Minor Works
Castiglione's minor works are less known, yet still interesting, including love sonnets and four Amorose canzoni ("Amorous Songs") about his Platonic love for Elisabetta Gonzaga, in the style of Francesco Petrarca and Pietro Bembo. His sonnet Superbi colli e voi, sacre ruine ("Proud hills and you, sacred ruins"), written more by the man of letters than the poet in Castiglione, nevertheless contains hints of pre-romantic inspiration.
Castiglione also produced a number of Latin poems, together with an elegy for the death of Raphael entitled De morte Raphaellis pictoris and another elegy, after the manner of Petrarca, in which he imagines his dead wife as writing to him. In Italian prose, he wrote a prologue for Cardinal Bibbiena's Calandria, which was performed in 1507 at Urbino and later, elaborately, at Rome.
Castiglione's letters are perhaps of even greater interest, revealing not only the man and his personality but also delineating those of famous people he had met and his diplomatic activities: they constitute a valuable resource for political, literary, and historical studies.
Read more about this topic: Baldassare Castiglione
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