Baldassare Castiglione

Baldassare Castiglione ( born December 6, 1478 Casatico at Mantua; † February 7, 1529 in Toledo, Spain) was Count of Novilara, courtier, diplomat and writer.

Biographical

Count Baldassare Castiglione was the son of a noble family and underwent a comprehensive education through the humanist Giorgio Merula and Demetrios Chalkondyles (1424-1511) and at the court of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. He was in the service of important rulers such as the Marquis of Mantua, Francesco Gonzaga, or the Duke of Urbino, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Castiglione was sent in 1513 as ambassador of the new Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria della Rovere, to the papal court to Rome. He was a friend of Raphael, who represented him in a famous portrait from 1516 as subtle Hofmann; The painting now hangs in the Louvre in Paris. Castiglione worked together with Raphael a memorandum that had the preservation of Roman antiquities to the object. Four years before his death he went as papal nuncio to Spain, where he died.

Castiglione was married to Hippolyta Taurella ( 1501-1520 ). In this closed in 1516 marriage two children were born: a son, Camillo, and a daughter, Anna. From the strong love that Castiglione and Hippolyta combined with each other, testifies to the posterity preserved correspondence between both spouses.

Castiglione held the women for perfect creatures who possess the same mental abilities as men. This was in the days of the Renaissance, in which the woman as inferior, even as " half a child " and " great beast" ( Martin Luther ) was considered, no single position. " Are these random characteristics of a spiritual nature, I answer, that whatever men can conceive, it can also be understood by women and that wherever the mind of a penetrating, which can also penetrate the other. " ( In: Graf Baldassare Castiglione: Woman mirror of the Renaissance Leipzig, pp. 46-47 ). . In addition, Castiglione was not tired to mention that women fought wars and " glorious victories" would erfochten that women "" States ruled with great wisdom, and righteousness, and all have done that which applies to a matter of men ... " ( in: . Baldassare Castiglione, Count, ibid, p 48) In this respect, here be more independent, clever mind is clearly visible.

Castiglione's Il Libro del Courtier, first printed in 1528, is one of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and next to Machiavelli's Il Principe of the most important achievements of the Italian literature of the Renaissance.