Editions and recipients

The writing of letters was for Castiglione, just as for all humanists and political men of his time, an almost daily routine, wanting to stay in touch both with his closest relations, for the management of family interest and affairs, and with princes and chancellors, to send and receive information necessary for his diplomatic profession. After his death, therefore, numerous letters composed over a lifetime were spread around Europe, in the state archives of sovereigns for whom he had worked, and in the homes of friends and relatives.

It was Castiglione’s first born son, the count Camillo, who first tried, around 1570, to collect together the letters of his father and print them, for love of his father and also to demonstrate, in the light of these documents, the most authentic qualities of his father: his moral rigour and political loyalty. The project was then taken up again thanks to Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, Secretary of State of Pope Benedetto XIV, who, having obtained from the heirs of Castiglione the manuscripts in their possession, gave the Abbot Pierantonio Serassi the job of producing an organised edition of the letters, which appeared in two volumes, between 1769 and 1771. Thus, 322 letters were made public. A further eighty or so, addressed to his mother, were published in 1969 by Guglielmo Gorni. Finally, in 1978, Guido La Rocca, after lengthy research, prepared a new edition that collected together 540 letters, from the period 1497-1521.

The recipients of the private epistles of Castiglione can be divided into three groups: family members (among whom his mother Aloisia stands out against the rest); his friends (starting from his youth with Mario Fiera and Giovan Giacomo Calandra); princes and heads of state, as well as popes and noble ladies with whom Baldassarre tied bonds of various nature (from Francesco Maria Della Rovere to Federico Gonzaga, from Isabella d’Este to Elisabetta Gonzaga, from Luigi XII King of France to Leone X).