The1523 testament
In August 1523, in Rome, an alliance was signed between the Pope, the Emperor Charles V, the King of England and the Venetians, against the King of France, Frances I. The Marquis of Mantua, Federico Gonzaga, in his role as Captain General of the army of the Pope, was preparing for war and Castiglione was also alerted, due to the coming conflict. Thus, Baldassarre, as he was about to leave for Lombardy on horseback, on 16th September 1523, wrote his will in the palace in contrada Montenegro, in front of the notary Bartolomeo Recordati. Castiglione was only forty-five years old, but the act was in line with his character, serenely provident. His last wishes were dictated with great clarity. He left all his possessions and the safeguard of his children to his mother. He decreed that his own burial would be beside his wife Ippolita, in a side chapel in the Church of S. Maria delle Grazie, near Mantua, the construction and decoration of which he expressly entrusted to the artistry of his architect friend Giulio Romano. He asked either Iacopo Sadoleto or Pietro Bembo to compose his epitaph.
This will and testament provides proof of Baldassarre’s noble character, both generous and scrupulous. Facing thoughts of death, at the centre of his affections and his preoccupations two female figures stand out, who, in very different ways, had accompanied and in some ways inspired his most intimate maturity: his wife Ippolita Torelli and his mother Aloisia Gonzaga. The former, dying prematurely, only twenty, after four years of marriage, was remembered in the testament as a woman who was “generosa” (that is, with a gentle and noble soul) and “dilectissima” (greatly loved); while to the mother, “honorandissima” (worthy of great honour), he assigned the care of all his possessions and above all of his three children, Camillo, Anna and Ippolita. To save his soul and for the remission of all his sins, at the end, in the last lines of his will, Castiglione disposed that the friars who lived in the convent connected to the Church of S. Maria delle Grazie should celebrate a mass everyday for twenty five years after his death.
