Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Casatico, was an Italian courtier, diplomat and author. He is best known for the present work Il Cortegiano (The Courtier). The work takes the form of a dialogue over four days in 1507, in which the ideal courtier is discussed. The various attributes are debated including high rank, physical prowess, eloquence, diplomacy, modesty, intelligence and knowledge, but this is no pure etiquette manual – in the process they debate the nature of nobility, honour, and love, giving the whole a much more philosophical slant. Castiglione’s work was much influenced by works of Cicero, particularly De Officiis and De Oratore, on rhetoric and moral philosophy and their application to one’s way of living. It also promoted the concept of sprezzatura, which the Oxford English Dictionary translates as ‘studied carelessness’ and which Castiglione himself defined as ‘a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it’.

The first edition was published in 1528, a year before Castiglione’s death, by the Aldine press in Venice, and became an immediate bestseller. It was translated into several European languages and was reprinted over 100 times in the next century.