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Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529)
Castiglione, Baldassare, Count (käs-tēl-yō’nē). An Italian poet and statesman (1478–1529); born in the district of Mantua. He wrote a volume of ‘Poems Vernacular and Latin.’ But the work to which he owes his literary fame is ‘The Book of the Courtier,’ a masterpiece of elegant and ornate prose. It lays down the laws of courtesy and of courtly manners, and incidentally gives a view of life in the highest society in the author’s time. (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).