CASTIGLIONE, Baldassarre. — Man of letters, born at Casatico near Mantua on 6 Dec. 1478 to Cristoforo and Luigia Gonzaga. He served at the court of Ludovico il Moro from 1494 to 1499, at Mantua from 1499 to 1503, at Urbino from 1503 to 1516, and again at Mantua from 1516 to 1524. He was ambassador to Rome for the Duke of Urbino from 1513 to 1516, and for the Marquis of Mantua from 1519 to 1524. In 1524 Clement VII sent him as ambassador to Spain to Charles V. A champion of peace between the Pope and the Emperor, he was unable to avert or foresee the horrors of the Sack of Rome in 1527, and had to clear himself of suspicion before the Pope. He died at Toledo on 2 Feb. 1529. It is said that Charles V remarked: “One of the best knights in the world has died.”
Works: Il Cortegiano, Risposta a Valdés, Tirsi (eclogue), Rime, Carmina. His major work is Il Cortegiano, a four-book dialogue purporting to record conversations held at the court of Urbino in 1506 on “the qualities and particular attributes required” in a perfect courtier. Its psychological subtlety, judicious tone, refined taste, linguistic elegance and stylistic polish make it one of the finest books of the sixteenth century. It is also a valuable document of the customs and ideas of the ruling classes of that era. Without other foundations than natural law, the sense of honor and the desire to please both prince and peers, it constructs for the courtier a model of conduct that is upright, refined, estimable and amiable in every respect. Measure must be observed and affectation shunned in all things. Loyalty to the prince does not entail the duty to obey him when he commands a crime. The courtier should use the favor he enjoys to become the prince’s counsellor in good government. Love is permitted only with a view to rightful marriage or as Platonic affection. The examples are drawn from the experience of the interlocutors, and classical allusions and quotations abound. The Christian doctrine and Holy Scripture are cited only three times, and always as alien to the customary tenor of their conversation. He states that piety toward God is owed by all, and especially by princes, citing Xenophon in support. Yet he does not fail to propose as a worthy end for the greatest princes a crusade against the Turk.
The work was placed on the Index by decree of 3 July 1618. This was certainly due to the fact that in these pages of exquisite pedagogy for men and women a pliable and easy morality prevails, readily accommodating itself to attractive compromises with the passions—especially with regard to Platonic and sensual love and the gallantries that foster them. “I hold that sensual love is always evil at any age, yet in the young it deserves indulgence and perhaps in some way may be permissible” (IV, 54; cf. also for women: III, 56–73). Nor are there lacking witty and piquant episodes and passages that recall the Decameron. The 1584 Venetian edition was not placed on the Index.
In another work, the Risposta a Valdés, he vigorously defended the Pope and the Roman clergy against the calumnies by which the secretary of Charles V had sought to justify the Sack of Rome. His letters likewise show that Castiglione was a sincere believer, albeit in the somewhat superficial manner of gentlemen of that century.