Baldassare Castiglione

Italian writer and diplomat

• Born: December 6, 1478
• Birthplace: Casatico, Duchy of Mantua (now in Italy)
• Died: February 2, 1529
• Place of death: Toledo, Spain

One of the most noted writers on Renaissance court life, Castiglione helped influence what contemporary and succeeding generations in the West have regarded as good manners, taste, elegance, and the idea of the cultured.

Early Life

Baldassare Castiglione (bahl-dahs-SAHR-ay kahs-teel-YOH-nay) was born in the Lombard (north Italian) town of Casatico, not far from the city of Mantua. His parents were both members of distinguished local families, with his father, Cristoforo Castiglione, holding the title of count. Because of his high social position, the young Baldassare received what his parents regarded as the best education of his day: a reading knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics, athletics, music, and art.

Studying under Humanist scholars Giorgio Merula and Demetrio Calcondila, Castiglione was exposed to some of the most enlightened examples of Humanistic and classical thought of his period. When he was eighteen, Castiglione was sent by his parents to the court of the Milanese prince Ludovico Sforza, where he began to learn the rudiments of chivalry. When Castiglione’s father died in 1499, the twenty-one-year-old Castiglione left Sforza and accepted a commission from Francesco II Gonzaga, the marquis of Mantua, who was expanding his army because of his ongoing conflict with Spain.

Castiglione returned to Italy in 1505, traveling to Rome where he met Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, the duke of Urbino. Montefeltro gave Castiglione a commission as his envoy to King Henry VII of England, where Castiglione remained for about a year. In 1507, he returned to Urbino, where he lived until 1513 as a knight and member of Montefeltro’s court. During the six years that he spent in Urbino, Castiglione met the city’s most famous painter, Raphael, who became a close friend and who created a famous portrait of the author, now in the Louvre.

Life’s Work

While he was still in his twenties, Castiglione began establishing a reputation as an accomplished author. In 1506, he published the pastoral drama Tirsi , drawing his inspiration from both ancient works, including the Eclogues of Vergil (43-37 b.c.e.; also known as Bucolics; English translation, 1575), and the Renaissance bucolic poems of Angelo Poliziano and Jacopo Sannazaro. In addition, Castiglione wrote sonnets in imitation of Petrarch (1304-1374), numerous letters, and a series of courtly poems in both Latin and Italian.

In 1516, Castiglione returned to Mantua, where he married Ippolita Torelli. What then followed was a period of both stunning accomplishments and great personal disappointments. Castiglione served as envoy to Pope Leo X and was sent as ambassador to Spain in 1524 by Leo X’s cousin, Pope Clement VII . Nevertheless, during these same years, both Castiglione’s wife and his friend Raphael died (prompting him to write two elegies in their memory), many of his diplomatic commissions proved to be unsuccessful, and he eventually lost the trust of those with whom he had been building his diplomatic career. On May 6, 1527, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) of the House of Habsburg invaded Rome with twelve thousand mercenaries, forcing Clement VII to take refuge in the Castel Sant’Angelo. Charles’s troops pillaged Rome for eight days, destroying or looting many of the city’s most important works of art and killing thousands of its residents.

Clement VII suspected that Castiglione knew in advance of Charles’s intentions but did not inform him. His reputation and health jeopardized, Castiglione wrote a letter defending himself to the pope and then left Italy for Toledo, where he would spend the final years of his life.

In 1528, Castiglione published his most influential work, Il libro del cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier , 1561), a four-volume treatise that he had drafted between 1513 and 1518 and been polishing ever since. The Book of the Courtier is a fictionalized version of the elegant discussions that Castiglione remembered from his years at the court of Urbino. The characters in the book were based on real people whom Castiglione met during his service to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. The interlocutors in the book include Francesco Maria della Rovere, Guidobaldo’s nephew whom Castiglione served after the duke’s death; the duchess Elisabetta Gonzaga; Ludovico da Canossa, a bishop who had become one of the author’s close friends; Giuliano de’ Médici, who knew both Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Macchiavelli; Pietro Bembo, Leo X’s papal secretary and an author who wrote several works on platonic love; Bernardo Accolti, a poet; and many others.

In the course of what Castiglione presents as an extended series of conversations, the interlocutors in The Book of the Courtier describe their concept of the ideal courtier: He should be an individual of noble birth who is well educated in both classical and modern languages, has an appreciation for music and painting, is accomplished in military matters and athletics (most notably tennis, running, and swimming), dances gracefully, is well read in literature as well as in science, and, most important, is well mannered and affable in conversation.

The courtier should never be haughty or conceited in his many accomplishments but should always do everything in his power to put others at ease. He should have a good sense of humor and should freely use charm, even wit, in the most trying of situations. One of the courtier’s most important qualities, according to Castiglione, is sprezzatura, the ability to do difficult things with the appearance of ease. This nonchalance, a sense of effortless dignity, composure, and self-control under even the most difficult of circumstances, is the supreme refinement of courtly civilization and helps to add immeasurably to the grace and style of courtly life.

Castiglione’s classical education is apparent throughout The Book of the Courtier, where brief allusions are frequently made to fairly obscure events from ancient history and mythology. In other ways, however, Castiglione’s book was quite progressive for its time. Although not all speakers in the book agreed with the idea, Castiglione’s treatise supported a more modern view of women’s intellectual abilities than had been accepted in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Several of the most interesting speakers in the work are women, and Castiglione himself took for granted the idea that women were intellectually equal to men if they were given the same benefits of education.

Significance

Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier had an immediate impact on views of elegance and good manners throughout Italy. Moreover, the book was quickly translated into Latin (1538), Spanish (1540), German (1560), and English (1561), making it influential in many parts of western Europe.

Castiglione’s account of the ideal courtier, originally intended to be a descriptive account of what he had witnessed, soon came to be seen as prescriptive by those wishing to emulate the high standards of courtly behavior in Renaissance Italy. As such, Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier came to influence the Western world’s understanding of etiquette, manners, and elegant sophistication in many periods since its publication. Nearly every guide to manners and courtly behavior written in Europe since the sixteenth century owes at least some of its perspective either directly or indirectly to Castiglione.

Ernest Hemingway’s concept of “grace under pressure” and even such popular heroes as James Bond and the characters portrayed by Cary Grant in numerous films could all trace their origins to Castiglione’s treatise. Moreover, the concept of the Renaissance man, which became popular in Europe after Castiglione’s death, largely was inspired by the figure of the ideal courtier presented by the interlocutors in The Book of the Courtier.

Bibliography

Ady, Julia Cartwright. Baldassare Castiglione, the Perfect Courtier. 2 vols. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1908. The still-useful, standard biography of Castiglione.

Berger, Harry, Jr. The Absence of Grace: Sprezzatura and Suspicion in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000. The most authoritative book on the quintessential virtue discussed in The Book of the Courtier:sprezzatura, or the art of making the difficult look easy. Also examines this concept in Giovanni della Casa’s Il Galateo ovvero de’ costumi (1558), another Renaissance guide to courtly manners and polite conduct.

Burke, Peter. The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione’s “Cortegiano.” University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. Through an examination of admirers of Castiglione’s book outside Italy, Burke provides insight into a broader pattern of changing social and intellectual attitudes in Renaissance Europe. Bibliography, index.

Finucci, Valeria. The Lady Vanishes: Subjectivity and Representation in Castiglione and Ariosto. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992. Examines the role of women in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1516, 1521, 1532) and Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier.

Raffini, Christine. Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione: Philosophical, Aesthetic, and Political Approaches in Renaissance Platonism. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. Interprets Castiglione’s views as heavily influenced by the Platonic theories of Marsilio Ficino and his efforts to reconcile Christian authority with Renaissance individualism. Bibliography, index.

Wiggins, Peter DeSa. Donne, Castiglione, and the Poetry of Courtliness. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. While focusing primarily on the poetry of John Donne, Wiggins provides a useful case study in the reception of Castiglione throughout Europe after his death and helps explain the author’s important role in the history of Western ideas.