For readers who love discovering the hidden currents of Renaissance brilliance, this book offers an extraordinary literary journey.
Centred on the refined courtier and author of Il libro del Cortegiano, Baldassarre Castiglione, and his lesser-known but fascinating contemporary Domizio Falcone, this volume uncovers a vibrant world of friendship, humanism, and poetic exchange.
Through their Neo-Latin verse, readers step into the intellectual heart of the Renaissance—where art, politics, and personal bonds intertwined to shape European culture. Both scholarly and deeply human, this book reveals the wit, ambition, and emotional depth behind the polished façade of courtly life.
If you’re drawn to Renaissance elegance, classical learning reborn, or the intimate stories behind great historical figures, this remarkable study deserves a place on your shelf—and your next visit to the bookstore should include it.
Famous for his Book of the courtier, Baldassarre Castiglione also composed works in neo-Latin that have never been the subject of systematic, critical scrutiny within the broader context of early Cinquecento court culture.
Nor have these works been cast against those of his long-forgotten counterpart, the very person behind Alcon (his own masterpiece in neo-Latin poetry), Domizio Falcone.
This princeps edition does this while introducing Falcone to scholars and students not only of Italian Renaissance literature, but also of the history of ideas, the classical tradition, the history of human sexuality, and the history of language.
