DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0015
PREFACE
ix
world of Rome he was a shining light, dear alike to
Elisabetta Gonzaga and Isabella d' Este, to Bembo
and to Raphael. In an age when, as it has been
well said/ cleverness was abundant but character was
lacking, he not only believed in virtue, but practised
it. In circles where crime and treachery were con-
doned, and to deceive others was held to be the
Rrst duty of a diplomat, he spoke the truth boldly,
and remained absolutely loyal to his masters. So
he moved through these dark scenes of intrigue and
bloodshed, wearing the white Rower of a blameless
life, and gaining the conRdence and respect of those
who were most unlike him. His career was a
chequered one, overshadowed by heavy losses and
sorrows in private life, and by failures and disappoint-
ments in his public capacity. But he was widely
honoured and greatly beloved, and left a stainless
name to his children.
The Rrst biography of Castiglione was written in
1578, at his son Camillo's request, by the Mantuan
Bernardine Marliani, and published eleven years later
in Venice. The author derived his information chieRy
from members of the Count's family, and especially
from Lodovico Strozzi, who had been his uncle's com-
panion during the last years of his life in Spain, and
his record is on the whole accurate and trustworthy.
A few more details are supplied in BeRa-Negrini's
' Elogi della Famiglia Castiglione/ a work which
appeared in 1606, but is rather in the nature of a
panegyric than a biography. Paolo Giovio intro-
duced a notice of Castiglione among his Elogi of
illustrious men, and an eighteenth-century historian,
Mazzuchelli, wrote another Life of the Count in his
' Scrittori d' Italia, without, however, adding much
* A. J. Butler, ' Cambridge Mod. Hist.,' ii. 457.
ix
world of Rome he was a shining light, dear alike to
Elisabetta Gonzaga and Isabella d' Este, to Bembo
and to Raphael. In an age when, as it has been
well said/ cleverness was abundant but character was
lacking, he not only believed in virtue, but practised
it. In circles where crime and treachery were con-
doned, and to deceive others was held to be the
Rrst duty of a diplomat, he spoke the truth boldly,
and remained absolutely loyal to his masters. So
he moved through these dark scenes of intrigue and
bloodshed, wearing the white Rower of a blameless
life, and gaining the conRdence and respect of those
who were most unlike him. His career was a
chequered one, overshadowed by heavy losses and
sorrows in private life, and by failures and disappoint-
ments in his public capacity. But he was widely
honoured and greatly beloved, and left a stainless
name to his children.
The Rrst biography of Castiglione was written in
1578, at his son Camillo's request, by the Mantuan
Bernardine Marliani, and published eleven years later
in Venice. The author derived his information chieRy
from members of the Count's family, and especially
from Lodovico Strozzi, who had been his uncle's com-
panion during the last years of his life in Spain, and
his record is on the whole accurate and trustworthy.
A few more details are supplied in BeRa-Negrini's
' Elogi della Famiglia Castiglione/ a work which
appeared in 1606, but is rather in the nature of a
panegyric than a biography. Paolo Giovio intro-
duced a notice of Castiglione among his Elogi of
illustrious men, and an eighteenth-century historian,
Mazzuchelli, wrote another Life of the Count in his
' Scrittori d' Italia, without, however, adding much
* A. J. Butler, ' Cambridge Mod. Hist.,' ii. 457.