[[Image:Cicisbeo by Luigi Ponelato.jpg|thumb|300px|Luigi Ponelato, ''Il cicisbeo'', etching, 1790]]
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In 18th- and 19th-century [[Italy]], the '''''cicisbeo''''' ({{IPAc-en|UK|ˌ|tʃ|ɪ|tʃ|ɪ|z|ˈ|b|eɪ|oʊ}} {{respell|CHITCH|iz|BAY|oh}},<ref>{{Cite Oxford Dictionaries|cicisbeo|accessdate=20 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPAc-en|US|ˌ|tʃ|iː|tʃ|-}} {{respell|CHEE|chiz|-}},<ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|cicisbeo|accessdate=20 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPA-it|tʃitʃiˈzbɛːo|lang}}; [[plural]]: '''''cicisbei'''''), or '''''cavalier servente''''' ('''''{{lang-fr|chevalier servant''''' in French}}), was the man who was the professed gallant or lover<ref>Chapter{{cite book|chapter=5 of |author=Roberto Bizzocchi. |title=A Lady's Man: The Cicisbei, Private Morals and National Identity in Italy. Translated by |translator=Noor Giovanni Mazhar. |location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, |publisher=Hampshire Palgrave Macmillan, |year=2014. |pages=320 pp. {{|ISBN|=978-1-137-45092-0}}</ref> of a woman married to someone else. With knowledge and consent of the husband, the cicisbeo attended his mistress at public entertainments,<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Cicisbeo|volume=6|page=360}}</ref> to church and other occasions, and had privileged access to this woman. The arrangement is comparable to the [[Spain|Spanish]] ''cortejo'' or ''estrecho'' and, to a lesser degree, to the [[France|French]] ''[[petit-maître]]''.<ref>[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/110.2/patriarca.html Silvana Patriarca, "Indolence and Regeneration: Tropes and Tensions of Risorgimento Patriotism", ''The American Historical Review'', 110(2), 2005]</ref> The exact [[etymology]] of the word is unknown; some evidence suggests it originally meant "in a whisper"<ref>Gaite</ref> (perhaps an [[onomatopeic]] word). Other accounts suggest it is an inversion of ''bel cece'',<ref>''DIZIONARIO ETIMOLOGICO'' ONLINE</ref> which means "beautiful chick (pea)". According to [[OED]], the first recorded usage 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).
