Castiglione, besides being celebrated as the finest gentleman of his day, and the author of that code of all noble and knightly accomplishments, of perfect courtesy and gentle bearing—"Il Cortigiano," must have a place among our conjugal poets. He had married in 1516, Hypolita di Torrello, whose accomplishments, beauty, and illustrious birth, rendered her worthy of him. It appears, however, that her family, who were of Mantua, could not bear to part with her,[44] and that after her marriage, she remained in that city, while Castiglione was ambassador at Rome. This separation gave rise to a very impassioned correspondence; and the tender regrets and remonstrances scattered through her letters, he transposed into a very beautiful poem, in the form of an epistle from his wife. It may be found in the appendix to Roscoe's Leo X. (No. 196.) Hypolita died in giving birth to a daughter, after a union of little more than three years, and left Castiglione for some time inconsolable. We are particularly told of the sympathy of the Pope and the Cardinals on this occasion, and that Leo condoled with him in a manner equally unusual and substantial, by bestowing on him immediately a pension of two hundred gold crowns.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] Zamboni.
[40] "Molto vagamente spiegando i varj e differenti effetti che andavano cagionando nel di lei core, a misura che essi eran torbidi, o lieti, o sereni"—See her Life by Zamboni.
[41] Sonnet 16.
[42] Ghiberto da Correggio died 1518.
[43] Constance; by his first wife, Violante di Mirandola.
[44] Serassi.—Vita di Baldassare Castiglione.