Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), is the prototype of the 'courtesy book 'and the classic picture of the ideal renaissance courtier, prince, and enlightened ruler. This copy of the third Aldine edition is from the library of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton (1540-1614), with his calligraphic signature in lower and outer margins of title, accompanied by a variety of mottoes and quotations in Greek, Latin, and Italian, and with over two hundred marginal annotations throughout the text in his hand. It contains 195 leaves, 8vo, in 19th century vellum over boards, in a clamshell box by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. In his 1995 study The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione’s Cortegiano, pages 79-80, Peter Burke discusses this copy in detail as a prime example of the influence of the book on the aristocracy in Renaissance England, describing the marginalia as 'the fullest and most systematic annotations on Castiglione known to me.' Most of the notes are in Italian, but some are in Latin (quotations from Cicero, etc.).
This grant was awarded from FNL's B. H. Breslauer Fund, thanks to the generosity of the President and Officers of the B. H. Breslauer Foundation.