The Book of the Courtier

Transcriber’s Note:
Footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter, and are linked for ease of reference.
Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup.
The cover image has been constructed from the portrait of Castiglione and key information from the title page and is placed in the public domain.
Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.
BALDESAR CASTIGLIONE COUNT OF NOVILLARA 1478-1529
Reduced from Braun’s photograph (no. 11.505) of the portrait in the Louvre, painted in 1516 by Raphael (1483-1520). The original belonged to Charles I of England, after whose death it was bought by a Dutch collector and copied by Rubens. Later it became the property of Cardinal Mazarin, from whose heirs it was acquired for Louis XIV of France.
The medallion on the title-page is from a photograph, specially made by Mansell, of a cast, kindly furnished by T. Whitcombe Greene, Esq., of an anonymous medal in his collection at Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire. See the late Alfred Armand’s Les Médailleurs Italiens , ii, 100, no. 10.
THE BOOK OF THE COURTIER
BY COUNT BALDESAR
CASTIGLIONE
(1528)