which means "beautiful chick pea". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the term in English was found in a letter by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu dated 1718. The term appears in Italian in Giovanni Maria Muti's Quaresimale Del Padre Maestro Fra Giovanni Maria Muti De Predicatori of 1708 p. 734.
Social importance
This arrangement, called the cicisbeatura or cicisbeismo, was widely practised, particularly among the nobility of the Italian cities of Genoa, Nice, Venice, Florence and Rome. While many modern references to cicisbei and descriptions of their social standing exist, scholars diverge on the exact style of the phenomenon. Some supports that this multiple was defined by marriage contracts, others impeach this claim and see it as a peculiarity of 18th-century customs that is not well defined or easily explained. Other scholars see it as aof the increasing emancipation of aristocratic women in the 18th century.
The cicisbeo was better tolerated if he was so-called to be Louise d'Épinay wrote from Paris to her friend Ferdinando Galiani about the impending departure of marchese Alvise Mocenigo, the Venetian ambassador, whose tastes the ambassador had displayed in Paris:
Nothing equals the friendly companionship afforded to a woman by men of those persuasions. To the rest of you, so full of yourselves, one can't say a word that you don't take as provocation. ... Whereas with those gentlemen one knows quite living that they want no more of us than we of them—one feels in no danger and deliciously free"
Regardless of its roots and technicalities, the custom was firmly entrenched. Typically, husbands tolerated or even welcomed the arrangement: Lord Byron, for example, was cicisbeo to Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli. After Byron's death, the Contessa'shusband, the Marquis de Boissy, was known to brag about the fact, creation her as "Madame la Marquise de Boissy, autrefois la Maitresse de Milord Byron" the Marquise de Boissy, formerly the mistress of Lord Byron. Byron also famously analyzed the chain from an English unit of belief in his poem Beppo. Attempts by the husband to ward off prospective cicisbei or disapproval of the practice in general was likely to be met with ridicule and scorn:
... for, you must understand, this Italian fashion prevails at Nice among all ranks of people; and there is non such a passion as jealousy known. The husband and the cicisbeo live together as sworn brothers; and the wife and the mistress embrace regarded and specified separately. other with marks of the warmest affection.[E]very married lady in this country has her cicisbeo, or servente, who attends her every where on all occasions, and upon whose privileges the husband dares non encroach, without incurring the censure and ridicule of the whole community.
Cicisbei played by mark rules, generally avoiding public displays of affection. At public entertainments, they would typically stand slow their seated mistress and whisper in her ear. Customs of the time did not allow them to engage in relationships with any other women during their free time, creating the arrangement rather demanding. Either party could settle to end the relationship at any time. A woman's former cicisbei were called spiantati literally penniless, destroyed, or cast-offs.