From Italy to Europe

Castiglione, obstinately and repeatedly tried to project his political views onto an international scale, drawing in the protagonists of the European stage. Already the funeral commemoration of Guidubaldo di Montefeltro, written in 1508, was addressed not to the Roman Pope, Giulio II, or to the prince of one of the various Italian courts, but to Henry VII, King of England, that Baldassarre had met during his mission to London. The first draft of The Cortegiano, a few years later, opened with an ample and marked eulogy to the King of France, Frances I, as if he were the inspiration for, and had commissioned, the work: with the objective obtaining his benevolence towards the state of Urbino, in view of the congress of Bologna. Eliminating this section in the final edition of the work, the three great sovereigns of contemporary Europe were aligned to indicate that they constituted the ideal reference point for the political theme contained in the fourth book: Frances I of France, Henry VIII of England and the Emperor Charles V of Spain.

It is to these names that Castiglione links the evocation of his dream for a united Europe, in agreement, and in peace, inclined, despite the conflagrations of religious wars, to exercise the arts rather than arms, unless for the purpose of waging war in a crusade against the infidels. The same virtues are valid for these principles, the basis of every political discussion of classical or humanist ascendancy, as indicated for Guidubaldo di Montefeltro: ingenuity, goodness, prudence, modesty, magnanimity. Just as the Duke of Urbino was, so were – or, at least, so it seemed to Castiglione – the great modern monarchs, and so must continue to be the princes worthy of the title. This projection is an essential rhetorical strategy orchestrated by the author in The Cortegiano, who, starting from his youthful Milanese season, ended by identifying, as the final destination of his own thoughts, the new capitals of civil and cultural progress.