Besides The Courtier, his writings comprise: Tirsi, an eclogue of fifty-five stanzas in ottava rima, written and recited at the court of Urbino for the carnival of 1506; a prologue and epilogue for his friend Bibbiena’s Calandra; a few Italian lyrics of moderate merit; and some better Latin elegies and epigrams; nearly all composed during his embassy at Rome. A large number of his letters also have been preserved.
CASTIGLIONE'S TOMB
CHURCH OF THE MADONNA DELLE GRAZIE NEAR MANTUA
Reduced from a water-colour drawing made by the architect Patricolo and the painter Zanetti from the monument designed by Giulio Pippi, better known as Giulio Romano, (1492-1546). The water-mark of the paper on which this volume is printed is copied from a drawing, by Zanetti, of Castiglione’s arms as they appear in the upper left-hand panel of the monument.
His fine character is reflected in that of his Courtier, who (as Symonds says) “is, with one or two points of immaterial difference, a modern gentleman, such as all men of education at the present day would wish to be.” It may perhaps aid the reader to realize the time in which the author lived, to recall that when Castiglione was born, printing had been practised in Italy for thirteen years, that the earliest Greek grammar had been printed two years, that America was discovered when he was a boy, that the Reformation began when he was in the prime of life, and that the Lutherans were first called Protestants in the year of his death.
The first (Aldine) edition of The Courtier was issued thirteen years after the death of Teobaldo Manucci, the illustrious founder of the press that continued to bear his name, and consisted of one thousand and thirty-one copies, of which thirty were on large paper and one on vellum. It is a small folio of one hundred and twenty-two leaves, the type-page measuring almost precisely nine and one-quarter inches by five and one-eighth inches. In its ordinary form the book can hardly be called rare, as in 1895 the present translator secured a good copy from Leipsic for forty-five francs.
The earliest Spanish translator, Boscan, (born at Barcelona about 1493; died in France about 1542), was of gentle birth. Early becoming a soldier, he served with credit in Charles V's Italian campaigns, and thus acquired familiarity with the language and literature of Italy. He is said to have known Castiglione personally. Having been for some time tutor to the young prince who was later known as the Duke of Alva, he married and devoted the rest of his short life to letters. As a writer he is best known as the founder of the Italian poetical school in Spain. Ticknor says that Boscan’s version of The Courtier hardly professes to be literal, but that perhaps nothing in Castilian prose of an earlier date is written in so classical and finished a style. It has been often reprinted (as recently as 1873), and was found useful by the present translator in doubtful passages.
The earliest French translator, Colin, (died 1547), was a native of Auxerre and enjoyed the favour of Francis I, whom he served as reader and almoner, and who bestowed upon him the abbotship of St. Ambrose at Tours, as well as other ecclesiastical offices. In his prosperity he showed much kindness to his less fortunate brother authors, but he was too free of speech to be permanently successful as a courtier, and lost his preferments. His translation of The Courtier, which some writers erroneously ascribe to Jean Chaperon, is little esteemed, was soon issued with corrections by another hand, and then followed by another French version. He translated also parts of Homer and Ovid, and composed original verse in Latin and French. For an account of Castiglione’s influence upon French literature and of his many French imitators, consult Pietro Toldo’s “Le Courtisan dans la littérature française et ses rapports avec l'œuvre du Castiglione,” (Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Litteraturen, C. iv, pp. 75 and 313, and C. v, p. 60).
The earliest English translator, Hoby, (born 1530; died 1566), was the son of William and Katherine (Forden) Hoby of Herefordshire. Having studied at Cambridge, he visited France, Italy and other foreign countries. In 1565-6 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and sent as ambassador to France, where he soon died, leaving several children and a widow. This lady was the third of Sir Anthony Cooke’s five learned daughters, of whom the eldest married Sir William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burleigh), while the second became the mother of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. Interesting details of Hoby’s life and of the manners of the time are given in his unpublished diary, preserved in the British Museum. His version of The Courtier was carefully made, and although rough to our ears and occasionally obscure, it became very popular and was several times republished. A beautiful reprint of the original edition has recently been issued (1900), in a scholarly introduction to which Professor Walter Raleigh traces the influence of the book upon Elizabethan writers. The Courtier, and especially Hoby’s translation of it, are the subject of a very interesting study by Mary Augusta Scott, Ph.D., printed in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. xvi (1901), no. 4. In 1570 Roger Ascham wrote in his “Schoolmaster:” “To join learning with comely exercises, Count Baldesar Castiglione in his book Cortegiano doth trimly teach: which book, advisedly read and diligently followed but one year at home in England, would do a young gentleman more good, I wis, than three years’ travel abroad in Italy. And I marvel this book is not more read in the Court than it is, seeing it is so well translated into English by a worthy gentleman, Sir Thomas Hobbie, who was many ways well furnished with learning, and very expert in knowledge of divers tongues.”
Of the first German translator, Lorenz Kratzer, little more is known than that he was an officer of customs at Burckhausen, in Bavaria, from 1565 to 1588, and that he speaks of having devoted to letters the ample leisure which his duties permitted. Although said to be meritorious, his work can hardly have gained wide currency, as both Noyse (whose German translation of The Courtier was published at Dilingen in 1593) and a third German translator (whose version was issued at Frankfort in 1684 under the initials “J. C. L. L. J.”) seem to have regarded themselves each as the earliest in the field.