His marriage to Ippolita Torelli
In Mantua, on 19th October 1516, Castiglione married the very young noble lady Ippolita Torelli, daughter of Count Guido and Francesca di Giovanni Bentivoglio, who was already the master of Bologna, and cousin of Barbara widow of Ercole Strozzi. The marriage, agreed at the end of the previous year, thanks mostly to the mother of Baldassarre, Aloisia Castiglione, and to the Marchioness Isabella d’Este, took place under the auspices and with the explicit consensus of the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga. The wedding was celebrated in a solemn manner, with almost princely pomp and circumstance; representatives of the highest aristocracy of Emilia and Lombardy participated in the jousting and trophies wanted by Francesco Gonzaga. For the occasion, Baldassarre organises a production of a comedy, Gog e Magog, written by his friend Domizio Falcone, who died in 1505.
There followed for Castiglione a period of calm and serenity, of spiritual and literary retreat, after the dramatic and useless efforts to save his masters from the imminent storm, during which, finally returning to Mantua after a long absence, he was able to enjoy the fruits of domestic life. In this context, in the autumn of 1518 Baldassarre completed the second draft of the Libro del Cortegiano, and, via Ludovico di Canossa, he sent a copy to Rome, seeking the opinions of Pietro Bembo and Iacopo Sadoleto.
On 3rd August 1517 his first son Camillo was born, his only male offspring. On 17th July 1518 his daughter Anna was born. On 14th August 1520, lastly, his daughter Ippolita saw the light.
