From Urbino to Mantua

In June 1516, as Lorenzo de’ Medici had been granted by Leone X the title of Duke of Urbino, Castiglione followed Elisabetta Gonzaga and Francesco Maria Della Rovere into exile in Mantua. When, at the beginning of the following year, Francesco Maria tried to recapture his state by force, succeeding in engaging the Papal and Florentine armies for several months, Castiglione did not participate in the military campaign. He remained in Mantua, engaged on the diplomatic front. Here, in February 1517, in fact he wrote, in the name of his master, Prince Della Rovere, a long letter addressed to the sacred College of Cardinals, in which he sought justification, defending the legitimacy of the military action that the ousted Duke, exiled and excommunicated, had undertaken to recapture his own dominion. The epistle was a strong accusation of Pope Leone X’s lust for power, but it did not succeed in making the later recede from his intentions, and did not have any effect whatsoever.

Shortly after that, in the spring of 1517, Castiglione went to visit Venice following the young Marquis of Mantua, Federico Gonzaga, together with twenty gentlemen and accompanied by a company of ladies and by his sisters Polissena Boschetto and Francesca Strozzi. The trip that was ostensively festive, but actually carried out in dramatic circumstances for the Urbino family, probably had political aims, connected to the various dealings taking place between the Doge, Leonardo Loredan, and the Gonzagas. In Venice Castiglione also found his friend Pietro Bembo, away from Rome for a few days, who guided him to the discovery the artistic and natural wonders of the city.