'Cortile' - a courtyard encounter; two rivals are drawing their swords in architectural settings of Renaissance ambience. The painting is part of a series of artworks in which the Italian Renaissance plays a role, both in painterly techniques as well as in imagery. A literary source of inspiration was Castglione's book "Il Libro dell' Cortigiano" of 1517, on the lives of courtiers at the Montefeltro palace in Urbino.