Besides THE COURTIER, his writings comprise: _Tirsi_, an eclogue of fifty-five stanzas in _ottava rima_, written and recited at the court of Urbino for the carnival of 1506; a prologue and epilogue for his friend Bibbiena’s _Calandra_; a few Italian lyrics of moderate merit; and some better Latin elegies and epigrams; nearly all composed during his embassy at Rome. A large number of his letters also have been preserved. [Illustration: CASTIGLIONE'S TOMB CHURCH OF THE MADONNA DELLE GRAZIE NEAR MANTUA ] Reduced from a water-colour drawing made by the architect Patricolo and the painter Zanetti from the monument designed by Giulio Pippi, better known as Giulio Romano, (1492-1546). The water-mark of the paper on which this volume is printed is copied from a drawing, by Zanetti, of Castiglione’s arms as they appear in the upper left-hand panel of the monument. His fine character is reflected in that of his Courtier, who (as Symonds says) “is, with one or two points of immaterial difference, a modern gentleman, such as all men of education at the present day would wish to be.” It may perhaps aid the reader to realize the time in which the author lived, to recall that when Castiglione was born, printing had been practised in Italy for thirteen years, that the earliest Greek grammar had been printed two years, that America was discovered when he was a boy, that the Reformation began when he was in the prime of life, and that the Lutherans were first called Protestants in the year of his death. The first (Aldine) edition of THE COURTIER was issued thirteen years after the death of Teob_aldo_ Manucci, the illustrious founder of the press that continued to bear his name, and consisted of one thousand and thirty-one copies, of which thirty were on large paper and one on vellum. It is a small folio of one hundred and twenty-two leaves, the type-page measuring almost precisely nine and one-quarter inches by five and one-eighth inches. In its ordinary form the book can hardly be called rare, as in 1895 the present translator secured a good copy from Leipsic for forty-five francs.