es. In 1496 he entered
the service of Lodovico Sforza, duke of Milan, returning to Mantua in
1500 when Lodovico was carried prisoner into France. In 1504 he was
attached to the court of Guidobaldo Malatesta, duke of Urbino, and in
1506 he was sent by that prince on a mission to Henry VII. of England,
who had before conferred on Federigo Malatesta, "the Good Duke," the
most famous mercenary of his age, the order of the Garter. Guidobaldo
dying childless in 1508, the duchy of Urbino was given to Francesco
Maria della Rovere, for whom Castiglione, envoy at the court of Leo X.
(Medici), obtained the office of generalissimo of the Papal troops.
Charged with the arrangement of the dispute between Clement VII.
(Medici) and Charles V., Castiglione crossed, in 1524, into Spain, where
he was received with highest honours, being afterwards naturalized, and
made bishop of Avila. In 1527, however, Rome was seized and sacked by
the Imperialists under Bourbon, and in July of the same year the
surrender of the castle of Sant' Angelo placed Clement in their hands.
Castiglione had been tricked by the emperor, but there were not wanting
accusations of treachery against himself. He had, however, placed
fidelity highest among the virtues of his ideal "courtier," and when he
died at Toledo in 1529 it was said that he had died of grief and shame
at the imputation. The emperor mourned him as "one of the world's best
cavaliers." A portrait of him, now at the Louvre, was painted by
Raphael, who disdained neither his opinion nor his advice.

Castiglione wrote little, but that little is of rare merit. His verses,
in Latin and Italian, are elegant in the extreme; his letters (Padua,
1769-1771) are full of grace and finesse. But the book by which he is
best remembered is the famous treatise, _Il Cortegiano_, written in
1514, published at Venice by Aldus in 1528, and translated into English
by Thomas Hoby as early as 1561. This book, called by the Italians _Il
Libra d'oro_, and remarkable for its easy force and undemonstrative
elegance of style no less than for the nobility and manliness of its
theories (see the edition by V. Cian, Florence, 1894), describes the
Italian gentleman of the Renaissance under his brightest and fairest
aspect, and gives a charming picture of the court of Guidobaldo da
Montefeltre, duke of Urbino, "confessedly the purest and most elevated
court in Italy." In the form of a discussion held in the duchess's
drawing-room--with