Biography of Baldassare Castiglione
Life at Court
6 Dec 14788 Feb 1529
Baldassar Castiglione was born in Casatico, in Mantua, on 6 September 1478 to a noble family related to the Gonzaga. The father is the noble Knight Cristoforo da Castiglione, while her mother is Luigia Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. As with many intellectuals of his time, small and middle nobility his life is full of experiences in numerous trips and diplomatic missions in the service of some of the major families of North-Central Italy. Accomplished his first training in Milan, Baldassare Castiglione is serving Alternatively Gonzaga, Lords of Mantua, the Montefeltro lords of Urbino and the Della Rovere, participating with complicated events involving various diplomatic assignments to the Papal States and the States of Northern Italy, at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1521 Castiglione embraces life and ecclesiastical in 1524 Pope Leo X named him Apostolic Nuncio to Madrid. Relations between Spain and the Church unfortunately fall rapidly, reaching an explicit contrast between Pope and Emperor Charles V: the devastating outcome has its apex in the sack of Rome in 1527; in this context, Castiglione is accused of having heavy responsibilities in conducting diplomacy between Spain and the Church; It remains so in Spain until his death.
In his later years he devoted himself mainly to complete and review his greatest work, "the Courtier". It is a dialogue in four books, begun in 1513-1514, and disseminated and known even before it was given to the press. The first edition was published in 1528, by Aldus Manutius and Andrea Asolo, printers in Venice. The work is immediate luck and spreads across Europe: "Il Cortegiano" is not a simple manual of conduct for use by the courts, but rather a stylization of society courtesan to the Renaissance aristocracy curtains but that rarely can succeed in changing of historical-political complexity that follow each other rapidly throughout the Renaissance. Having suffered pestilential fever, Baldassare Castiglione dies in Toledo the day 8 February 1529: the Emperor ordered prelates and nobles of the Court to attend his funeral. After 16 months at the Church of Toledo, the body of Castiglione, at the behest of his mother, he was transferred to Mantua. The friend Pietro Bembo writes for him the epitaph placed on the grave.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.